#404 – Proof Of Blink

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast. Released August 26th, 2018. Episode 404. Proof of Blink.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the AEV blog. And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics. Guess who's back?

Chris Gammell: You. You're back.

Dave Jones: Back again. Welcome back. Sorry, I won't sing it. Yeah, no singing. No singing from Dave. Sorry. Yep. Hey, buddy. Hey. How you doing?

Chris Gammell: I'm okay.

Dave Jones: If I sound crap today, it's because I sound crap today.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Yeah. You got the usual kiddo sickness. Yep. But I'm sure we'll.

Dave Jones: And I have changed mics. So, yeah. That's another thing.

Speaker ?: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: So, that adds up. Yes. Yeah, you'll sound different if nothing else.

Dave Jones: I sound different. I'm using the mic I use for recording my videos instead of my studio mic. So, suck it up.

Chris Gammell: It's a brand new day for Dave. Yep. Brand new day. It is.

Dave Jones: You've got some big news. Speaking of brand new days, you've got some big news.

Chris Gammell: I do. I do. Tell us. I am once again a independent consultant.

Dave Jones: AKA unemployed bum. Hey. That's. I resemble that. That's a bit like that. Yes. You've. You no longer work at. What's the name? What was that company? Yep. Polygram. That's the one. Yeah. One of those startup-y things.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. So, the story there was. Let's see. Basically, I had said I was going to join that company to work on hardware and meet software people. And a couple. It wasn't huge news. But a couple weeks ago, well, I guess back in May, they had announced that they were going to stop doing some of the hardware development. And so, some of the things changed. And honestly, overall, all the decisions they were making at the management level, I kind of agreed with. So, it made sense for the business. But didn't really make sense for me. And still friends over there with a lot of the people. But I wanted to do more design stuff. And that was not needed. So, I decided to step away. And still might do some content stuff. But yeah. I'm.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. So, you might do some consulting. Yeah. You know. Like some articles.

Chris Gammell: The usual. Usual song and dance type stuff.

Dave Jones: This sounds precisely like Altium. It's like I was in the hardware group. And it's like. Even though I'm in the hardware group. This is my job. I'm going. This hardware group really shouldn't exist. This company should focus on software. It's like. You know. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah. I mean. Like I said. Still friends with everybody over there. And I think they're doing good stuff. It's just. Decided to move on. So. Now I am on my own. And so I've been. You know. Picking up a couple contracts here and there. Analog Life LLC is my jam. If people may remember my. My thing. And. You know. Doing some design stuff. Doing some design reviews. And. Back into the consultant life. Style. And. It's. It's weird man.

Speaker ?: But not.

Dave Jones: But not analog stuff. Right. Because you've been doing lead lighting stuff.

Speaker ?: I mean.

Dave Jones: I mean. You're. You're. Trying to muscle in on Mike's action.

Chris Gammell: Oh. I did. Yeah. That's true. I did a. An installation. That's. That's actually an interesting. Yeah. It's an interesting.

Dave Jones: Light installation. This is. Yeah.

Speaker ?: This is.

Dave Jones: You're. You're totally muscling in on our former guest.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I don't think so. I don't think I'm a threat to Mike Harrison or anyone in that industry. But. Right. Yeah. So. I did an installation. And. I actually didn't mean to bring that up when it was going on. Because. You know. The hard thing about that is not the electronics. No. I didn't. You say it like. Like. This is the. I didn't know. Like. I thought it was going to be like. Oh. Well. You know. You have to. You know. Make sure your design is rugged.

Chris Gammell: You know. Write the. Write the firmware. And get all the stuff out.

Speaker ?: And.

Chris Gammell: You know. You're such a noob. Such a noob. So. I mean. You know what I was going to say about it though. Like. You didn't give me this advice when we talked about it offline the first time. So I'm just saying. Didn't I? Really? I don't think so.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But you didn't tell me what it was.

Chris Gammell: Maybe.

Dave Jones: I don't think you told me what it was. You just sent me the photos. Hey. Look. Look at this nifty light installation I did. And I went. And then. You went. It was.

Dave Jones: It was. Guess what all the problems were. And I went. It was nothing to do with the electronics. It was the installation. Right. And the mechanicals. Right. Yeah. And. Maybe.

Chris Gammell: So maybe I didn't give enough of the background. Yeah. But it was. Holy moly. Yeah. The. Like. I mean. So this is like a big physical thing. And so. I was like. Up on a ladder. Soldering things. With my. With my wired soldering iron. And it's. You know. And it was a lot of blinky. Like LED strip type stuff. So that stuff's all. Pretty easy. You know. The. The WS2012. Type of LEDs. So it was more about. You know. Having enough wiring. Having enough copper in line. You know. Check out the voltage drops. Yeah. Power.

Dave Jones: It's just. Yeah. It's power distribution. And physical build. Yeah. That's. You know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. It's. And you know. So. And the reason I know. I didn't muscle in on Mike. Is I called Mike up. Before I even took on the job. Ah. And I was like. I wasn't asking for permission. But I was asking for advice. You know. And he gave really good advice. He was. You know. He said. You know. Things that he said on the show here before. But it was basically. You know. Make sure you plan for everything. You know. This. And that's good consulting advice. In general. But. I think that. You know. We've heard him talk about his install. In the. The Heathrow airport thing. You know. He just had. Backup plans. On backup plans. On backup plans. And that was at the design level. Versus. Just the day of installation. And.

Dave Jones: Yeah. At. At the design level. That could be something like. Oh. At least I can get half the leads working. You know. Even if like. The other half don't. Because of whatever happens. You know. At least. Kind of does something. Right. You know.

Chris Gammell: Rather than nothing. Right. And things like having tests built in. Right. And you talk. You've talked about this a lot. In your PCB videos. Yeah. Building test systems.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: Just. Built in test systems is super critical. Because. How do you know. It is that segment of the design. Right. It's like. Well. If you have a test button. Or a test plug in. Or a test whatever. Then you can easily diagnose it. And then you say. Oh. It's definitely this. Instead of. You know. Getting out the DMM. Which I. Of course. Was doing. Getting out the DMM. And trying to like. Shove it behind. Those different. You know. Physical obstructions. That are in the way. And trying to figure out. Like. Oh. Well. Voltage looks good. Now. Let's check out the signal. And blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. So. Yep. And I'm sure I'll make these mistakes again. You know. I thought about the. Burning Man's coming up. I was thinking about the Burning Man people. And the. You know. Like all of their crazy projects out in the desert. That's adding other. Other. Implications. So.

Dave Jones: Let me guess. He's quit his job. And he's going to hang out at Burning Man.

Chris Gammell: Who me?

Dave Jones: Living the. Living the dream. Yep. Come on.

Chris Gammell: No. Living the dream. I am not an outdoors kid. No. Definitely not a desert kid. I actually did spend time in the desert. In the past couple weeks. And. No. That's not for me. More of a. More of an air conditioned kid. You know. Like. Right. So. So yeah. That was. That was. I mean. It was a good learning experience. That's really what I wanted to do with that one. Definitely. You know. And then it just ran right into the consulting concerns. Of like. Well. I quoted. X number of hours. And it was 2.5 X those number of hours. And it was a fixed bid. And it's like. Oh. Okay. Well. I'm getting my feet under myself. While I try and figure out quoting. And figure out. You know. Client management. What you bill for. What you don't bill for. Actually accounting and billing. And all that other crap too. And it's just. Yeah. So.

Dave Jones: How did it. Actually come out in the wash. Did you end up. You know. If you put in like 2.5 times. Estimated hours. Did you end up. On time. Or did you end up. Just earning your hourly rate. Because it took 2.5 times longer.

Chris Gammell: I. Made way less than I thought I would. You're right. Okay. My hourly rate was. So you spent more. So you spent more.

Speaker ?: So you spent more.

Chris Gammell: 5x. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh. Your hourly rate was reduced by 2.5.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh. Wow. Okay.

Chris Gammell: I didn't pad the job enough. You know. Like just the usual. Right. Beginner mistake type things.

Dave Jones: But you did pad the job by some amount. Say two times.

Dave Jones: And you were still 2.5 times under.

Chris Gammell: I. I probably. I padded it. Yeah. I padded it a little bit. But like the thing was. The thing that I didn't understand. Was the install day. Right. Like that was. So like that's something I've never done before. It was like the. Yep. You know. I've been used to like handing over design. But there's never been a design where it's like. Oh. And by the way. You have to come in like. Hang it on a wall. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like that's a big. That's a big difference. And that's where a lot of the. The actual. Hands on. Like. Right. Think on your feet. Have a lot of. And honestly. This is what Mike told me about too. It was just like. When you. When you hit the real world. And you have the job site. And you have to actually install things. A lot of things can go wrong. And so that's really where you want to. Do that. So if I. Oh actually I have. Oh I have notes.

Dave Jones: Well if you've. You know. If you've had somebody over to do something in your house. Some handyman or something. You know. It's like. Oh I've got to go to Bunnings. Yep. Like I've got to go to the hardware store. Yep. Right. And two trips to hardware store later. Because they. Didn't have the thing that they. They didn't anticipate. Mm-hmm. Needing that. You know. And. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Very common.

Chris Gammell: Yep. So let's see. Things that I've learned. Here's what I learned. Install days need to be part of the quote. Obviously. I needed to. I didn't have an installation plan. So that was another big one. And so like. Like order of operations. And stuff like that. So I had someone actually painting. While I was. Trying to get things soldered in place. And like. And so like everything was wet with paint. You know what I mean. Like it was like. Oh God. Yeah. So that should have been done. So basically it was like. The finished work was being done. While the install work was being done. It was like that. Uh huh. Yeah. Prefabbing cables. That should have been more obvious. But. Just did not have enough time.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah. You don't want to be doing those on site. Oh goodness. But then again. But you really have to plan that. Because you have to know. Exactly. Right. Exactly how long the cables have to be. So you'd have to do like a scouting trip out there. To figure out. You know. Like. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So I had not seen the job site before I showed up. I had not. I had not understood. How the actual. Like. So I just wasn't early enough in the design process. And that's really something. Right. I would do in the future as well. And you know. The project manager too. Like. She. She agreed on all these things. It was just kind of like a last minute. I. I got thrown at the last minute. So. Um. Another thing was like. The actual. So. Um. This had never actually been assembled all the way. Before getting to the site. And so like. Yeah. The thing I said was like. Well. No. This was. It was like an eight foot by eight foot. Um. Like installation. So. You know. Sizeable enough that it didn't fit. Yeah. In a car. So we had to actually take it down. What I would have done. If I could have done it again. Is actually made the whole thing. Made it in place. At. At our assembly site. And then deconstructed it in a. In a more cogent way. And then transported it. Right. So it's all. Right. You know. So just like a lot of things that I'm learning. Um. And this was. The group I was working with. It was. This was their first electronics project. They were this great install company. But they're all. Um. Just. Just art pieces. And so it was kind of like. Learning on all sides. Uh. And then the last one would be. Uh. Buy knee pads. Uh. You know. I'm no spring chicken here Dave. Yeah. Yeah. And I was on the ground soldering. And then I was like. You know. All over. Man. Knee pads. For real. Uh. Got some bony knees. Uh huh. Yeah. So. Uh. Yeah. Lots of. Lots of really good learnings on that stuff. So. Cool. Yeah. That was. That was fun. And it didn't scare you off. Consulting? No. No. I don't think so. I think it's. Like that was. You know. Any of the money. I didn't. I didn't expect to get rich off of that project. Um. I was doing it for the learning. And. And I think that. I have some. You know. Runway on. Learning stuff. Um. Hoping not to get burned. Over and over again. But.

Dave Jones: So. Would you take on those. Like big build. Jobs again. Or would you go. Oh bugger this. I just want to design. PCBs or something.

Chris Gammell: Um. So. If it was the exact same style of project again. I think that's the real thing. Is like. If it was completely different again. I would probably give it. Second thought. It was the exact same thing again. Then I would. I've obviously. Encountered a lot of the same challenges. Of course. You know. And then maybe I would make a PCB. To actually. Standardize it. So that could be sold over and over again. Um. I would. Grab. I was using off the shelf stuff. But I'd probably grab something different off the shelf. I found some other stuff after the fact. So. Right. Um. Got it. And I think it's a different work. Right. Yeah. I mean like this was more. This was a lot of integration work. And almost software work. Because it was. You know. Getting LEDs to do interesting things. Um. Yep. And I think. You know. That's. I'm definitely more interested in the hardware side of things. So. Got it. But. From all those perspectives. I was interested in trying this stuff out. So. So yeah. Um. I probably would.

Dave Jones: Excellent. Well done. But definitely.

Chris Gammell: You know. Hoping to do more hardware stuff. And already have. Round of applause for Mr. Gamble. Oh. Thank you. Uh. Yeah. So. Um. In the meantime though. I've been doing other consulting work. I mean. You've been a consultant before. Right? Yeah. I have. Yeah. I didn't like it. You didn't like it. What didn't you like about it?

Dave Jones: Ah. No. It's not great. I've told you. It's just like. You know. I hate the pressure. And I hate the. You know. The. Things. Going wrong. And. You know. Having to. You know. Um. Eat the hours. Because it's a fixed price job. Or whatever. Yeah. You know. And just. And change your requirements on their end. I know. You go. Oh. You get it all in the contract. And everything. Yeah. But still. You know. They go. Oh look. It's just a little change. And you know. You don't want to be a dick.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: Right. And go. Well let's rewrite the contract. You know. Because you changed. You know. You added an op amp here. You know. Like.

Chris Gammell: I think that is. Yeah. I think it's like. It's a lot of managing of expectations. Like. So like. I mean. I've. Like I said. I've already started doing some of this stuff. But. You know. The expectations. And then also the. Like you're saying. Like spelling out the work. That's. There's just a lot of overhead. Of like. Oh well. Do you need to rewrite everything? Well. Sometimes you do. You know. If you don't want to get burned. And it's. It's almost just like. Everybody's kind of protecting themselves. So it's not as like. Yeah. Open. Right. And. The other thing I'm thinking about is like. It's a lot more snap judgment things. Instead of deep analysis. Not deep analysis. But more. More. Like when you're on the clock. Then. You know. You. You might be like. All right. This is done. Instead of like. Cogitating on your brain. You know. Like if you have a full day. To think about it. And just kind of. Mull through it. While you're doing other things. For that same client. Then. That would be. A better. Better scenario. I think. But already. I've been like. I've. I made a judgment on something. I said. Hey. Here's what we should be doing. And then I went back and revised it. And again. Like you're saying. I. I'm never going to charge for going back. You know. I'm not going to charge for being like. Well. This is. Something I. That. Revised.

Dave Jones: This is my fault. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Or it's. You know. Something like that. Yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: And so. It's just about that. Like client management stuff. And.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Like. Things like. If a tool. Like. If a development. If a microcontroller development tool. Has bugs. Or screws up. Or whatever. Yeah. Right. And you have to spend like a couple of days solving that problem before you can actually progress. Then you've got to eat that. Right. That's. That's not. You can't go to the client and say. Hey. My development tool I'm using. You know. Has this bug. And I can't get over it. I'm waiting. You know. I've got to solve this problem. You can't go to them. And so. They'll just go. Well. That's. That's. Your problem. You know. Right. I think.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I think you're right. That there's. There's less. Everything kind of has to be accounted for in terms of hours and things you're doing. And I think that. You know. Maybe some of that stuff would fall on the client if it was like a. You know. If it was a. A larger scale project. But. Like. Assuming like you did a fixed bid like you're talking about. Then. You know. If you're charging 5k to get something done. And the more hours it takes. The. The. The less you make per hour kind of thing. So. Yep. So yeah. You got to kind of hope everything goes right. Yeah. So I'd love to hear. You know. Like. You know. Perspectives on this stuff. You know. I'm interested in bringing in guests that are doing consulting stuff. Just because I'm. I'm obviously experiencing this new. This new world. I have friends that I've been talking to about a lot of this stuff. And. And. Trying to figure out the best practices. But. Maybe there's others out there that are. Interested in talking about it. Or hearing about it. I'd love to hear about it in the comments. So. Please let me know. If people are looking for someone who does. It does consulting. You know. I'd love to talk. But. I'm getting kind of full up already. So. Don't want to promise that I can do anything. I mean. More just. I'm always open to. To chat. And my. My email is. Chris. Chris. Theamphour.com. Is the easiest way to get a hold of me. So. That's. If people want to talk. If not. That's okay. Keep me in mind. In the future.

Dave Jones: So. You're not even considering. Nine to five jobs again?

Chris Gammell: Not right now. No. I mean. Ever again. I mean. That's kind of a long. Long timeline Dave. I'm in mid-30s. You know.

Dave Jones: For. For me. It's nope.

Chris Gammell: I'm not going back to work nine to five. Yes. For you. Sorry. Yeah. I hate to say. You're unemployable. At this point. In the best of ways Dave. No. I'm not. I actually get plenty of job offers. Too unique Dave. You get plenty of job offers? Really?

Dave Jones: Yeah. I get plenty of job offers. Of course I do. When you're a high profile person.

Chris Gammell: What kind of stuff you get offers for?

Dave Jones: Lots of oddball.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Companies. Like marketing stuff though? Things like that?

Chris Gammell: Or design stuff? No. No. No.

Dave Jones: Actually design stuff.

Chris Gammell: Oh. Okay. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah. You know. And startups and things like that. Hey. Come and work for us.

Chris Gammell: I did want to bring up. Is that. Is. I've already talked to a couple. I've already reached out to one person. Who's like. Hey. I need some help on this design. I'm like. Yeah. That's great. I do that kind of thing. They're like. Well. We're thinking. You know. We're going to. We're willing to give up equity. For. For you to work on this thing. Oh. Yep. Oh. Thank you. What an honor. That you will not pay me. Oh.

Dave Jones: What an honor. That you won't pay me.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So. I will say. I love it. I'm. You know. For. Exceptional cases. I'm considering. You know. Some. Some equity. But. You know. Cash is kind of more the. Yeah. And I'm sure that you've gotten that a lot in the past though. Right. And this is just kind of the startup thing. Right. Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: Yep. And I've just. Yeah. Is there ever.

Chris Gammell: Is there ever a case when you would actually be interested?

Dave Jones: Yes. There is. If it's something that. I personally. Know about. You know. Like. And have experience in. And really like. Uh-huh. Then. Yes. I could potentially do that.

Chris Gammell: Blockchain.

Dave Jones: You know. Blockchain. Yeah. Dave. If you've got a new blockchain startup. Dave. What? Is the future. Of course it is. I'm surprised your lead lighting installation didn't. Didn't have blockchain.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. It's the. It's the proof of blink. It's called. Proof of blink.

Dave Jones: Proof of blink. Oh. That's got to go on a t-shirt. Yeah. Proof of blink.

Chris Gammell: Oh. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. I don't know. Again. I think that there are. I mean. We have to call this episode proof of blink. I think you're right. I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there are some things I would be interested in as well. But. You know. You know. Spaces that I'm interested in. In general. Are. From a money perspective. Definitely like industrial things. Or. You know. Connectivity. Right. When it saves money. Or reduces jobs. Or. All those things. Because they're just easy. Things that are easy to sell. And at the end of the day. Yeah. Right. You know. In this very short amount of time that I've been doing this. And I'm sure this will change over time. It's just the. You know. When you start focusing on money. Like the whole conversation changes. Right. I mean. It just. You need to get your product out there. You need to make money on it. Hopefully you're making money on a recurring basis. And. From a startup perspective. A lot of them. Especially a lot of. The software startups. Are like. Yeah. Well. We'll. We'll figure out a business plan eventually. It's like. Uh-uh. That's not how our hardware works. I gotta. I gotta pay for parts man. Those caps ain't getting any cheaper. That's for damn sure.

Dave Jones: That being said though. Like. That. I would potentially consider. Something like that. It wouldn't be like a full time thing. It's like. Hey. Come to work with us full time. Because then I'd have to give up. The blog. Right. Basically. Right. And that's just not gonna happen. I'm not giving that up for anything. Right. Right. So. If I was to join. You know. Some sort of startup. It'd be in like a consulting advisory. Exactly. Type role. Maybe like a promo type role. Hey. I'm. I'm putting my name towards this. And I can. You know. Market it to my audience. Or something like that. Sure. You know.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: As. As. As like a. As like a step up into the market. Right. Kind of thing. You know. So.

Chris Gammell: And I think that's why. I wouldn't be considering a company right now. Either. Is just because like the same thing. You know. Like. I've. I like doing the Empire with you. I like doing the course. I like making videos. And. Sometimes that stuff kind of. Is a mishmash together. And.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: People. They're like. If they. They want me to come. Teach electronics. That kind of. Might be a conflict of interest. With my stuff. So. Right. Of course. Yep. So.

Dave Jones: And I. I. I like maintaining. My name in the industry. Sure. Like. Yeah. You know. I think. Like. I've been working. What. Nine years. On this or something. Yeah. Building up. Well. No. I've been doing it. Since I was. Since I was first. First published. Sure. You know. Yeah. Way. And like. Yeah. I think. EEV blog.

Chris Gammell: Versus just David L. Jones. Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Right. So. I've. You know. I've. I've had a public presence. For. Nearing. 20. 30. Years. Now. Is it? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Right. I've. I've had a public presence. Before the internet. This newfangled internet stuff. And. You know. And I. I don't want to give that. I don't want to fade into. Obscurity. You know. I think that'd be a shame. Yeah. For me to just go vanish and work full time. And nobody hears from me again. And everyone goes oh well where's Dave. You know. Oh no. He's off when working some thing. You know. Yeah. And. Yeah. No. It's. You know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And I. Well. And so like. You know. I've been reaching out to a lot of people who are consultants. And. Who are. I've been looking for advice. And like I said. I'm happy to hear more advice from people in the comments section. Or. You know. Chat. Whatever. And. It seems like one of the hard things. Especially because I'm at. So I still work at mhub. Which is here in Chicago. And I talked to a lot of people there too. And I ask. You know what is the hard thing. And some of it is the expectations of clients. And things like that. But the other one is just. Sourcing new clients. And. You know. A lot of them are word of mouth. And. And things like that. And. I've never. You know. I. Like I said. I'm not. You know. Begging for a job here on the Amp Hour. But I think that. Being able to. Reach some. Some ears. And. You know. That. That helps. That helps me at least. And a lot. Of. A lot of. I think the other problem is that a lot of the people that I talk to. Who are consultants. Don't have. Like do promotional stuff. Right. To do. Right. To do the. Hey. Look at this work that I've done. Here's what I've done. Here's how. Here's how I operate. And. Hopefully a little bit of. At least hearing me talk about electronics over the years. Has. People believing that I can do it. So. It's kind of. Yeah. Right. That hump. Of. Yep. You know. And like. So like. For you. Right. Obviously. I've seen a lot of your work. I know how you work. And. And that's not just from talking to you. And listening to you. It's. Seeing. Seeing you do design over the years. Right. It's. That's why you. You are getting jobs.

Dave Jones: Even though I haven't done much. It's not like. You know. No. But you're. It's not like I do much at all. But. No. But I mean. You're showing your.

Chris Gammell: You're showing your capabilities. Right. That's a lot of what it is.

Dave Jones: Exactly. I'm showing my knowledge in the field. Right.

Chris Gammell: And that kind of stuff. And so when I was talking to people at M Hub. I was like. Yeah. That's one of the things that is lacking for a lot of people in the space. Is that. I know that there's a lot of. So like. For example. There's a lot of mechanical designers at M Hub. But. Right. It's hard for me to like. Look at them. And be like. Oh. That's Bobby. I know what his work is. Because I've seen his portfolio. Or you know. Like. Yeah. Even just having. Pictures of his work. Hanging up around his desk. Right. That. That's. That's promotional too. Right. Of course. Some of the people there. They actually do have their 3D models out on their desk. And that's a. That is a great way to showcase. It's like. Hey. Look. This is my design work. Here. Check out the curves. Check out the complex curves on these things. Like this is the kind of thing I can do. That's great promotion for mechanical work. I think. For sure. So. And. And some of it's going to be like. Well. Can. Can Bobby take that thing all the way through to production? I don't know. I gotta go talk to his. I gotta talk to his references. I gotta. You know. See his other work. See his past. His resume and things. And. But. When I. But I think the first thing is. Making sure that he has those things on his desk. So I can be like. Oh. Of course. That's the first part. It looks good. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So. Yeah. And I think it's just then striking that balance of like. How much time do you do prospecting. Versus how much time do you actually do the work. And. You can't do just one of each. You know. Or one more than the other. So. So lots of learning for me coming up Dave. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be bugging the crap out of you about this stuff. Awesome. So. Yeah. Yep. Well. Yeah. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm. I. I've had a lot of time to sit with it. And I'm not feeling as bad as I started out feeling about it. Like. Like. I was very nervous at the beginning. But. I'm feeling. I'm feeling better than I did. And. Talking to other friends. It does go through swing. So. I'm prepared for the downside. I do have a document. As well. About when I'm stressed. About things I should be doing. Maybe that's a. Oh. Really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You want to hear some of them? I have it up here. Yeah. Sure. I have lots of documents Dave.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Here we go. I'm. I'm kind of more of a wing it. Kind of guy. I wouldn't have guessed that. I would have. Here we go. Write about how I'm feeling. You know. Journaling is very important. Talk to my girlfriend. Learn something new. Publish something. Go for a walk. Meditate. Go through contacts. Reach out to people you haven't talked to. I think that's a big one. That's one that I don't do enough. And I think.

Speaker ?: Right.

Chris Gammell: You know. Just like check in with. With old. I don't do that at all. I am not a social person. I mean. You were sort of a social person. You did a. You did a live stream. That we'll talk about here in a bit. I mean. You socialize with your audience. I think that's important.

Dave Jones: Oh. Yeah. I guess. But.

Chris Gammell: Moving on. Read a book. Part of the nature of the universe. And how massive it is. And how not much really matters after all. That one's a little dark. Think of ways to make a difference. Nitalism. Yeah. Mentor. Mentor younger engineers. Ask for advice from more experienced engineers. Answer forum posts. Listen to music. Play some music. Post a funny tweet about electronics. Post a business idea to Twitter. Do a live stream. Create a silly piece of PCB art. Ask Twitter what they want to learn right now. People may notice I did that a long time. I did that a couple weeks ago when I was really stressed. Plan a new course. Do some pushups. Drink a big glass of water. These are all.

Dave Jones: Jeez. I think you've created yourself another problem. You don't know which one to choose. I mean. Any of these. You can do all these things. Stress. Let's go to the list. Yeah. Right. Right. Do you have like a random number generator?

Chris Gammell: And it just like. That's the first project I have to make is the de-stressor magic eight ball. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So. I don't know. I think these are good just mental health things. You know. Like. I think the go for a walk. Man. I did that one. When I was. When I used to live in Cleveland. That was a big one. I would just like. You know. Head out with the dog. And just kind of think through problems. Man. That really changes. A lot of. Right. And I still don't do that enough. So. My new desk. I have. I have sunlight. At my new desk. At. At M Hub. Yeah. So. Excited about that.

Dave Jones: And you're. You're. You're. You're moving as well. No. You're. You're moving too.

Chris Gammell: Well. Yeah. I am moving. I'm moving apartments to a smaller place. To save some money. Because he's now. Destitute. Yes. Unemployed. That's what it is. Yeah. I think it's called. Right sizing Dave. It's called right sizing. Right sizing. Okay. But I will not have a lab anymore. In my apartment.

Dave Jones: That's what I was going to ask. Yeah. Like. I assume that you're moving everything. And. Do you like. Have your own little space in M Hub. It's like. This is Chris Gammell's. Do you like. Rent a cubicle in there. Or what. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So. Well. I didn't before. But I just signed up for one. So it's like a shared desk. Oh. Okay. And so. It's next to.

Dave Jones: Oh. Shared. You don't want any of that shared rubbish. No. No. No. No. But then again.

Chris Gammell: You are unemployed in destitute. So. Oh man. You're not going to let that go are you? Bastard. What are friends for? Good natured ribbing. Yes. Yeah. So I'm going to move my. So like. All my test gear is going to be over there. I'm a little worried about that honestly. I don't know. Maybe I need to like. Someone's just going to steal his. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But what you need to do. Is you need to do the old thing of. No. No. No. No. No. What you do is you put a big red sticker on it. Saying. You know. Magic smoke escaped or faulty. Or something like that. And then nobody's going to borrow it.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Nobody will borrow your scope. If it has a big red faulty tag attached to it.

Chris Gammell: Got it. Okay. I like that. Yeah. Oh yeah. Works a treat. I'm definitely doing that one. Okay. Not in calibration. Does not work. Like those kind of things.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Like. Yeah. Like out of cow. You know. Like out of cow. Broken. Doesn't work. You know. Smoke. You know. Bang. Went. Bang. You know.

Chris Gammell: I did get a live bees sticker at Defcon. I can put that on there too. Like there's live bees living inside the scope. Or something. No one's going to fall for that. But if I implement a buzzing system. I'm just saying. Yeah. That's silly.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's actually really good advice. Yeah. I can tell you've lived. You've worked in a shared. A shared workspace before. Huh? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well. It's any. Off. Any lab is a shared workspace. Yeah. But it's going. This is my scope. And you don't want people to borrow. Yeah. You know. You turn your back for a second. And you're. You know. Your $30,000 scope's gone.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well this is like. This will be on like my desk. And so you have. There will be like security cameras on it. And stuff. But I'm. It doesn't matter what people. Stuff people from. Like even. Like honestly. Like people asking to borrow it. Like. That's always usually good natured. But. You know. It doesn't come back for a week and a half.

Chris Gammell: You know. When you. Exactly. When you really need it. Like. When you really. It's like having a car. Right. You can. You could do car share. At any day of the week. Right. And be like. Oh. I always have a car. But. If you're trying to get out of town. When everybody else is trying to get out of town. You're screwed. Exactly. Owning a car is about. Having the ability to get out of town. Whenever you need to. And. That's it. Yeah. So same thing for scopes. Scopes are like cars. Especially some cost as much as cars. So yeah. Andy.

Dave Jones: Did you hear about the new 110 gig. Scope. No. From Keysight.

Chris Gammell: Oh no.

Dave Jones: Oh jeez. Is this the one you reviewed? So much for Mr.

Chris Gammell: The 7000?

Dave Jones: No.

Chris Gammell: What was.

Dave Jones: No. This thing is like. I don't know. There's probably two of them in the world or something. Okay.

Chris Gammell: You know. What is it?

Dave Jones: No. I can't remember the model number. But anyway. Go and search for 110 gig. Keysight oscilloscope. Damn. And so I can't remember the series or model number. But yeah. It is like. And it uses a new indium phosphide front end. Don't quote me on that or something. Anyway. It is true 110 gig bandwidth. With I think 250 gig sample per second. 256. Sampling. It is the. Real time on all channels. UXR. None of this.

Speaker ?: None of this.

Chris Gammell: None of this. None of this.

Chris Gammell: None of this.

Chris Gammell: None of this. None of this. None of this. None of this.

Chris Gammell: Holy crap. This thing looks expensive.

Dave Jones: Why didn't I. Why didn't I remember this? I know. Any. You know. If you compare it with like the next previous best. Which is the one that. Sharia did. He went to. Did a tour of the. Of the Roden Schwartz. Yep. Was it Roden Schwartz? No. LeCroix. Was it?

Chris Gammell: I don't. I don't remember the. I just remember him doing like a really high speed one.

Dave Jones: Anyway. Yeah. And so he went to the LaCroix factory and they showed how they designed this. I think it was 80 gig or something. You know. Scope. But it used like oversampling. It wasn't a real time. You know. It wasn't actually a real bandwidth thing. You know. Like they use various techniques. Whereas this Keysight one is actually. No. Analog goes in.

Chris Gammell: It's crazy.

Dave Jones: Samples at 250 gig. And it's got a true analog bandwidth of 110 gig. Like.

Chris Gammell: Hey. If you get. And it's 10 bit. If you get one of these. Can I borrow it? Can I borrow it? No.

Dave Jones: I'm not going to get one. No. Because it'll have a big foldy red tag on it.

Chris Gammell: How the hell do they calibrate these things? You know.

Dave Jones: Just. Like. Yeah. Just. Don't ask.

Chris Gammell: It looks like a boat anchor too. This thing is monstrous. Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. It's like. That's got to be like. What. Like a 3U rack or something. I don't even know how big that thing is.

Dave Jones: Oh. It's. Yeah. It's. Anyway. Yeah. It's. Freaking amazing. And. And there's photos of. The. Of. The inside of the actual sampling converter. And stuff like that. And. And the boards and stuff like that. It's posted on the forum. Okay. All right. It's really. Yeah. Like. I actually tweeted it. I went. I tweeted and said. This. This technology came from like. Area 51. Yeah. Right. Right. Like. It was like alien technology. It's just. It's insane.

Chris Gammell: Oh. Wow. Yeah. What do you use this for? Who would use this?

Dave Jones: Oh. For. Research. Companies. Other people doing. RF. They can do direct RF sampling. That's. That's the thing with it.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: You can. You know. If you're working on a 50 gig. Transmitter. Or something. You know. A 50 gig. Ultra high frequency. Got it. Transmitter. You can like sample this shit in real time. You can check out the. You know. The modulation. You can do the demodulation. And. You can do it all in the scope. Got it. You know. Like. In real time. It's. That's freaking incredible. Crazy. So. There's probably more customers. For this than you think. Okay. Yeah. You know. You're saying just because like. It's probably.

Chris Gammell: Like the. The. The. The transmitters that are like. Inside FPGAs and things like that. For high speed serial. Like those kind of things.

Dave Jones: It would be high speed serial. But it's even beyond that. Because you know. All the high speed serial. Although they're doing. What's the. What's the highest speed. Differential stuff they're doing these days. Is it. 30 gig or something.

Chris Gammell: I don't know.

Dave Jones: Differential transceivers.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. Or something. I should. I should state too. I don't do high. I don't do super high speed stuff yet. So. Anyway. Yeah.

Dave Jones: I like the highest. The highest I've ever done is eight. Okay. I think. Eight. Yeah. I think I've done six gig.

Chris Gammell: Some of those certas. Yeah. Yep. Older ones.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Anyway. It was. Yeah. They will. Like. It's not just that. Yes. You can use it for that. And that's one of the. That's one of the things. But you can get a cheaper scope to do that. Is what I'm saying. If that's all you want to do. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. Right. Right.

Dave Jones: This is like really direct sampling. Got it. RF stuff. Got it. You know. And demodulation. You know. And all the advanced. You know. Quadraphonic modulation. I'm. Using a term that's totally inappropriate there. Just for comedic effect. Got it. You know. So what was the thing I saw that you were going.

Chris Gammell: You did a spectrum analyzer teardown recently.

Dave Jones: No. That was old footage. I just rehashed it.

Chris Gammell: Oh. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: Yep. I just took it out in an old video. And sort of cut it. Got it. Got it. Together. And added a few extra things.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: Yes. That was a Siglent spectrum analyzer. Got it. That was just a three gig bandwidth one. I was just showing block by block. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I like that though. Like that's. I mean. Because again. Like you're talking about. Like looking at the inside of a. You know. Fancy scope like that. It looks like alien technology. I mean like. A lot of these. Right. Spectrum analyzers too. Like the. You know. There's just. It's a lot of the block diagrams. But when you look at the filters. It's like. What. What. What. Why. Why. Why. They do this.

Dave Jones: And. And. And. And. Like some of it. In. In principle. Is. Is not trivial. It's just like. You know. It's just like. It's a transmission line. And there's a mixer. You might think. A 30. A 50 gig. Or a 100 gig mixer. Where it mixes the signals. And you know. Down samples. And down converts. You might think that's. Ridiculously complex. No. It's four diodes. Right. But it's the magic of how they. How they actually get the four diodes.

Chris Gammell: It's how you arrange them. Yeah. It's how you arrange them.

Dave Jones: That's it. Right. To work at 100 gig. Yeah. You know. It's insane.

Chris Gammell: That's crazy.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's just. Anyway. Nuts. That's just. Wow.

Chris Gammell: Well speaking of arranging things. You've been trying to arrange a PCB. That was a bad segue. Arrange it. You've been doing a key cad. Or a key cad.

Dave Jones: I thought you were going to do the meetup. I thought you were going to do the. Oh. Oh well. Meetup that I'm having.

Chris Gammell: I was going to bring that up too. So maybe we should do that first. Dave. I am arranging a meetup. Dave are you doing another meetup?

Dave Jones: I'm doing another meetup. After the. Electronics show. On Wednesday. September 5th. I think it is. Okay. Nice. Go to meetup.com. And search for AEV blog. And you'll find it.

Chris Gammell: Nice. And this is at the same place. When we did the meetup. When I was in town.

Dave Jones: No. It's not. Because the electronics show. Has moved to Rose Hill Racecourse. Which is out near where I am. Out in the suburbs.

Chris Gammell: Oh I thought I saw the actual meetup thing. I must have been looking at an old one. I thought it was the same location. Right.

Dave Jones: Okay. No. Okay. Different location. Cool. So. Yep. Sydney 8th. I think I've got 50 people signed up already. That doesn't include like just random forum people who will turn up. Nice. So yeah. So I've got. That reminds me. After this I have to go book the venue. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You should definitely do that. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Well on the subject of meetups. I think I mentioned it a week ago or two weeks ago. But we'll be doing a meetup here in Chicago for IMTS. Around IMTS. So Bolt will be in town. There's.

Dave Jones: What's IMTS?

Chris Gammell: International Machining Technology Show. It's like Jurassic Park for robots. It's amazing. So it's this huge trade show center here in Chicago. And like all of the big machining companies show up. And I'm very excited. So yeah. I think I mentioned that one. And then.

Dave Jones: Why are you. Why are you excited about a. A. A machinery show. Just because you like robots.

Chris Gammell: Just because the scale of it. Yeah. And there's just robots everywhere. It's. I went two years. It's only every other year. And I went two years ago. And it's just like. It's like a playground. It's great. Yeah. So. Yeah. Cool. So we'll have a couple meetups around that too. So. I will post about it later. Cool. Okay. So. You're doing a meetup. That's great. Electronics. Are you showing it. Electronics or no.

Dave Jones: I do. Well I've invited people to bring stuff. No no no. Sorry.

Chris Gammell: You've had a booth at electronics in the past. Haven't you.

Dave Jones: Oh yes. No. They offered me a booth again this year. But I said no thanks. But no thanks.

Chris Gammell: You'd rather go.

Dave Jones: It's just too hard. Like yeah. It's just like. You got to stand on the booth all day. You got to set it up. You can make David do that.

Chris Gammell: You got it. You got an employee man.

Dave Jones: No. It's just. No. No. It's not the same. Because people will come by the booth and go. Where's Dave. Geez. That's disappointing. You know. I'd rather not.

Chris Gammell: They'd be talking to Dave. Just a different Dave. You know.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Oh. I could put my cardboard cutout back there. Right. You could. You could add an audio.

Chris Gammell: You could add an audio player this time. You know. So you'd have like catchphrases.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah. Right. I can. Have a chatbot. I can have like. Maybe you should just do that anyways.

Chris Gammell: And just like leave it in various places around the conference. You know.

Dave Jones: See if I can pass a Turing test. You know. Bingo. Bingo. Right.

Chris Gammell: I mean. Trade shows are kind of boring. So that's anything you can do to spice it up. That sounds like fun to me. Right. Yep. That'd be good. That's fun. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Cool. So speaking of arranging circuits then. Now to get back to my bad segue. You've been playing with Kaiket 5 before I have even.

Dave Jones: Oh really? You haven't used it?

Chris Gammell: I have used it. Just nowhere publicly.

Dave Jones: Oh right. Okay. Oh well. It's not like I used it in depth.

Chris Gammell: I just used it on a live stream. You used it again though Dave. This is like. You know. So like. I used it again. Yes. So like every. It used to be every two years you would try it out. And now it's been like I think only a year since you did.

Dave Jones: Well granted it was. I was just finishing off the shit I didn't finish off last time. You know. You know. Whatever works.

Chris Gammell: Whatever works.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: So what are your thoughts?

Dave Jones: I. Well my thoughts are in my one hour edited video I just uploaded last night.

Chris Gammell: I know.

Dave Jones: No. It's. You know. It's nice. But there's a few little things in there that you know. Would annoy me as a. As a profession. If I was using it professionally. Mm-hmm. Would annoy me. And I haven't even gone. You know. I haven't even. Haven't even done anything big in it. Right. I'm just doing like. Right.

Chris Gammell: You were changing other people's stuff. And adding stuff.

Dave Jones: I was just taking a load in an existing design and just changing it from two layer to four layer. And just. You know.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: You know. Just bumming around. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Basically. And I think that's the thing. Like you need to have. I always talk to people about it. And it's like about. Yeah. You need to have a project to learn on. Specifically to learn on. And it sounds like this is your project for that kind of thing. Yep. And it's really important. I think that you know. Something small is better than something. You know. Like you're doing something that's already existing and it has a certain size. So. You know. You get what you get for that. But I always tell people it's like have like one small thing you want to do first. You know. A breakout board or whatever. Just to get started. Just to get used to the keystrokes. I was watching. And may have interrupted your. Your. Yes. You did. You came into the live chat.

Dave Jones: That's all right.

Chris Gammell: But. I think the other thing too is that like you have very specific expectations. Just from watching a couple. Watching it this morning as well.

Dave Jones: Oh. Of course. I'm a. I'm a former professional full-time PCB designer. Right. I mean. You know. I like. I think. And expect. Things to work a certain way. You know. And that's. I found that in the comments. Like a lot of people. Didn't seem to. Understand it from a professional. Design point of view. They just said. Oh. Just do this work around here. Just do that. You know. And it's like. No. That's beside the point. Well. Yeah. There's. You know. That.

Chris Gammell: I agree with that. That is beside the point. Yeah. But I think some of it too is like. You have expectations. And that's. Exactly how it's done in other programs. But you've done more than one program too. So it's like. Yes. It's almost like. You have this formulation of convention in your head. And when it's outside. That's right. That's like.

Dave Jones: Sort of an industry convention. Yeah. Kind of. You know. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So I always tell people. Have an open mind. You are going to be learning a new. Like. So like. I've gone. And you know. I've used Altium before. And I. Yeah. I was telling you last night. Like the. For me. It's like. You know. It's a similar kind of experience of. Like learning. Learning these new systems. Is always a struggle. Because you have to. You know. Scumble around. I gave a workshop at Defcon. Around the. Around KiCad. And. Like one thing was. Seeing people. Not use two hands. On the. On the keyboard. Or like. Using one hand on the keyboard. For hot keys. And one hand on the mouse. For. For actually like. Manipulating things in space. You know.

Dave Jones: That's me. Yeah. You know. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So.

Dave Jones: What's wrong with that?

Chris Gammell: That. Is the least efficient way to do KiCad. At least.

Dave Jones: Oh. You know what I mean? Like it's just like these. Okay. These like setups.

Chris Gammell: That's like.

Dave Jones: I haven't used it enough to. Learn that. Yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: So like once people get used to it. And they're like. Oh. Okay. Now if I use my left hand for. Well. I guess depending left or right. You know. Using my main hand for mouse manipulation. And then my other hand for keyboard manipulation.

Dave Jones: Oh. So you're saying that's the correct way to do it. Mouse in one hand. Keyboard in the other hand. I always tell people. It's like. It's like. Oh. Okay.

Chris Gammell: PC video games. You know. Like so. Right. You know.

Dave Jones: No. That's how I do it. It's not like I have both. No. I don't have both hands on the keyboard. Oh. Not like that. Oh.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. Right.

Chris Gammell: Right.

Dave Jones: We had it back. We had it back.

Chris Gammell: I got it. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. And you know. So. Yeah. It's. It's tough. It's tough. I did. I think I mentioned. I did my workshop backwards. And that was good. Um. But. You know. I'm still kind of struggling on how to. How to teach absolute beginners. Layout. And. Yeah. I think the answer is don't. Right. Teach them why they want to use circuits in the first place. And. I think a lot of people didn't have quite that. And then. Let the poor bastards figure it out. I mean. Some of it is like. I think that. You know. I think that learning a lot. Like. So. I've been. You know. Doing some video editing on a new program recently. And it's like. Mm. You just got to learn the quirks. You know. It's just like these heavy duty programs. I'm not apologizing for UI in any program. I think the more intuitive the better. Yep. But. At the end of the day. I think the measure of a program. Is usually the community around it. And like. Who. Um. Who's helping you out. You know. You can have the most intuitive thing in the world. But if you can't find that one button to click. Just be on that one off chance. Yeah. No. Of course. It's going to. Like you were talking about with the consulting things. Right. It's going to throw you off for three days. And you have to eat those hours. Yeah. And so. I think the best thing to have. Is like. Is to have a wide audience of people that are trying lots of things. And you know. Being able to Google for a solution. On the EEV blog forum. The Kaiket forum. Whatever. You know. So. Yeah. That's kind of how I judge software these days. So.

Dave Jones: Anyway. I. I think it's. It's a very capable program. And I. Yeah. If you ask me to do a huge professional board on it. I probably could. Yeah. I think so too.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It wouldn't necessarily. It might not necessarily be efficient. But I. I think it's certainly capable.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And I think your second board would be faster than your first. Your second. Third board would be faster than your second. Yeah. Yeah. All that stuff. And that's just getting used to any software program. So. Of course. Yeah. And I think that. You know. Like. A lot of people that are. Like. Learning new software like that. They're also learning the underlying skill. Not just the. The quirks of the software. Right. You already have the underlying skill of. You know how to make PCBs. You know how to. Right. You know how things should be designed. It's just like learning the mechanics of that specific software.

Dave Jones: It's learning the mechanics of the tool. Yeah. And that. That's it. And that.

Chris Gammell: That makes it fast. I think that makes it a faster. A faster thing in the end. Yeah. So. Definitely. Yeah. So. My plan is to make some new. I got to make some new videos now. I got to make some 5.0 videos. Right. It doesn't change the ton. Well.

Dave Jones: I'm thinking I might make some key cad videos too. Like. I might take. Like. I'm not going to design something from scratch. But I might. If. Actually. If anyone knows. Please. Hit me up with it. If anyone knows of like. Like a really complex. Board. Out there. That's open source. That's done. In key cad. I can tell you right now. I can like load in. Oh. Right.

Chris Gammell: The Olomax 64. The. They did like a laptop design. So Olomax does. The Olomax. Olomax does all of their products in key cad. The. Yep. Olinozino. I'll send you.

Dave Jones: Is this the A60. Oh. Yes. The A64. Yeah. Oh. Linix. You know. Okay. Right. And they've got the PCB files on there. Do they? Oh. That's. That's fantastic.

Chris Gammell: It's an all winter A64. Right. So.

Dave Jones: Oh. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you may have mentioned this.

Chris Gammell: So like Olomax does all their stuff. Kaikad. That's why I know about them. Right. And this is like. You know. Embedded Linux board. Some of the new. Beautiful. You know. Another. Michael Welling. Is. Redid. I think he redid the. So I know Jason Kreidner. Who we've had on the show before. From the Beagle Bone Project. Did the original. Pocket Beagle and Eagle. But I think. And Michael converted it. Because Michael. Also was the one who did the. Larger version of the. Pocket Beagle. The one that fits into the. The mini Altoids den. I may have gotten those. Orders wrong. But. I know Michael does a lot of. Kaikad stuff as well. So some of the Beagle stuff. Is now available in Kaikad. Right. And another big thing is. All of the. There it is. Kaikad PCB files. Yep. I've got it. Okay. Great.

Dave Jones: Awesome. Thanks.

Chris Gammell: All of the. So the Eagle import. To Kaikad is now. In five. Is like solid. So you can pull in libraries. Right. Nice. Nice. You know a lot of the projects. I think on Eagle are still pretty. You know there are some. Fancier products out there.

Dave Jones: I. I'm calling it now. I'm. Seriously. I'm calling it now. Eagle is going to. Die out in the hobbyist market. People are going to switch to Kaikad.

Chris Gammell: I think maybe the hobbyist market. I think they're moving up market. To be honest. I think they're. You know like. I think their team has done. A really good job of. You know adding new features. And. But I think you're right. I think. I think they are moving up market.

Dave Jones: Who. Eagle or. Eagle. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Eagle.

Dave Jones: Oh yes. Yes. Eagle are moving up market. And it's like. Yeah. I. I think. You know. I think people are going to be slowly moving over towards. KiCat.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: So.

Dave Jones: I. So I don't know where. Where that leaves Eagle. But. I.

Chris Gammell: I. I think it's competing more for the high end market type stuff. I think they're going to start nibbling at the heels of. You know. The Altium's of the world. And the.

Dave Jones: Well. Altium are moving up. So.

Chris Gammell: Move.

Dave Jones: That's another thing.

Chris Gammell: Wait. How far up do they go? Where are they moving towards?

Dave Jones: Oh. They've got their new. Nexus. What is it? Nexus. Thing. They're. They're now competing with like. Mentor graphics. Oh.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: So you're saying like. Fancier and fancier.

Chris Gammell: You're saying. Okay.

Dave Jones: Yeah. In fact. Their share price just jumped 32% yesterday.

Chris Gammell: Whoa.

Dave Jones: Because. They're released. New figures and stuff. That. Yeah. Look. We're. And we're. Getting customers away. From Mentor graphics now. And we're shooting. We. We are going to be number one. Right. And I think that. And everyone. Yeah. If I had to guess.

Chris Gammell: Who's in the biggest trouble. It's probably the people at the top end. Right. Because they. All they. All they can do is. Kind of protect what they have. There's not like a lot of. Exactly. Green field there.

Dave Jones: No. They've been doing that for a decade. Yeah. So.

Chris Gammell: You know. 15 years.

Dave Jones: They've been trying to just cling on to their top end. And I think. I mean.

Chris Gammell: At the end of the day. Everybody makes good tools. Yeah. They all have the quirks. Well. They.

Dave Jones: They still make money from their ASIC tools. Yes. Right. And stuff like that. Right. But. And which will. You know. Altium's never going to get into. Right. They have no plans to get into.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But look. That's a hard market to break into. Well. They're fools if they do. Yeah. That's a tough one. They're absolute fools. Right. You know. So. Yeah. No. You're better off just dominating the PCB space. Right. And that's their plan. Whereas the other companies are going. Look. They might eventually. They're not going to abandon it. But they're just going to go. Well. You know. Look. Altium's won. You know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. I mean. It's. Yep. It's not a huge space overall. I think there. You know. There's room for movement within it. And it's. You know. The whole market's growing. But. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's still an expensive. Expensive program. You know. It's like 10 grand. 8 grand or something.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: And. And. And. And the problem is. Is that. Like. They. They. Really goofed up. The lower end. Right. They goofed up. The circuit maker. Circuit maker's basically gone. Circuit maker's now becoming. What's the company they bought? The online one. Upverter. Sorry. Upverter. Upverter. Upverter. Yes. It's basically. And Altium. The circuit maker. Is no longer. No longer going to exist. As circuit maker. It's going to be rebranded. As upverter desktop. Right. So. It's. It's basically gone. And then. Circuit studio. They've been having issues. With that. And. You know. I think. We exposed. The other day. A couple of weeks. A couple of episodes back. Didn't we? Yeah. We've been talking about this. Yeah. They deliberately slow it down. They've goofed it up. And they don't support it properly. And it's kind of in this mid-range price. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. And it's like. You know. And it's not compatible. Like. It's. You know. The files aren't compatible with Altium Designer. It's just like. They've just. Like. Screwed it up. Pretty much. Yeah. It's tough. They really could have. Dominated. The low. The mid. And the high end. And they just. I think. They're just going to be a higher end tool only. Now. Unless. They. Doesn't mean they can't turn things around. But. Yeah. They. They claim to have a lot of penetration with. Circuit Studio. But. Nah. I think that's bull. Not buying it. Sorry. So. Yeah. I. You know. And I can really see. KeyCAD taking over. In that space. Or. Or perhaps. Eagle. If you want a paid. Package. You know. Because there's advantage to pay package. You have someone to yell at. Yes. I agree. I agree. When. When. When. When something. When you find a bug. You know. Or something doesn't work. Right. You know. You can pick up the phone and scream at something. Right. So. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I don't believe. CERN takes any. Any. Complaints.

Dave Jones: Right. You don't think there's some hotline there. There's some red bat phone. There is. There's a.

Chris Gammell: There's a forum for KeyCAD you can go yell on. But. Yeah. I don't know if they suffer.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: People.

Dave Jones: And it's basically just everyone. Just yelling into the void.

Dave Jones: Right. Right. anyway yes i do i i do want to do more with it so yeah well you know i'm a fan so that's great man

Chris Gammell: welcome to the club yep cool i'm excited what is this uh so you ended up the video about the

Dave Jones: traps and chips what is that one traps and chips that's um about how i um i found this chip and i thought it was a good example i can't remember them the seven double six two don't quote me on

Chris Gammell: that lm 7662 well at least in the label 760 766 here oh so no no well the 7660 is the jelly bean

Dave Jones: generic one that's been around for 40 years right that's that's the jelly bean inverter slash voltage double apart for anything up to you know tens of million um that's been around forever and there's tons of variants of this of which would this um uh linear tech part was right and uh

Chris Gammell: linear tech or ti rest in peace no it's adi adi whatever i know there's chip company one and chip company two and sadly there's only two left exactly uh anyway um yes and there where was i

Dave Jones: there uh yeah so lots of variants of this chip exist that they have for decades now right because the 7660 is only good for you know certain things if you want higher current and you know lower noise and you know all sorts of higher efficiency all sorts of other stuff then um you know all these variants exist anyway this particular variant uh uh has a has different modes right so at low currents it goes into a pulse skipping mode right just like dc just like you know many dc to dc converted chips do right at low current so it sort of like keeps the efficiency up at low current right so that's why they can get like a high efficiency right across the whole you know output load band right and um the problem with that is when it switches to that low now when it switches modes like that the output ripple goes up like five times right and that's a lot right right it like it doesn't jump up 10 percent and then you're like oh boy what what just happened here yeah exactly you you've designed your product and you've tested it and and this uh chip gives you a ripple of 10 millivolts or something or 100 millivolts and you go happy with that right that's good enough i can you know that's fine but then if your temperature changes or your output current changes slightly and you're right on the point where it suddenly goes from one mode to the other bam 500 increase in output ripple yeah that's not fun and no that's going to ruin your day yeah right so yeah like so your your your your design through no fault of your own it passed all your tests but then all of a sudden it's used in a different temperature environment bam if you're if you happen to be drawing 40 milliamps and that's on the edge of where the thing switches modes and it switches modes based on temperature it's got different characteristic curves based on temperature right yep so um yeah if you didn't take that if you didn't notice that right during your design i think

Chris Gammell: even worse if it was like going in and out of those zones then you also have like intermittent behavior

Dave Jones: you'd be like what just happened here yeah yeah like like if your micro goes into sleep mode or goes into a different mode or your output you know you've got a you start transmitting or something current or something yeah yeah yeah you do it yeah exactly and all of a sudden like it's that's a massive increase in ripple 500 right that's enormous so yeah that could really that could really screw you

Chris Gammell: up so uh this is a jelly jelly are you still seeing these in a lot of uh in a lot of designs or how did

Dave Jones: you how did you happen upon this oh we were uh looking at chips for the micro current and the micro micro supply for the new micro supply project and um yeah and we and we saw this chip and we're trying it out and you know sure enough boom you know and uh it's yeah and i just thought it was a nice example that's all you know it's great inherently wrong with the chip right it's a good chip but it's just

Chris Gammell: like how you spec it in like where you're operating yeah it's it's a perfect example exactly right yeah and i think so you pin you pin the comment here too and it was like you know uh someone said uh i don't work in the industry and these gotchas aren't things like people that get to me like me get to see right so that's what someone said on your video yeah i agree with that right it's like this is one of those things where if you can i mean like you were talking about wait were we talking about that or someone else um you know like you're never gonna feel it was someone else i was talking to today but you're never gonna feel the pain of hardware until you actually experience it right yes but if you if you even have a shot at reducing pain like this where you'd have to re-spin a board and you know if you can catch anything like this you could save thousands and thousands of dollars and uh you know that that's why i like to think videos like this are useful

Dave Jones: i think so too yeah um is because like you know people go oh i do you know and it sticks in their mind and maybe when they're designing something this time they'll they'll be aware of that oh i wonder if it has some pulse mode you know does it change mode you know i've got to be careful with my output

Chris Gammell: ripple you know i think i think this is like that so this is why i i kind of harp on this a lot too of like the uh you know gray beards and like the software industry get kind of like laughed out and pushed aside and all that other stuff like because software things change so often i think oh there was actually a talk uh that bunny did at um that camp i was at that tour camp um and he was talking about this stuff too he talked about like you know in the thing he likes a lot about electronics um is you learn it once and it's kind of in your memory right in software he was complaining he was he was being the the typical old guy up on stage he's like you know there's all these frameworks you have to relearn and why is there always a new framework i just wanted to work for over time it was great it really really great you know usual bunny style uh bunny hwang yep uh you know great talk i really really recommend watching it um but but this is also you know in the software industry i think a lot not that i'm not trying to make too broad of a thing but like you know like the whole mark zuckerberg young people that do all these magical things uh you know and like like in electronics at least the reason the gray beards are so so valuable is because they've seen so much crap like obviously you know that's the thing people like dave bring along a lot of other issues right uh but but it's the experience that really like you just can't man you just can't get

Dave Jones: past that like how do you and the experience is always the stuff that went wrong yeah of course you're not going to be talking to some old gray beard and he's going to be talking about oh i used this chip once and it just worked it's so great it was so easy like it just worked first go no you know like they're not the stories you're going to exactly that's not valuable it's it's like if you build a kit right and it works first go you haven't learned anything wow you've okay you've got some more experience in soldering good on you yeah right but no it's if it doesn't work when you power it on

Chris Gammell: that's when you learn exactly right you don't you don't actually hope for it but it's the consolation prize it's actually worth something yeah yeah that's it yeah yeah it's tough no that's good i think this these kind of things are good and and like you and i were talking about off off air it's it's not gonna be the most popular videos you know that's unfortunate but no no but like this is this is a um it's good to have these experiences and this is another reason why i always thought you know like people that i'm teaching is too it's like man you you can't read a data sheet close enough you can't like no i can't i can't really impart that wisdom it's only you only really read a data sheet at two in the morning when you're exhausted you know what i mean and then and then you find that one line you're like oh my god what what have i done this was we were playing this guy david and

Dave Jones: i were playing this game the other day right we're using stm 32 stm um 32 in the new micro supply right yeah right that's a long data sheet and he was going there's so many bugs in this data sheet look i'll try and find one give me a minute and i bet you i can find one he's so he's going through the the list of like registers and stuff like that and he goes yep found one this doesn't match the appendix over here and he even went and found the document where they copied and pasted from and they didn't change it and that's where they made the mistake and then he just kept going he just kept going yeah i found another one i found like and i just went okay stop it i guess

Chris Gammell: i'm getting i'm getting sad i'm getting sad yeah yeah because like these documents are like 300 pages long they're massive right and they don't and they don't yeah you know like i know and they

Dave Jones: don't write these from scratch they copy and paste them from the previous chip and then make the changes

Chris Gammell: right right well it's a bit of a callback to the consulting world right you know thinking about documentation every hour you spend documenting a chip that's already in the world making you money is a cost center right so it's like right i mean i'm not saying it's excusable but i'm saying that like that is why you know documentation is revised over time instead of like fine tooth comb like it used to be because there's just less margin and less time to go over these things yeah not excusable but it's a reason yeah welcome to the world of electronics yeah right it is uh it's a hot mess why why the hell do we do it again you know i was thinking about this i really just like it dave you know i can't it's it's stupid right like i mean i was thinking about so like i was doing all the badge stuff and um you know i think i mentioned on the last show with oh how did the badge go by the it did not work i didn't get to firmware in time um so oh right so you didn't make it oh i made i made a bunch i just didn't i mean i made i made a bunch yeah i uh yeah so i talked about that a little bit on the show with mike's dish last week uh so you've shown this publicly now uh some of it uh and then mike published about it so there's a picture of it at least uh so it's an ongoing project can we talk about the name now uh fine fine yes yes it's out there it's out there fine yes it's fine can we get other people's opinion jeez you just right you all you want to do all you want to do is say i'm right you're wrong that's all i know that's all you want to do of course okay

Dave Jones: here we go here we go that's it haven't haven't you learned anything in the eight nine years we've

Chris Gammell: been doing this show definitely learned that's the one thing i've learned yes

Dave Jones: anyways okay so the badge is called you were you originally showed me right and badge was originally

Chris Gammell: well let's start with what it's called now so people could find it uh it's called the good fear badge right so like the good year but good fear blah blah black badge so so it's shaped it's shaped

Dave Jones: like a blimp right it's shaped you like like the good so it's a play on words of the good year

Chris Gammell: blimp and the foot in the logo is turned to a skull and it's got a wings and i think it looks very nice

Dave Jones: for what it was but it does look very nice i gotta admit but the name i hate the name good fear only because you heard the first name though only because i heard and saw the first design the first design was called the lead zeppelin leaded zeppelin leaded zeppelin the leaded zeppelin and it was once again the same shape it's shaped like a blimp right like a zeppelin and it was the leaded zeppelin

Chris Gammell: and i thought that was right and it was and it was the font of lead zeppelin the the band yep and yes

Dave Jones: and i exactly and i even showed it to mrs eeve blog and she went yeah that's way better than the good fear blimp well yeah yeah you changed it to the good fear blimp i did sorry man it was it was a it

Chris Gammell: was an artistic choice um you know it doesn't matter because it's not out there but the leaded zeppelin

Dave Jones: dude you could go to a heavy metal concert and sell 10 000 of those i don't think you could i think that's

Chris Gammell: the thing that that that you are getting wrong from what i'm getting out of this is that it's an insider joke to me and you and other hardware people but this is not that hardware crowd yeah probably okay that was that was the whole reason it was you know you got to know your audience and i think that the good fear blimp would have done better it doesn't matter because it didn't get out there

Dave Jones: uh the thing that did get out there neither the leaded zeppelin yes yes ah how could you think

Chris Gammell: that's not going to resonate with our audience oh with our audience oh oh don't get me wrong any any with people in our industry like if i if i could figure out how to make that into a t-shirt for our folks i would totally do that but i don't i don't think that i don't it doesn't have any reference then you know what i mean like if it's an le can we put up photos of the leaded zeppelin yes thank you yeah because it's awesome yes i love it yeah it was my art my art prototype yeah that was um oh yes what a shame oh boy anyways uh anyway so you didn't finish the firmware i'm still gonna work on i'm hoping you're gonna get it you're gonna get it done by us i i shouldn't laugh i've got

Dave Jones: hardware prototypes that are sitting there it's just hardware and the firmware is just no well it blinked

Chris Gammell: some lights and that's about it yeah well i did learn that i don't know if i mentioned on the show i think i mentioned it when mike was on the show but it was my main goal with that to was to learn the neoden and i ended up making a video about the neoden uh which i'm editing right now okay so so pick and place yeah i think i think that was good um you know i was hoping to get it out but uh i'm hoping to have it done by supercon which is in november um cool and that uh should be good by then hopefully and yeah i'll talk more about it then or show it off or show the other things that are buried in there uh yeah well i also want to mention i am like well i said i'm going to supercon that's in november the first weekend in november i told mike after last week that uh i would mention uh or two weeks ago um people should apply to give a talk i'm going to give a talk hopefully i applied to give a talk at least um yep and i'm about oh kcad no no that's different actually for me uh the talk that i uh let me see if i can find it so the talk title that i submitted was improve your circuit toolbox colon simple designs that will save your next product so basically like current limiting circuits and like having an indicator leds and like basically just kind of bag of tricks type of talk um a friend suggested that as a topic i thought that was a really good topic yeah no it's yeah it's good so might might do some brainstorming with dave on air at some point i have a couple in mind but you know there's always more okay right uh no worries yeah uh oh yeah so the the one thing i did get out by the time of supercon and my the workshop that i mentioned uh i did make a uh shitty add-on which i think i may have mentioned two weeks ago on the show but um that is basically my getting a blankie and i'm going to make that into a another video series um so cool people are looking to learn ki cad or key cad and uh you know i'd like guys like i always say like that having that one simple circuit i think a 555 circuit is still the best way to learn um it's very hardware centric um yeah that's uh i'll just it's kind of a different twist on that with a little bit of art so cool all right buddy uh anything else sounds good otherwise i you know this that's it we didn't get through anything i can't bill you for this hour so you know i gotta go i gotta do some work that's it

Dave Jones: no i'm gonna be one of those pain in the ass people who know you've know you did a contract

Chris Gammell: right up front right right i signed i'm sticking to the zero contract i signed that contract eight years ago and i've been paying for it ever since since it's been it's been very lucrative it's been it's been a good time buddy cool all right well we'll talk to you next week then catch you next time

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