#372 – Year End, 2017

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Released December 17th, 2017. Episode 372. Year End 2017.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the AEV blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics. Another year, Gonski. Oh, yeah. This is our last show with you for the year. Yeah, that's right. But I think more in line is congratulations, man. A successful Kickstarter.

Dave Jones: It is. It finished this morning. Thank you very much.

Chris Gammell: You hit all your expectations, right? I did.

Dave Jones: I didn't know what time it finished. I knew it was sometime soon, and then I woke up.

Chris Gammell: And you were busy sleeping in because you went to go see Star Wars.

Dave Jones: I went to see Star Wars last night. You got money.

Chris Gammell: You got the Star Wars thing. You got the rest of the year off. Man, you got it all going around right now. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Oh, that's it.

Chris Gammell: Oh, man. What a way to end the year. So hectic. I have got to say, though, you're shipping, what, 2,000 of these things now? It was a shitload of people.

Dave Jones: 2,300, I think. Yeah. 2,300 backers?

Chris Gammell: By March? You sure?

Dave Jones: Well, I've promised 450 in December.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I know that. But it sounded like that was kind of fixed on the supply chain side of things.

Dave Jones: Oh, well, kind of. Yeah, that's right. You said it. We can talk about all that. Yeah. And no, but that's probably going to be more of a pain in the butt than the extra 2,000 by March.

Chris Gammell: I'm so far out of the game these days that I don't even really have a feel for the capability. Again, I don't know your UEI. I don't know the test equipment maker anyways. But I think about 2,500 things. And that's a lot of sourcing. Unless some of this stuff's jelly bean parts. But Bluetooth modules and STM chips and whatever the hell else you got in there.

Dave Jones: Well, we think we may have. I think we talked about it last time. We had two component supply problems. I think one of them's fixed. Okay. So the analog devices one, I think that's fixed. But yeah, I've got to recheck all that. I've got a lot of stuff to do. I think you just jump up and bite you in the butt. No, yeah. It's always that one thing. Oh, it is. It only takes one thing. I mean, hardware doesn't work unless you have-

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's got to be perfect. 100% or nothing.

Dave Jones: Every single one of the things. Right. I think about that often. David's new product, he's got a product he's working on at the moment. He has 800 parts or something.

Chris Gammell: 800 components. Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Dave Jones: It's just nuts, right? It's just, yeah. And any one of those can be- Well, some of them, if you can't get a capacity, you can always get a different, maybe, usually, a different alternative part. But still, it only takes that one and you're screwed.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yep. Definitely. I mean, and this is like you could pre-purchase all of them, at least so you know, right? Yeah, right. So if you're planning far enough in advance, yeah, you could do that. But there's always issues there somewhere. You know, if you say that you have a four-month lead time, and I've heard recently that lead times are going up, at least on some things. Yes. I don't know why. Is it like cash flows?

Dave Jones: No idea. No idea. Yeah, they're probably tightening up the books, you know. Well, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, money has been so cheap for the past couple of years, so maybe like rolling out new fabs and getting access to credit was not a big deal. But I don't know what's going on, but I've just heard more and more people be upset about sourcing issues. And it's like, well, you know, it's still a thing.

Dave Jones: Well, it's not sourcing that I'm worried about. It's logistics. Okay. Because basically what happened is that I charged 30 bucks for shipping, Australian. Oh, okay. For overseas shipping, and that basically doesn't even cover my cost. I goofed it, basically.

Chris Gammell: Oh, what should it have done?

Dave Jones: Well, substantially more, depending on the country. Because I promised to ship DHL. I promised to ship Express, right? And I want to ship Express because then it's like it's a real courier and people get proper tracking and accountability and all that sort of stuff. DHL is one of my favorites, too. Yes, yes. So that's what I promised. I basically promised DHL Express. And I can do that. I mean, I've got a corporate DHL Express account, but it means every single one of those meters has to come here to Australia. I've got to pay all the import duty and taxes and delivery and everything else, right? And then I've got to use my... The prices are reasonable for my DHL account, but they're not quite as good as what other companies, like larger companies get. Sure.

Chris Gammell: You're no Amazon, right?

Dave Jones: No, no. That's right. Someday, Dave. Right. So, yeah, like I would love to bring them all here and ship them from here, but it turns out that's just simply not going to work.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I see. I see. So you were going to get like a big box and then you would deal with all the customs and everything, too? Like for $2,500?

Dave Jones: Well, no. I would. No. Well, what? As in coming here or going out to the various countries?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Out to various countries. So it gets imported as one bulk shipment and then you ship each... So like 20, you're going to India, you send out 20 individual packages going to different addresses in India. Is that the idea?

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. I just bulk ship and just like I normally do for my usual products, right? Oh, okay. Like my store products, right? Because I've got a system in place to do all that and it works fine. Yeah. It's just not cost effective and I don't want to have to eat the cost of my goof there.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But I still want to deliver as promised, right? Via Express Courier, right? So it's just got to find the best and quickest and easiest way to do that. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I've never done that last mile thing. You know, obviously it's many miles in your case, but it's just last mile, right? Delivery.

Dave Jones: Yes. Oh, yeah. Totally. Because too much thing... Like I use DHL e-commerce, right? That's my low cost platform. And what that is, is it basically... Yeah. It's DHL handle it and do everything else. But then once... And then they get it to the country of destination. But once it's in the country of destination, it goes to the local postage system and through the local customs and everything else. And I, you know, I'm getting a good, I don't know, two or three percent undelivered or returned.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: For customs issues or whatever, simply lost, you know. It's quite... It's very significant.

Chris Gammell: I too don't trust the USPS.

Dave Jones: And yeah, so that's why I want end-to-end courier for these things. Because they are quite expensive, right?

Dave Jones: People have paid serious... You know, like if it's, you know, just one of my cheaper multimeters, you know, occasionally I just... Okay, I actually write it off. If it's lost in the postage, write it off. But this one's substantially more expensive.

Chris Gammell: Because each lost one, you got to take a bath on. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: I've got to take a... Yeah, you've got to take a hit on that. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Makes sense.

Dave Jones: So... Okay. Yeah. And sometimes you ship twice. You know, if it goes missing, people complain. You go, oh, okay, I'll ship you another one. It goes missing again. And then you go, no. Like, and then you've lost not only two meters, right, that you've paid for, but two lots of shipping, which you've paid for.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: And then you've got to refund the person because it didn't get there.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Right? You know, it's like... So just the one customer can potentially, you can not only lose two products, but two lots of shipping.

Chris Gammell: Yikes.

Dave Jones: And have to refund. Like, that's huge. Right? That's a huge cost. And you've got to factor that into your business model.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right. Of course. That's part of your overhead, right? That's...

Dave Jones: Yeah. That's just the way it is. I mean, you know, like, it's not like you can claim it back on insurance. Good luck trying to do that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right.

Dave Jones: You know, it's not even worth it. It's not even worth, you know, 10 minutes of your time to do it. You're better off just riding off the product and walking away.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, that does sound like a hassle. I'm just surprised that that's more of a hassle than sourcing because sourcing to me always... Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: No, no, no. Sourcing is not a... And that's the manufacturer anyway. That's like... That's true. I guess you are handing that off, so... Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But no, the logistics. Right. So we're desperately now talking to logistics companies. In Korea? Europe is a special snowflake.

Chris Gammell: Oh, got it.

Dave Jones: Actually, I got some interesting data from that. I sent out a private survey. You can actually see the results. It's on the latest public update, though, but it was actually a private survey to the backers and just the EU backers, the ones in the European Union. And I asked them, look, I'm basically going to give you two options. Do you want to pay the 19% value-added tax, VAT? Do you want to be charged to that upfront? And then I can reship it within Europe with no hassles whatsoever, right? Once that's all paid for and done, you will get it with no customs paperwork, no nothing, because I'll use a European distributor and we'll pay the proper VAT and everyone's happy and it'll just, bam, work. Mm-hmm. So no hassle on customer end, but it costs them 19% VAT, right? Or do you want me to ship it direct to you from wherever, either from Australia or from China or from wherever fulfillment center we're going to use, right? And so each person gets shipped individually, imported into the country, but then you're responsible for not only potential VAT, but also all the import charges and all that. Yeah, duties and stuff like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, duty and all that sort of stuff. So I've shipped to stuff to people in Europe before and they're like, oh, I have to go down to actually, and they have to actually pay like a ransom. The VAT's like a ransom on us.

Dave Jones: Yeah, they've got to pay a ransom. Yeah. And sometimes, like I've had so many items returned, it's always the European Union. It's always. They're simply returned because the customs don't let it through and then they simply don't notify the person.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that sucks.

Dave Jones: That it's sitting there. So it's like I get an email after a month or two saying, hey, my meter didn't turn up and I check, oh, it's been sitting in customs forever. Didn't they notify you? No.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: You know, like it's just horrid. Anyway, so I offered them, you know, one of those two options and I'll most likely put that in the survey so that people can choose. And somewhat surprisingly, 88% of European backers said, I'll happily pay the VAT if it means no hassles. Yeah. Or happily pay. Like they've all resigned themselves to the fact that they have to pay their value-added tax on everything they get into that country.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's not inescapable. I was really surprised when I learned about this stuff too because I think I was talking to someone about buying components. That's like a pass-through thing, right? Because if it's going to go into a product that eventually gets charged back. It gets tricky. Yeah. Yeah. You can basically like, you don't have to pay it on the stuff because you're going to make it into another thing and then eventually it's the end product will be. So maybe these people, maybe the people that are buying these meters also will be able to write it off as like a business expense or something too, you know? I don't know how that works.

Dave Jones: Because they're a company, I've had quite a few of them say, hey, I'm a company, I know I'm VAT registered so I can claim that VAT back, you know? That's good. Yeah. And all that sort of stuff. So they're happy to pay it up front. Yeah. But I kind of feel bad that I've already charged them for the postage and now it's, sorry, you know, VAT's on top. It's like, you know, there's just no avoid in it, you know? Yeah. The more you read about it, like, you know, I knew this, but it's like, whereas before my current shopping cart system is like, I ship directly into Europe and then, right, you take your chances with the VAT. It's like you're in the customs and everything else, you know? Right. So, but, but it's much easier for me, for European customers if I bulk ship to my redistributor in Germany and then once you've got it through and it's in the European Union, then it's just local postage. It's just local. So it's like, you know, so they'll get it, no hassles whatsoever. Cool. But the government, they want their VAT, their value-added tax. Yep. Bastards. Anyway. Yeah, it's, Europe is a big can of worms. It's horrible. Cool.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah, it sucks, but.

Dave Jones: So that's what we're dealing with.

Chris Gammell: But at least you sold a bunch of meters, so that's nice. And I was. Oh, yes. I meant to say on the last time we talked, I think it was, I guess it was probably about the time between the two. It was only like a two-week campaign, right? So. Yeah, yeah, sure. I don't think we had really talked about the meter itself. It was, I mean, it's great. It's, you know, it was a good review. It was well-reviewed by you. Yeah. Got top marks. But yeah, it looks like a nice product.

Dave Jones: We're still ironing out the bugs, you know. Got it. Well, that's all right. Yep. Yeah, no, I think it's going to be good. Firmware is an endless shit show, really. Right. Yep. But like you said, I mean, you can update it, right? Yeah, yeah, you can update it. It gets more and more robust as you go along, but, you know. And yeah, but the real test comes when we actually get it in people's hands.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I was actually really surprised. One of your now test equipment brethren, Celié, just announced that too. They announced their, the Pro, the Logic Pros. They just like upped the sample rate on those things. They must have twiddled some FPGA gates. And now you just get more for less. Oh, okay. There's like, you know, that's another case of like good, a good example, right, of what could happen.

Dave Jones: Yep. Well, you want to know what's gone wrong already with this whole thing. Sure, yeah. Is that I sold 50 meters.

Chris Gammell: Uh-huh.

Dave Jones: Like I, like the manufacturer said, hey. Oh, yeah, that was the early ones, right, yeah. Yeah, we're about to send you 50 meters. Like they're almost on the truck. We'll put them on the truck tomorrow. Trust us. So I went and took people's money. I put them on my store and I went, right, I think we talked about this. Yeah, we did, yeah. The WooCommerce bug. Anyway, so I did that. And then the very next day they said, oh, no, sorry, we found an issue with the, we're going to have to do some more firmware tweaking and testing.

Chris Gammell: Oh, so even the 50 that you oversold, you're saying that, that, aha.

Dave Jones: And then they go, yep, we'll fix that problem, right, and we'll ship you the 50 and another last minute problem. So it turns out the 50 people I took people's money, the 50 meters I took people's money for is like, they're probably going to, like, they won't get it any earlier than the Kickstarter people, unfortunately.

Chris Gammell: That's the thing. I mean, this is like, I mean, this is actually what crowdfunding type stuff is meant for, right? People that are buying in no matter what, they're kind of just believing in the thing, right? Right, they're, you know, you pride yourself on delivering earlier on time or whatever, but like, at the same time, like, this is, it's better than part of the course, right? Right, right, which is six months later. Right, exactly. Or a year later. No, no, it's getting delivered, Dave, that's the.

Dave Jones: Right, it's actually getting delivered, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yep. It's just, you know, and then I've got, like, three different components essentially coming from three different companies. The meter comes from South Korea, the case comes from China, and the probes come from Taiwan. Like, and it's like, and I've got to separately ship all those, arrange shipment of all those to the.

Chris Gammell: Oh, to the fulfillment house.

Dave Jones: Three or four different fulfillment places. Like, it's just, man, it's a full-time job.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. It's just nuts. Get a job, hippie. Yeah, right. Going to movies late at night. Yep, yep.

Dave Jones: So, oh, it's hectic.

Chris Gammell: So, when's the next one coming out? Come on, what have you done for me lately?

Dave Jones: Well, the micro supply will be the next one.

Chris Gammell: Is that the 800 component thing you're mentioning?

Dave Jones: No, no, no. Oh, okay. That's David's own personal project. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Got it.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Cool.

Dave Jones: So.

Chris Gammell: Well, I was having a, it wasn't an argument. I was conversing online today with people. So, basically, I basically stated that I don't agree with what Eben Upton said. So, we've had Eben on the show before and we love him. What did he say? The Raspberry Pi Foundation. But basically, there was a thing, it was an interview with him that said, if you use Raspberry Pi to prototype only, we failed. We're production ready for commercial use. And I said that I don't really, homie, don't play that. Oh, you didn't agree with that, right? I mean, I don't disagree that it's possible. I'm just saying that I think it's generally a bad rule. And, you know.

Dave Jones: Hang on. Isn't this against their, I mean, I thought the Raspberry Pi was developed as a non-profit thing to be used for education. Have they pivoted?

Chris Gammell: That is not, no. Am I wrong? You are partially wrong. So, they have things like the SoDim module that's the compute and things like that. But that's my main point is that, like, you say, so I say Raspberry Pi and everybody has an image of a thing in their head, right? And it's usually a board with a 40-pin header on it and it costs $35 and all that other stuff. And it's like, that's great, but, like, that's not what, that's what people think about and integrating that. And it's like, well, no, no, no, you're supposed to use this other version and it's, you know, it's got all this other stuff and you can, you know, do A, B, C, D. And that's really what I was talking about is, like, I would not, I would never recommend that someone put a Raspberry Pi into a finished goods project, right? A product, rather. If they're going to make, like, a one-off and they're going to make a hundred of something, you know, maybe. But, like, if you're making a thousand of something or ten thousand of something.

Dave Jones: If you're doing volume. Yeah. If you're doing volume.

Chris Gammell: Aside from, like, aside from just the mechanical side of things. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's a little irresponsible. You know, and then, of course, people are going to come back with, well, you can always go and say, you know, anything has supply issues, right? Right. Which is true. But it's just more about how much of your destiny do you want to control? Do you want to, and also, like, do you want to, do you want to pay the piper now or do you want to pay later, right? It's like, because a lot of people do it for the GUI aspects and stuff like that. They want, they want the, you know, the community involvement. They want the UI and all that other stuff. They want the Linux capabilities. But it's like, you know, that's, that's, yes, that's nice. But it's also very risky for a final product. So.

Dave Jones: Right.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I was just looking the other day, did I, might've tweeted it that, um, I don't know. I think I got spammed or something from a Chinese supplier.

Chris Gammell: Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Anyways, what about it though?

Dave Jones: Uh, yeah. I got this like spam email from a Chinese supplier of Arduino modules. And it's like, here they are like a dollar 50.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah.

Dave Jones: For the board with the chip and everything on it and the crystal and the whole work. Like.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Holy crap.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, and, and, and that's not volume price. That's like one-off price. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yep. I mean, circuit boards are free. What the hell? I mean, headers are increasingly free. Uh, and so then there's really two components on there. Right. Uh, there's the USB to serial and there's that CH340 chip, which is the, the Chinese knockoff. And it's got like this. So I've been using that for some projects.

Dave Jones: Oh, really? So you're telling me it's not a genuine atmel.

Chris Gammell: No, no, no. Sorry. That's the USB to serial. So that would be like the, what FTDI was in the past. Right. So there's a knockoff of that called the CH340. And it's just, I mean, it's way slower. That's fine. Uh, but it's just like, it's one of those chips where they reverse engineered a protocol, not even a protocol. They just, it's just, it's just a knockoff. It's fine. But the drivers you need for it are just on shady sites. And so that's super cheap. And then I assume, I don't know if the, the atmels are knockoffs, but maybe they are, but there's so many different chips in that ecosystem these days anyways, that, that are, you know, probably vanishingly small prices. Did you see what the, the microcontroller was?

Dave Jones: Oh, it was an AT Mega 328, I think.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: So yeah. Maybe it's just like, yeah, it's just nuts. But then I checked. It's like, you can buy them on eBay for $1.85.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Delivered.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Because it's like China post and yeah. Well, I told you about that. Akiba did a talk about that. There's like some, there's some price. It's like a 72 cents or something like that, whatever. It was like six, six. Oh crap. What's the Chinese RMB? It was like six RMB, whatever the China post internal cost was. That's like the, the lowest price you'll see on eBay. So. Wow. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Don't these people eat?

Chris Gammell: I assume at a certain point they're just moving volume or something, you know, like there must be. It's just. Yeah. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Unbelievable.

Chris Gammell: I, I don't know. I've been talking with people like, so you were talking about like DHL and stuff like that too. And I've been talking to people about circuit boards. There's like, I mean, like I'm getting like 20, $30, like, you know, $20 a run, you know, 20 board runs for like $30 shipped overnight, you know? So it's like 50 bucks for like overnight boards, you know, from China. It's just like, it's like, it's so, it's so crazy. I don't know. And then like, you know, stencils are just in there and whatever. And, oh, it's just, it's, it's a crazy time we're living in Dave. It's. Yep. It's not bad. I've been saying that. So.

Dave Jones: How many times have I said it?

Chris Gammell: What?

Dave Jones: That exact thing. It's like, it's just madness.

Chris Gammell: Right. The time we're living in now. Oh yeah. It's, it's great though. I mean, and then I think, I think I mentioned to you that my workspace got a, a Neoden. Did I mention that to you?

Dave Jones: What's a Neoden?

Chris Gammell: So it's a, it's a, it's, it's like the TM245 was one of the earlier ones. There's a TM240, then TM245.

Dave Jones: Talking about a pick and place.

Chris Gammell: It's a pick and place machine. Yeah. And so the, the, not the newest one, but like the one that you're seeing, I've seen a couple of different places now. It's called a Neoden 4. Right. And it's, it's got 48 feeders on it and it's got up and down vision. It's got, it can do 0402 components. Right. You know, it's got all that stuff. And so for the first time I'm actually considering doing it. You know, like so.

Dave Jones: Oh, actually trying to learn how to.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. We've got one in my workspace and like, they're going to throw a bunch of like, uh, open part library parts on there. So, you know, they'll just have like reels of, of open part library components, which is the thing that C studio defined. Got it. It's, uh, I don't know. It's, it's interesting. I mean, like, it's just, obviously we know that the price of everything keeps dropping, but that's how this whole thing started was I was talking to some, some people, the space I work out of, and they were talking about like $10 stencils, you know, like, and then like $50 for frame stencils. It's like crazy.

Dave Jones: 50 bucks. I think you're getting ripped off these days.

Chris Gammell: I mean, not for frames. It's got like a stainless or like an aluminum frame on it. So yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a good time we're living in, man. 2018. I mean, it's a shit time we're living in, but like at least the electronics are cheap. That's what I'm trying to say. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: At least our funny novelty toys are going to be cheap and easy to produce. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yay. Yay ass. Margins aren't great though.

Chris Gammell: On what?

Dave Jones: Anything. Like people think I'm rich now because of this Kickstarter. Oh, right, right. It's like, lol.

Chris Gammell: Well, you're also not doing the manufacturing or, you know, like you, you, you are the, the name behind it for sure. And you're getting, you know, compensated for that and for the sales and the marketing stuff. But yeah, it's like the manufacturing piece. If you were doing both manufacturing and you were doing the, you know, putting money up with all the manufacturing too, you're basically paying for an end product that you were marking up, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. With your face on it. Yeah. And, well, that's it. And like, and the Kickstarter, I wanted to make it cheaper than what it normally would be. Right. You know, I wanted to throw in a free case and it's like, you know, oh yeah, I'll throw in a free case, you know? Yeah. And then I went, oh shit, that actually cost me money. Doesn't it? Right. Right. What do you know? Right. And then actually you'd be surprised how, like, cause I've got a thousand of them sitting here in my office here next to me and they cost a shitload of money to get here because they're so big, like they don't weigh much, but the volume, I got hit with the cubic volume rate of the thing. And now I've got to reship them back out. Yep. Um, you know, like one at a time. Into the distribution. Oh, you're saying all at once, right? Yeah. And so I've got to ship those like, you know, well, a good lot of them back out and it's just like, oh, I've just, you know, double paid all my fees for the first thousand.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. You know, it's like. Oh, you're saying like future stuff, you'll just have them shipped directly to the warehouse. Oh yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I'll have them shipped directly to the fulfillment centers. I'll have some shipped here cause I'll still be doing some here myself, but yeah, for other ones, especially for this Kickstarter campaign. I don't know what I'm going to do long term. Yeah. But definitely this Kickstarter campaign, when you're talking 2300, um, meters, you know, yep.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: It's a lot. So. Yep. Yeah. Me. What have I got myself in there? I'm glutton for punishment, aren't I?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of fun.

Dave Jones: Running the Kickstarter is fun, but yeah. I mean, but you're. Can we talk about the Kickstarter vultures?

Chris Gammell: Uh, sure.

Dave Jones: I'm going to do a video on this.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: But, um.

Chris Gammell: Maybe we'll be out by the time this, this. It's there. So if it is, I'll, I'll add it.

Dave Jones: No, it won't be. No, I'm just too busy. Crap at the moment. Um, and. It is. Yeah. Once you start your Kickstarter campaign and presumably if it's successful, like my one was, um, then you get bombarded. Right. With the Kickstarter vulture emails. And, uh, and, oh, by the way, I, I have a big privacy. People might think it's a small deal, but, um, I reckon, um, that Kickstarter have violated their privacy agreement.

Chris Gammell: Wow.

Dave Jones: Um, these, these, um, vultures somehow got personal details in my, from my Kickstarter account that they shouldn't be able to get.

Chris Gammell: Oh, interesting.

Dave Jones: So, yeah. Um, I'm not, I'm not happy at all with that. I want to know where the hell and how the hell they got that. Yeah. Um, so yeah, not, not impressed. I thought the, some of the information that I gave them setting up the Kickstarter account was for account verification, you know, bank account verification purposes and other things, you know, and no, um, that stuff has leaked out to some of these vultures. So I'm, I'm not, not at all happy with that. So I'm yet to get a public response from them, but yeah, not a happy camper. Anyway, what was I going to talk about before I got sidetracked on that?

Chris Gammell: Vultures.

Dave Jones: Vultures. You get inundated with emails. Now they're not necessarily scams, right? In fact, most of them are not. They're simply opportunistic companies, you know, fulfillment companies, uh, logistics companies, marketing companies, you know, Hey, for X amount of dollars, we'll market your, uh, video to, you know, um, that market, you're far and wide. Yeah. We'll get, we'll get on a thousand different blogs and, and, you know, we'll get a personal photo of your product with Donald Trump or whatever, you know, like they promise like, you know, the world. Right. Right. And of course they're, you know, mostly bullshit. They've just, you know, they'll, they'll, they'll take your money and especially for marketing, you know, most of them will just take your money and you'll get no actual result.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yep.

Dave Jones: From it most likely. Um, especially for like a niche appeal product. Um, you know, they might have more luck with, you know, mass appeal. Yeah. Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: Cause they're just going to run ads on Facebook or whatever. Right.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, anyway, yeah, you get inundated with those and it's like, wow. You know, and some of them go to actually a lot of length. They, some of them look you up on LinkedIn. They, they actually find out who you are. They go look you up on LinkedIn. And I've got quite a few LinkedIn, um, spam things going, Hey, I saw your Kickstarter. Oh yeah. And a lot of them actually, um, aren't bots. They will actually go, Hey Dave, I saw your Kickstarter. I like the multimeter and stuff. You know, um, they don't know what a multimeter is usually. Right. But at least it's one step above your usual spam, right? Your usual bot spam and stuff like that. These, these companies are just way eager to, you know, latch onto any, uh, successful crowdfunding campaign they can. Yeah. And, you know, get, get you to, you know, often it's either, uh, you pay them for these services or you'll give, or they can automatically take a percentage cut out of your Kickstarter thing. Right. Um, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll take, you know, 2% of your Kickstarter funds and we'll handle everything. We'll get it manufactured and we'll, you know, or we'll ship it or we'll do whatever. And, and a lot of cross promotion stuff. If you've ever backed a Kickstarter, have you?

Chris Gammell: Uh, yeah, of course.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Well, you might've, um, seen them actually promote another Kickstarter. They will like use their email list and you can, um, so I, I got approached many other Kickstarters saying, Hey, you want to cross promote? Look, Oh, I'll promote your product to your backers. If you promote our product to your backers, et cetera, you know, it's like, ugh, ugh. You know? Yeah. That's scam. So. Yep. Yep. Don't like it. Yeah. Oh, but no, it's not scam. It's just like, you know, it's just selling email lists and crap like that. Right. Right. So yeah. Yep. Hmm. And there's companies who will offer to sell you email lists. Actually. I posted a Twitter shot of this email. Uh, they will sell you backer lists, you know, of people and hand what projects they're backed, how many they've backed. And they'll sell you their email list as contact details. So you can email them and spam them about your latest Kickstarter. You know? Unbelievable.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. Right. That's what, that's what people love. That's what, that's what engineers are looking for. Yep. Right.

Dave Jones: Yet another farty novelty toy to spend their money. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Oh man. Anyway. Ugh.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Not impressed. Well, speaking of, speaking of things we're not impressed by, but we also, we escaped because we were lazy, uh, Patreon, uh, thank you. First off. Thank you. Oh. Of course, all of our Patreons like normal. Yes. Uh.

Dave Jones: Patrons. Patron. Patrons. Sure. Patreon is the system. Patrons are the ones who back you on Patreon.

Chris Gammell: Got it. Got it. Uh. Uh, thank you to our Patrons. Patrons? Patrons. Patrones. Patronas. Expecto Patronum. Uh. Thanks to everybody who, who helps us out with the show. Uh, but yeah, they, uh, they changed like the fee structure and there's a lot of hubbub about it, but then, and you made a video about that too. So people. I made a video. I will just link that in.

Dave Jones: They got their ass kicked.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: They got thoroughly whipped. Right.

Chris Gammell: So I will link that in to prevent us from, from blabbing about it too much.

Dave Jones: But, uh, yeah, they basically changed course after what a week or so, it was a week ago or something. Yeah. And then shit hit the fan and they, you know, um, right. You said that, that, that was a given that they would do that. I thought so. I mean, this is before the show. We'll just discuss that briefly. And, and I said, not necessarily like I thought, yeah, they're going to be massively surprised by this, you know, this backlash is going to cost them a, you know, an absolute crap ton of money.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: And, but I know that there's venture capital companies behind this and they may not give a shit and they may double down.

Chris Gammell: Maybe.

Dave Jones: So I, I didn't, you know, I, anyway, they did come out and they said, yep, sorry, we screwed up. So it was a genuine apology, but they didn't actually come clean on the real reason why they did it. They're probably still sticking to their bullshit story about helping the creators, you know. Yep. And it's like, oh, we should have listened to the creators. We should have listened to you. And it's like bullshit in your original. I'm going to call them. Right. Call them out. It's bullshit because in their original thing of why they're doing this, it's going, we consulted the creators and the creators wanted this. It's like bullshit we did. They, they may have consulted one or two, um, uh, lackeys, you know, who, who, who would toe the line for them, but it's bullshit. There's no way they consulted the general populace of their content creators.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Yep. And that's why it all blew up in their face because nobody wanted this crap. It's garbage. Yeah. And anyway, and they lost sight of the fact, right? This company has no product, right? Right. It's just, uh, supporting, supporting people that are making stuff. This company is, gets every single cent from people who donate their money, not to them, but to creators.

Chris Gammell: Sure.

Dave Jones: And it's like, they're, they're, they're just the middleman and they had the balls come out and say, Hey, we're going to charge this and this and this. It's like, no dude. And that's why it blew up in their face. Yeah. So yeah. Can't do that. Well, uh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Uh, it's back to normal. So that's nice. It's back to normal. And, uh, we, we, we're glad people stuck around. So thanks for that. Uh, crisis averted. Yeah. Yeah. We sent out a bunch of mics this year and that was, I guess maybe we should do like a state of the state of the amp hour.

Dave Jones: Is that state of the amp hour? How much money do we have in your Patreon account? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Is that the state of the amp hour?

Chris Gammell: No, I meant like we sent out like, uh, you know, probably about 20, 20 microphones this year, right? We had a bunch of guests and, uh, we'll be doing that some more. I got some more, uh, Dave will be on vacation for a while here. So I'll be sending out some more for, uh, upcoming interviews, stuff like that. Uh, we did, I actually did a, um, of what's it called? Transcription for a couple of shows ago. That was interesting. It was, you know,

Dave Jones: Was it accurate?

Chris Gammell: It was really accurate. It was good.

Dave Jones: I'm not going to sit there for an hour and.

Chris Gammell: See, that's the thing. I was reading it. It goes so much faster. If you read, I mean like, you know. Right. I listened to podcasts on 1.5 speed anyways, but like when you read it, it goes real fast. So, um, and then it's also searchable. So people like that. I'd love to hear, you know, like, so people are interested in that in the future. If they, if the specific, specifically if they saw that one, I would love to, you know, hear about that from people as well. Um, but you know, cause it's, it's, you know, that's not cheap, but then again, we're not hurting for money. So we have, we have great patrons. So patrons, uh, so yeah, maybe we'll keep doing that, you know? Cool.

Dave Jones: Um, we, we've never actually taken money out of the account. Have we?

Chris Gammell: Uh, that one actually, the, the transcription thing paid directly. So yeah. Uh, yeah. We, we, we usually donate to Wikipedia too, because, because all of our show links are pretty much Wikipedia links. Let's be honest. Right. Uh, but yeah, I would have done that anyway.

Dave Jones: So, uh, hey, we're on Spotify now.

Chris Gammell: Right. Exactly. Yes. We also, uh, expanded into Spotify. So.

Dave Jones: I'll tell you what, I've got Spotify now. It's shit.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I like it.

Dave Jones: It is shit. No, it is shit. Like you set your thing to down, like, cause we've got, and we've got like an, and just a burner phone for the kids. Right. For Huxley. Yeah. To, just to listen to music on. Right. You know, and to play his, yeah. Play his favorite Thomas, the tank engine song or whatever. And, and, and look, like you set it to download, right? You set the damn thing. Like I want to download this song so that I don't need to be connected to the freaking internet. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Which is my favorite thing about it. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And then they just vanish. And then like for the last couple of weeks, all the, all our accounts have been shut down and like, we have to re-log in and then it like, and then we lose everything.

Dave Jones: Pay your bills, man. And it crashes and it's just bullshit.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Buggy bloody heap of crap it is. I don't know how it's so popular.

Chris Gammell: I think it's fine, but I did have that problem recently. So maybe it is a, a firmware bug.

Dave Jones: Anyway. Yeah. Not happy. It's just, it's not, it's not reliable. I can't rely on the damn thing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I don't use it for podcasts. I still use a pod. What do I use? Podpress? Beyond Pod. That's it. So I still use Beyond Pod for, for listening to podcasts.

Dave Jones: And then download the MP3 and then the MP3 somewhere on your SD card in your phone. No, no, no, no.

Chris Gammell: This is just a, it's like a, it's like a listening app. So. Oh, right. Yeah. It's for listening to other people.

Dave Jones: So you stream it?

Chris Gammell: No, no. It sets it like every three, three AM every night. If there's a new feed update, it downloads it. So.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: And then it just sits on my phone until, you know, I have three, three episodes back. It deletes them. It deletes the let, the oldest one. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Got it.

Chris Gammell: Uh, yeah. And that's just a standard podcast app. So, you know, there's, there's, there's others out there and some people have asked us for other ones too. Spotify is just a new one. Uh, so we did that. And if there's, you know, we'll at least hear the requests, you know, you can post them on our, our Reddit or our, uh, our comment section. So what else did we do this year?

Dave Jones: There's always a new one popping up, isn't there?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's always a new platform.

Chris Gammell: Uh, let's see other, other things we did this year. Uh, we, we live streamed, uh, an episode. We haven't done that since.

Dave Jones: No, that guy tits up.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it wasn't bad. It was just like, there wasn't much going on with it, you know, like it's you talking heads. So, and then I think the problem, the problem with that is that, you know, if, if you and I have the ability to look at something at a shared visual thing, then we're probably going to. And, uh, that's not great. Cause that, that then counts out people doing that other stuff. Sure. Uh, what else happened in 2017? Uh, something back in April. What was it? April. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Some random Yankee dude.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. He showed up. Yeah. Right. Uh, yeah. So David, I met back in 20, there's back in April of 2017. So, uh, momentous occasion. We recorded live in the same room.

Dave Jones: Yeah, we did.

Chris Gammell: That was weird.

Dave Jones: Right where I'm sitting now. Yeah. Here in my office.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That, that's just, that's hard. That's hard. You know, you've got a really, there's a lot more effort involved in setting up an actual studio where multiple people are in the studio.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. Yep. It's just, yeah. So yeah. Uh, I guess that's, I mean, we've had some good guests this year. We're going to try and get more guests. So there's, so there's still our, um, our guest, um, suggestion sheet if you go to our website so people can do that. Um, I don't know.

Dave Jones: I really, I'm, I'm disappointed in myself.

Chris Gammell: Why is that?

Dave Jones: I didn't get around to doing the EAV Discover episodes that I wanted to.

Chris Gammell: Ah.

Dave Jones: You know, I set up that new channel.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yep.

Dave Jones: And, yep. And, uh, there's not much there. You know, I had, I, I still have these plans to do these. Um, and I thought, oh, you know, August comes and, oh yeah, I'll do it in September. September comes. I'll do it in October, you know, and then, oh, I've got to do it in December. And then December's, you know, gone skis. It's not like I can contact, cause they usually like they involve other people. Right. And places and getting access and interviewing people and stuff like that. Right. That's a full gig. That just takes. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yeah. You made a meter.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But it's also often as easy as just getting off your ass and sending an email.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I guess so. I'm sure.

Dave Jones: Often, often to get the ball rolling, you know, you just got to make the commitment to do it. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That's a hard part.

Chris Gammell: 2018. It's beckoning.

Dave Jones: There's always another year. Yeah. That's true.

Chris Gammell: It feels weird. I mean, so it's only the 13th when we're recording this, but if this will go out on what, the 17th or 18th, uh, yeah. Boy, yeah, this, this month is going by fast. So, uh, what about next year? What do you got planned? I mean, what do you have? You've got, so you got more products coming. Good.

Dave Jones: We've got another product coming that we hope, hopefully the micro supply.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Um, it's still early stages in that. We've got, um, barely got a half quarter of a prototype. Um, but, but you've seen the full, uh, render. Oh yeah. Yeah. You've seen the full, you know, so there's a lot of work on that side of the thing that's already done. All the mechanical stuff is already done and I'm going to get the custom LCD made. I've been doing a little mini series on that. Yep. So I'm going to finish that off.

Chris Gammell: Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did see that video about the, uh, the, what was it? The dual charge or the, um. Yes. Voltage doubling. Yeah. That was cool. Yes.

Dave Jones: The voltage doubling. Yeah. Some people took me to task on that.

Chris Gammell: I was very confused by it.

Dave Jones: I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have called it a voltage doubler.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: But you know, peak to peak, it's like, you know, it's all relative. Right. Well, it's not like you were making. You're basically shifting the ground. You're basically shifting the reference point, you know.

Chris Gammell: It's not like you were making a free energy machine, right? No, no.

Dave Jones: It's, it is, as far as the LCD is concerned, there's 10 volts peak to peak. Right. Yeah. You know, it's like, yeah. But I can understand why that was confusing to people. And my explanation didn't help. I remember I was, I was there at the whiteboard, you know, cause I just make this shit up as I go along. Right. So say we are. I just stand, I stand in front of the whiteboard and I swear, and I press record and I think of something to say, you know, it's like nothing's scripted. And, and I'm, and if you saw the, um, the clips, which didn't make the cutters, like I'm just going.

Chris Gammell: The in-between stuff. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So I'm just talking to myself going, this makes no sense. And this doesn't, you know, like I'm not excited. I haven't, I couldn't figure out a way to really adequately explain it, um, to people. So I don't, I suspect that video may not have helped. Oh, that's all right. Which is a bit disappointing, but anyway. Nah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Um.

Dave Jones: Tricky business.

Chris Gammell: So you're gonna make, uh, you're making that thing. Uh, I got a couple of boards coming up. I actually was, I was hunched over. I was, my, my version 1.1 was getting worked on today. I was, uh, getting that thing out. My cell, my little cell module thing for the, uh, the pocket beagle. Um, yep. And, uh, I, you know, I like this, I like this pocket beagle a lot. This new thing. Uh, I'm going to be honest. Uh, the headers are, are pissing me off to no end. Did I tell you about that? No.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So like the, the chip is, so like it's, uh, what is it? Like 0.9 inches across. So like nine, you know, 0.1 inch headers, right? So there's like, effectively you'd have 0.9 or you'd have 9.1 inch headers across. Right. But usually when you think about plugging in female headers or really just headers in general, right, you need to have the whole area clear. Well, the chip gets in the way, so you can't actually plug the header all the way flush. And it's just like.

Dave Jones: Oh, really? Uh. What, what, what, the chip is so close to the header?

Chris Gammell: It's so close, right? So there was just basically they squeezed it in. And so what happens is, um, and so I think, I think the, the, the beagle people might come back on the show. And so we'll hear about it. And I'm sure I'll tell it to them. I've, I've already told Jason. I love Jason. Don't get me wrong. Uh, I was just like, what? Oh, why? Uh, so anyways, uh, so basically, you know, you put headers on the bottom, it's not a problem, right? But, uh, but then any of the click boards it's supposed to work with don't work unless you're desodder all the headers, stuff like that. So, uh, so yeah, interesting little board, just a little, uh, you know, frustrating, I guess. Yeah. So, uh, it's, it's a crazy amount of IO pins and stuff. Actually, uh, former guest, uh, Ken Schuriff did a review of it and, uh, that's a nice little intro too. So, and if you look at his pictures, it's the, uh, hands on with the pocket beagle. That's one of the links we have on our, our, um, our subreddit here. He does, he does a good little, he does a good, uh, showing of it, but he even shows like the, some of the, like the click board, the, the UR interface board. It's just on the back half, right? So you can't, yeah. So yeah, I'll be doing more with that and, uh, you know, Linux stuff, I guess.

Dave Jones: Me, I'm just making more videos and crap. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: More videos. Yep. Yeah. Cool. Cool.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Once again, I want to, yeah, get around to doing those EV discover things. I want, I want to get out of the lab, but it's, it's easy to be lazy. Of course.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, it's so, that's why most people don't actually produce. Sure. Content and other stuff. Like it's, cause it requires, you know. You've got to get in the habit of it too, I think.

Chris Gammell: You know, like if you're, if you're in the groove, then you can do. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Hmm. Um, yeah. Where, where, where.

Dave Jones: The meetup didn't happen.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah, that's true. Hmm. Dave. David too. Yeah. I mean, he, he was supposed to take that over, right? No, no. Antisocial. No.

Dave Jones: No. Well, well, I was going to run it on a Tuesday like I did last time and Tuesdays have just been, you know, family. Family stuff. Family stuff all of December, you know, it's like there's so much stuff going on.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, what about new technologies? Are you going to tackle any new technologies next year? I guess, uh, LCD doesn't count. That's kind of old.

Dave Jones: I'm a, I'm a bit of a Luddite.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I'm excited about, so I've been talking to Akiba a little bit. New fangled stuff. About doing some, uh, radio things and I'm, I'm excited about Laura too. So obviously I work for a connectivity company and so I already do cellular stuff, but, uh, Laura is interesting. Um.

Dave Jones: What's Laura?

Chris Gammell: It's like a, it's like a wide area network with like a low power. I think it stands for low power radio. So it's like L, big L, little O, big R, little A. So, um, and that's all I really know about it. But, uh, you know, basically I like the idea of, you know, lots of sensors kind of spread out in the field. It's just that there's a lot of things like even wifi, right? Wifi doesn't go that far and it's pretty power hungry. And so if you can get these, these, you know, sensor nodes that are low power and then going back over a lower power radio to something and then that is plugged into, you know, a solar panel or something and then you can, then you can really transmit from there. That's, that's interesting to me. Um, you know, depends on what you're monitoring. So, but I think that's like the kind of stuff that, so like my goal for this year was to kind of work on things that had some impact and I'm not sure if I totally got to that point, but, um, I'm going to try for that in 2018. Uh, you know, some shifts in my life.

Dave Jones: What things haven't come to fruition this year? The chip printer. What other ones do we regularly, uh, you know?

Chris Gammell: Oh, the, the Empire Bingo. 3D.

Dave Jones: Right. Uh, but 3D printers still haven't really.

Chris Gammell: They're not, uh, in charge of manufacturing.

Dave Jones: They're not, you know, like people aren't printing their Christmas presents with 3D printers, you know, like it's not, hasn't really happened.

Chris Gammell: Um, here we go. There's a link for you.

Dave Jones: Drones are cool.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Um, robots have not taken over yet. Uh, so.

Dave Jones: Um, you know, drones are sort of like they took off, but they're sort of like dying. No. Now, right? Well, no, not, not, not, not dying. Well, the, the, the do it yourself drone thing is just gone. Right. It's all commercial now. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. It's all totally commercial now. Yeah. Yep. Um, and there's, and there's regulations in place. Like you can't fly them in certain locations. I'm okay with that too. Yep. Yeah. The, uh, you know, the Amazon delivery by drone hasn't happened.

Chris Gammell: Oh, right. Well, but also not by like, uh, like shopping cart. What was it called? Like the little, the robot that, you know, was going on the sidewalk. Right. Sidewalk drones, I suppose.

Speaker ?: Oh, right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, that was hilarious. Yeah. Did we talk about that last time where it fell over or whatever?

Chris Gammell: Oh, I don't, I don't know. I don't remember that. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, you don't remember that?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, I, I, there's this hilarious video that was going around of this, um, of this delivery robot that was trying to cross the crossing or something.

Chris Gammell: Oh, really?

Dave Jones: Yeah. And it just like, it just like tipped over. Oh. Yeah. I always feel bad for little robots to fall over, you know? Right. Yeah. Uh, oh man. No. Anyway. So yeah, that hasn't happened. Uh, electric cars still are not a thing. Yeah. I'm sorry, but they're still not. Yeah. Um, especially in this country, they're still not a thing. They're still like minuscule. They're still insignificant.

Chris Gammell: Well, they're very, very luxury for Australia. Yeah.

Dave Jones: They're very luxury. Yeah. Um, but, but Tesla, Tesla are in financial trouble. Tesla, I, I've tweeted some things recently. Yeah. Um, very, yeah. Um, there's a good chance that they may not come out of this.

Chris Gammell: Nah, they're, they're going to keep making, they're going to, they won't make money, but they'll keep getting investment, I think, you know?

Dave Jones: Right. Well, you know, the gravy train stops eventually.

Chris Gammell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: Unless you can actually, you know. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Unless you can get volume up and turn it into.

Chris Gammell: Right. Make it up in volume. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Dave Jones: Anyway, yeah. So that's, yeah, much slower as I predicted. Um, I do believe.

Chris Gammell: I guess, uh.

Dave Jones: You know, people, and the autonomous car thing is not, it's, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's moving along, but it's not in the regulatory phase at all.

Speaker ?: Yeah, no, no.

Chris Gammell: There's no, there's not enough around. Although I did see an article the other day that said that you could get picked up in Pittsburgh, Detroit. I don't remember. There was some city where you could get like a Lyft that was self-driving. I think with like a driver's seat.

Dave Jones: That's a totally autonomous car, driverless. It's a Johnny Cab, you're saying?

Chris Gammell: It's a Johnny Cab with a babysitter.

Dave Jones: With a real babysitter behind the wheel. Yeah. Yeah. See, that's bullshit. Right.

Chris Gammell: What?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's way further than we were last year. Nah.

Dave Jones: Still bullshit.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Hmm.

Chris Gammell: Man, we haven't done any like future speculation in a while, huh? I don't know.

Dave Jones: Well, I'm still calling it no chip printer for the next. No chip printer. I'm willing. I'm willing. Look.

Chris Gammell: You're going to add another 10 years, huh?

Dave Jones: No. Yeah. We did this like eight years ago, right? We started this chip printer thing and I said 20 years back then. I'm going to still say the next 20 years right now.

Chris Gammell: Oh, wow. All right. Closing the year out right.

Dave Jones: Still going to say it.

Chris Gammell: 2028? Wait, no. That'd be...

Dave Jones: Not going to happen. Not going to happen.

Chris Gammell: Wait, no. 2038 you're saying? Wow. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yep. Not going to happen.

Chris Gammell: I'll be close to retirement by then. You know, maybe that'll just be my retirement plan, Dave.

Dave Jones: Oh, dear.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yep. I guess open source software has not taken over the electronics world. Not that we thought that was going to happen, but...

Dave Jones: No. It's still... There has still been no hugely successful open source hardware company.

Chris Gammell: Oh, hardware company, right.

Dave Jones: As in I'm talking like hundreds of millions of dollars, you know, like... Yeah, right. Like huge, right?

Chris Gammell: MakerBot was still the biggest exit probably, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. And then they just went back to closed... Well, kind of closed source, you know? Yep. So, yeah. Although, wasn't there some to-do about them coming back to their open source roots or some bullshit like that? I doubt that.

Chris Gammell: I've written them off completely at this point.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, so that may not... I can't see that happening.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I can't see open... Like, as much as I love and support open source hardware, I just can't see the model for that happening.

Chris Gammell: I mean, well, there's still some good examples of open source companies, but not at scale like you're talking about, right? So, like...

Dave Jones: No. Well, yeah, right. You've got your Spark funds and your Artifridge, right? But they don't make... I... People don't take this the wrong way, right? But they don't make real products.

Chris Gammell: They make tools for people, right? I mean, that's the idea, right? Yeah.

Dave Jones: They make development boards. They make hobby boards, right? Well, they're growing. They don't make... They don't spend, like, a year and a team of five people developing a big, polished commercial product, right?

Chris Gammell: They're definitely not a consumer. That's what I mean by. I know that. Yeah. I agree with that.

Dave Jones: No, no, no, no. But even, like, a thing, like, they don't even make their own, you know, like a multimeter or something, like, you know, like a project like that.

Chris Gammell: Oh, Dave's new measure. No. Oh, well, they don't even make a multimeter. Technically, you don't even make a multimeter, David. I do? Oh, yeah? Well, yeah. Well, it's not my time. Dave on the line, just soldering. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This one with hand solder with care? Yeah. Do we even solder anymore? Solder. I solder? Yeah, okay. All right. Bloody earth. Yeah. It's my favorite programming language. That's right. I know. I know what you're getting at, though.

Dave Jones: But you know what I mean, right? There's no... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: But, yes, so I think that that probably just sets it in a different spot, but they are open source. I think that, so, Aleph Objects, who makes the Taz, Lulzbot, whatever. They're all open source. That's the one I always recommend for 3D printing these days. I mean, that's a good 3D printer. So, they're all open source.

Dave Jones: Oh, there's so many. How do you... Well...

Chris Gammell: Mark, it's flooded. Sure, but it's like, they make big, beautiful printers, and they're militant about being open source. So, if you really care about that kind of stuff, that's how you decide, I think. Yeah. But I was actually talking about open source software. I don't know if you knew that.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. No, I made the tangent, because we don't give a shit about software here on the Ampil. This is like... Come on.

Chris Gammell: I'm wearing my KiCat hat right now. Like, literally wearing my KiCat hat.

Dave Jones: Yeah. No, but... I mean, of course, software... Like, open software has been a thing for how many decades? I mean, it's not, you know...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, two and a half plus, you know.

Dave Jones: Right? You know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Easy, right? It's... No, hardware is like... Totally... Everyone knows open source software is a thing, and it works, you know. But, yeah, hardware is the more interesting beast to discuss and, you know, make predictions about...

Chris Gammell: Never stopped us before, Dave. Come on in. Right. Like... Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, if I look around my lab, thinking about, like, the stuff that's in here, what would be open versus closed? Like, even... Yeah, a lot of stuff is not open. It's okay, though. I don't know. I think you and I have softened on that over time.

Dave Jones: Well, my multimeter isn't open.

Chris Gammell: Right. Someone... I think someone did state it as being open, but it's not, right? I mean, you don't...

Dave Jones: Well, no. It's open... The application software is completely open source. Right, right, right. But the hardware is not available. Every line of it. But the hardware... Well, the schematic, you can get the schematic. But I'm not going to give you the bill of materials... And the Gerber and the... And the Gerbers and the 3D models for the case and, you know, like, the name and number of our PCB manufacturers and all that sort of stuff, right? It's like, no. Yeah. Right? It's not going to happen. I don't think it's yours to give. Well, it's... Yeah, it's basically not mine to give. Right. Yeah. True. Yeah. Hmm. Come on. Are you going to make any predictions?

Chris Gammell: Oh, predictions for 2018? Yeah. You know...

Dave Jones: Or just renew your predictions.

Chris Gammell: Well, you want me to say something about a chip printer? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that's what I want.

Dave Jones: Well, okay. Chip printer is not going to be a thing because it's a joke. Sure. The 3D printers still aren't going to become...

Chris Gammell: No, I think we knew that.

Dave Jones: You know, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think the big one is like, so people keep talking about robotics. Yeah, robotics. I... Well, and so the thing... The thing was like today, I was like, I would give anything for a robot to just, you know, like, automatically do pick and place. So, you know, like I said, I was doing pick and place, manual pick and place all day today. And it was just like, there's no risk of this going away anytime soon. Yes, there is pick and place, but it's like the cost of getting it set up. There's no like, you know, artificial intelligence that's like, oh, I'll order your parts for you. And I'll, you know, load them all in the machine and I'll make sure they're all the right way. It's like, no, there's just like so many manual steps there still.

Dave Jones: What you want is a big machine that has a big opening at one end and you just throw the reels of parts into there. Right. Feed me, Seymour. And the blank boards, right? And it's just...

Chris Gammell: And then the other side is a finished product wrapped in plastic. Fully assembled board. Oh, and programmed too. Don't forget that.

Dave Jones: No, with no bad fumes and doesn't need three phase and doesn't need a... Right. You know, shop air and, you know, all sorts of... Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's just... It's always going to be like that. I'm sorry, but yeah, pick and places will not... Personal pick and places won't be a thing.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah, and I wouldn't even be considering it if it wasn't for... The fact that I had... You've now got access to one. Well, that I have access to one, but also that like, it's not... At like the five boards level, right? This is like, I want to make 25 or 50. Yeah. Right.

Dave Jones: There's always going to be a sweet spot.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Somewhere between 10 and 1,000 is like... Right. Is still the annoying thing. And like at 1,000, there's no reason I should be making that many, right? I should send it out to someone. Yeah. And even today, I was like doing the calculation on my time. I was like, all right, so this is taking me at least eight hours to do five boards, right? And it's like, that's, you know, eight hours at what? Optimistically, 200 bucks an hour, maybe. Yeah, of course. You know, that's like 1,600 bucks. And granted, you know, like I also had put in the orders for the parts and all the other things. And like, I probably could have actually just farmed it out for that much, but I didn't. And I was in the middle of it, so whatever.

Dave Jones: And now you pay the price and you get to have a whinge about it. Right. Exactly. That's the cost.

Chris Gammell: That's the price of admission. But I just think in the future, you know, at that 25, you know, that that would take me what? Like 16, 20 hours. And like, that's really not worth it. And then it's probably worth the time to go and learn the picket place stuff. That all to say, I just want to learn it too, right? I think it's interesting, so.

Dave Jones: Oh, of course. Yeah, no, totally. I would love to have one here. We've still got that pick and place kit, which we may actually build. Yeah, that'd be cool. You know, the light placer kit. It's just that, yeah, it's going to take like a solid.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's a project. Instead of a product. It's a week.

Dave Jones: It's at least a week long project dedicated to building that, getting up and running and actually, and probably even longer than that by the time we actually, you know, develop a board. Like we need like a real test board that we can, you know, and then we need test components to test out its accuracy and, you know, repeatability and resolution and blah, blah, blah. Yep. You know, so, yep.

Chris Gammell: I think, so not necessarily a prediction, but something that I'm going to be trying for next year is just learning more Python, more programming stuff. I think that engineers, hardware engineers specifically, will get more vertically integrated. So, like being able to write, so, okay, so say you are prototyping with like a Raspberry Pi or a BeagleBone or something like that, right? Being able to write a web interface to then control a piece of hardware, like all the way down the stack, it's not fast, it's not efficient, it's not the best use of your time, but, right, you can't, so that's like when you were on the show, but Jason was on the show, Jason Huggins, you know, he was talking about that too, like being able to control hardware and then show it on a screen, like that whole, that whole step, that keeps collapsing a little bit, I think, and that's kind of interesting.

Dave Jones: Well, that was one of the discussions with John Kerry from, Kenny, from Keysight, the series of videos I did interviewing him, and one of the key things that they're focusing on in the next couple of years is, you know, better, you know, how to make it easier for schmucks like us, us hardware schmucks, to control our instruments, you know, via the network.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think that's good.

Dave Jones: Yeah, like, you know, because it's so lacking, all manufacturers, yeah, there's the LXI command set, which is kind of, sort of, you know, common across, you know, different platforms, but that's basically where it stops.

Chris Gammell: Right, right, and that's still pretty obtuse, right, of like the actual interface and stuff like that, it's not like, oh, you can just throw it into something, GUI, drag it around, whatever, so.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's not easy at all, so.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think that, so I'd mentioned that I had been learning about MQTT, and I think that's kind of exciting for next year, too. Obviously, you know, I'm doing more, I'm doing more internet-y stuff, right, of, you know. Yep, of course. Well, that's your business. Right, so packets moving from here to there, that already kind of does that, but I was talking to somebody the other day, I was like, you know, I'm still a hardware guy. I might be able to make a hardware device spit out my data, right, and send it somewhere, but I don't have any capability of charting it from there, so, like, making, like, a handheld MQTT endpoint type thing where it just, like, shows the data nicely, that's kind of cool. Like, that should exist in the world, and that would help schmucks like me and you, you know, actually make it look like a thing, right? Right, and there's always benefits to that of making someone look good in their job, right? So, all you potential product designers out there, right? I mean, even Dave's thing, right? So, Dave, your meter will make people look good because they'll be able to reprogram their DMM or, you know, measure new things or chart things or put it on a, you know, on a phone and do that kind of thing, right?

Dave Jones: Yep, that's the whole idea.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, well, it's one of the side binners. It's just a multimeter, you know.

Chris Gammell: I know, but I'm just saying that, like, that's a, that's, that's like one of those things where it makes someone look good in front of their boss, right? That's always, that's always a good product decision. If you can make someone look good in front of their boss, I think it's always a good thing to include, even if it takes a little extra money. Like, that's a kind of, that's just like my, my judgment call for if it's worth including a feature, right? And I think those kind of features that make someone look good in front of their boss, it makes that person want to buy it and, you know, fight for it, so. Sure. Because then it translates into bonuses. Hopefully. So, yes. May, may all of you get bonuses this season. I hope you're all, you know, me and Dave both appreciate that everyone listens still. For all of you still listening. We appreciate it. What else we got? Anything?

Dave Jones: Last items. Tech shop may be coming back. Meh.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. We'll see. Sorry, I can't get excited. We'll check in 2018. We'll check in 2018. Right. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That'll be short. Yeah. That's not going to. If the, if the model failed before, just having a new person buy it and, oh, I can make it work.

Chris Gammell: Let's be optimistic into 2018 here, Dave.

Dave Jones: It's like the old, you know, like the failed restaurant in the crap location. Oh, right. Right. Right. You know, it's like it lasts six months they fail and then they just keep churning through because people think they can do a better. No, it's just a shit location. That's right. Yeah. No. Right. Yep. So, yep. We've all seen those. See that too often. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. All right, man. Well, good show. Good, good year. You know, we made it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I, I haven't been doing, I didn't do many this year, did I? Don't have the same. I'm, I'm just busier these days. I seem to be anyway.

Chris Gammell: What, the Amp Hour or your show?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Amp Hour. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, you've been busy. So, you know, maybe if things shake free, you'll be on more next year.

Dave Jones: They never will.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's, it's just downhill slide for me. Surely.

Chris Gammell: But that one show that you're on next year, people are going to really like. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, first person to make a Dave robot, that'd be great. Just send me the, send me the code and I'll get it implemented.

Dave Jones: Groovy.

Chris Gammell: All right, man. Well, hey, have a, have a good holiday and we'll talk to you in the new year.

Dave Jones: New year. Thank you, everyone. Catch you next time.

Chris Gammell: See ya.

Speaker ?: Bye. Thank you.