#316 – An Interview with Robert Feranec

Robert Feranec: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Recorded September 21st, 2016. Episode 316. An interview with Robert Farahni.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog. And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics.

Robert Feranec: And I'm Robert Farahni from Fedevel. Hey, Robert, thanks for joining us. Thank you guys for inviting me and I'm really happy to talk to both of you.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Awesome, yeah.

Chris Gammell: We've been following your stuff for a long time. Yeah, we have. We've talked about you several times, I'm sure, on the show.

Robert Feranec: I noticed some of the podcasts and I listened to them. So I know you mentioned it. And I would like to say also I watch your videos, Dave, and also I listen to the podcast. Not every video, not every podcast, but I don't know what's happening.

Chris Gammell: I would say you'll lead a sad life if you watch every one of my videos.

Dave Jones: I was going to say if he's watched every one of yours and listened, he probably wouldn't be here, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's true. This is great. Tell us, Robert, what you do for those who don't know. I'm sure a lot of our audience would have come across your stuff, but tell us.

Robert Feranec: Basically, I try to explain it to people who never work in electronics. And I usually say we teach people how to design words. But because at this moment we are in the electronic world and the people who are listening, they work with electronics. I can go a little bit into details. So what I try to do or do you think – shall I explain how I started doing what I do? Do you think people could be interested?

Chris Gammell: Yes, definitely. We always want background.

Robert Feranec: I started – it was a very long time ago, like in 2000. And I got a really good offer from one company. It was a really good salary at the time. So I took the job. And the first task, what they gave me, it was like design IP telephone, which is running Linux.

Dave Jones: That's a big first task, I had to say. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: And I had no idea how to do it, actually. Because I just – I went to the job from university. Right. And it was 2000. You know, there was nothing about Linux. No, that was a big thing back then. Yeah. So I designed the board. It was running the Linux. And since then I actually was working on a lot of boards with operating systems. And then I designed some boards with x86 architecture. And this way I learned quite a lot of stuff. And I've got like – I don't want to say like bored. But I felt in the company, in the last company where I used to work daily, I felt like I'm not learning anything new. So I left the company. And I wanted to do something completely else. I actually wanted to do some software stuff. Program. Oh, no, no. Yeah, program web pages and these things.

Dave Jones: Don't worry. Everyone makes mistakes. It's okay. It's okay.

Robert Feranec: But then I started writing blog and doing the videos. And people started asking questions like, you know, how I can do this and how to do this. And you probably, Dave, you may know this. Because I guess a lot of people ask you questions.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So – From way before I was doing the blog when I had like a web page 20 – I just tweeted yesterday. Like I've been online. I've had a web page for like 20 years now. Wow. In all that time. Yeah. People, once your web page goes up, people start asking you. They find you and they start asking you questions.

Robert Feranec: Yes. That's exactly what happened to me. And – Yep. It was so many emails that I just said like, okay, people, stop asking because you are all asking same questions. And if – here is a form. And if 100 people signed up and say, I'm going to pay for a course where you explain all this stuff. So I told them, I will do the – I will do a course which will explain all your questions which you keep asking all the time. And yeah. Just sign up. Yeah. 200 people signed up. 200 people signed up. And I had to do it.

Chris Gammell: You were forced to do it. This is great.

Robert Feranec: Oh, it was actually really hard because I had to do it over weekends. And it took me like three months and it was a lot of work. Continuous seven days of work. Because during week, I had to work on my freelancing stuff. And during weekends, I was recording the courses. So it was a lot of work. But I think people, they like it. And that's what happened. Basically, it was not the easiest course. So then people started asking questions again because they needed to know the basics. So I created the basic course. And then people keep asking about layouts. So I, you know, and that's how it goes.

Chris Gammell: Right. So you just sort of stumbled across it. You, like the – almost like the community sort of like pressured you into it.

Robert Feranec: Yeah, we can say this.

Dave Jones: That's great. Well, and we should clarify here too. Because the reason we always come across your stuff too is because it's an Altium-based course as well, which is very different. We hadn't really seen that outside of like the corporate – so they have like corporate training through Altium. But you do a lot of stuff using Altium Designer, very high speed, like digital architecture type stuff, right?

Robert Feranec: Yes, that's correct. Basically, what I normally say, I do not really teach about Altium. I try to teach about hardware design. And Altium, when I left company and when I set up my own company, at that time, Altium was quite cheap. You may remember this. Oh, yes.

Chris Gammell: I remember it was $12,000 and then they dropped it by 70% slash. Yes. And it was like 3,000 or something.

Robert Feranec: Exactly, yes. When I was buying, it was like 4,000 euros or something like this. I think it's now more expensive. And in the US, it's like $10,000. I don't remember exactly.

Dave Jones: Yeah, eight or nine last time I looked, yeah.

Robert Feranec: Yep. Yeah. So it was quite cheap. And I knew Altium because I used to work back at university. I used to work in Protel. But I didn't know it's good because they improved quite a lot. And I learned some stuff in the companies where I worked. So I could use some of the features properly. And I found them very useful. And that's how I actually started creating the videos. Because I used to work in Allegro and Orkett. Right. And we had to do a lot of stuff in a really complicated way. And when I bought the Altium, I saw like, wow, they have a feature for this. So I had to share it. And yeah. So I don't really teach about Altium. Or I try to say I don't teach about Altium. Right. It's more about the hardware.

Chris Gammell: What are the generic skills required for PCB layout?

Robert Feranec: Yes. One of the courses is about the PCB layout. Yes. Right. And it's about the skills and some knowledge.

Chris Gammell: So you do more than just PCB layout. You actually do hardware circuit design as well?

Robert Feranec: At this moment, we actually have four courses. I recorded four courses. The first one which I recorded was the whole process of design. Like from creating schematic or not even creating schematic. Even starting with like organize your files. And, you know, keep a nice structure. So your colleagues and everyone can find everything. And then it goes through the schematic and the libraries. And how to check the stuff. Because this is what I found very important. And, you know, when you design boards like x86 motherboard, it's extremely difficult to debug it. Yeah. So, you know, you just connect power. And if it doesn't boot up, it's like... Yeah, where do I start?

Dave Jones: Throw it all out and start over.

Robert Feranec: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yes. So I learned some procedures or something. How to check the schematic. How to check the layout, footprints and everything. Before it goes to production. Because one, it is in production. It would cost a lot of time and a lot of money to debug the board if it doesn't work.

Chris Gammell: Definitely.

Robert Feranec: And that's what I shared on the first course. So how to check it and then how to do some basic layouts and how to generate the files. So people could watch the one course and they see all the steps through the whole project.

Chris Gammell: Now, you've got a YouTube channel, which we'll link in down below. And because it's got... You've got a weird channel name. Oh, yeah. M-A-T-A-R-O-F-E. What's that?

Robert Feranec: It's like, you know, when I set up YouTube channel, everything was taken.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Robert Feranec: And the name is my son's letters. Oh, okay. Right. And my wife's letters and my letters. Oh, right. Martin, Tanya and Robert. So that's like Mata, Rofe.

Chris Gammell: Anyway, we'll link it in down below because we can't pronounce it. So you've got a whole bunch of free content on there, yes? Is it like complete or is it just like preview stuff or what?

Robert Feranec: Usually when I create a course, I usually also ask people what they like most and what they found really useful. And then I share this on YouTube.

Chris Gammell: Excellent. So are you still actually putting new content up there?

Robert Feranec: It's difficult now. Well, I try sometimes, but maybe you notice some of the things what I put there lately. It was, for example, I think last video is about freelancing. Yes, I saw that.

Chris Gammell: I was going, we'll talk about that later.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. It's not exactly connected to hardware design.

Chris Gammell: No. Yeah, but still.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. Yep. It's now getting more difficult, you know, because once you cover a lot of stuff, it's more difficult to come up with some useful and good ideas and videos what people will find interesting.

Chris Gammell: Yep. So is this your full-time job now? Just doing the courses or do you still do freelance work?

Robert Feranec: I don't do the freelance work because it's very time demanding.

Chris Gammell: Yes, and lots of pressure. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: Depends. You need to be careful about the clients. Yep. And about the projects. So... Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, let's talk about freelancing now. I mean, we'll link in your video down below how to work as a freelancer. You go through the key topics. I haven't watched it all yet, but it looks like a good breakdown of how to become a freelance hardware. Is it just hardware design or is it just generic freelancing for anything, software or...

Robert Feranec: The video... I try to create it the way it could be useful also for people who are doing something else. But it's... You know, the examples are based on my experience. So they are based on hardware design.

Chris Gammell: Got it. Excellent. So let's talk about freelancing. Who should do it? Why? What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages?

Robert Feranec: Okay. There's lots of questions there.

Chris Gammell: So I guess if you want most info, watch the video. But let's... Hey, we've got you here. So let's talk about it.

Robert Feranec: I know exactly who should not do it. Okay. So the lazy people. Right.

Chris Gammell: Which are who? Is there a specific type of lazy person or is it... Would people know that they're lazy?

Robert Feranec: You know, you need to... You need to force yourself to work. It's... It's sometimes very difficult. But... But...

Chris Gammell: Engineers usually love having deadlines. Usually if they don't have a deadline, they're very lazy. But if they have a deadline, suddenly they're... Wham! You know? Into it. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: I know this. Everybody needs to have some deadlines. Otherwise, nothing is done. It's like how much you need two weeks more.

Dave Jones: So when did you start getting... So you said you got this job right out of university. And first off, where did you... Where was your university? In Slovakia. Slovakia. Okay. And then you got this job out of university. When did you decide to jump over to freelance? Because that's always... That was a big thing that I talked to a lot of people about. Where it's like, how do you make that decision to actually, you know, make the jump and decide if you're too lazy?

Robert Feranec: It was a couple of things together, actually. I didn't go directly... Or I went to my first job from university. But I was actually doing PhD study at that moment. I was not studying. And the company was in Slovakia. My first job was in Slovakia. And I knew I will need to improve my English. Right. So that's actually the time when I... I didn't know I'm going to freelance. But I knew I will need English.

Chris Gammell: Why is that? Because English is the de facto language in the electronics hardware? Yeah.

Robert Feranec: I think it's everywhere. Yep. You know, in Slovakia, I would not be able to do what I was doing without actually speaking English.

Chris Gammell: Because in Slovakia... So even locally in Slovakia?

Robert Feranec: Yeah. Even locally, you need English because everything is in English. All the data sheets and everything.

Chris Gammell: Data sheets and everything.

Robert Feranec: Yep. But if you would like to move to higher technology, you need to go out of Slovakia. There are not really many companies that are doing like designing motherboards or something like this. You know? Right.

Dave Jones: So more like... They were more like local companies working on regional products? Is that kind of the idea?

Robert Feranec: Yeah. Some... They did maybe some microcontrollers and this kind of stuff at that moment or at that time. Then... So because I decided to improve the English, I went to the UK. And, you know, working for one company for too long time, it's like, you know, first year is really good. You learn a lot. Yeah. Second year is like, you try to maybe make some suggestions. And then in year three, you realize nobody is really interested in your suggestions.

Dave Jones: That sounds so familiar. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: Very familiar. So year four is like, oh, what am I going to do?

Dave Jones: Looking for a new job?

Robert Feranec: Yeah. And the year five, I left.

Chris Gammell: Right. That's actually a long time. Most... I think the average is like two to three years.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I was going to say 18 months is... Yeah. It depends on the age group, I think. Yeah, it does. Yeah. Where you are in your career kind of thing. But...

Robert Feranec: Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's...

Robert Feranec: So that was the decision. Actually, I wanted to do some change because I felt like I'm not going to grow. And I felt like if I stay longer, I may become the lazy person, which is not going to, you know, learn anything new. And also the other factors were like, we, my wife, she was, we were expecting baby. So we wanted to go back to Slovakia. And also our son, he went to, or he should go to year one. Yep. In school. And again, we wanted him to go to Slovak school. So that's why we went back. And when we went back, I knew I'm not going to look for a new job. I thought I'm going to program websites.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Robert Feranec: Okay.

Dave Jones: That's where the programming came from. Because you had like a higher tech job in London, but that didn't really exist back in Slovakia yet, you're saying?

Robert Feranec: Yes. I see. And I didn't, I didn't want to find a job. We saved us some money and because we will, we moved back to Slovakia and we, I really didn't need to go immediately into work. So I won't, I told myself I'm going to have one year and explore what I could do or something like this.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That's great. Yeah. That's kind of like what you did Dave when you, I mean, after, after all team that you kind of took that time where you're like, I'm going to try it for a while and see if it works and it worked.

Robert Feranec: Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: That's a, that's a great thing.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. But you need to have some money saved. Oh yes.

Chris Gammell: No, you can't do it without money. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. That's important for the freelancing, I think.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. So back to the freelancing, lazy people should not do it. Who should do it?

Robert Feranec: There are, I think there are two kinds of people who would like freelancing. Or who would be good at it. Let's put it that way. Good at it.

Chris Gammell: Or yeah, they can make a successful business from it.

Robert Feranec: It depends in what kind of area you will be doing to freelancing and how good you are. Because if, if you are offering some services which are easily available anywhere and anyone can do it, it's going to be, I think, really tough, you know.

Chris Gammell: As in the programming side of things. I mean, if you go to freelancer.com or something, there's a million people who will bid against you, right? Exactly. For the job.

Robert Feranec: Right. Exactly. Yes. So you need something specific. Yes. So I was good in designing processor boards. So for me, it was not so difficult. And actually, I was not looking for any new jobs. Just friends who know me. Right. They just came and said like, ah, we have a client. Like, I don't want you to help them. No, no. I don't want to. I want to program websites. I don't want to do.

Dave Jones: I don't want your money. I want to do what I want to do.

Robert Feranec: And today we're like, no, no, hell. It's just, you know, just one month. It's just one month, man.

Chris Gammell: That's how it always starts. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Just one month of designing a x86 processor board. Is that right? It'll take you three months, but it's just one month.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. So definitely people who are like, maybe who are expecting to achieve something more, they need to have some inner drive to do the things. I think they could be good in freelancing. And what I mentioned, when I say like, there are two kinds of people. I think one people, one kind of people are who really love freelancing because they just don't want to have, you know, boss. So they can do whatever they want.

Dave Jones: The lifestyle freelancers.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. Yes, exactly. They like the lifestyle of the freelancing. And there are the second kind of people who use the freelancing to move then higher or not higher, but different world. Like, you know, they set up their own companies and they continue. The overachievers. Yeah, they go a little bit further. Basically, I don't know what to say, or maybe the further is not the right word for this. The reason why I moved away from the freelancing, I mentioned in the video, there are actually three reasons why I moved out. And after two years of doing freelancing, I realized three things. One is that if you don't work, you don't earn any money. It's definitely true. It seems like, yeah. But, you know, when you think about this a little bit, you find out there are actually people who don't work and still earn money. Correct. And that's what I was thinking, like, this is maybe what I would like to do, you know. So when I go, I always say, like, when you check your bank account before you go to bed, and then when you check your bank account in the morning when you wake up, you should have more money on the account. Right. That's how it should work.

Dave Jones: Right. Either interest or making money while you sleep by selling products. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: So this was the first point what I realized, like, when you don't work, if you are sick, if you go on holiday, or if it's Sunday, Saturday, you don't earn any money. And if you go to hospital, it's like, wow, you really cannot go to hospital. You cannot break your leg. Yep.

Dave Jones: Just tell that to yourself while you're riding a bicycle downhill or something, right? Yeah.

Robert Feranec: So, and the second thing what I realized is, like, when you work as a freelancer, you never work for yourself. You always build someone else's company. Mm-hmm. And, you know, you finish project, and again, you need to look for a new client, and it's really like starting again and again and again with every project. You don't have anything. You cannot really build anything on what you've done before because it all belongs to your clients.

Dave Jones: Yeah. There's no lasting value. Like, you have less risk because you're basically getting paid for your work, and they're taking the risk by paying you, but they also get the reward at the end, right?

Robert Feranec: Yes. Exactly. And the third thing what I realized was, like, you only sell your work once. Correct. Yes.

Chris Gammell: So... If you want to sell it again, you've got to go restart that work and... Yes. ...from scratch every time.

Robert Feranec: Exactly. Exactly.

Robert Feranec: Exactly. And it's all connected together, you know, because you don't have your product, you cannot sell it more times. Because you are developing for your clients, you are not developing any products for yourself, and it's all, like, loop, and it never ends. If you don't decide, like, okay, stop. I'm going to stop doing this.

Chris Gammell: Yep. So you decided, so that was a deliberate decision on your part that you wanted to... Why you got into the online course thing? That you wanted to create content, wanted to have an ongoing income without any extra work?

Robert Feranec: It may sound like any extra work. I'm pretty sure, Dave, you know how it works. It's not like...

Chris Gammell: I know how it works, but that's the idea, is that you produce these courses, and then they're there forever, and people can come along and buy them, and in theory, there is no work on your part. They just buy the course and download it.

Robert Feranec: Yes. So that's how it works in theory.

Chris Gammell: Does it work in practice?

Robert Feranec: In practice, you need to somehow get the people to buy the courses. Of course.

Chris Gammell: So how do you do that? Tell us the ways you can do that.

Robert Feranec: One of the ways is the blog and YouTube. Yep. So they know what you are doing, and they know you, so they found...

Chris Gammell: So you have to make a name for yourself.

Robert Feranec: Yes, exactly. That's correct. And the other thing what I'm trying to do, or what we are trying to do, is the open source. What? We are speaking, or we are going to speak about the open source.

Chris Gammell: Yes, we're going to get into it. We're going to have a fight with Chris. It's going to be great. Stick around.

Robert Feranec: Yes.

Chris Gammell: Basically...

Robert Feranec: Nice teaser, Dave. Nice teaser. Thank you. Basically, the thing is, you know, when I was doing the course, the first one, I realized, oops, for the next courses, I actually will need to develop something. I will need to have my own project, because otherwise you cannot really show it to people.

Chris Gammell: Correct. Yeah, you can't... People think that you can just do a demo with just a simple circuit. You know, like, no, you've got to develop real hardware to actually... Exactly. ...are by far the best examples.

Robert Feranec: Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Yep. And it costs quite a lot of money. Right. Yeah. Chris will say otherwise, because he does very basic, you know, like design from scratch, lead flasher kind of thing, which has its market. But if you want to get into more advanced stuff...

Dave Jones: Well, that's my demo circuit, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, I mean, my course is basically other stuff, but yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but you're... So you're doing a similar thing, Chris. You're designing a product in the end, aren't you?

Dave Jones: Right, yeah. It's towards a... Yeah, I think that's... I mean, this is experiential learning through designing a real thing. I think that... I think me and Robert align perfectly on that piece of it all. Yep. And yeah, that's good.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. We do have also simple stuff, but it's really good you mentioned this, how long it actually takes. Because many people, they have no clue how long development of, like, difficult boards takes. So I can now tell this secret. Surprise! Surprise! Yes.

Dave Jones: So... And so which board... So we should ask the run through... So you have a couple courses, and you have different levels of, like, involvement for each one as well. Like, so you have an x86... It's not an x86 board, is it? It's...

Robert Feranec: No, it's ARM.

Dave Jones: It's ARM. Okay, that's right. Yes. So you have an ARM board. You also have an Arduino-style board. You have a power supply...

Robert Feranec: That's correct. Yeah. There are actually... There are two ARM boards, and the power supply and the Arduino. Right.

Dave Jones: So, like, a good spread of, you know, power supply is probably the lower end, or Arduino might be the lower end, but, you know, moves it up to, like... Like, I've seen your stuff. It's very involved. It's what, like, eight, ten-layer boards, right? I mean, they're pretty crazy. Yes.

Robert Feranec: That's correct. That's... And that's what I wanted to say, that... Actually, to create the most expensive course... People, they say, is expensive. Sometimes. Some people, they don't, because they say Altium courses are expensive.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Right, right. In comparison, yeah.

Robert Feranec: But, you know, to create the advanced PCB layout course, which we have, we actually spend, like, a year developing just the board, which is used in the course. Wow. And that's what I wanted to say. So, people... Yeah, it... Sometimes I receive email, like, oh, I thought I can do it, like, during evenings and maybe for three weeks. Yeah, I can design the board like this. No, it doesn't work like that. It's like, you may need one, two months to do the schematic, because some schematics, they have a lot of pages, and you need to be pretty sure, especially if you paid from your own money, you really would like to be sure it's going to work. Right. And the layout depends how difficult, how small the board is. It can be anywhere between two to four months.

Dave Jones: Wow. That's crazy. Right, that's kind of the level that, Dave, you used to do as well, right?

Chris Gammell: Oh, I have spent six months working on a layout. Yeah. It's nice. You know, it's just a really advanced stuff, you know? Like, it's not just not necessarily the number of layers, although they tend to come along with the ride. Right, right. You know? Yeah, it's more the intricacy of the design. It's just the sheer complexity of the design that you try, especially if everything's going on one board and it's not a modular-based layout. Right.

Dave Jones: This is the IMX6 Rex. Is that right? Yes. Is that the design you're talking about? Okay. Yes. And we'll link to that. And that is... So I'm looking at the page right now. And so the module... So it's using the IMX6 processor, which is an XP processor. I think that's also the one that Bunny used on the Novena as well. I'm not completely sure, but I think it's something in the same family. It's, you know, four core kind of pretty... Maybe. I don't know.

Robert Feranec: You mean the laptop?

Dave Jones: Yeah, I thought so. I thought it had that one as the base processor, but maybe it was something else.

Robert Feranec: Yeah, but basically when I was deciding which processor we are going to use, I went to DigiKey and I had a look which one is the cheapest one. And at the next time it was IMX6, but it's not now.

Dave Jones: Right, right, right.

Chris Gammell: And even that board is not necessarily a complex board. The one you're talking about, the IMX6 board.

Robert Feranec: The module, because we have a couple of boards.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah, but I think I've seen them. I don't have them in front of me, but I've seen them before and they're not, they're, you know, complex compared to what, you know, a hobbyist would do. But in terms of industry stuff, they're still, you know, not at the level of a, you know, massive Intel motherboard or something.

Dave Jones: Oh, you're saying that they could get super, super crazy. Like if it was like a 14 FPGA board, it could get like super crazy. Yeah, yeah. I see what you're saying there. But yeah, no, it's, for my eyes, it's definitely very complicated. But yes, I mean, you can always go more complicated, right, Dave? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Definitely.

Dave Jones: To whatever effect it might be.

Robert Feranec: So I wanted to go back to the time, how much you need to spend doing the layout when we were speaking about this. And, you know, people don't realize that if you have like 50 pages of schematic and the schematic is full of components and full of pins, that when you do layout, you actually need to connect all the pins. And just connect the pins. It takes so long time and place the components and everything that it's just not possible to do it in like a couple of weeks. You really need a lot of time.

Chris Gammell: And then you get routed into a corner. No pun intended. Yes. You know, and then you might have to reshuffle the layout. And that's not necessarily easy. Even with push and shove routers and, you know, it's not necessarily, you know, all these features. Right.

Dave Jones: And you're trying to conserve space because it's a 12-layer board, which makes it way more expensive if you use more real estate. Because, yeah. Sadly, Oshpark does not have 12-layer boards as of yet.

Robert Feranec: And everybody would like to have it as small as possible because they don't want to pay for PCB. Right. Yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: What is your take on auto routers? Robert, we must ask. Are you a fan of auto routers?

Robert Feranec: And in what way?

Chris Gammell: An auto router. Do you like them? Do you use them? Or do you partially use them? What do you do?

Robert Feranec: I don't use auto routers. Yes. Good man. You get to stay on the show. You answered correctly. I did try it once a long time ago. It was called Spectra, I think, the one which I was trying. I tried also Ultium and all the other, but they are not really auto routers. No. So I tried a real proper one called Spectra. I'm not sure if they still call it the same way. I think they might, yep. And I spent like a week setting up the rules. Yeah. And I hit the button routed and it said like, it's not possible. After a week of prep work. Yeah. So, you know, I had to do it. Yeah. But, yeah, I need to be honest. Last week I went to PCBWaste exhibition and Ultium, they demonstrated this new feature. I've seen it. Which is going to be Ultium 17. Yes. And they don't want to call it the auto router. They call it. Something else. Yeah. Active router. Oh, yeah. Active router. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Active router. Active router. That's right. And they've got this. I've seen this example gif. Tell me if you've seen the same one example video where they actually drag the traces from one FPGA to another and they just drag a route for all of them and it follows the route. We'll have to link in the video.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's like following the mouse basically of like a lawn. It's like following the mouse. It does all the mass d'impede. I've seen that for, I think Mentor does that too. Yeah. I think there's a similar tool.

Chris Gammell: And I wrote on the, it was discussed on the EEV blog forum and I wrote on there that it looks impressive but it usually doesn't meet the practical reality. It's not conducive to the practical reality.

Dave Jones: Well, not to mention it probably has that week of setup time that Robert's talking about as well, right? I mean, like those rules are super crazy. Well, they are.

Chris Gammell: But I think the example they used was incredibly simplistic. So, yeah, there was nothing else in the way. There were no other components on the other side. There was, you know, they were using a bunch of layers, you know, and yeah, it works. I mean, I've worked it out here where they show, they would do this all the time. And they would, you know, the PCB guys would come and show us this new feature. Oh, look what, you know, just in their lunchtime, you know, they'll write in this cool feature just because they could. And they showed us, demoed this feature and we go, wow, that's great. But, you know, like it would never make it into the tool because it wasn't a practical thing. It wouldn't work. Because it has to work for everything and work every single time, right? Exactly. Or in the majority of cases and often it doesn't. So, yeah. Anyway, sorry.

Robert Feranec: So, I actually challenged the guy who designed the Active Router and I told him, like, I sent him a link to our open source board. Right. And I said, like, okay, everything what you are doing here, it looks nice in this demo marketing videos. Yeah. So, set it up and send it back to me and I will try it. And if I hit the button and it will route it, it's like, wow. Yep. But, yeah, I need to say, like, I like, they edit special feature. You can create some kind of, they call it pipe. And you specify how you would like the outer router or you specify the place where you would like the outer router route the tracks. So, I really like this. And I think they could, if they do some improvements, it could be useful to speed up the layout. I'm not saying it would be useful, like, full outer router. Right. For the whole board. Yep. Yeah. But you could, like, use it to help you to do some stuff automatically so you don't have to route every track. Yes. Right.

Dave Jones: You reduce clicks, it already does the matching. Yeah. Right. That makes sense.

Robert Feranec: But they still need to do some improvements in the things.

Chris Gammell: Because people don't realize, like, if you're laying out an advanced board that has a thousand pin BGA, that's a, and you're using all the pins, including ground and everything, that's a thousand traces you've got to place. That's probably a thousand vias you've got to place. And if you're doing that manually, that is, that takes a lot of time. Exactly.

Dave Jones: It's times however many rip-ups you have too, right? Of course. Yeah. Of course. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I'm not even including those. Right. That's if you have a flawless execution. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Which doesn't happen. No. So, yeah. So, those tools are vital. As designs get more complex, those tools are actually vital. It's not like they, you know, but they're not the universal panacea that everyone makes them out to be. So. Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: But I don't think there is going to be like magic button and it will round the board. No. It's not going to happen. If it's like blinky or I don't know, this kind of design. Right.

Dave Jones: On the bright side, that means that, you know, people keep buying your horse, I'm sure, because they need to figure out how to do this stuff, right? So, that's good that you're showing this stuff. How much do you have to deal with? So, like, what were most of your videos made with? I mean, does it change enough from PCB, like, from version to version that it matters? Or does that not matter?

Robert Feranec: You mean, like, update?

Dave Jones: So, you made videos maybe like a year ago. Yes. And, like, Dave's saying how there's a new version coming out. I only ask because I have to deal with this, too. Where, you know, like, there's certain workflow things where, you know, they quote unquote move the button. And it's like, do you have to remake stuff then?

Robert Feranec: What I do, as I explained, I try to teach mostly about how to do things, not how to exactly use the software. Yeah. So, in the courses, I try, or many times I do not use, like, very special, specific features. But, yes, I had to create a couple of additional videos where Altium made some changes. Like, you know, I think one of the big changes was, for example, how board outline is specified or when they added the X signals or these things. But I don't include it in the course. I just make a video. I post it on YouTube. And then I link it from the course and say, here you can see some updates with new features.

Dave Jones: Oh, that's nice. That's nice how you do that. That's smart. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Unlike yours, Chris, which Robert may not be aware of, yours are very specific, like, how to use KeyCad kind of stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that. And a lot of them are obsolete. They're just, those videos are almost worthless now, aren't they?

Dave Jones: Yeah, I started remaking a lot of videos because, like, just a lot of the UI stuff had changed.

Chris Gammell: And that's a real shine.

Dave Jones: But that's the public stuff. Like, I think the core stuff that I do is a lot closer to what Robert's talking about. Right. Yeah. What about this board? I mean, so the IMX6 Rex is the open source one you're talking about, right? But what is the ultimate, what is the use case for this board? It's like, it's a processor board, like, as, like, a plug-in? Or how do you expect people to be using it?

Robert Feranec: Well, the initial IMX6 Rex board, the one probably which you are looking at, the module and the baseboard, they were specially designed for the course, for the most advanced course. So I was not really thinking, like, selling the boards or doing some, you know, making some money from selling the boards. The one what I hope people will really like is called OpenRex. Maybe if you are on the IMX6 Rex website. Yep. And if you click on the board, you will see there the OpenRex is the first one. So this is, like, completely open source. Yeah. It's open source also for commercial project. And what we try to do on this board is, I try to combine the microcontroller and processor. So it's like Arduino and Raspberry Pi together. I have Arduino. I played with Arduino a little bit. But I think, and I love it. I really love it. It's really good to start with. But once you know it, it's like, you know, what you are going to do with it. It's not really powerful. You can play with it and do some simple projects. But that's it. And on the other side, I also have Raspberry Pi. I really didn't spend much time playing with Raspberry Pi. But I tried to do some compilation and put there some software. And it was not so easy. Yeah. I'm not sure what do you think about these two boards, if it's same or if you have same feelings. So what the idea was behind these OpenRex is have a completely open source board. Because even Raspberry Pi, it's not really open source. I think the Broadcom chip, there is some closed documentation. And there are some things that you really cannot get. So have a completely open source board with the microcontroller and with the processor. So you can do some real-time stuff with the microcontroller. And you can have nice GUI. You can run some graphic and, you know, connect it to monitor and have powerful Ethernet and all these things. So that's the idea behind the OpenRex.

Dave Jones: So does it have like its own distro Linux as well? Is that kind of the idea?

Robert Feranec: It uses standard Linux, but it has a BSP board support package for the board. So you can boot up into Linux. And you should be able to make also Android on the board. I haven't had time to do it now, but it is possible, definitely. And if someone wants, they can run the Windows Embedded or how is it? This was me this time. Okay.

Dave Jones: It's okay.

Chris Gammell: Well, you can probably run like a new Windows 10. Yeah, I think, yeah. Maybe whatever.

Robert Feranec: Maybe even Windows 10, yeah. Yeah. But I would like to have something. But do you have kids? I don't know. I've got kids. I know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I don't have kids. Dave does. You're right.

Robert Feranec: Dave, and how old are your kids? Five and one. Ah, okay. So they are quite young at this moment. But I have some. He's 12. Yep. And it's like, first thing is, it's very difficult to find a toy for him. You know, what would you buy 12 years old teenager? Video games. A smartphone? A smartphone?

Chris Gammell: They've already got everything. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: Yes. So that's one of the things what I was thinking about when we were developing this. And the second one is, he really liked programming. And if, I cannot really imagine if there are people or if there are kids who like to learn programming and their parents, they don't really understand. It must be really, really hard for them to learn it. Because maybe you remember our times. I don't know how.

Chris Gammell: I remember back then. My parents knew nothing about anything. Any sort of technology. And I didn't even know anyone who knew anything. So I was completely on my own. And there was no internet. But there was like Atari, Spectrum, or what did you know? Commodore? My first one was a Tandy 1000, which is an IBM PC clone, like an 8088 PC clone back in the day. Because we couldn't afford a computer before that. Like, we were quite poor. You know, that was like, you know, the first thing that we could actually afford. That my parents could get me. So. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. Same here. So basically, we borrowed a computer when I was young. Right. And you got this book. Yeah. And there were all the examples.

Chris Gammell: You would buy the magazines and you type in the basic examples. Exactly. And then you modify them.

Robert Feranec: Exactly. And then you run it. And it was doing what, you know, it was great. You could learn from this. Today, it's not so simple. So when, for example, I try to teach my son how to create application for smartphone, yeah, for Android. Right. So you just install the studio or what is it? And it creates like 10 files. Every file is in different programming language. And then, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's. How they are going to learn programming. It's not as simple as it was. You know, you had basic and that was, you know, that was pretty much it.

Dave Jones: Well, I think a lot of these times these days, they're kind of moving towards like Python and stuff like that. But even still, it's not at the hardware level. That's kind of real high level of like abstracted concepts and stuff like that. And that's where it makes it harder. Whereas if you can teach someone to blink an LED, you know, that's where usually that kind of locks people in like it used to do with you guys with the basic, right?

Robert Feranec: Yes. And that's what is my goal with the OpenRex. So create a hardware platform where we could, together with community, I'm starting to build community, but I have no idea how to do it. Yep. So maybe we can discuss. We can discuss this later. After the show. Yep. Yeah. And create something very simple. So for example, you plug in the board into internet, you just open browser and you can start writing code or something like this. You know, very simple. You can start very simple. And then once you feel like you are getting bored with the simple stuff, you can move to the next level. You can move to the Linux. You can try write applications running on Linux or you can write applications on Android or this stuff. And you can use same hardware all the time.

Chris Gammell: And has that been successful? Are you selling those?

Robert Feranec: Oh, we are starting. So this month, the boards are... Oh, it's new. Okay. Yeah. The board is actually... We had the board since beginning of the year. But, oh yeah, this is good story.

Chris Gammell: Are you crowdsourcing this or do you have a big enough audience to get traction on that?

Robert Feranec: I don't know yet. Right. This is one of the questions. Originally, the idea was like... I know a guy who told me initially he's going to help me with this software development and these things. But, you know, I finished or we finished the hardware and nothing was happening. So we had to do it by ourselves. And we are kind of now a little bit slow with the software. And I really don't feel like I can... I have enough resources to create the software really cool. So one of the options is do the crowdsourcing, what you mentioned. Yep. Or the other one is, I don't know, maybe find someone who really likes the project and who would like to move it ahead. Or otherwise, I just have to do it. I will keep pushing it, but it just will take ages if I do it by myself alone.

Chris Gammell: Well, I hope that works out.

Robert Feranec: Yeah, I hope so.

Chris Gammell: But in the meantime, your main business is still the courses, yeah?

Robert Feranec: Yeah, courses pay my bills.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Where does your business usually come from? Is it large companies who send their employees or is it individuals mostly?

Robert Feranec: Oh, everyone. It's everyone. Right.

Chris Gammell: It's like... But do you have a breakdown? Do you... Which is your largest?

Robert Feranec: Largest companies?

Chris Gammell: Oh, well, no. The largest segment. Is it individuals or is it companies?

Robert Feranec: I would say it's like half and half. Oh, okay. Okay. So, companies buy it because they would like to speed up the learning process of if they hire someone, for example, someone new. And they don't know how to work in Altium. Or they would like to move up from microcontrollers to processors. These... So, companies usually buy all the courses. And individuals, usually these are students at universities or people who are looking for a job.

Dave Jones: Got it. Yeah, it makes sense for students, especially if they get like a free license to Altium. Right? That makes...

Robert Feranec: That would help. I think in the US, there is no free license anymore. I'm not sure, but I have this. Really? For students even? I figured they did that still.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's not free. Well, it wouldn't be free. Maybe not free for the university, but the university... Oh, yeah. Sorry, sorry. I meant for...

Dave Jones: Yeah, included with university fees. For students.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it certainly happens here. I know students here and they get access to everything. Right. In fact, that's one of the reasons why talking to students, like, they will just, like, not want to leave uni because, like, they get access to every single package. They have to give up all their sweet license keys, you know? Like...

Robert Feranec: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I heard, like, someone sent me an email that in the US, he had to pay a hundred something dollars for a year as a student.

Chris Gammell: Oh, but that's still... That's not much, though. That's... Yeah, yeah.

Robert Feranec: Yeah, but it's not... It was not free. But from Europe, I think I got email they could get the license free. So, I'm not sure how it works. Yeah, no.

Chris Gammell: Altium do charge for a student license, but I'm talking about, like, if you're a student at a university, the university usually has a license. So... I know. Yeah, I know. So, that's a big statement. So, are you looking at other packages or are you still going to stick to Altium because your content is pretty tool generic anyway?

Robert Feranec: I'm working... At this moment, actually, I'm working on software course. Oh, yeah. Because, again, I receive... This time, it's not about the questions. It's more like it was born from frustration. Yeah, right. And it's exactly because the guy who promised me to doing the software, he didn't do it. So, I had to learn it. And I found out it's like, it's really simple if you know how to do it, but it's so difficult and time consuming if you don't know how to do it. Right. So, I'm collecting all the information of what I learned and I'm trying to create software course about this. Excellent. About how to actually port Linux and kernel on the boards.

Dave Jones: Oh, cool. That's good. Yeah. What about... I mean, so Dave was asking about Altium, but have you tried out the other versions as well? Because between like Designer and Circuit Studio and... What's the other one? Circuit Maker. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Circuit Maker and Circuit Studio. Yep.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. I will go back to Circuit Studio. But before I forget, because you asked about the different packages. I bought Orcat Professional a year ago. I have not had time to install it yet.

Chris Gammell: How much does that cost these days?

Robert Feranec: It was something very special. So, I cannot really say what the price was. Sweetheart deal. There we go. Yeah. Good for you. Good for you. Not what you know. It's who you know. Yeah. Yeah. It was the kind of deal that I had to buy it. Even I was not sure if I'm going to use it. Right.

Chris Gammell: But it was so good. It was so cheap that you had to get it. Okay. It was such a great deal. Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: But I was thinking to create courses also on some other software like Allegro. And I put, again, usually if I do something, I always put a form on my website. And I ask people if they would like to, you know. Right. And if you get enough people to sign up. And if they would pay for it. Yep. And it's not very successful. Right. But I think it can be because I'm really like Altium guy. I know as an Altium guy. So most of the people who usually go on our website, they probably use Altium.

Chris Gammell: Yes. Exactly.

Robert Feranec: And so I didn't do it. I haven't done it yet. I don't know if I will do it in future. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. About the other Altium products. I like the idea of CircuitMaker.

Chris Gammell: Which, what, the idea, the cloud idea or the fact that it's completely free?

Robert Feranec: Or both? Open source idea. There are some things. Right. Yep. What they could improve. For example, I don't like when I would like to see the schematic on the website. I have to open the software. It's like, why? Right. I just would like to see the page. Show me the.

Chris Gammell: Schematic, yes. Show me the PDF. Show me the picture.

Robert Feranec: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yes. Why I have to open the software for this? Yep. But I haven't done anything about CircuitMaker because I'm not sure what's going to happen with this. Maybe I sound a little bit negative. But I think there should be some way how this is going to survive. And I'm still not 100% sure how they are going to earn money on this project.

Chris Gammell: Same here. Yep. I can't. Yeah. I think they've gone too free. Yes. You can go so free that you go out of business. You know. And you can't make it up in volume. You know, the old joke about how do you make money from free software. Volume. You know, like, no. It's a joke. It's... Yeah. Yes. I share your concern, Robert. I don't... Yeah. I'm having a hard time seeing how it's going to be viable long term. Yes.

Robert Feranec: So that's why I never created any video about CircuitMaker.

Chris Gammell: Although I am reasonably excited about CircuitStudio, though. Yes. I'm starting to use... Yep. Yep. I think that's a nice price point.

Robert Feranec: Exactly. I agree with this. Same as you, they approached me about CircuitStudio. And initially, they didn't tell me they decreased the price. So I was like, what do you want?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's $4,000. Go away.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. I'm going to... No one is going to use it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Robert Feranec: And then they tell me, like, yeah, but we have a new price now. And I was like, oh. Yeah, sure. Right. Bill of $1,000? Yes.

Chris Gammell: Then I would buy it. Exactly. I would personally buy it. I mean, they've given me a copy, you know, disclaimer. In fact, I just got an email from them. They've given me a couple of licenses to give away on my forum. Just, I can do whatever I want. Just give them away. They're like a promo thing. So I'm going to have like a little contest on my forum to give away a couple of full licenses to CircuitStudio. So I think they're headed in the right direction with CircuitStudio. Circuit Maker, I don't know if it's got a future. But anyway, that's for the market to decide.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. Same here. They sent me some... They sent me email and they told me they can give me a few free licenses if I do some... What do they say? Yeah, right. You know, basically promote the software.

Chris Gammell: Yes, yes. A demo, yeah. Yes. A review or whatever. What do you think about the fact that it doesn't use the same file format as Altium Designer? That's just nuts.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. It was big minus when the cost or when the price was $4,000. Right. So it was like, no, I'm not... That's a showstopper. Yeah. Yeah. But now when it's like $1,000... You're willing to live with it. Exactly. Yeah. You kind of can accept this.

Chris Gammell: But you can go... Please correct me if I'm wrong. You can go from Altium Designer back into CircuitStudio, but you can't go from CircuitStudio, import CircuitStudio into Altium Designer. Is that correct? Or is it the other way around?

Robert Feranec: I don't know exactly. There are some importants. I'm pretty sure they can do it. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. They can do it.

Chris Gammell: When I was working at Altium, they said that before. You know, when I was working there, they said, oh, yeah, we can do that. And what that involves is the PCB programmer actually manually opening the file and writing the script and, you know, just doing magic, you know, penguin stuff and making it happen. You know, it's not like... It's like, oh, yeah, I can fix that for you. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And yeah, they would just do magic stuff, magic programmer stuff and make it happen, which is not a solution that, you know, scales well.

Robert Feranec: Normally, I think, yeah, for the price, I think it's still acceptable. I'm not sure exactly which direction it works. Mm-hmm. But maybe it can work both directions somehow. I don't know. I really, really don't know. Well, it does.

Chris Gammell: I think you've got to export it in pads format or something or some silly thing like that. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: Exactly. And... Yeah. But you probably lose some information and you need to do some adjustments, maybe manually and for very complex... But for the price, yeah.

Chris Gammell: But for the price, it's probably acceptable.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. But I think the main idea was like, you know, or what they don't want to do is like one company buys Altium for big stuff. Yeah. And they then buy the Circuit Studio for less money and do all the things and, you know, skip or switch between the files and the programs. They want to make it as hard as possible.

Chris Gammell: They want to make it. So it's a deliberate decision to do that. Yep.

Robert Feranec: Yep. But definitely just go back to this. If... I don't want to promote this. They don't pay... I always say Altium. I cannot take nothing from them because then I cannot stay like... Impartial. Yes. Exactly. So I don't want anything from them. But in my opinion, if you compare what is available in that price, Circuit Studio is, I think, still a really good option. Yep. Absolutely. I think they don't pay you too and you say the same thing. No, they don't pay me.

Chris Gammell: No. In fact, quite a few people there hate me. Yes. Yes.

Dave Jones: Well, Dave, I mean, that's everywhere you've worked, I'm sure.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah, it is.

Dave Jones: To date, the amp hour is the only place where you don't have an employee that hates you.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. I've got a co-host. That's not too keen sometimes.

Dave Jones: I don't hate you. Well, let's see. Well, let's get into the open source hardware discussion. Let's talk about open source hardware. Maybe that will change my tune.

Chris Gammell: We're going to gang up on you, Chris, because Robert is on my side. He's seen my recent video about...

Dave Jones: So I think that you're misinterpreting, though. I didn't say I'd be against you. I said I would be strongly apathetic about the entire thing. Okay.

Robert Feranec: We are listening.

Dave Jones: No, no, no. Please, Dave, why don't you give a synopsis of your video real quick about what... So we started talking about this, obviously, because Robert has this open source board. We've talked about open source a lot on the program.

Chris Gammell: And he's got different versions of open source. He's got fully open, partially open, et cetera.

Dave Jones: Right. I will be attending Open Hardware Summit coming up in October. And obviously, Dave just made this video kind of talking about a range of these things.

Chris Gammell: I was hoping that it would be a talking point at the Open Hardware Summit. And I'm sure there will be a lot of people who've seen the video and we will discuss it. Because quickly, briefly, brief overview, the problem is that the open source hardware logo, the gear logo, is being used by everyone, which is great, but it's being used by... But it's also the problem. It's being used by everyone, regardless of how open their product is. Now, the idea of open source hardware, if you go read the definition of it, which I have signed in the past, I'm a signatory to that, is that everything must be fully open. It's basically all or nothing to call it open source hardware and use the gear logo. And it just became so popular that everyone started using the gear logo. Oh, I have released a schematic. Therefore, I can use the logo. You know. And no, it doesn't meet the definition. And that's the problem. And the Open Source Hardware Association have pretty much essentially said, yep, we give up. We can't control this logo. Everyone's using it willy-nilly. And we're going to go do our own certified trademarked logo that, you know, we have strict control over who uses it. But that doesn't solve the problem of when you go look at a project out there, you go to a website, you know, or there's a Kickstarter and it says, this is open source hardware and it's got the gear logo. From that logo, you don't know how open they are. Do they... Is it fully open? Do they meet the definition? Or do they just release a schematic as a PDF and that's it and call it open? Do they release firmware? You just don't know. And I think that's a practical reality that will never go away. And I think we need to fix or reclaim that gear logo to accept the reality that people will only partially open hardware. And so I came up with this concept of different categories. Just like the Creative Commons license, you know, you have the Creative Commons with a commercial clause. You have it with a, you know, share-alike clause. And also you have letters after the Creative Commons license. I proposed a change to the open source hardware logo. So it had the letters telling you what parts are open. So at a glance, you can see, okay, this person has released the schematic, the PCB and the firmware, but they haven't released the CAD files and it's a non-commercial and they use a non-commercial clause. So at a glance, you can tell. And I think it solves a huge problem out there. End.

Dave Jones: Thin. And Robert, could you give us a quick overview of the stuff that you have? What is kind of the level of what you've released?

Robert Feranec: The open recs, what we were speaking about.

Dave Jones: Uh-huh.

Robert Feranec: If I do the mechanical drawings or what is it, everything is there. All the letters.

Chris Gammell: Right. So you're releasing the firmware, the mechanical CAD files, the bill of materials, the whole shebang. Yes.

Robert Feranec: Yes, everything. Basically, people can take the project. They can do whatever they want. They can take the Gerber files, bombs. They can manufacture it if they want. Mm-hmm. But exactly as you, Dave, said, it's like it's same logo on our board as on some other board, which opens the schematic. Yeah. And now how people are going to recognize that our board is much more open than the other one with the same logo.

Chris Gammell: And this is what, and I think this is the fundamental huge problem, which Chris says, oh, I'm apathetic. I don't really care. But that's, which is fine. It's a fine position to take. But even the Open Source Hardware Association have agreed that it is a huge deal. And they gave up. They just essentially said, we give up. The only way we can fix this is to go with a trademarked certified logo. And I'm going, no, hey, I think we can fix this with just making it more Creative Commons-like and adding some, you know, being a bit more liberal and practical with the definition of the logo. So.

Dave Jones: Right. So, Robert, I think you and I are actually on the same page on basically give everything away because the only thing we're really selling is the showing how it's done, right?

Robert Feranec: Yes. That's why we, you know, part of the things why we are sharing what we are doing is not only because I needed to create the courses, it's also because we can show how the results looks. When people learn through our courses, this is how your work will look. And also we use it, you know, for promotion. That's the way how we get the people to find out about us and about the project. And that's when it starts difficult because if a big company starts using the same logo and they confuse them people because people think, okay, this board is going to have maybe schematic in PDF. It's not going to be different from all the other big company boards. It's, you know, we could have maybe more people visiting our website or, and also big difference is, this is like community open source project. So we don't really have money to make other kinds of promotion. So the logo would be really good.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So you've, you've got the tiny Rex module, which is not fully open, right?

Robert Feranec: It's fully open, but for non-commercial use.

Chris Gammell: Non-commercial use, which therefore by definition, by the community definition, you cannot use that open source, call it open source hardware or use the gear logo. Supposedly, in theory, based on that. Yes. On the other one. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: On the model, we don't use the gear logo. We only use the gear logo on the fully open board.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. That has the non, that has the commercial license and everything else. And yeah. Yeah. And that's the big thing. The, the open source hardware definition has never taken into account the practical reality of the open, of the hardware business that we're in. Like it or not, companies have to make a living, right? Right. I've, I'm holding in my hand right in front of me right now is my custom design multimeter, right? Which has been designed by a large multimeter manufacturer, right? And we've been working on this a long time and I'm trying to convince them to release this open source. And they're really scared about this. You know, they're a big manufacturer. They're really scared. They've never, never, didn't even know what open source was. Open source hardware was. And I'm trying to convince them, this is a really good thing. You know, it'll, you know, it'll be good. Open the product. And they're going, oh, we don't know. But you know, if anything, I can convince them to open the schematic. I can convince them to open the firmware or partially open the firmware, things like that. But I don't think I'm ever going to be able to convince them to open all the mechanical CAD files, you know, to give away the AutoCAD file or whatever it is so that another competitor can come along and just make this multimeter. You know, like have the bill of materials, the mechanical CAD file, everything else. That is not something that, you know, a practical big manufacturer is going to give away. And nor should they. I think they should have the right to do that. But they should be encouraged at the same time to try and open their product as much as they feel comfortable with. And I think we need to encourage that and have a mechanism in place that allows them to do that. Hence, my logo idea with the different letters that tell you what part of it's open. And this is a problem that will never go away. It's there. It's a practical reality of the hardware business that we're in. So, Chris, if you're saying you're apathetic, you don't care.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. I don't know if you're waiting for me to jump in and be like, no. But what I really would jump in, it would be like, yeah, I don't give a crap. I mean, like, honestly, I'm so past this of like posturing and all this other, like, I don't know. When it comes down to it, like at the end of the day, if someone puts a logo on and they're not compliant, actually open, what is, I don't get it.

Chris Gammell: It's confusion. You can't tell. No. Like what Robert said.

Dave Jones: But what is, take it a step further. What is the practical output of that? But so you bought a board because of that? We've talked about this before. I know we have. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And it frustrates people. People will back, people might back a Kickstarter campaign because they've plastered the name Open Hardware all over and you plastered the logo.

Dave Jones: We all buy stuff on Amazon or eBay or anywhere else that has a CE logo that isn't actually CE certified. And that's much more drastic. And that's literally illegal.

Chris Gammell: That's not apples and oranges. That's, I mean, that's apples and oranges. But I know what I'm saying.

Dave Jones: Like it's marked, but it's not, it's not legit. And yet that actually has some safety implications. And like, and yet, I don't know, whatever.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. But, but you're expecting something in like, you're expecting this to be open to, if you see that logo, if you're, if you, if you know that that logo means everything should be open. It's all at the moment, the logo is all or nothing. You have to give everything away or nothing.

Dave Jones: I get that. But the apathy comes in in that I don't think anyone actually does anything with it. At the end of the day, no one actually goes into like, oh, I just don't, I don't think, I mean, I know this is me sounding, I sound super cynical right now.

Chris Gammell: Which is why I'm saying if, if you don't care, that's fine. Right. But there are others who do care. Sure. Okay. And you shouldn't just dismiss the idea because you personally don't care.

Dave Jones: No, well, no, that's my right to dismiss it at least.

Chris Gammell: Or it doesn't, it doesn't impact you.

Dave Jones: I mean, I, you know, when I, when I, if I step back and say, if I did care about it, yeah, I mean, your idea is not bad. I mean, I will agree to that. Sure. But I just don't think, I think it's just a lot of, it's a lot of hand wringing and posturing for.

Chris Gammell: Well, so why shouldn't we? But it could, it's not just that. It allows companies to encourage them to start opening things. Right. At least partially. If they can go, oh, we can use that logo if we release a schematic. Can we? That's great. We can just put open source hardware dash S, right. That we're, that, that we're releasing the schematic and it, anything like it leads, it leads into things and helps build a more open hardware society. I think it encourages it from that aspect alone. I think it should be adopted.

Dave Jones: Sure. That's a, that, that is a positive. Because it's, because it's all nothing approach. Yeah. Sure.

Chris Gammell: And I think it will. And I think it's a zero risk solution to actually try it.

Dave Jones: I don't think it will, but I think that you're right. It's a zero risk solution.

Chris Gammell: Okay. So he supports it. There you go. Yes. We're convinced.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I probably won't be standing up for the idea at the open hardware summit. I'm just, I'm just saying, I'm not going to be like, I'm here to fight for Dave. Dave, who made a video and wants people to talk about him, even though he won't fly here.

Chris Gammell: If I was there, yes, I would be giving a talk. Okay. If it was more accessible to me. Yes. I would have put together a pitch and I would be speaking at the open hardware summit about this. Yes.

Robert Feranec: You know, for me, basically, it's like, I really feel like disappointed. It's like, it's like not fair when we, we provide everything to the people and other big company, he put their same logo or they put their same logo and they provide the PDF schematic. Yeah. Right. And one of the things that's actually the way how, because we don't have money for big promotion. We are not big companies, open source. So one of the ways how we can differentiate from these other boards, which are available, hundreds of boards, is we put this logo there. Yeah. That's how people can say, okay, let's have a look on this board because it's fully open source. And now what's happening, 90% boards, they have the logo. So how they are going to find your board. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Now I'm going to play devil's advocate here and ask you, Robert, what do you think about the certified logo idea? Like the, you know, the trademarked logo and you've got to sign up and you get penalized if you don't.

Robert Feranec: It's open source. How they are going to ask money from open source projects.

Chris Gammell: No, no, they would. Oh, well, yes, exactly. It's, so it's, yeah, they can't enforce the fines. Well, no, no, technically they can because it's, the logo is trademarked. So if you use the logo, but then you've got to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending a trademark dispute, you know. And then.

Robert Feranec: What I, what I mean is like, they are doing it for open source project and open source project. They don't, I don't think most of them, they don't have money to pay for additional something to get a stamp or a logo to use on their boards.

Chris Gammell: Well, no, but they don't, I think it's free. You don't have to pay. Ah, okay.

Robert Feranec: It would be free. The logo would be free.

Chris Gammell: The logo would be free. But if you misuse it, they will sue your ass out of existence. Ah, okay. That's the, you know, that's basically what they're saying. I'm not sure.

Robert Feranec: And especially, I think you explained in the video, everybody knows the blue gear. Yep. And the new logo, it would take, I think, a lot of time and no one is really sure if people are going to recognize the new logo. Everybody knows the green one. Exactly.

Chris Gammell: So that's why I'm saying modify it and take into account the practical reality we live in. And everyone seems to agree. I've had very few people say, no, this is a shit idea. Whether or not they're just not speaking up, I don't know. But, yeah, I've had awesome feedback from it.

Robert Feranec: It's a good idea. Very encouraging. It's still, people still can use the old logo. And with this new idea, you can very easily. Exactly. Differentiate from these people. You can differentiate.

Chris Gammell: That's the good thing about it. People can just, there doesn't need to be an agreement. People can just start using my idea and it doesn't really impact anyone. I'm going to use it.

Robert Feranec: Okay.

Chris Gammell: Awesome. Score. Winner. Yes. Thank you very much. But you have to pay Dave a fee. You didn't. Right. Yeah. Trademarked.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Trademarked.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I will put these out. Extra letters. Fantastic.

Dave Jones: No, actually, I think that is, I mean, like, yeah, if nothing else, like, whatever. Yeah. But at the end of the day, it's all splintering anyways. And, well, we'll see what happens.

Chris Gammell: So, cynical Chris.

Dave Jones: Cynical Chris today.

Chris Gammell: I like to think it's more unifying than, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But I think you like to think that because it's your idea as well. Maybe. I've known Dave for a little while. Dave likes people to like his ideas.

Robert Feranec: Dave likes Dave's ideas. You know, someone has to come with the idea and it has to be someone who can influence a lot of people. Sure. Sure. So, I think Dave is the right person to do it.

Chris Gammell: Well, I gave it a start. It's up to others to take it on. Oh, it's up to others. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Discuss it at the open hour. It's not me. It's the people. It's the community.

Dave Jones: Yes. Oh, yes. It's true. I'd like to thank the academy. I'd like to thank my fans.

Chris Gammell: You can send my award to it. Yeah. Right. Right.

Dave Jones: Enough about Dave. Back to you, Robert. So, you moved to the States recently. What prompted that?

Robert Feranec: There was opportunity to move here, so I use it. That's great.

Dave Jones: That's great. And so, we're actually not that far away right now. So, I'm up in San Francisco. You're down in like South Bay area, right?

Robert Feranec: Yeah. It's the small town. It's called Visalia. It's somewhere approximately in the middle between San Jose or San Francisco and Los Angeles. A little bit closer to Los Angeles. That's why I asked you about the Hack Day super conference because maybe, who knows, I could have a look.

Chris Gammell: Can I ask you one last thing, Robert? Yes. With your online courses, it looks like you've got them on your website for download. Is there some back-end engine that you're using to other streamed videos or do people download them as MPEG-4s or whatever? Because as someone who wants to get into, well, who's always been thinking about getting into this sort of paid content course kind of thing, what back-end are you using to serve up the videos and collect the money and all that sort of stuff?

Robert Feranec: I built it on WordPress. I found some plugins. Right. And we've done quite a lot of programming stuff. Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: I program a lot of things. So it's a semi-custom solution. Okay.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. Because you need to somehow, you know, when people log in, they need to have some capabilities. They call it capabilities, which they get when they pay for the course. Right. Yep. And based on the capabilities, they see the content. Got it.

Chris Gammell: So, right. Okay. So that's all based on a WordPress plugin. And I think you do something similar, don't you, Chris? You've got some WordPress plugin.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Everything except the custom coding part, yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So you just bought an off-the-shelf WordPress plugin and did it that way. Yeah.

Dave Jones: If anyone's ever interested, I'm sure Robert will also talk to them about it. It's just pretty boring from a…

Chris Gammell: How is your content hosted, Robert? Is it on YouTube? It's on Amazon servers. Oh, Amazon servers. Okay. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: So it's streamed.

Chris Gammell: Oh, it's streamed. Okay. So they can't download the MP4?

Robert Feranec: They can. Depends what package they buy. Okay. Right. They can download it. But we try to… We… You know, this was really like very tricky. Mm-hmm. You never know who is going to copy and share the things.

Speaker ?: Yeah, and share it.

Robert Feranec: Yep.

Chris Gammell: On torrents or whatever. Yep.

Robert Feranec: So I was not sure exactly how to do it. Mm-hmm. We do it the way that if someone buys the download, we always individually encode the videos for the particular customer or client or student or how to… Depends who is ordering. Mm-hmm. So the videos are always like Mark with some watermark or something. Oh, watermark. Right. Yeah. Based on who buys it. But, you know, I always say like people who would like to… People who don't have money, they will always copy the software. Right. They will always copy the content. Yeah. People who have the money, many of them, they pay it. Yep. Because… Of course. A lot of clever people, they know it's a lot of work. And for some people, it's just easier. They're just paid and they don't have to do any hustle or anything. So I just stopped thinking about this. Got it.

Chris Gammell: Did you consider any one of those like online places that do this, like Udemy or something like that?

Robert Feranec: I was thinking about these, but I think they take like a lot of money.

Chris Gammell: There's a big… Yeah. I think there's a percentage there.

Robert Feranec: Yep.

Chris Gammell: And your content is not general public stuff either, is it? So there's no advantage to…

Robert Feranec: No. And the thing is, it's again about… It's like with the freelancing. When I was thinking about this, I actually thought it's much better to create a platform where all the people will know this is where I can find everything about electronics. So basically building my own audience. If you build it for Udemy, I'm not sure. Do you have access to the audience?

Dave Jones: Oh, like emails and stuff like that? No, I don't believe so.

Robert Feranec: Yeah, I'm not sure. So you are, you know, zero. Right. You have no audience. You have no really friends, emails, people. Yeah. It's…

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's like what you're talking about with freelancing, right? It's like you don't… You don't have… You're always working for someone else at that point, right?

Robert Feranec: Yes. Exactly. You create the content for someone else.

Dave Jones: Well, that's good. I think it's great that you're making these things. I mean, it's… Obviously, I'm in a similar field. I think that there's a ton of need for this stuff outside of even what you and I have done. You know, like it's just that there's so many different projects and like different things that people can learn from each one. I remember being very afraid that, you know, other people would create projects. And I'm like, you know, if it's project-based, there's always something you can learn from. Like you do high-speed stuff and I'd never do any of that stuff. And so I always… Whenever someone asks me about high-speed, I'm like, no, you should go take Robert's course because… Thank you. I couldn't tell you how to do that if I tried. You know, I've just never done it myself. So I think that that's really useful. And I think that there's a lot of other courses that could be made about, you know, a range of different design topics that I'm sure we'll see over the coming years.

Robert Feranec: And always when someone asks about KeyCut, I always send them to you. Awesome.

Dave Jones: Awesome. Excellent.

Chris Gammell: There you go. Oh, it's a big love in…

Dave Jones: That's right.

Robert Feranec: No, it's true. It's, you know, what can I tell the people? I think the courses where they can find the KeyCut courses is just Chris. So go and ask him.

Dave Jones: Thanks. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: You've cornered the market, dude.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Me and the rest of YouTube. Right. Well, Robert, I'm really glad you got to be on the show. And I'm glad. Hopefully, we'll get to see each other soon. You know, where can people find your work online and find you around the web?

Robert Feranec: They can just go on Fedevel Academy. They can just Google for Fedevel Academy or they can just Google for my name, I guess. Okay.

Chris Gammell: And Fedevel is… Are you on Twitter?

Dave Jones: Oh.

Robert Feranec: Yes. I'm on Twitter, YouTube. I don't use Twitter a lot. Right. I think… I mostly use YouTube for most of the things or I also use Facebook to share a lot of things. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I like your YouTube or your Facebook channel, rather. It's good to follow.

Robert Feranec: Yeah. Yeah. The best way to contact me is just send email, robert.feranek at fedevel.com.

Dave Jones: And how do you spell Fedevel? Just so people know.

Robert Feranec: F-E-D-E-V-E-L. And a lot of people make mistakes and they don't understand what is the name about. So it's like Feranek development.

Dave Jones: Oh, nice. Yeah.

Robert Feranec: It was free. You know, the domain was free. Yeah. That's how it goes. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. We're used to that. Well, thank you very much, Robert. It's been awesome.

Robert Feranec: Thank you very much for inviting me. And yeah, I really hope I can meet you in person, both of you, Dave and Chris.

Chris Gammell: With me, it's a bit harder.

Robert Feranec: Yep. So you never know. You may go to California or I may go to Australia. There you go. Who knows?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Robert Feranec: And yeah, I hope maybe with Chris we can meet soon.

Dave Jones: I'm sure we will. Yeah. Okay. Great. Well, thanks again for being on. We appreciate it.

Robert Feranec: Thank you very much. Catch you next time.

Speaker ?: Bye. administered administered administered administered