#288 – Call In Show #3

Dave Jones: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Recorded February 24th, 2016. Episode 288. Call-in show number three. Welcome to The Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog. And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics. Another call-in show. Yeah, and this one's full up, man. We have some more practice, and we have some more practice on getting the word out, and we'll see how this one goes. We're beating them off with a soldier in iron. Man, you've got to record and play this stuff back to yourself, you know? Right. Anyway, we're using Skype today, and I have zero faith in Skype, which is earned. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's experience. That's a voice of experience right there, folks. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, apologies up front for the audio quality, and there'll be delays, and it'll be, yeah. Yeah, it'll be fine. We've done this. This is now our fourth show, our fourth call-in show. You know, I was thinking about it the other day. I was thinking about it on the drive home. And the reason it feels good to you and me is that we're so used to having a single guest on, this is actually mixing it up for us. Right, yep. You know, it's like, oh, we don't know what they're going to talk about. So, we have a little bit of an idea, but yeah. Well, I have no idea. You might. Right, right. I got all the emails. Because you've got the emails. I have no clue. Right, right. All right. Okay. Okay. So, let's kick right into it and get our first caller here.

Chris Gammell: Let's go. Hey, what's your name and where you're from? My name is Mahesh, and I'm from India.

Dave Jones: Hey, Mahesh. Welcome to the Empire.

Chris Gammell: Hey, Mahesh. Hey. What's your question? My question is to you, Dave. Oh, excellent. I recently started watching your channel. I mean, I didn't have a question for you, too, but, you know, Dave is a professional runter. Thank you. And I've been following his channel, and my wish list has become far, far larger than it used to be. And I picked up a Rigol DS-1054Z because you said that was the best scope there was. And I was just wondering, regarding soldering equipment, you always suggest HACO and Vela. So, HACO is very difficult to get in India. It's $300 for the FX88D.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: So, I was wondering, is it really worth the price at $300?

Dave Jones: Is that $300? Yes. Right. No, that seems very expensive to me. Me, too. But it depends on the alternatives, though. That's the thing. I mean, what other brands? Weller's good. JBC is, like, way up top shelf, so they're ridiculously expensive. If you think HACO is expensive. JBC, which is the other one I recommend, ridiculously expensive. There's, you know, I don't know. What other brands are in India? I feel like some of it's expectations, though, too, isn't it? I mean, like, some of it is what you want to do with it, too. Like, if you want it to be a 10-year soldering iron or a 5-year soldering iron or a 2-week soldering iron, you know, like, that's part of it as well.

Chris Gammell: I mean, I do want something that lasts long. Because this isn't actually for me. We have a small 5-person company, and we've been in business for 50 years. So what happened was recently there was floods, and the entire company right now doesn't exist. So we want to upgrade to better stuff. And we only do prototype assembly. So I don't mind putting the money. But then I just want to know if it's worth the effort, the HACO. Does it actually last as long as people make it out to be?

Dave Jones: Yeah, I've got my original HACO iron from when I bought when I was a teenager, the HACO 926. And it still works fine. I can still get the same tips for it. And, you know... Do you think it's still the same build quality today, though, too? I think that's another important question when you're talking about gear over time, right? I think they're better build quality these days. Yeah. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Even some people on the forum were saying that the build quality has gone down after they shifted plants or something to Mexico.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. I'm not aware of that then. That's the question. You don't buy a new one all the time, Dave. Yeah. No. No, exactly. You know? I bought one in my entire life. And my second one was given to me. So, you know, like... Could you... Yeah. Mahesh, could you buy one... Could you buy a set of them secondhand or anything like that? I mean, would that even be possible to get one like an older vintage?

Chris Gammell: I don't really think so. I think I can get the old 962C probably.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. The... Well, that's okay, but...

Chris Gammell: But the 888 is... Yeah.

Dave Jones: I mean, the 888 is... Like, it's not the best iron out there, but it's a really good entry-level iron. But if you're paying too much for it, then, you know, it loses its appeal somewhat. So, unless you can import it cheaper than that, I don't know. But as I said, it depends on what alternatives are out there. I mean, you can't go wrong buying the Heiko FX88. I mean, it's just a nice entry-level, you know, iron. And it'll last you a long time. And it's easy to get... You'll always be able to get spare parts for it. There's a lot of fake parts out there, though. You've got to be very careful. A lot of fake tips and things like that that you buy on eBay. And they're just, yeah, terrible quality. But you won't regret buying it, I suspect. So, that's my opinion. Cool. Well, thanks for calling, Mahesh. We appreciate it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Bye.

Dave Jones: All right. Bye-bye. Okay. Thanks, mate. Yeah, it's tough anytime you're doing, you know, equipment-type stuff like that. I mean, it sounds like that was at the level... We were talking about cash flow last time. But from a business perspective, too, like that capital expenditure type thing, that's... Yeah. Yeah, it's a big decision. Because you can easily, like you were talking about how much gear, I mean, how much dollar-wise gear you had coming in the lab today. And, like, there can be significant capital outlays there. So, it's tough. Oh, yeah. Big time. Yeah. But, hey, it's business. I mean, don't skimp. I mean, you know, if you're relying on this for your business, like, just get at least decent quality gear. You know, you don't have to go top shelf. You don't have to buy a $1,000 JBC. Right, right, right. But you shouldn't buy a $50 eBay one-hung low brand, you know. So, yep. Yep. All right. So, next caller. Here we go. Hey, what's your name? Where are you from?

Mahesh: I'm Sebastian from Germany.

Dave Jones: Awesome. Well, welcome. Hey, Sebastian. And it's 1 a.m. there. 1 a.m. So, thanks for...

Mahesh: I have a few sound issues here, but I think they're fixed soon.

Dave Jones: All right. We'll see what we can do. What is your question?

Mahesh: What did I write? I have one issue with the floating USB device or the floating wall plug system. I'm sure you have experienced that.

Dave Jones: Sorry? The floating wall plug issue. Can you explain?

Mahesh: If you plug in a wall plug power supply, you have a 12-volt DC, but it's, like, mixed with a floating AC of 70 volts or something like that.

Dave Jones: Oh, it's capacitively coupled to the mains. Is that what you're talking about?

Speaker ?: Yeah, of course.

Dave Jones: It's not.

Mahesh: You don't have a lot of power or current, but still, it's from a USD issue. Point of view, I mean, I've tried several things in my company, and as soon as you plug a USB, grounded USB, Earth mains grounded USB, to a device with floating wall plug, you get problems.

Dave Jones: Could you explain what some of the problems are that happen?

Mahesh: The microcontroller trips. Or, like, for example, we got issues with, like, we have a little LED that's going on and off, and it's switching on, for example, as soon as you put on the USB plug.

Dave Jones: So no power applied, but you're saying that because of that floating, because of the floating, it basically is, there's some kind of leakage current that's basically ending up powering the whole system. Is that the idea?

Mahesh: No. So it's rather an USD issue. I think as soon as you touch the whole device with your grounded USB, it trips, like the microcontroller. I was not sure if I'm the only one, or my design is simply, like, a little bit off.

Dave Jones: But I think, like, a lot of... You've got... There's something wrong there. No, yeah, there's something horribly wrong there. Usually this is a... Because this has to do with the capacitive issue.

Mahesh: I've messed up a lot of stuff with that.

Dave Jones: Yeah?

Mahesh: Yeah, of course. It's like something is happening, and we didn't get it to work really properly. And we didn't sell the device, but like...

Dave Jones: See, with your microcontroller resetting, there is something wrong there, because it is referenced to its own ground, and nothing else. What you do to that ground should not matter. So something... There's a system grounding issue. Like, this sort of problem is common on audio-visual gear, for example. Everyone might be familiar with this. You know, you're hooking up your DVD player to your TV or something, and you might get a little zap from the connector on the back. That's because that is a double-insulated, you know, isolated DVD player, and you get a little bit of leakage there. Tiny little bit. It can't hurt you, right? Well, it can't kill you, but it will... No, of course. You know, but it'll give you a little zap, and you think...

Mahesh: Here's an interesting issue, because you can actually measure the current with, like... I don't know. Okay, this is a little bit, like, from my experience, just... But if I'm wearing headphones, working on the computer, and I'm touching the... Like, the DC ground, which is not connected to main Earth yet, I can sense the current flowing through, like, tiny... I don't know how to play fingers.

Dave Jones: Like, horses. Tickle-nil neurons, huh? You must have some horrible plug pack that you're using. Horribly leaky plug pack. Like, one of those Chinese ones, you know, cheap Chinese ones with the crappy...

Mahesh: I think they were from... Yeah, probably. Or, I think, XP Power. We got wall plugs from XP Power. So, like, rather normal company, I would say. Not, like, the cheapest one.

Dave Jones: Right. So, what about the swapping between... I mean, so, obviously, in any troubleshooting situation, right, you're going to be swapping between a lot of stuff. Is this so custom that you can't swap it with another commercial level one? Is that the idea?

Mahesh: Oh, the... The plug pack. Like, the basic solution was to get a bigger one, which has secondary mains. So, there are medical devices, medical... Ah, right, yep. Or stuff like that. So, this is working. But, of course, there's, like, a huge wall plug for just, like, a 5-watt device.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. See, this is usually not a problem. If it was, if it was a universal problem, like, everyone and everything would have it. So, there is something horribly or subtly wrong with your setup in some way. One of the two, yes. One of the two extremes, yeah. And, of course, I'd like it on. And, unfortunately, this is one of the ones that, without being there and being able to, as Chris said, like, swap things around and see what happens and then be able to measure stuff, it's hard to advise, apart from the fact that, no, it's not... It's not normal. I was also asking you, like, how many... So, like, was it a lot? So, it seems like it is isolated to this wall plug because you are able to swap that out, right? So, just talking about troubleshooting stuff here. You're able to swap that thing out. That's good. You can find one that doesn't do this condition. But then, within the subset of ones that are tripping, is there one? Are there 10? Is it the whole lot? How many are doing that?

Mahesh: I don't know. It's a whole lot. It's like, I don't know, 50 PCBs. Oh, wow. It's not really a security issue or, like, a really important issue. It's just you can say, yeah, you have to re-plug it in and out and it will work again. Something like that.

Dave Jones: So, it's not really an issue. The problem you're having is that your microcontroller, your little project board, is resetting. And that, to me, is deeply troubling because it's its own ground reference. The reset pin that's resetting it is reference to the ground. So, what you do to that ground should not matter.

Mahesh: Yeah, I give you that. But I'm, like, troubleshooting on an advanced level. So, what's actually working, the microcontroller is not tripping itself. It's just, like, switching in a little bit.

Dave Jones: Oh, you've got a horrible system grounding problem here. So, yeah.

Mahesh: I don't know. So, I was curious if others have.

Dave Jones: So, it's only when you plug the USB cable into your board does it trip. Is that what you're saying?

Mahesh: Yeah, only when I touch it. And not every time because, like, of course, it's AC in Europe, 50 hertz. So, to touch it, like, I don't know, maybe 20 times. And on the 21st time.

Dave Jones: Well, how that is propagating through to the reset pin is troubling. Are you using the internal pull-up resistor in the chip for the reset pin? I'd be, like, really, like, whacking a 10K on there or something, you know, something reasonably low.

Mahesh: No, no. It's external. Like, as I said, like, it's too easy to say it's resetting the microcontroller. It's just it trips the microcontroller in a state where it shouldn't be. But I couldn't quite debug it because as soon as I put the debug on it, of course, it's mains grounded. It mains grounded and bam.

Dave Jones: It works.

Mahesh: Yeah, it works.

Dave Jones: Yeah, no. These are horrible. These are horrible problems. Well, I think maybe the constructive thing to say, though, too, is, you know, so if I was in this scenario, I think one thing that I would do is go back and draw, like, a power and ground tree just to make sure that, you know, it seems like it's systemic enough that it's part, it might be part of your PCB, that kind of thing. But, yeah, chasing that down is, oh, man, that's a tough one. But, you know, doing those kind of fundamental things.

Mahesh: Okay. Okay. Then I have one question because, like, my – how do you call it? The ground from the USB, the outer thing that is connected directly to the ground of the PCB. And I think I could, like, put a 33K kilo resistor in there and a little C. But I'm not sure if that helps.

Dave Jones: Well, you can also use a notebook that's disconnected from its plug pack running from its internal battery. And you can use that USB to debug. So I would at least take that step and then debug to find out how it's resetting.

Mahesh: It's quiet. Like, it's half a year ago, I think. I tripped over that.

Dave Jones: You've been chasing this that long?

Mahesh: Yeah. No, it's just, like, I didn't find a solution to that in no forum or in the internet. Nowhere. It wasn't even an issue, and I think, like, a lot of devices have that issue.

Dave Jones: Well, because it's a system – it's an entirely system-dependent issue. I've got to say that there's something wrong with the design of your board if it's susceptible to this. I think at this point in – if I'm using CarTalk as an example for a call-in show at this point, they'd be like, you have to go to your mechanic. And I think in your case – I think in your case that would be – well. Us. He's come to us. No, you can't be – no, but I mean, like, it is. You need – Yeah, exactly. I trust you. No, I think – I mean, have you scoped that reset pin as well? With your mains grounded scope? No, no, no, no, no. With a handheld scope. Of course. Of course you have to have a floating scope.

Mahesh: Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like – I don't know. And as I said, it's not resetting, actually. The microcontact is not resetting. It's just like – Oh, right.

Dave Jones: It's actually locking up or doing something or – yeah, no. There's something else horribly – yeah, exactly. Something like that. It's not something weird like you've, like, left the ground pin off the chip and it's powering it through the ESD diode or something weird, ground or power pin.

Mahesh: I know, but I saw that. I like that because I got that issue as well.

Dave Jones: There you go. Yeah, I did a video on that for those who don't – Yeah, that's a good one. I've seen that be the cause of lots of weird issues, like, very similar to that. Mm-hmm. So, you know, people go, but it works and then, you know, but it's just not robust, you know. And it's because your power pin is not connected, you know, because the PCB layout guy forgot to put the – forgot to hook up the power pin. Anyway, I'm not sure there's anything further we can help you with this, unfortunately.

Mahesh: I just want to put that out because maybe some more people got that problem.

Dave Jones: Right. I think that people listening would maybe be able to tell that as well, right? Is an option to – is this proprietary stuff or can you actually post your schematic and photos and things like that to a forum?

Mahesh: Unfortunately, it's – Ah, proprietary.

Dave Jones: What you said, the word. No, it is. And then I would simply get another engineer with a fresh set of eyes who knows – don't tell them anything. Don't tell them – like, just let them sit down and figure it out for themselves and they might instantly come to the – they might instantly find it. So, that's all I can recommend. That's all I've got left.

Mahesh: 50-50, my fault or, like, some weird issue with, like, all the main blacks.

Dave Jones: Well, that is – that is crazy. So, yeah, good luck. I shouldn't laugh because it's a – I've been there. It's a horrible problem and you can spend weeks. Yeah, I understand.

Mahesh: Like, it's troubleshooting. You cannot do anything.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Mahesh: All right. So, what's to say? I thank you very much for doing, like, all the shows and, like, the videos. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I've been following that for, like, five years, probably longer.

Dave Jones: Awesome.

Mahesh: Yeah.

Dave Jones: All right. Cool. Well, thanks for calling in.

Mahesh: Okay. See you. Bye.

Dave Jones: They're the hairy ones. They are. Well, you know, I was thinking about this, too, as I was panicking. And my heart goes out to them, of course. But, you know, the difference is – I made that car talk reference – is that this would be, like, us talking to the – not to the people that are repairing their cars, but the people that are designing the cars. Right? That's the difference is that there is no – This is a lot of – you know, and that's the problem with a lot of electronics when, like Sebastian said, you know, I'm searching all these forums. I'm trying to find these answers. And it's just, like, sometimes you're asking a question that hasn't been asked yet. Exactly. Exactly. Well, as I said, it's totally system dependent. Like, each case is going to be different, you know, and or is most likely to be different. So, yeah. Yeah, it's tricky. A fresh set of eyes does wonders. Yeah. And you can hire a fresh set of eyes, too. That's actually another thing I was going to recommend is that sometimes you can hire a consultant and that's kind of your only choice. Hire a consultant for a week, you know, go, like, come in, fix the problem. If you're fixing it in a day, great. Yeah. It was tough. I had a – well, a job didn't last long. It was, like, just a temporary thing. Well, at least I was about to do. I was – this was when I was really young, right? And I don't want to hold the show, but my stupid – I was a boy. Stories. Because anyway, I was hired as a tech to actually repair these boards that no one else could repair. And it was, like – well, they were put in, like, the two hard basket, you know. There was a whole bunch of – Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, they hired somebody. Like, the less than five hour fix and then the more than five hour fix. Exactly. And then the greater than – you know. And, you know, I remember, like, I was in there for the first and only day, I think it was. Anyway, and, like – and I remember I fixed, like, five boards, you know. Like, I just started that day and I knew nothing about it. I had a schematic. I had a bunch of boards in a box and said, these ones are in the two hard basket. Fix them. And, you know, at the end of the day, he went, how'd you go? And I went, I fixed five of them. Right. You're proud of yourself too, right? And he's like – I was totally proud of myself. And he went, oh, is that all? And it's like – It's like, gee, you get down here. Yeah, exactly. So, I don't think I went back. I think that was my only – Well, that's okay. Yeah. It was like, geez, you know, if you didn't appreciate me fixing five other things. Bugger off, you know. Yep. Yep. All right. So, next up, we are going to do something a little different here. Actually, yes, that'll work. A song and dance show? No. We are going to do a prerecorded voicemail. So, I should mention this too. So, we were doing three different ways this time. You could either call in, which is what we have people on our Skype line. You could leave us a voicemail, 929 amp hour. If you're in the States, there's a 855 numbers. Well, I don't remember what it was. And the last one is just to send us an email, and that's fine. And that's how we're going to do this going forward. We're going to make it a little bit more streamlined on the Skype side of things. But – Emails I don't necessarily like because this is a radio show. Of course. Well, some people can't do it, though. Oh, true. Yeah. And so, the order – that was the order of preference as well, of course, is we want you to hear, we want to talk to you, we want to laugh with you. But the second one is we'd love to hear your voice, even if – you know, because some people, it's 3 in the morning where they are. That's understandable. Of course. And – All right. Well, play it, dude. All right. Here we go. Hi there. My name is Aaron Boyd. I've had a successful career as an electrician, and I've been an electronics hobbyist for about 10 years. I've been using Chris's site to learn more about design, but I wonder where do you find opportunities in the current market to transition into career for this without a formal education? Once you could start from the ground floor, but now everyone has a degree. How does a passionate guy who just loves electronics find a way to make a living just making cool things? Thank you very much. Hope you have a great night. All right. So, the question was basically, how do you get into it when you're, yep, not going through the traditional method? But we've talked about this a little bit before. I mean, I think that – and you've talked about this. This is a lot of path that our past guests have taken as well. But, I mean, I think one is portfolio. We've talked about that a lot. Two would be if you make a big enough name for yourself, you could call up Sebastian and be like, I can fix that. That's it. And you fix enough of those problems, and you're going to get a call every single time, right? Eventually, you make that name. All it's about is getting that one job, be it a contract role or just like a simple job, just fixing – like being the troubleshooting guy or doing something, and then get your foot up. And you've also got to resist – you've also got to not give yourself that electrician label anymore. Because you've got to put – Oh, right, right, right. I forgot about that. Even if you don't have – say on your resume, electronics engineer, right? Because that's what you do, right? Right, right, yeah. And that's – be it hobby – It's a job you aspire towards, right? Yeah, exactly. Start your own little side business selling kits or whatever. You're designing and selling kits. You're an electronics engineer. Right? Call yourself that. I mean, there's going to be a lot of people who hate that, right? But – But screw them, yeah. No. It's – you know. Well, no. We should state as well. Some people – some places it is regulated. And if you're in one of those places, check that out. Yes, true. True. You can say – anyone can say electronics designer. And I think that's actually a better – I actually like that term more than engineer because there is such a loading of – not stigma, but whatever. There's a loaded – it's a loaded term. Well, my first job was as an electronics technician. Yep. And then I got a job as an electronics engineer, you know? And it's like – yeah. But if I put on my resume – I am an electronics technician, right? I might not have got as far, perhaps. I'm not saying lie on your resume. No, no. Of course not. You've got to be able to back it up, right? Right. But you can say on your resume that says while you're designing the boards for yourself and others, yeah, that's when you're an electronics designer versus – yeah, there's title stuff that matters. Yeah. Yep. Because, yeah, as you said, in different countries, to me, just getting your degree or whatever does not make you an electronics engineer. Electronics engineering is a vocational pursuit, right? So if you're doing electronics engineering work, you should be calling yourself an electronics engineer or an electronics design engineer is what I always called myself. Right. Right. Exactly. Because that's what I've always done. I've designed electronics. Mm-hmm. So that's, you know, I mean, yeah, start calling yourself. But, yeah, it's a matter of getting that – you know, just that one leg up. That's all you need, that one little leg up. Yep. You know? Some little contract – like a contract is a good way to do it. Like some little, you know, three-month contract or something, they want you to do something. Then you can, you know, as – and, you know, like you come in and you might troubleshoot something or you might, you know, do a little design or something like that. Like, bam! Right. That goes on your resume. Yeah, and you make a good name for yourself too. You're going to get – you know, once you find a good – in my experience, at least when I refer people, I have a couple friends that I refer all the work that I know of too, right? Because, you know, it's people that I know and I trust them and they're not going to let me down and make me look bad too. So that's another thing. Yeah. And as we've always said, it's much easier to get that leg up, get that first job opportunity at the level you're looking for if you've done all the hobby stuff. You know, as he said, he's a, you know, hobbyist. He's been designing projects and stuff, I think he said, didn't he? That's right. And, yeah, show that off. You know, go for – there's – Online portfolio. A lot of people – the problem with a lot of people is that they don't actually go for these engineering jobs. They think, oh, I'm not going to get it. Go for the – apply. Go for the interview, you know, and show your stuff. And, yeah, you might get 10 rejections, but, you know, you're eventually – if you're persistent enough and you're good enough – And I've always said, you know, if you've got the talent and the enthusiasm, you will get – you know, you'll never be without a job. And, yeah. Cool. You'll find someone who appreciates your work eventually and goes, oh, yeah, you're the person I'm looking for. Bam. You're hired. I don't care about your qualifications. Whoop-dee-doo. What does that mean? It means nothing. All right. Well, let's talk to our next caller. Maybe we'll find out – we'll have a little moment of bam ourselves, huh? Here we go. Hey, what's your name? Where are you calling from?

Mahesh: My name is Brian. I'm calling from Dublin in Ireland.

Dave Jones: Wow.

Mahesh: Ireland. Welcome. Awesome. Hello.

Dave Jones: What kind of questions do you have?

Mahesh: So I am a student. I'm currently studying for my bachelor's in engineering. I'm doing computer and electronic engineering. And I just wanted to know what your experiences have been like and if you have any advice for students like myself who might be listening.

Dave Jones: That's a good question. Dave, would you like to start? I mean, it's been a little longer for Dave, so he might need a little more time to remember. I might need a little more time. You go first. A couple more cobwebs to get out of there. So I actually – I had a weird college experience. I was very isolated from my department. Like I didn't really participate much. There were some people that were really into it. I was more concentrating on beer. Yeah. No. Same here. I was not the participation kind of guy. Yeah. That's just – I think the thing is a lot of schools – like so we've had Larry Sears on the show and obviously he's at my alma mater down the street. And – but he's basically – he's working on like a lab that allows you to kind of build your own stuff. And we were just – the last question we were just answering was kind of working on your own projects. And so that would be my main thing is I wish I would have gotten more involved in the – not in the curriculum but with the – you know, the professors doing research outside of the curriculum. And then also just doing my own stuff alongside it, right? Because that is going to be the best way to make sure that I give a crap when I go to class and I have to learn signal stuff at 8 in the morning. You know, like if I actually need to know that like – oh, yeah, Fourier transform is important because I want to understand the FFT that shows up on my scope. Does that sound familiar? Do you guys have that at your school or no? Like a lab for doing your own stuff?

Mahesh: Yeah. Like we actually – yeah, I was going to ask afterwards like how you kind of kept motivated. But yeah, I'm actually – I'm trying to hunt up an internship with one of my lecturers for the summer because one of his PhD students took an interest in one of my personal projects. I'm trying to build one of those drones that everybody is so scared about in America.

Dave Jones: That's awesome. That's really – no, that's really great. And like that is how you get recognized. Yeah. You know, that is actually another thing that I had a lot of trouble with at the end of school because I was not really involved in any of the programs or anything like that. But you start going to look for jobs or even internships and stuff like that. They're all like, well, do you have a professor recommendation? And it's like I don't know any of these guys. You know, I don't know anyone really because I was just focused on the classwork and then doing other stuff. And being in it like you are, I mean, that's really going to build those – I mean, it's effectively networking. And I think that – I think you're doing the right things. I would say keep sharing the projects that you're doing because that's – that is a form of networking is just kind of sharing the projects that you're doing. And how to stay motivated is, of course, work on your own projects. I mean, that's what I've always done. That's how I've been – that's how I've always stayed motivated during either school or a crappy job, which, you know – well, not crappy, but, you know, like one that wasn't technically very satisfying, you know, is that, yeah, I just work on my own stuff. Brian, what are some of the things that you find demotivating currently?

Mahesh: I've had kind of an up and down experience with my actual course is like half the things that we seem to be studying. Like in my college, it's a two-year general engineering course before you're allowed to specialize. Oh, yeah. So half the stuff that I've taught, like it seems like I'm never going to use. And then the workload is so inconsistent as well. Like for example, like we flashed our first microcontrollers like two weeks ago and I'm in like third year. Yeah, that's consistent with what I've – That's common. Yeah, that's very common.

Dave Jones: That is very – yep. And it's a shame, honestly, because like that is something that gets people motivated, right, that I've controlled my environment type of thing. Well, in my course, we had to do civil engineering. We had to do mechanical engineering, right? Yeah, we did too, I guess. Just in case – Loads and – Just in case in quote marks that you wanted to change your course. It's like, but I'm here to do electronics. I don't want to learn civil engineering, you know. But that was the course. I mean, that was just – you know, I mean, yeah, you'll do a lot of stuff which you either won't find interesting or won't find useful. It's just – unfortunately, you just have to suck it up.

Mahesh: I had a chemistry module in first year that was diabolical.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Well, that's engineering. You do – like the first two years are usually math, physics. Well, it's classically trained engineering, I think. Yeah, yeah. It's classically trained. That's really what it is. Yeah. So it's math, physics, you know, some chemistry. I mean, Brian, it sounds like you got through it, so that's good. Well, it does get better from here on. Usually the later parts are more interesting.

Mahesh: One final follow-up question. I was going to ask how you handle, like, organization and stress because in the last couple of weeks, it seems like they've dumped an entire term's worth of work on us to do, like, this month alone. So do you have any experience with dealing with that kind of –

Dave Jones: I am horrible at that. I was going to say my answer is going to be different than Dave's too because he doesn't drink. Right. No, I am horrible at coping with stuff like that. It's, you know – not from the study side, at least from the study side of things. If it's technical, if I'm being bombarded with technical stuff, that's fine because I'm a technical guy. But when it comes to study and I don't have any advice there, unfortunately. Yeah, that's a tough spot. I'm just hopeless at it. I'm, like, beyond hopeless. Dave's answer is become a YouTube star. Yeah, right. Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory. No, yeah, Brian, I'm not sure, man. It's – that is a – I think at those times, like, for me personally, was always – like, I had some friends that I leaned on for, like, study groups and just, you know, explaining to each other as well because you're going to probably find a mechanical engineer who's hopeless about op amps or a civil engineer who's hopeless about signals or whatever, you know, like, just try and find other people that are going to be helping you along. Because those are – I mean, honestly, and then when you struggle together too, those are the connections that you make that then they become friends. And when you go to work on a project later, you can ask them to, you know, design a crazy mechanical thing and they won't punch you in the face, you know. And if you can't find somebody, put up something on the local notice board, you know. It's the BBS, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's like – yeah, seriously. Like, you know, phone – you know, like, I want to find somebody who we can, you know, study with and, you know, share ideas and, you know, stuff like that. All right.

Mahesh: Cool, cool. As for my personal assignments, I'll have to fall back on my old strategy of caffeine and begging my professors for extensions. Oh, yeah. That one's tried and true as well.

Dave Jones: Good luck, Brian. Thanks for calling in. All right. Thanks, mate. Thanks, guys. Oh, I don't miss school at all, Dave. Like, at all. No, I don't know.

Speaker ?: Not me, Dave.

Dave Jones: I don't want to say he was on the call, but, man, just like, oh, jeez. Is it exam time yet? It's not, right? It's not yet. No, it's just started. It's February. You know, some people on quarter – I don't know. I talked to somebody the other day. Oh, quarters? All right. Yeah, but that's weird. Okay. It's been that long, I totally forget. But don't you just love the Irish accent? I'm sorry. Like, it's almost like every sentence he's going to bust into a joke, you know. Like, sorry. I just love the – I do love Irish accents. I don't think that's – that's not what I usually assume, but – Right. I don't know. No, I just find them funny. Yeah. Like, you know, it doesn't matter what they say. You know, when Irish comedian's funny, they don't need to say anything. Well, they just need to say gibberish, and it's funny. You should imagine how people hear Aussies, Dave. Right. Okay. Yep. Fair call. Yep. Yep. Speaking of which, next call. Next call. Oh, you know, actually, speaking of which, we haven't had any Aussies on this show. So maybe only Aussies like embedded people, or maybe they dislike you. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe. Yeah. Wouldn't surprise me. Yep. All right. Here we go. Maybe an Aussie. I don't know. That tall poppy syndrome, you know. What's that? What's tall poppy? I don't even want to – I don't care. All right. Here we go. New call. Google it. Hey, what's your name, and where are you calling from? Hi, this is Paul from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. How's it going? Welcome, Paul. How are you doing? I know your name. Oh, yeah? Paul DeBoer. How do you pronounce your last name? DeBoer? I don't know. I'm Canadian. I pronounce it DeBoer. I'm not Dutch. Awesome. What's your question, Paul? I'm currently a test automation engineer. I'm mostly software, but, you know, jack-of-all-trades and all that. Yeah. I was wondering what sort of skills for PCBAs I could use to transition to more electronics. Like, I watched Dave's video about – I think you had a panel that you were designing. Yes. Yep. That's right. You routed lines through the – Yep. Through the tabs. The corners. Yep. It was pretty interesting. Stuff like that seems like would be quite interesting for my customers. And if I could transition into electronics, what other skills could I get? Hmm. I would suggest not starting there. Well, the problem is electronics is such a broad – and even electronics assembly is such a broad palette of skills. It's, you know, it's hard to say. Like, do you want to specialize in layout? Do you want to specialize in procurement and assembly? Do you want to specialize – you're a test engineer, right? So, yeah, right, so you probably know all about designing test jigs and points and things like that. It sounds like you're on your way already to – it sounds like you need more PCB layout skills, perhaps. Is that – would that be fair to say? It's true. I definitely do. Okay. Yep. Could you give us an idea about the speeds of the signals that are on the board and stuff, too? Because that often will determine – you know, and currents and things like that, because that will determine where you should be focusing your efforts, I think, as well. Well, the question is really about where I want to take my career. Right. The boards I'm working on now are pretty low-speed signals. It's mostly medical industry. Mm-hmm. So various pressure sensors and temperature sensors, pulse oximeters and that sort of thing. Okay. But, like, the skills to design these boards, to break into that somehow. You've got it – well, the answer is – Typically, medical industry is you go get a master's degree, right? I hope that's not what you're going to tell me. No. No, not necessarily. No, the medical industry is just like the military industry I've worked in, very regulated, highly regulated. Yeah, but that's on the test side, right? To the point of complete boredom. Oh, no, even on the test side. Really? I come from military test engineering. That was – I didn't know that. Okay. Like, I spent more than a decade doing that, and it's exactly the same in the medical industry, highly regulated. You know, you can spend six months choosing and selecting the right screw. You know, like, I'm not kidding. You know, it's like – it can be that anal.

Mahesh: Yes, I've recently had experience with these regulations. It was not fun.

Dave Jones: Yeah, no. No, it's not. It's not pretty at all. You know, I don't know. Many people are like, regulations? Woo-hoo! You know, it's in general, but yeah, okay. I get what you're saying. Anyway, the answer is no, not to go get your master's degree. The answer is to do a big project of your own so that you can show it off. Like, we said that before earlier in the show. Right, well, he wasn't listening to that part, though. It all comes down to that. Oh, right, no, he wasn't listening. Well, we said that before. Yeah, if you've got a big project to show off, then that can potentially help you to get a position more into the side of things that you want, especially with inside the company. A lot of medical companies and big companies like that are very regimented in their recruitment processes so that you can actually apply internally for other jobs, and they have to take you seriously. There's a formal process. So if you can, you know, apply for a position which you, you know, some sort of design position, you might have to start out in junior design position, of course. But if you've got something to show off, I mean, you can't, but you can't expect a move from test engineering to design engineering just without any example work. I mean, you've got to have something, usually. That is the best bet. I would find a project, a meaty project, and make a commitment to it, go, right, I'm going to spend X thousands of dollars doing this project, you know, in terms of, you know, to build it and everything else. I'm going to spend X number of months, and I'm going to design and build it from scratch, even if it, like, is kind of pointless, you know, you do it as an example work, but you've got to put a serious effort into it. Well, I think another thing, too, is that if you know someone at your company and you see, like, see a job that you are interested in, you know, talking to that person is also, you know, understanding their background, understanding their daily work, understanding their skill set. Again, this is an internal, you know, if you're trying to jump laterally inside your company. That's the easiest way because you can already walk up and talk to these people. It's harder if you're like, well, I want to go work at that company across the street. You might not know the design engineer there, but I think that ultimately, either way, it's going to be about trying to talk your way to different people. And, you know, that's what, again, that's what networking is, and it's just, it's easier when it's internal. Maybe you go and talk to the guy that has a job that you'd be interested in, and you know he's not going to ever retire or they're not going to hire for that. That's fine. At least you know those skill sets so that you can go and look somewhere else and develop them and target your project that Dave's talking about towards that. Yeah. And I'll tell you, here's a tip for free, how to actually approach these people, right? You know, if you want to approach a design engineer, don't just walk up and go, hey, I'd like to talk about design engineering. No. Actually, take one of the products that they've designed, right? Take it apart. Look at it. Get the schematic. You work at the company. I'm sure you can get it, right? And just, you know, go up to them with the schematic. You know, a big thing circled. Hey, can you explain how you did this? Or maybe, if you're clever, you can, if you're good, you can, you know, go, hey, why did you do it this way? Why didn't you do it some other way? Right? And design engineers love to talk technical. They're not going to tell you to bugger off. They're going to go, whoa. They're going to sit down for hours and start talking technical. Oh, go for it. No, no. I mean, that's what they're going to say. They're going to tell you that they have a story about that resistor that's stuck there. No, of course. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And then, bam, you'll, you know, you'll be their best friend because you're talking about their design. They love that. Yep. Design engineers love that. So that's the way to, that's the way to butter them up. It wouldn't be a, it wouldn't be an internal move. Oh, it wouldn't be an internal move. Damn it. Our company's entirely test engineering. But quite a few, quite often the design engineers end up coming on site. Like, even if they're going to be busy, I could harass them a little bit. Oh, totally. Well, during the Embedded show last time when Chris and Alicia were here too, Alicia had a really good point. She said her career turned when she started buying people lunch. And if you can, if you can convince someone like, hey, I'm just, you know, I went out to lunch. I'd love to buy you lunch and hear a little bit about your job, that kind of thing. I'm totally on board with that. I think that that's, that's a great way to make a friend, but also, you know, hear a little bit about where you might want to be going. Okay. Yeah, sure. Well, thanks for calling in, Paul. Thanks, mate. Well, thanks for having me, guys. All right. So, that was, yeah, that's, you know, it's tough when you, I hate for our answers to everything to be like, oh, well, make a board and then network. But even some of those things can be hard to, I remember people telling me to network and I'd be like, screw you, I don't know what that means. Often it means beers and, you know, lunch and being nice to someone and being curious. But as somebody who was essentially an engineering social recluse. Right. You know, I find that difficult. Right. Kind of. Kind of. Sort of. Was. Yeah. You know, I find that advice to me is useless. It's like, well, no, I don't talk to people. That's just, you know, like, yeah, I couldn't think of any worse advice back in the day. But unfortunately, it's, you know. Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, you're right. I mean, that's why people talk about that is, it's a skill. Right. I mean, it sucks. That's why I said talk technical. Because that's something I could do. You know, I was never afraid to express my opinion. Right. That's the only advantage I ever had. Right. I'll give it to this was, Dave.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So I would walk up to the designer and with the schematic, even as a 17-year-old kid, you know, my first job, I'd walk up and say, hey, I think you've done this wrong. You know, like, I, or I think we're going to have a problem here. You know, like, I wasn't afraid, even if I was wrong, it didn't matter, you know. Yep. Yeah. I was not afraid to do that, but I was afraid to, you know, can we have lunch together, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You can work up to that, of course. I mean, like, but yeah. But I think you're right. I mean, and the same thing we talked about with when you have, I believe I was editing last week's show and you proudly said the phrase whip it out, when in doubt whip it out. But yeah, I mean, that's what it is. But when you have a board ready to go and you want to talk about that, it is the common language. And I think you're right. You're right on that spot. Yeah. Spot on. All right. We have more in the queue. Man, remember when we used to have, like, no calls? This is great. Well, we've already been recording for an hour. Well, we're going to keep going. I have another four or five questions that are not going to get posted. I mean, they're just written questions. So we're, like I said, we're prioritizing people that are calling in on Skype. Okay. We'll have to make it quick then. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah. Dave's so busy. More efficient. More efficient. All right. Okay. Here we go. Well, what? Are we going to do a three-hour call-in show? How about an hour and a half? I don't know. Come on. Let's go. All right. We're going. Stop diddy-dallying. Diddy-dallying? Diddy-dallying. Dilly. Hey, what's your name? Where are you from? Hey, this is Adam from Western Massachusetts. Welcome, Adam. How's it going? Adam, your name sounds familiar. I think we've seen your bench before. You have. This was way back in the day when you guys used to do workbench of the week, week, week, week, week, week, week. You have a veteran here. Yeah, I think I was the first video entry into that little thing that you guys did for a while. Wow. Yeah, I remember that. And you had, like, four different workbenches or something crazy, too. Yeah, it's a big workbench. I'm sitting next to it, actually. It's a big workbench, and it's got four different stations, so I can kind of have four projects going on at the same time, and I'd have to constantly, like, you know, clean the desk and move over to the next project and whatnot. So it's served me well for this many years. Great. So what kind of questions do you have? So my question is actually in regards to just, you know, in general resources for learning advanced PCB design. I know you guys have touched on PCB design in the past, and, you know, anybody can go on Google and find tons of resources for just doing kind of, you know, basic run-of-the-mill PCB design, two-layer type stuff. But I find that I'm starting to get more into needing to deal with, say, BGA-type parts, which, you know, inevitably just drives you into having a multiple or more than two layers, you know, four or six layers and whatnot.

Speaker ?: Of course.

Dave Jones: Yep. So I'm just trying to figure out, you know, what's the best route to go to get resources on learning that kind of stuff? Because it just seems like, in my experience in the different companies that I've worked for, there's a couple of guys, you know, in the company that know that stuff, you know, either because they've been doing it for 20-plus years or because they've, you know, when they came on, they learned it from some other guy who was there for 20-plus years. And so, you know, just trying to figure out where would a guy like me who's, you know, I've done some PCB design, some basic type stuff, but nothing to that extreme. Where would be a good place for me to... Adam, how much money do you have in your pocket right now? Well, I mean, that's another question, right? So, I mean, I know that you can go to school, and if you want to be a digital designer, you can go to school and take courses and get all that stuff done. And that's kind of the rough... No, actually, I'm not talking about school. Actually, so I'm talking about vendor training. So that's definitely one way. Is that, you know, like all of these companies, you know, Altium has it, Mentor has it. But they're more about using the tool than fundamental engineering principles behind them, usually. Usually, sure. And that's what I'm looking for. Like, I have some friends who are kind of in the business of doing PCB design full-time. And Dave, I think that's kind of your world for a while. I was a full-time PCB designer. Yep. Exactly. And so... I was the guy in the company you were talking about. That's right.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: You know that guy? You just hand him a board, and he's just, like, making fun of you, and he's questioning all your decisions, and, you know, yeah. But that's the thing, right? I mean, I talk to some guys like that, and, you know, ask them some general questions, and it just seems like common knowledge to them. I mean, like, oh, well, you would want to do, you know, use this kind of DCAP and sprinkle them over here. And you want to use an inductor to isolate those power rails, and it's like, well, how do you figure all that stuff out, you know? So many rules of thumbs, you need more thumbs, right? Look, a good friend of the show, Vincent Himpey, he was writing a PCB book, an advanced PCB design book, as was I. But he got much, much, much further into it. But it's fallen by the wayside, unfortunately, since he went to work for Tesla. I'm not sure where it's at now, but there are, yeah, you're right. There's very little out there. I know there is a guy, I don't know his name, and I probably can't Google him this instant, but he does an online advanced PCB design course. It's Robert Ferenac, Fetterville Academy. Robert, that's it. Yep. I looked him up right before this, because I was going to suggest him as well. So he teaches via Altium, but he does that, he does like, he has a module where he's connecting like DDR3 RAM to a BGA, like high-end micro. I think it's a free scale. Yep. Yeah. So a course like that would be very much worthwhile taking. I suspect. So does he have, I mean, are there courses out there, you're saying? Very few. That's the only one I can remember offhand. Yeah. Okay. Again, that's going to be, so Robert teaches with Altium as well. Yes, he does. So if you're not in Altium, then it's going to be a little bit harder, obviously, because you're going to have to either get a license or whatever. Right. I think that some things, you know, there's some, there's a lot of different skills here you're talking about. You're talking about like signal integrity stuff. So you could take, you know, Henry Ott's courses and Howard Johnson doesn't teach anymore, but like those kind of like, Eric Bogutin still teaches a lot of stuff like that. You know, there's going to be that kind of calculation type side of things. But in terms of the rules of thumb, you're talking about drop a cap here. You need this. You need that. Oof. Yeah. Robert also has a YouTube channel where there's lots of free content. So I suggest you go in there and check it out. Yes. Like a lot of it is tool specific. Robert, Aaron Accus. Yeah. It's, yeah. Use a M-A-T-A-R-O-F-E. We'll link it down below. It's got a YouTube channel. And yeah, like a lot of it is tool specific, but there's also a lot of it that is not. And like I've done one or maybe two or at least one. I was going to do another one where I lay out a board in time lapse and I explain my thought processes on top of laying out that board. And like that was, it was a simple double-sided, you know, relatively simple double-sided. So it wasn't the advanced stuff, but you know, things like that. And I think he, he's done some similar stuff. So go check it out. That's the only one I can know of offhand, but yeah, there's not much out there. Unfortunately, it's just like a snippet of an application note here that explains BGA bypassing, for example. That's true. Yeah. I mean, I have an application note over there. Because I'm starting to use more of, you know, I'm kind of doing a lot with FPGAs and whatnot. I know Xilinx does typically put out some app notes with a lot of their stuff saying that, you know, these are the... They're very good. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, these are the decap values we want to use. These are the actual size of the caps you probably should be using. These are where you want to place them. And so they've done a lot of work in that area. Totally. But is that applicable to any BGA device? You know, those are the things that I... Yes, it is. And that's where guys like me get our knowledge from. You know, we had to lay out our first BGA board once, you know, and well, I don't know, how do I do the... You know, well, you can... Well, you know the general of how to do the bypassing, but are there any other things, how to do the fan outs? You know, you read, you find these application notes and you... And a lot of it is general advice that, yes, you can apply to other chips. It's a folder full of PDFs. Everybody has a folder full of PDFs. Or a contact list full of names of guys who know that kind of stuff. That works too. Yeah. I mean, do you have anyone that you're working with or no? No. No. I mean, so I work with... I do ASIC design. So everything that I do is, you know, basically designing using HDL, you know, either Verilog or VHDL or whatnot. And so I'm very, you know, I'm on the other side of the fence. I'm just kind of doing a lot of high-level type stuff. And then eventually we do SOCs and, you know, it ends up, you know, going on from there. But it's not really on the physical side of things. Which, by the way, to us is black magic, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah, well, your stuff is black magic to me. And so... I should note that I don't actually do high-speed stuff. So I kind of do that full time. Yeah. I do all that stuff full time. But, you know, as soon as I'm done work, I want to be down here in the lab and doing PCBs and FPGAs and all that kind of stuff. And so that's where I'm a little weak is just, you know, the PCB stuff. Like I said, I've done a ton of PCBs, but they've been very basic two-layer stuff. And a lot of the projects that I'm getting into now are requiring, you know, like the Series 7 Xilinx stuff, which is all BGA. Yeah, right. They don't even make, you know, anything other than BGA anymore. And so it's inevitable. I'm going to have to kind of, you know, hone up on those skills if I want to start making those kind of boards. Yeah. Now, the advice we were giving out earlier in the show may not be as applicable here. Because as you said, you know, you can't go buy a $1,000, you know, or $5,000 Vertex 7 FPGA and just, you know, spin your own project out of your own pocket, you know, and do your own eight-layer board. And, you know, well, no, they're getting cheaper now to do, you know, six and eight-layer boards yourself. But still, you know, you're talking many, many hundreds of dollars minimum, you know, to do one spin or whatever, if you're lucky. Right, right, right. And, you know, so it's not as easy to get those advanced skills unless you're actually spinning advanced stuff. And, yeah, unfortunately, it's not an easy thing. So, Adam, it sounds like some of your problem can be solved with buckets of cash. Right. Buckets of time. And, yeah. But App Notes, too. App Notes are mostly free. So maybe start there. Cool. Awesome. Well, I think this is also a good thing. You know, like people who are listening right now who are like, you know, I know a lot of this stuff. And I've been looking for an opportunity to make an online course. Hey, guess what? We just found you one. So Adam is willing to pay somewhere between free App Note and, you know, training at Altium or wherever, you know. Awesome. All right. Thanks, mate. Thanks for calling in. All right. Take care, guys. All right. We have, I believe, two more. Maybe more. We'll see. I think two more. You with me, Dave? That'll do. I'm still here. All right. Hey, what's your name? Where are you calling from? I'm Rudy. I'm calling from Colorado. Welcome to the App Hour, Rudy. How are you doing? Thank you. How are you? Good, mate. What's your question? My question is, I know Chris is doing stuff with 3D printer. He got a new 3D printer, and I wanted to see if he had tried out a program called OpenSCAT. Aha. Yes. Yeah, we were talking about modeling last week, actually. You were? Yeah. No, you know, I haven't done that yet. Marty, the guy who I mentioned who designed the printer, actually has a bunch of those files, and he was doing that. And the parametric stuff seemed like it was good, but it's very script-focused. Isn't that right? Well, yes and no. It's not too heavy on script. It's pretty short. If you know a little bit of scripting, you can get a long way. You don't need to know a lot. Gotcha. So it's a lot more math-based than it is scripting, actually. So your basic math skills will help. Right. So what if I don't have those? Well, you should have some math, because I think you're an engineer, right? So you should have some math skills. Yeah, some days. Some days I'm an engineer. Yeah. So what are you using it for? Well, I've built, actually, some brackets for my rowing machine, so I could put my laptop on top of it. I've made a cookie cutter for some cookies on a 3D printer, and it's much easier, I think, to get into 3D printing and 3D modeling than any of the softwares I've tried. Well, actually, I tried OpenSCAD, or is it SCAD? I don't know. Doesn't matter. Yeah, I tried it once, and I went, huh? Code? No. Like, just, like, you know. I think that's what scared me off, too. Yeah, it scared me off completely. It's like, no, I, you know. Yeah, it might be easy once you get over that hurdle, but no, to me, it was not intuitive at all to use. So, yeah, I was scared off, unfortunately. Maybe that's a better question, is, Rudy, what's your background? Like, what is, I mean, are you coming from the software side, or are you doing, like, because me and Dave are both, like, we're, like, visual ECAD, you know, drawing trace from here to there, not, like, scripting stuff from here to there. That's true. I'm a software engineer, so for me, it's pretty much. Yeah. It's pretty easy to pick up. But are you still there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, still here. Still here. I just saw an internet connection issue. So, yeah, for me, it's easy, but I think it's easy for you guys, too. You know, you need to know how to code some of the microprocessors, and there's a lot of C involved in that. It's very C-like. True, but it was just a philosophical thing for me. Like, why should I have to write code to do my model? I mean, it just stopped me in my tracks right there. It's like, I thought, this is silly. You know, why should I have to write any code? Why can't I just use my mouse and draw the thing I want to draw? Well, I think some of it's, I mean, like, even using a mouse is kind of unnatural, right? If you could, like, if you could mold digital clay, right, that would be, like, the most, because you can, you know, start to draw stuff with your hands in 3D space, but that's not, that doesn't exist yet anyways, anyway, so it doesn't matter. But, you know, we're all, it's just what we're used to, and I think that's the thing, that, like, I came from, I started with SketchUp as well. Dave used CAD, 3D CAD before with other mouse-based programs. I wrote my own CAD program once back in the day. Oh, yeah, nice. When I was a teenager, yep, yep. So, yeah, I think, Rudy, it's just about where we're coming from here. So, but I think that, you know, in terms of the open source options, that's definitely one of the best ones out there, because I know that it is open source. I think if you get into it a little bit, you'll find out that it's actually quite powerful. You start, you know, creating some models that you didn't think you could create, and much faster. Oh, I'm sure it is. Yeah. The scripts, you know, you can rotate images, you can, you know, subtract them very easily, and I think you get much quicker with coding and getting a 3D model than you actually have to manually do with the mouse. Yeah. Yeah, I won't argue the point. Yeah, it's just, but it's what people feel comfortable with, and I don't feel comfortable writing code to draw a 3D model. So, you know, I think Chris probably feels the same way. So, yeah. I am totally on board. Right. And that's why me and Dave get along. Well, it's in a while. So, yeah. So, we appreciate, yeah. No, but we can both appreciate how powerful it could be, and that for some people, or for many people, maybe even the majority, it might be, you know, a really good way to do it. It just doesn't feel right to us, that's all. Got it. Okay. I did have another question. I have a wager with my son. Oh, right. And it's about self-driving cars, and when will we see commercially available cars? And the wager is, I predicted it's 10 years, so that was in 2015 when we had this wager. So, I think it's going to happen in 2025, but my son thought it would happen already in five years. What do you guys think we'll see commercially available?

Speaker ?: I think you're both wrong.

Dave Jones: I think, well, commercially available. Right, you have to define that. Yeah, commercially available and people actually using it, like a significant percentage of the population actually using it. I don't think it's even that. I think you have to define what is it. Is it like you get in a car and you never touch a steering wheel? Because technically, right now, you can buy a Tesla Model D 85, whatever the expensive one is, and you can use the autopilot, and you're sitting there, and it's driving on the highway. It is taking over on the highway. So, the answer is you're both wrong, if you kind of like that. So, I think that's ultimately what it comes down to. But we've talked about this on the show before, and I have predicted that, did I? I think I did. That Sagan, my four-year-old son, he will not be driving. He will be driving a... He will not have a self-driving car. Right. He'll still have to learn how to drive, you're saying? Yeah, he will still have to learn how to drive. So, that's 15 years. Oh, 15 years. Well, let's just round it to 15. Oh, okay. Let's just say 15 years into the future. I think, you know, there's a lot more subtle issues, I think, that people, you know, oh, great. Yeah, we can do this self-driving car. But the practicality of it, I think it's going to come a gutzer. I think it really is, you know? And the regulation and the regulation side of things, certification, it's opening up a whole can of worms that we haven't hit yet. And speaking of hit, I tweeted the other day because, you know, I had a guy that was driving towards... I was walking my dog and I was crossing the street and the guy didn't even look. You know, like he was taking a left. I was about to go on the crosswalk. I was watching him because I expected him not to look. And you know what? A car would have looked. So, I think that once that mindset gets out there a little bit more, you know, what's going to happen, I think, is that more and more sensing is going to come into play. I talked to actually... Of course. I was emailing with Tom Laments, who's actually a former guest who designs gigahertz level sensors and stuff like that. And he was telling me about it. It's very exciting right now. And there's lots of sensing opportunities. That's just going to keep happening, I think. I think Dave's right, actually, about the regulation is going to be ultimately, if you want to get in your car and never say it's just a steering wheel, that's probably going to be 15, 20 years. I would agree with that. Just because that's a big deal. I think it's also a cultural thing. They did a show on the PBS about how North America, they wouldn't like to have a car without a steering wheel because they actually enjoy driving versus India and China, where they actually like to have a car without a steering wheel because there's so much congestion and they don't care about the driving. Right, they don't care. Right. Yeah. Totally different cultures. Yep. Sure. Yep. Totally agree. And I'm sure it'll be different places. We'll have different adoption rates. But yeah, I'm sure it's going to come and I'm fine with it. Don't let me in with North Americans. All right. Well, Rudy, thanks for calling in, man. Thanks, mate. Thanks, Chris and Dave. You have a good day. Yeah. Good luck with your son. Yeah. I don't know. Ah, young kids these days think things are so easy. Yeah. Yeah. We forgot to ask what they actually bet, you know. Right. It doesn't matter. That's always. It doesn't matter. A bet's a bet. It doesn't matter what the prize is. No, it does matter sometimes. No, it doesn't. Sure it does. No, it doesn't. All right. Well, we'll find out when you lose the bet to me. Right. It just popped into my mind that Eddie Murphy movie. Is it coming? It's not coming to America. It's the other one. Oh, yeah, yeah. The millionaire one with Akron. Trading places. Yeah, that's right. Trading places. You know, we bet $1. $1. You know, like, and we're going to ruin this guy's life. Right. Exactly. The standard bet. You know. Yep. Randolph. Randolph. That's it. And if people are listening and haven't seen Trading Places or Coming to America, let's be honest, both of those are amazing. There is a cameo. Buy them in Coming to America. Oh, that's right. Yeah, when they're both. Yeah. We don't. No spoilers. No spoilers. So funny. Yeah. Oh, man. So I think we have one more caller here. Last caller. Last suck of the sav. That's right. Here we go. Hey, what's your name? Where are you from? My name is Andy Soa. I'm from Chicago, Illinois. Welcome, Andy. How are you doing? Hey, Andy. Doing pretty good. How about yourself? Cool. What's happening down in? Over in for me. Oh, over. Sorry. For you, it's up, Dave. Up. Yeah. Okay. Forget I even said that. I'm geographically challenged. Anyway, thanks. What's your question, mate? I'm working on a project. I'm doing a display for a fridge I'm making with a couple of buddies of mine. Oh, not an internet-enabled fridge. No, no. We don't want to do internet-enabled. It's a beer-tracking fridge. Yes.

Mahesh: So it's a dry-aging meat fridge. So we're trying to age steak 25, 45 days.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Right. Yeah, interesting. Instead of getting it from high-end restaurants, trying to do it at home. So we got a specific aesthetic we want to hit. So touch buttons and display help that.

Mahesh: So I started learning KiCad, and I got a board made and made some touch buttons. But I was wondering if maybe Chris could help. Let me know the best way to make different touch buttons, and then how to stop interference from those, low-level signals from those.

Dave Jones: Because I have a 22-inch long board, and I have some long traces, and I'm afraid that I'm going to get a lot of noise. Oh, yeah, no. Yeah. Yeah, that's – you might have to put a local micro with the touch sensing right on the same board as the touch panel and then run a spy bus or whatever over. I mean, you can get these touch chips that have a serial interface, and you put them right next to – yeah, on the same board as your touch panel. Andy, could you explain the system layout a little bit better? So there's two boards or there's one board? There's one board right now, but it looks like I'm going to have to do a specific touch board and then have another board and have all my displays. So I have some seven-segment displays, and that's going to have more of the controls. So because I can't get – Oh, I thought you were using an LCD display. No, no, I want to do like touch pads out of copper, and then I'm going to have – I have three different seven-segment displays, so I have six total digits.

Mahesh: But because –

Dave Jones: Sorry, I would be tempted to go with a touch panel graphic display myself. Well, that's what you're saying. You wanted the specific – the look, though. So there's something about the look that you're saying, Andy, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the idea is you want that PCB – Ah, right. Like tactile – not tactile, but like a physical button versus a screen button. Mm-hmm. So that's the problem. Yeah, got it. Is we have an industrial designer working with me who has a specific aesthetic that he wants to hit. Ah, got it. Mm-hmm. Right, right. Yes. He posted a picture for us here, too, in the chat. So there's – Oh, okay. A picture there, and if you go to the next one over, there's two different pictures. Oh, okay. I just haven't finished populating yet, and so I haven't tested the button yet.

Mahesh: I'm assuming they're not going to work well, but this is just a quick prototype just to get this way.

Dave Jones: Actually, I would say that you have a bigger problem here in that you're going to pay out the nose for this PCB because you've got a – you said it's a 22-inch PCB? Yeah. Yeah, I would say that's going to run you a lot of money. It looks like you're replicating things. I would actually – so, again, I have to kind of explain what people – what me and Dave and Andy are looking at here. But it's a – Well, I can't see it. Sorry, the page isn't loading. Bloody internet. And so it's a long board. It's obviously long and narrow, but basically it looks like replicated things going along there. And first off, I mean, you're going to be limited by panel size. I think 20 – you can get a 24-inch panel, so that is possible. But if you want to – especially for prototyping, you're going to want to go to a shorter one anyway. So like Dave's saying, I would – you know, it's almost getting to the point where you can get a low-cost chip and drop one next to each button if you really wanted to. That's really overkill, but that is potentially a solution. That you could. Yeah. Yeah, you could do that. What kind of buttons are they again? Are they cap touch buttons? Is that right? Yeah. So right now I do use like an Atmel part that's 11-channel button. So I thought about going with the – they have a one, and I think they may have something in between

Mahesh: and doing what you're saying there is reducing my buttons per chip, but then doing a spy interface in between.

Dave Jones: Yeah, or I2C works too. I mean, like honestly, anytime you're going to be – so if you're trying to sense that long of a distance, you've got to think about the – you know, there is current flow involved there. You're obviously pushing charge around, and you're trying to sense that really far remotely, and that's going to be one of your initial issues. So being local is definitely going to be better. Another thing, though, is breaking this board into multiple boards and then having them actually have connectors to connect together, because that way then when a button breaks, you're not replacing a little strip either. You're replacing just a portion of the strip, that kind of thing. Dude, the buttons don't break. They're capacitive touch. I meant the – what if the board shorts out or gets – what if you pour beer or beef juice on the board, right? Well, you put – that's what solder mask is for. You put solder mask over the top and Bob's your uncle. Any color solder mask you like, as long as it's not black. So, Andy, you were asking, though, about KiCad. So assuming those other things happen, what was the problem with the KiCad button versus something else? So right now what I had to do is I had to import a text to do like a ground grid on the back.

Mahesh: I was reading the app notes, and they say you should do some type of grounding grid with 50% copper,

Dave Jones: 50% not to stop it picking up any sensing from behind the board. So to do that, I had to make an image and then load the image into KiCad. And then I had to do a lot of like text editing to try to get that in there and get it to work out. So I was wondering if there was – if you knew of anyone who had a more elegant way to do that in KiCad or if that's something you're working on or – Right. So you're talking about a hatched plane basically. That's what you're asking about. Did you know that term or no? Yeah, I wasn't sure exactly what the term was. Yeah, so the hatch fill is basically – like you'll see that in a lot of older stuff as well. But who were we talking to, Dave, about that? I can't remember. But it used to be popular back in the 70s and 80s when, yeah, you'd put a hatch fill because – Right, it was about the copper etching. Board warping was a problem. Yeah, right. It was just a PCB material science problem that they've pretty much solved these days. So nobody – there's not much reason to do a hatched ground plane anymore. Right. Well, actually, so the one that I was thinking – there was someone – I think it might have been Eric that was on the show, Eric Bogutin. Ah, Eric Bogutin. Yes, we were talking about it. Yeah, so he was doing that from a signal integrity standpoint just because that changes the impedance of planes. And that's not what you're doing here. But I don't even know why this app note is saying that. If you did shorten up this board, you could try it, obviously, with just a solid plane. But it is usually a good idea to follow the app note recommendations. Oh, the reason it's got a hatch plane in the case of a touch sense is to lower the capacitance. Because when you've got a solid plane – because these capacitive touch buttons, their name gives it away. They work on capacitance. And if you've got the greater your capacitance on the line, the more that swamps the capacitance of your finger when you go between the pads. So that's why, hence, the crosshatch fill. So – That was the capacitance. Yeah. But still provides some shielding. So, you know. So in terms of the actual hatching itself in KiCad, it appears – you know, just looking on the KiCad forum, the user forum, there's a couple of questions in there about it. It looks like it doesn't exist currently because, like Dave said, not as many people are using it. But one thing that you could do is if you check out – there's actually – so for via stitching, you kind of have to – there's kind of a workaround as well. That one of the developers showed, and then I made a video of it. Yeah. But basically it's like you make a via as a component, and then you can replicate that component in a grid. And basically what you could do here is you could do the same thing and have like a – I guess it would be a keepout almost. You could do a keepout replicated over multiple places, and then the copper would fill around those things. Maybe – you wouldn't want an actual drill, but you could, you know, maybe do – I guess what you could do – I guess what I would do is probably have a copper circle or, you know, whatever you wanted to – you know, maybe a copper – a circle in the copper with nothing in the middle, right? And then basically replicate that in a lot of different places. And then when you do a copper fill around that, around those quote-unquote components, then you would have a bunch of spaces in between. It would look like Swiss cheese effectively, but it would start to replicate that hatch kind of thing. It's definitely a workaround. But I think ultimately what it comes down to is knowing that the – you know, often the hard part is knowing what term to Google for. And now that you know hatch plane, that's going to help you, I think. Yeah, because what I did before is I had to import the image, and then I would get that file from KiCad, and then I would go into – I went into a text editor and added those dimensions that it spit out back into the footprint, and then changed it to the copper layer I wanted. So it worked, but it doesn't really like it. Oh, right, because it – yeah.

Mahesh: So, you know, the design rule check and all that is kind of spotty on it, but I was able to get it to work and do what I needed to do.

Dave Jones: Right, because if you're making like a component in the copper, you can do that no problem, but it's just – yeah, when then you try to put a component over top of that, then all your DRC is out the window. So, yeah, that is definitely a tough one. I think that if you do a negative space component and then have the copper fill in around those negative space things, that would be a little bit better. That makes sense. This is a cool project, though. Are you doing – if you don't mind me asking, are you doing like humidity monitoring and stuff like that inside the fridge? Yeah, we're doing humidity monitoring and regulation.

Mahesh: So – Cool. We should have a prototype up in the next couple months or so. We got to order parts, but yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, no, that's great. I know, like you said, a lot of fancy restaurants do that, but even the grocery store down the street from me, they have like this big case that does that, and it like doubles the price of any slab of meat they throw in there, you know? So it's pretty cool. Definitely get $100 steaks out here in Chicago at some of the restaurants. So it's pretty pricey. That's pretty crazy. Cool. Well, thanks for calling in. We appreciate it. No problem. Have a good one. All right. So I guess for – you know, for those kind of questions, too, I do – I mean, there is a – almost every program has a forum, right? So I think, you know, KiCad – obviously, I'd run the KiCad forum, but I know Altium has a lot of resources. A lot of them – like that is kind of a – that was a EDA-specific one, but – Yes. Yeah. Right. Yeah, so – That was a successful calling show. That was a lot of calls, man. I'm like exhausted. Yeah, I know. Mentally and physically. Yeah, one, two, three, four, five. What was that? Only six calls? Is that right? Really? Was that six? No. Felt like more. Didn't seem like – Really? Really? Okay. Well – oh. Anyway. I have a list here, too. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. There's seven calls. All right, well, so I should mention that other people did write in, and I apologize. Like Dave said, we just hit an hour and a half. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to repost those onto the subreddit, and then what we'll do is we'll have those for the next show. And if people want to post it any other time, they can obviously – they can post questions over on the subreddit. It doesn't have to be a call-in show. So you can always just ask – just write a text post or write in to feedback at theamphour.com. That always works, too. It does. Sweet. What else is going on with you, man? I feel like I'm talking to you, but I'm not talking to you, you know? No, exactly. No. It's weird, isn't it? It's a little weird. Yeah. Because usually we just yap on for an hour ourselves, but haven't been able to. Yeah, and you got those scopes that we mentioned. They just turned up like two seconds before the show started. Yep. Nice. Did you figure out what you're doing for that? I'll give them away on the forum. Okay. That's what I expected. No, everything else is just too hard. Yep. Nice and simple. And even that's too hard. Like, I wanted to limit it to Australia only. Oh, so you have to ship. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So there's, you know, guaranteed no hassles in shipping, which is actually quite a valid thing to do because Keysight are not allowing Australians to enter their contest next month. Yeah, sure. So, you know, but I thought, no, it's a bit unfair. What you should do, we don't need to drag this out more than two episodes here, but I think what you should do is a most Australian contest, right? Who can type the most Australian, strind thing that they can, right? Strind. Yeah. Speak strind. Strind. Yeah, yeah. Well, good luck with that. All right. We'll be back next week, hopefully with a guest. I am still working on scheduling, but hopefully with a guest next week. Sweet. If not, we'll answer more questions. All right. All right, man. Talk to you next week. See ya. Hello, McFly. I know. Hold on. Here we go. It takes a while to connect. Is that you? They don't answer right away, too. Oh, they're not answering. We'll do a song and dance routine. It's not always a song. Dude, don't edit anything. People don't care. Calm your tits. I'm telling ya. Tell a story, man. When I was a boy. Yeah, man. What am I supposed to do? Computer's having some issues, too. When I was a boy, we used to call people on the rotary telephone. That was the bomb. This is getting embarrassing. I've been an electronic audience for both teams. Which means on the recording feed, it'll be low. Oh, really? All right. I'm just going to turn this around. That was weird. If you're going to hear it, I'll just... I just looked at my Skype thing, right? And I thought, where's that waveform? Does Skype have a waveform? I don't know if I could call them show number three, but wasn't that actually four? Does the edit count?

Chris Gammell: I don't know. Da-da-da-da-da.

Dave Jones: All right.