#587 – Biblical Broker Bucks

Chris Gammell: This is the Eppower Podcast, released May 1st, 2022. Episode 587, Biblical Broker Bucks.

Dave Jones: Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV Blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics. Chippageddon's over. Who is it? Well, what's the opposite of bubblegum tap shoes?

Dave Jones: I don't know. We'll have to invent something.

Chris Gammell: How about... I put him on the spot. How about mouthwash sandals?

Dave Jones: Good enough. I have no idea what that means, but yep.

Chris Gammell: I was just thinking of what's the opposite of tap shoes and what's the opposite of bubblegum.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Yep.

Chris Gammell: All right. So anyways, how's it over?

Dave Jones: It's over because those Keysight winners, the scope winners from last year, 12 months ago that I did, they finally got their... One of them finally got their scope and one finally got their waveform gen 12 months later.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. That's a great measure.

Dave Jones: So it's over. It's over. I'm calling it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Is that all it takes, huh?

Dave Jones: That's all it takes is for Keysight to ship.

Speaker ?: Okay.

Chris Gammell: Okay. I'm probably not going to agree wholeheartedly.

Dave Jones: No, I know. Yeah. No, it's definitely not over. It's probably only just begun, unfortunately. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Chris Gammell: I was actually just watching Phil and Lamour from Adafruit made a video where they're basically talking to the camera saying, microchip, we need a reel of parts so that we can chip educational boards.

Dave Jones: I thought microchip were one of the ones who weren't like the least affected. There was somebody put up a graphic on like Twitter like a couple of months back.

Chris Gammell: I think that was Jay Carlson who did that.

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And like, yeah, but that was based on stock. That was, yeah, that's, that was an interesting chart. I think it was Jay, maybe it was someone else. It was an interesting chart because it was basically like scraping DigiKey and saying like, what's there? Yes. Right. And then I think they collated it by which vendor it was. And I think you're right. It was microchip had the most stuff.

Dave Jones: Microchip were by far the standout that had the most stuff.

Chris Gammell: But it doesn't really matter. I know. You know what I mean?

Dave Jones: It only takes one part for you not to get.

Chris Gammell: It only takes one letter of one part. That's what I'm finding. I know, exactly. Like, so one part that I'm, I'm waiting on until apparently March of 2023, it's like, you know, the family is there, but one letter change and it's like, okay, now you're at half the memory. You've got half the peripherals that I'm already using. It's a different package. So I'm already figuring I have to do a, you know, layout change. That's fine. But like some of it is like, I'd have to rewrite all the code too and refactor like the system diagram. It's like, okay, so that, what do you do at that point? You know, it's just like, well, I might as well optimize for the best part at the instant that I start that redesign then. And I better also have those parts at hand. You know, like that's, that's pretty much the only way forward for me.

Dave Jones: Which part are Adafruit? I didn't think they used any microchip. I thought they were all like STM.

Chris Gammell: Remember who they bought? They bought Admo.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Of course. Right. Okay. Right. So we're not talking about parts. We're talking about Admo.

Chris Gammell: No. Yeah. These are Sam, Sam D 2151. Yeah. And that's what Adafruit, you know, they, so Sam D, I actually, I did some research on those parts at one point. I didn't realize they were actually automotive parts. And I think that's why one of the things that they, I think that's why Lamore favors them is because there's a DAC on board. And, you know, the peripherals are very ruggedized, stuff like that makes sense for people that are, you know, going to potentially blow stuff up. And also they have a lot of memory, stuff like that. They're not particularly cheap. You know, if you go and like buy them. Oh, no, no, definitely. They're not particularly cheap, but, but they're, they're nice parts. And, you know, part of a much, much broader line, but the, they, you know, they focus down to just those two parts and, and honestly popularize them with, with things like CircuitPython and, and some Arduino support they did.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Right. So, yeah. And now that is, that's the video they made. I'll, I'll link the video and it's, it's pretty funny.

Dave Jones: All right. What they were, I can see the sad look. I can see the sad, sad puppy look on their face and just, why have you done this to me?

Chris Gammell: So have we all, right? I mean, like, I think at least they have a platform to, to ask, right? I mean, what, what am I going to do? What do you, you know, like, we could, I think it's, you know, it just comes down to money and dollars and cents and I don't know, and size. Like, if you're not a huge company, even if you are a huge company, like what the hell are people doing? I don't, I would love to hear, you know, if people have thoughts or experiences about what their companies are doing about like actually impacting change in this case, I just don't know what people are doing other than paying out the ass for broker parts. Like, it's all I can think. Like brokers are making so much money. They, you know, they're biblically, you know, they're making biblical bucks.

Dave Jones: Biblical levels of profit. Yeah. Anyway. Yes. The lack of parts. Factory 400 on Twitter. Definitely worth a follow by the way. Factory 400. Yep. Tweeted yesterday. I retweeted it that he's a quad pick and place machine. He's got a real kick ass quad, uh, pick and place machine, like real serious bit of kit. He says he just, he can't get components anymore and he needs the space. So he's packing up his pick and place machine and putting it into mothballs. Um, so like, yeah, because. I hate to see that. I know. And he just, he needs the space and he's like, he's not using it anyway because he can't get the bloody parts. So into the mothballs it goes. It's like, and I, um, tweeted like what happens to a pick and place machine when, when you don't use it? Is it one of those things that you have to like, keep it like, like in, like a car, you've got to keep it running. You know, you've got to keep it lubricated. You've got to keep it, you know, cause there's so many mechanical.

Chris Gammell: Did your parents ever used to say they needed to take it out on the highway?

Dave Jones: They need to take it out.

Chris Gammell: So, you know, I, I, I think you did a little bit and I, I used to listen to car talk all the time and they had a thing about it at one point, but it actually, it is a thing, but only with cars with carburetors. And even then they're like, you know, they, they have all a bunch of stuff about it, but yeah. Yeah. Blow the carbon out. I remember. It's not really a thing. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing, nothing in my lifetime, at least, you know, like my parents probably had like one or two carburetor cars. Yeah. They didn't collect cars or anything like that. It was just like, everything was fuel injected. So yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And just think Dave, you know, like your kids are gonna be like, you know, you have an electric car already. I'm hoping my next car is electric. It's like, like the concept of like, oh, I need to take this car on the highway to blow the contaminants that come from the propellant. You know, it's just like, wow.

Dave Jones: Well, no, you might get the equivalent in the batteries, your little, you know, those little dendrites growing, you know, you have to like burn out those little dendrites.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. I saw you. I was just thinking this the other day. You charged your thing all the way 100% I saw on Twitter.

Dave Jones: That's what I was about to say. I was just thinking this the other day because I rarely charge my car to 100% because it's not good for the battery life. But we went on a big trip that was going to be borderline, you know, so we, we charged it to 100% just in case. And yeah, I thought like, cause I always charge it 80%. And I went, well, what happens to the rest of the, you know, is it like, I don't think it's like a, how does it work? Like, I don't think it works like that inside. Like, I think it's just.

Chris Gammell: See what happens here is we're shoving so many electrons in here. The electrons, they just start running into each other. And they all fall at the bottom. And they all collect at the bottom. You know, it's, you know, have you ever been on a really like packed airplane before? It's like that for the electrons.

Dave Jones: Oh boy. So yeah. Yeah. I was thinking that. And it's like, well, no, cause that's not really how the battery works. It's not like, you know, like there's like, like the physical top 20% of it, like just doesn't get used. It's not, it's not quite, it's not quite like that.

Chris Gammell: That's the bad part. You gotta, you gotta just skip the bad part, you know?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. But, but it certainly does shorten the life. You know, if, if you charge them all the way up continuously and repeatedly. So yeah. Only keep mine charged to 80%. But if anyone knows, if anyone knows if your pick and place machine or your EV battery for that matter needs to be run in. Anyway, he, he said he was going to keep it in a location where he could actually run it twice a month where he could just start it up and just, you know, have the motors were around and, you know, yep. Just, just, just to keep it going. So he, he, he, so he has thought of that.

Chris Gammell: Does one with the pick and place machine, do you need to like oil it? Like, well. I guess they know very little about machinery in general. Yeah, I know.

Dave Jones: Well, I think, I think once they get bigger and more complicated, probably because they've got all these linear drive things and they've got, you know, like, I, I don't think, you know, it'd be a bad idea if you left it like uncovered or left it in some environment that wasn't. You know, good for it and like got dust all over it and stuff like that. That'd really be, I think that'd really screw it up. You know, if you've got dust in it or something like that over time, you know, if it was like a barn find, you know, barn find pick and place machine. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. There's all those, uh, there's American picker shows. Do you ever hear about those shows?

Dave Jones: I think we had that as a thumbnail. Yeah. Yeah. I love those shows. I do really. Oh man. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I love TV, man.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I know. It's great. Oh, compulsive viewing.

Chris Gammell: Is this because you're like, so you're like watching these shows and you're watching people like buy storage units and you're like, you're like tapping your fingers together. And you're like, I could buy that storage unit and put it in my storage unit.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Right. No, I don't like the storage unit shows.

Chris Gammell: I do like pickers.

Dave Jones: I do like American pickers because the guys in it.

Chris Gammell: What's the difference? I don't, I don't actually don't know the difference.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Right. Where the pickers show, they own like, like a second, like a, you know, a second. Secondhand company, you know, one of those porn shop kind of thing or not quite a porn shop, but they own like a secondhand trading stop and they just go around in a van and they find people who are advertising that, yeah, we need to clear out our entire house and they go in their attic and they, you know, crawl through their attic space searching for all these gems, you know, or, or something like that. Got it.

Chris Gammell: So this is like your voyeuristic watching of other people going into the equivalent of the dumpster room.

Dave Jones: You go into other people's houses and barns and, you know, and things like that.

Chris Gammell: Dave's, Dave's interests are, are, are varied, but they rhyme.

Dave Jones: Yep. Well, and whereas the storage unit ones, they're highly produced, highly overproduced, let's say, and not that genuine. Let's say that there's a lot of fake stuff.

Chris Gammell: Oh, well, I expect reality TV to be extremely reality.

Speaker ?: Right. Right.

Dave Jones: But, but the, uh, pickers one, like you can't fake that. It's like somebody has, their land is just filled with like 200 old abandoned cars. Right. It's like, you know, that's what it's like.

Chris Gammell: And then at the very back, they go, oh, wow, we've never seen this before. It's such a rare find. Yeah. It's a quad pick and place machine.

Dave Jones: It's a quad pick and place machine. Anyway, didn't we have, I think we did that as a thumbnail, didn't we? On an old episode, we, we had a barn find pick and place machine. I'm sure we did.

Chris Gammell: Oh God, Dave, 587. We're, that's what, that's today's show. 587.

Dave Jones: You just, anyway.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: It rings a bell, but yeah. Barn find pick and place machine. I take it. It's not going to work that well.

Chris Gammell: I would not probably. Yeah. I think, I think there are, I think we definitely talk to people on the show at some point. If not on the show, then definitely I've talked to people in real life about like buying used pick and place machines. Cause that's, that's a common thing. I don't know, man. People are still, people are still doing it. They're still buying pick and place machines and thinking they're, you know, you got to make a business out of it after the fact. Don't forget that. Oh, right. Yeah. It's a great idea until you're like, oh, now I I'm done making my boards. What about, I guess I have to make other people's boards to keep the price down on this thing.

Dave Jones: All right. There's a link in here from prism tank 32 about PCB fabs. What's all this about?

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. This was a, just kind of a request. I think based on, they wanted to buy something. They didn't say domestic specifically, but there was stuff up. I should probably actually have this link up doing it by memory.

Dave Jones: Oh, they're, they're after a PCB house.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's right.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: I think I still almost universally point people at PCB shopper. I think that's a good one. Yep. What do you, do you use anything else?

Dave Jones: Which is one that gets you prices from all different places. Yes. That's, that's one of the places I'd go with, but really I like, they're all so like equivalent, especially if you're just like after like a real simple, like a small, simple board that easily fits on a panel. I wouldn't even bother shopping around. I'd just get it from whoever I used last time. But you know, maybe if I had like a bigger board that does, you know, it's got some, you know, more obscure stuff that may not be that cheap on a panel or it's larger or something like that, you then, yeah, you'd definitely shop around for a price. So, yep. But you know, who cares if it costs a dollar a board or $2 a board? It's like, you know, like, yeah.

Chris Gammell: So they're also asking about assembly and, you know, doing assembly.

Dave Jones: Oh, well that's, that's different.

Chris Gammell: You know, this is the one thing they don't mention is cost. I don't believe. Yeah. I'd say cost is going to be the big one. And then also delivery time. And, you know, you could get in the U S at least, you know, you could find probably two or three hands off assembly houses, you know, like digital hands off assembly houses, and you could pay through the nose for it. And you could probably get it in less than a week, assuming your parts are available.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Like, but that's going to cost you a ton of money, like a ton, ton of money compared to what you probably think it is.

Dave Jones: Yeah, totally.

Chris Gammell: And I've used some of them and they're great.

Dave Jones: Like did the China shut down? Did the China COOF zero policy shutdown effect? I haven't been keeping up to date.

Chris Gammell: You know, I will say.

Dave Jones: Presumably it would have, but I've heard people have been getting shipments. I'm going, well, how isn't China supposed to be like literally in lockdown? Like all of it, all of Shenzhen was in lockdown at one point. A couple of weeks back.

Chris Gammell: Yep. I have not been ordering boards lately to my great shame. And I asked a friend about this and he said, basically his stuff is about a week or two delayed, but it was still getting out. From Shenzhen. Wow.

Dave Jones: Wow. I just find that absolutely remarkable.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yep. I mean, best case scenario given, you know, like, you know, yeah, because it could have gone the exact opposite way. It could have been like, well, yeah, I'm still waiting to hear. Right. So it's, you know, it's a big interconnected world. We're all kind of affected by world events like this. And yeah, I think it's just, we're going to, I think you always have to be kind of like ready for a plan B in that case. You know, like what is your risk tolerance for, you know, people probably don't think this at the time, but like, as soon as you hear, so say you sent out a board on a Monday and Shenzhen announces everything's locked down for the next week to month on Tuesday. I think on that Tuesday, you need to ask yourself, like, what is my real deadline on boards in house? My cost tolerance, my, you know, like if it's like a, well, I don't care about it. You just let it go. You just say, all right, it gets here when it gets here. But like, if you're like, no, I need this by one month from today. And I also need to assemble it by hand. It's like, okay, well, you got to go make some calculations based on that and probably pony up to work around it.

Dave Jones: Now, do you believe this news story? People were sending this to me and I go and go and Dave, is this real? It's like tech firms rip apart new washing machines so they can harvest their computer parts in a bid to beat the global chip again shortage. I'm smelling a bit of a over-exaggeration here, perhaps. But I can imagine scenarios where if you're a high value added company, right? Like, you know, like you make small volumes of stuff and you absolutely need these chips and you make massive margins on them. I can under, like, and there happens to be a chip in a washing machine, like a huge, big washing machine, right? That you can't get anywhere else. And it happens to be inside these new washing machines. I can imagine actually buying a couple and tearing the chips out. But geez, I mean, I don't know if this is real. I don't know if this is actually, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think the externalities of buying a washing machine and throwing out the parts you don't need is significantly lower than it should be. You know? You just pay to throw it away, right? I mean, that's pretty bad.

Dave Jones: But yeah, I don't, I can't see how it's, I can't see how that's really real. I'm just not.

Chris Gammell: They said we were going to buy 10, let's see, this is a hearsay, but they said we're going to buy 10,000 washing machines and take the sensors out of them. What are we going to do with leftover appliances? Let's do that tomorrow.

Dave Jones: Which, which sensors are they talking about?

Chris Gammell: I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's, yeah. I think this has been handed down.

Chris Gammell: I mean, this is pretty apocryphal. I don't doubt that people are doing this with dev boards. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: I've heard it's happening with dev boards. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Desperately need one chip and it's on a dev board. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I don't know.

Chris Gammell: People are doing crazy stuff right now. I will say that. Yeah, I know. Is it any better or worse?

Dave Jones: I'd say it's possible, but I don't think it's actually real. I don't. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I will say that the ripple effect from any of these decisions, you know, like I think about like, okay, so going back to my, you know, designing in a part that's in the same family, but a different part. Right. So I now go and I say, okay, you know what? I think I can buy the half memory part that I have never bought before, but happens to be in stock and I need a thousand of these parts and I see there's a thousand in the ecosystem and I say, you know what? I think I can squeeze it down into that, that firmware, the firmware image into that thing and I think I can make it all work and I go and I buy a thousand parts because I'm going to do that. Well, someone else was depending on that thousand parts being there, maybe to buy one, maybe to buy a hundred or maybe to buy all a thousand and like, and then they have to do that and it's just ripples on and on and on down the line. And so that's, you know, we're going to be part of this ping pong, I think for, you know, probably months even past when the chips start flowing in. So also this daily mail is, this is a terrible site.

Dave Jones: This is like a, yeah, it's one of those rags, you know, it's one of those.

Chris Gammell: It really seems like it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But anyway, that's where the article.

Chris Gammell: Clickbait. I'm kind of, I'm claiming clickbait.

Dave Jones: Yeah. There's just, it's just plastered with so many ads and those stupid pop-ups, you know, there's viral story.

Chris Gammell: I was thinking like the, the celebrity stories is really. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: They're all the, all those celebrity stories down the side and at the bottom and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just absolutely choked with them. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's quite horrific actually how much crap is on there. But anyway, that's where the story happens to be. So I'm just, yeah. Calling. Yeah. Kind of BS. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: What do you think? I mean, have you, what's the craziest thing you have to do for a chip in the past? Like, I mean, it's not like you were designing electronics during this time, but I'm sure that there's shortage situations.

Dave Jones: When I was a boy, I've, I've still got chips here that I desoldered from boards when I was like 10, you know, and, and I was using them. Yeah. That was just, you know.

Chris Gammell: Also, you should sell those chips. They're probably worth a lot now, Dave.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Right. I know. Yeah. That's a, yeah. Yeah. That CD 4001 from 1980 is really valuable now. Oh boy. Anyway. Yeah. Yep.

Chris Gammell: I mean, you should see, I mean, there's no real open market. I remember the guys that did Earl and Machina. Machina is a, they did like car computers and stuff like that. They've been in the show before, Machina with two Cs. And they have, I think it was Josh. It's Earl and Josh, I believe. They have a site that they started basically that was meant to be kind of a exchange for parts, you know, like a, Hey, I've got a thousand parts. Right. Can I sell them to people? So it's an online community broker. Yeah. Yeah. Like a community. It's like a eBay for parts, but somehow verified. I don't remember what it was. Let's see.

Dave Jones: Somehow verified. Yeah. Yeah. But you're buying a reel from Joe blogs on the internet. I don't think that's fair. I don't think that's hard to, it's hard to verify. Where did Joe blogs get it from? You know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's the thing. Like, you know, that's always the problem. It's always a trust problem. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You can take a photo. Like, okay. So for example, I'm on, it's called XS components. We've probably mentioned on the show before. And, you know, you go on their site. Let me send Dave the link real quick. So he has.

Dave Jones: Oh, I've got it. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: You got it. Well, unless you got a specific part. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: No, no, no. I'm just looking on the front page of it. And it's like, all right. So there's STM 32 F098 RCT6. I see it. Holy crap. That's a Cortex M0 part that are selling for $7.90 each.

Dave Jones: Yep. Ooh. Damn. Oh, they've only got 103 in stock.

Chris Gammell: But you know what? If you're missing, if you don't have that.

Dave Jones: Yeah. If you don't, if you need a hundred.

Chris Gammell: There's no way that was more than a $2 part.

Speaker ?: Man.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's crazy. This is like, this is like strange voyeurism like it is now too. It's just like, Ooh, can I get any deals?

Dave Jones: Actually, I don't think they're scalping too much there at all. It's $7.90.

Chris Gammell: For Cortex M part?

Dave Jones: I think that's a, probably a fair price in the current market. I'd be snapping those up.

Chris Gammell: No, yeah. I am sure that these are matching, you know, might be slightly elevated above like a DigiKey price or whatever. Maybe, maybe not DigiKey. Probably significantly above a DigiKey, but like, you know, probably lower than just a general broker that might be able to get you 10,000 of these parts. But still. Hang on.

Dave Jones: I'm sorting by price. The most expensive part is one is 1500 bucks and they've got six in stock. What the heck is that?

Chris Gammell: Oh, that's going to be like FPGA, right?

Dave Jones: Hang on. What the $509 AU Optronics. Now, give me something that I've actually heard of. Give me a look at that. Oh, yeah. And Intel, no? Okay. They've got an STM32F779 at $110 each. Okay. They've got 2,900 of those bad boys in stock. And they show real photos of them. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think that actually does help to, you know, like you could fake that. But it does help a little bit.

Dave Jones: Oh, and they've got like the bag seal dates and exactly how many are in the bags. And they've got photos of the individual medically sealed bags. This really helps with the confidence side of things. Yeah, definitely. It does.

Chris Gammell: I feel like we're giving like, you know, however many listeners we have, like a little bit of hope. I want to just squash it right now. So there's almost 0% chance they have the parts you need. Just so you know. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. 200 pages with like five pages. Yeah. No, it's not. Yeah. There's not many parts here. No. Yeah. No, there's not. This is not the answer for you. I'm sorry about that. However, you know, it's still kind of fun to look through.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, this is always a trust problem, right? I mean, this is the point of like centralization in the chips industry anyways, right? It's like, I trust DigiKey, Mauser.

Dave Jones: Yes, of course.

Chris Gammell: Maybe. Maybe.

Dave Jones: Because they're a tier one supplier. They're like. Yeah, exactly. You know, they get their parts directly from the manufacturer and they're certified.

Chris Gammell: Right. And I don't trust a marketplace. No.

Dave Jones: And DigiKey. eBay.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Alibaba. Aliexpress.

Chris Gammell: I mean, even like LCSE, right? I mean, like I trust them as a marketplace versus like going direct to some of the, you know, some of the lesser known names that they carry, right? Yep. Just there is a market. This is like, what do they call it? Like the Diamond District effect?

Dave Jones: Never heard of it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So the Diamond District is a section of New York and you'd think like, well, if you had a diamond store, wouldn't you want to be like completely separate so that you stand apart, right? You like, hey, I'm a diamond store, but I have all these beautiful wares and I don't have anything to compare them to. But there's like an effect where there's actually a benefit from being from all the diamond stores being in one district.

Dave Jones: In one there, you appear reputable because you're around other reputable companies.

Chris Gammell: There is that, but actually it's also the like comparison shopping as well. I think it's just like the marketplace actually increases the overall value. Even though you get comparison shop, there's like some weird economic effect. I'll probably just copy and paste the link that I find, to be honest, if I'm being honest here. But it's an interesting read.

Dave Jones: Although a pro tip, pro tip, don't tell the secret, but diamonds aren't actually worth anything. Just, you know, just putting it out there. Don't spread it too far.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Anyway.

Dave Jones: All right. Speaking of, yeah, speaking of bullshit, which is diamond prices. Seriously, try and go sell a diamond. You'll find out how much they're really worth. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Okay, Dave. You and Reddit all agree on the same things here. We get it, buddy.

Dave Jones: My father-in-law is a jeweler. He makes top notch. He's one of the top jewelers in the country. Makes the jewelry for all the top notch, you know, names.

Chris Gammell: All the Aussie football stars. Right. Yeah. All the teeth that got knocked out by the Aussie football players.

Dave Jones: All those fancy, fancy ones you see in the wedding magazines and stuff like that. He's made all those, you know.

Chris Gammell: Anyway. Anyway.

Dave Jones: So I know a thing or two. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm sure you know a thing or two. Speaking of bullshit. Dave heard about it over a potato salad at a family dinner. No.

Dave Jones: Seriously, go and try and sell a diamond. Anyway, speaking of bullshit. Somebody put this on the thing who put it on here. Timmy time. Timmy time. You'll know all about that soon, Chris. Timmy time. No? You don't know about it yet?

Chris Gammell: I don't know that reference. Oh, Timmy time. Is this being a father? Is this reference to that? It's a cartoon thing.

Dave Jones: It's a kid's. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I see. Yeah. No, I'm.

Dave Jones: It's Timmy. It's Timmy. Yeah. Timmy time.

Chris Gammell: I am. Yeah. I'm going to be thrust into the world of.

Dave Jones: Yes.

Chris Gammell: Terribly annoying cartoons.

Dave Jones: Terribly annoying.

Chris Gammell: I'm already in the Pixar world by choice. Oh, okay. Yeah. The everyday cartoons.

Dave Jones: The best is bluey. I'm not biased because it's Australian, but the best, the highest quality children's cartoon is blue. Got it. It is awesome. I've heard that even all these Americans are now speaking with Australian accent.

Chris Gammell: We have covered a lot of ground. We have covered a lot of ground in this episode already. You can tell we haven't talked in a couple of weeks because we are all over the place, man.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. Just wait until what I've got next. Okay. Anyway. So, yeah. Bluey. Apparently, all the Yankees are speaking. All the Yankee kids are now speaking with Aussie accents because of bluey. So, yeah. Sorry.

Chris Gammell: Bluey. Is this like a bluey? Oh, my God.

Dave Jones: You haven't heard of bluey. Oh, my God. Bluey's the best.

Chris Gammell: All right. You know what?

Dave Jones: All right. All right.

Chris Gammell: All right. Bluey's the best. It's because he's an Australian blue heeler, right? That's the idea?

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: Oh, it's not a he.

Chris Gammell: Oh, sorry.

Dave Jones: Bluey's actually a she. A lot of people are surprised to learn this. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I used to have a blue heeler, an Australian shepherd blue heeler. Really? That was a she as well. Yeah. Her name was Lola. You probably heard her on very early recordings of the Amp Hour. Oh, there you go. I bet I could go back and find Lola. Lola always managed to sneak into.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: All of my dogs have always snuck into. It's not yet. It's not yet. It's not yet. At one point or another.

Dave Jones: Anyway, Bluey is the best.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Bluey.

Dave Jones: Trust me. Great. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I will go check it out.

Dave Jones: So noted. All right. It's really good for adults too. It's like some of them are going, oh God, not another bloody Octonauts episode. You know.

Chris Gammell: I'm just imagining, folks, I know we're already past April 20th, but I'm just imagining Dave smoking a huge doobie and being like, man, you got to go see Bluey.

Dave Jones: It's deep, man.

Chris Gammell: It's Jerry Garcia. Funions. Lots of Funions. All right. What are we really talking about here?

Dave Jones: I'm just saying it may be, it may or may not be Australian government propaganda to infiltrate the US market.

Chris Gammell: Right. It is.

Dave Jones: I'm not saying it's a conspiracy or anything, but it is actually backed by the Australian government. If you actually go look who funded it, secretly funded by the Australian government. So I'm just putting that out there.

Chris Gammell: What would be the impact of a bunch of American kids speaking with Australian accents?

Dave Jones: I don't know, but it's good.

Chris Gammell: You know what it does, Dave? It's, it's, it's, it's accent inflation. You know, like all the people, you know, all the, like, the medium good looking Aussies that come to the US and all these, all these, you know, people over here, they just swoon and like, Oh, I love your accent. You know what? It doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter. The kids talk like that too. You know what? That's annoying now. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yes. All right. It dilutes it.

Chris Gammell: It dilutes it. That's right. Inflation. It's an, we're living in an inflationary age and Bluey is part of the problem. All right. Now I sound like I've been smoking pot. What are we talking about for real?

Dave Jones: We're back onto bullshit.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Somebody posted this on the Reddit. So it's not just me doing it. Somebody posted it. They wanted it. Got a couple of thumbs up, I think. Two thumbs up. So there you go. Talk about it. Is that, no, it's, it isn't a thumbs up on Reddit, is it? It's an arrow up.

Chris Gammell: Upvote.

Dave Jones: Upvote. Upvote. Anyway, Belkin have, you know, Belkin's a big name, you know, in the, they make all sorts of. Quite big. Yeah. Just a computery type stuff. They've partnered with WeCharge.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: Yes. Wireless power. And I will, of course, link in my video.

Chris Gammell: Oh, there's debunk involved here. Okay.

Dave Jones: 1092. WeCharge IR wireless charging fact or fiction. So I have done a video on that and I will send you the link. There it is there. So yeah. WeCharge. This is infrared wireless charging. So this is directed infrared wireless charging. So it doesn't just shoot it out. It figures out where it is and then shoots an infrared laser. I think it's an infrared laser. Jeez, it's been so long since the video. And yes, it's an infrared laser. So it's Linus from Linus Tech Tips. We've also got another thing on him today on the list. And so we can segue into that later, Chris. Just a professional heads up there.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Thanks.

Dave Jones: Anyway. So yeah, he did a video on this like sprouting how wonderful it is. And they sent in the train demo, like this train runs around the track and then he puts the infrared wireless transmitter on the ceiling and it follows the train around and it shoots an infrared laser beam to it and it powers the train. It's like whoop-de-doo. Yeah. So like it's an open cavity. I think the principle is an open cavity laser. The way it works is that like normally a laser itself is a closed cavity. But in this particular case, I think, I'm going by, this was three years ago.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: That half of the cavity is up in the transmitter and the other half is down in the receiver. And so it forms like, so the path forms the laser cavity. So you have to understand how lasers work and bounce back and forth and, you know, stuff like that. So apparently that's how they make it safe in quote marks. But yeah, nah is the official, I believe is my verdict on that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And I think I would be on that. I mean, anything with, yeah. Wireless power works, colon.

Dave Jones: Anyway. So who cares? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Not enough to care, right?

Dave Jones: No, exactly. All these things work, right? U-beam works. Solar roadways works, right? They all work, right?

Chris Gammell: Yep. They prove the demo that they were trying to prove. They don't prove the commercial capability. Yeah.

Dave Jones: So what's happened here, I think, even though I haven't read into the details, is that WeCharge have obviously convinced Belkin that, you know, or maybe, you know, they've gave them like, you know, convinced them somehow to do a press release that they're teaming up somehow. And Belkin are just looking into it. Like, you won't find a WeCharge wireless charger on your Belkin branded WeCharge thing on your shelf anytime soon or ever, really, because it's not practical. It's just one of these.

Chris Gammell: Imagine, like, you know, some entrepreneur type person, like, getting a press release and then, like, just flogging the hell out of it. Oh, yeah. You know, to places like The Verge and, like, stirring up all this crap.

Dave Jones: It is the staple. The press release is the staple of all. In fact, I've done a video. It was an hour long. And I didn't release it. Well, I sort of released it to my backers. But I thought it was way too long. Anyway, it was a follow-up.

Chris Gammell: You two could be a Dave Insider.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Just join my Patreon.

Chris Gammell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: And, yeah, so I wanted to redo it because it was, like, 55-minute video. I can link it in, actually.

Chris Gammell: Oh.

Dave Jones: And, yeah. And it was just like, yeah, they're another wireless power-bloody company. Yeah, they just use the press release thing. Yeah, I think that's- This is the wiggle.

Chris Gammell: They're sensationalizing and going for the quick hits. Yeah.

Dave Jones: They're like, yeah, we're partnering up with this company. And it's like this company is just going, oh, yeah, we'll kind of talk to you and see what you got. And then, boom, that company plasters it all over. Yeah, we've got to deal with Belkin. It's just, ah, growing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, one thing that the comment down at the bottom of this Verge article mentions is just, like, the low-power sensors and stuff like that. And that is actually something I wanted to talk about this week. How about that?

Speaker ?: Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: Unexpected segue. They mentioned Thread and Matter. I was actually, I got invited to speak at the Thread group's, like, member meeting. Who's Thread?

Dave Jones: What?

Chris Gammell: Thread. This is what I mentioned at the end of the show three weeks ago. Yeah. And I said, Dave, this is this thing that I'm working on, and it's so cool. It's Thread. And you're like, uh-huh. And then the show ended. Yeah, right.

Dave Jones: Okay. Yeah, that really stuck in my mind.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I know. The reason I wanted to talk about it, because what it really was for me is a call. It actually was a callback to how naive I was. I mean, I'm still very naive. Don't get me wrong. So I made this ABC board, right? Do you remember me talking about that? Yeah, yeah. Probably nonstop when I was making it, right? And so that had an NRF52 840 on it, which is normally like a Bluetooth chip, but it can do other types of 2.4 gigahertz radios. And it had a cell modem on it, and it was meant to plug into a Raspberry Pi. And that was kind of the idea. And I was just making it because I was making it as, like, a reference design and just as, like, something I could show off in a portfolio and, you know, something I could do the course around. And, you know, from that perspective, I think I did okay. Like, you know, I showcased what I wanted to showcase on the build side. But from, like, a product design piece, I left it completely half-assed because I, like, what I had basically said, and this is, you know, coming at it from, like, a hardware-only perspective, was like, well, I'll figure out the software later. You know, like, oh, I know Bluetooth's a thing. I know that cellular's a thing. I worked on some cellular stuff in the past. I thought I could get this thing started up. This is actually how I started looking at Zephyr and all these other things. And, like, I was like, I think I could figure it out. And, you know, truthfully, I could have if I kept going on it. But I really didn't have, like, any concept of how I would extend this thing, right? So it's got a Bluetooth radio on there. But really, point-to-point Bluetooth like that wouldn't have been the right option, right? Okay. And I was always saying, like, oh, I'd have, like, sensors that could talk back to this Bluetooth thing, but it doesn't really make any sense. Well, since that time, I've learned a lot more about IoT, much to Dave's chagrin, and other things in the space. And what I'm really saying, though, is, you know, looking at all the different things that are out there, Thread is one thing that actually would have enabled that platform, right? So I wanted to have a cellular backhole sending stuff to the internet. I wanted to talk to a bunch of low-power sensors. That's why I put this Internet 52840 on the board and also, like, process things. And Thread is basically like a meshing protocol built on top of 802.15.4. Sorry, it's not a meshing protocol. It's a meshing setup on top of a 802.15.4 protocol, which is, like, how the radios talk to one another. And that's all at 2.4 gigahertz. And so, yeah, it kind of just kind of tied all that stuff back together. I got back into it for unrelated reasons. But now that I've seen it, it's pretty damn cool. And I actually have things at my desk actually meshed together as we speak. I don't know if you can hear them, but they are meshing, Dave.

Dave Jones: I'm a chip whisperer. I can hear them.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think the thing that I'm excited about is I'm going to try and, like, extend a network to actually have, like, a bunch of small sensors. And so this, to tie it all back, the Verge article at the bottom, so I was talking about low-power sensors. These are legitimately, like, low-power. Not saying what I'm doing here, but, like, some of the things that are coming out now and some of the thread stuff and then Matters built on top of that, these are, like, really, really low-power devices that actually are, like, around your home that might be, like, a, I guess, smart button could be one thing or, like, light bulbs or whatever, but they could all be meshed together using Thread and then Matters, like, a software layer that's on top of that. And that's kind of the thing that people can hear about a lot in the consumer world specifically.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: I've been doing a lot of talking.

Dave Jones: I do not want a low-power smart button. No. No, thank you. I do not want a low-power meshed smart button in my house.

Chris Gammell: I do not want it in my house. I do not want it with a mouse. I will not take your IoT box. I will not have it with a fox. I will not have it on Sigfox.

Dave Jones: That's pretty good. Yeah. Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: I do not want your stuff from Apple. I think it happens to be crappled. Take that, Theodore Seussle.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. Yeah. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Anyways, I'm really excited about it. I think, you know, from an industrial perspective, it's probably not going to be super huge in industrial because, you know, there's meshing protocols that are out there. So there's like linear tech now analog devices had bought this thing called smart dust or dust. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. A couple of 10 years ago, I think at this point. You know, there's been meshing is not a new thing. It is increasingly in the zeitgeist, at least in my zeitgeist. That's not how zeitgeist works. And I think what people are going to hear a lot about is matter. And that's built on top of thread. And that's some of the people I got to talk to and go present in front of and got some stuff working. And I think for people that are looking to do low power projects for themselves or for clients and stuff like that, I think actually thread might make sense in that case.

Dave Jones: Got it. So.

Chris Gammell: Well, cool. All right. Yeah. It's kind of cool. It's kind of cool. It's a, the way to, the way that I'm kind of telling people about it, it's kind of like if you had a Bluetooth device, but if it had an IP address. Right. Which is kind of crazy, right? You think about, most people don't think about having like a, so if you had like a, you know, do you have a smartwatch or do you, do you, do you, do you No, I hate smart.

Dave Jones: No, I hate smartwatches. With a passion.

Chris Gammell: I just thought, you know, you're so into fitness that maybe you, maybe you broke down a little bit.

Dave Jones: No, no. Well, I think that bugs me.

Chris Gammell: Tell me what bugs you.

Dave Jones: You go into the gym, right? Really pisses me off. You go into the gym.

Chris Gammell: Dave goes to the gym a lot. If people are listening and they don't know, Dave is a gym rat, like very fit Dave. So. Yep. He knows gyms.

Dave Jones: I do.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Technically I'm a qualified gym instructor. So. Oh, interesting.

Chris Gammell: Anyway. You should start, you should start across, across promotional platform. Right. Yeah. Getting, getting ease and shape. Yep. Harder challenge has never been, has never been.

Dave Jones: Well, I have actually done a video on this. I've done lab workouts. I've done lab workouts. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: No, no, but I'm saying you actually have to get people motivated. I know. To replicate it. Right.

Dave Jones: Oh boy. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: You and I have been talking for 12 years. Hasn't worked on me yet.

Dave Jones: There's no hope.

Chris Gammell: No, there's no hope.

Dave Jones: All right. Anyway. What was I saying? I think I hate, right? You go to the freaking gym. People like, oh my God. Is it too much to ask to leave your shoe phone in the locker? They're sitting in the class. It's just like, I'm, I'm the only one standing there without a phone. Everyone else is just sitting there. And then you just scroll in like seconds before the class starts. You know, some of that Dave is social anxiety.

Chris Gammell: I don't know if you know that.

Dave Jones: Oh my God.

Chris Gammell: The phone is a crutch for social anxiety. So you're just so comfortable in your own skin. What you should really do is walk up to them and make them very uncomfortable. Be like, hello, I would like to start a conversation with you.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I'll walk up to every girl in the class and say, I would like to start a conversation with you. But you know, like. Yeah. It's, oh my God. And then during the track, you know, they're like, you know, they're like, okay, let's take a 30 second rest on the phone.

Chris Gammell: I know Dave. This is more of a kids these days thing. This is a.

Dave Jones: And not just kids. No. Adults.

Chris Gammell: We're kidding. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh my God. No.

Chris Gammell: I was referring to 25 year olds as kids. Just so you know. Okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, you're getting old now. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. So yeah. If you were to have a, like a, you know, a wrist, wrist computer, you know, Bluetooth stuff, you just almost always talking back to your phone and it's, there is no, there is usually not a publicly addressable IP address on that thing because there's nothing forwarding packets along you. Yeah. If you're talking to it from the internet, you're talking to the phone and then the phone says, oh, I can translate this down to wrist, wrist compatible stuff over Bluetooth. You know, there's Bluetooth. What's it called? It like broadcasts and advertises services and whatever.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: So yeah, it's, it's a little different like that.

Dave Jones: Groovy.

Chris Gammell: I think it is groovy. Dave.

Dave Jones: Groovy baby.

Chris Gammell: I'm going to say, I'm going to say it. IOT is kind of cool sometimes, man.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Okay. Whatever. I'm drinking the Kool-Aid. It's delicious. Can we talk about Bob Weidler, please?

Chris Gammell: Sure. The opposite, the opposite of IOT. Bob Weidler.

Dave Jones: Anyway, there's an excellent article by Jake Hertz. Hertz. Love it. Like, come on. If you're, you know, if you're a columnist on All About Circuits, your name needs to be Jake Hertz. I mean, just so.

Chris Gammell: Or if you're a wrestler, you know. Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: What would be your wrestling name? Mine? Can we, yeah. Can we.

Chris Gammell: Mine would be the.

Dave Jones: Dr. Diode or something. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: How about like the Bomb Dropper, but it's B-O-M.

Dave Jones: Oh, the Bomb Dropper. Right. No, that can be your finishing move. The Bomb.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: The Bomb Dropper or something.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: The Parts Bomb. It's your finishing move.

Chris Gammell: The Parts Bomb.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: There's a lot of silly jokes in there. What about yours? What's.

Dave Jones: Oh, I think I'll start. After this, I don't know. I'll start a thread on Twitter. How about that?

Chris Gammell: Okay. I like it.

Dave Jones: I like it. What would your wrestling name be? And it's got to be electronics related.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to have like a, an associated like. Yeah.

Dave Jones: You, you have to have a finishing move. And what would your finishing move be?

Chris Gammell: Finishing move. But I was thinking actually more like the Mexican wrestlers that have like the face mask.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: What are they called? Oh, I forget what they're called. Lucha Libre. Luchadores. Yeah. Yep. Lucha Libre. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's got to, it's got to, it's got to like be matching for that sort of thing. So if like you're the bomb dropper, you have to have like a spreadsheet on your, on your face.

Dave Jones: Oh, as a mask. Right. As a mask. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Or maybe a Wydler current source, perhaps.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Right. The Wydlerizer.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I, cause I just coincidentally posted a photo on Twitter yesterday. Cause I got one in the mailbag. Thank you to the person who sent it to me is a PCB with his face on it. And like, it's a plaque kind of thing. It's awesome. So I'll have to link that one in. It's a great.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. They've done a piece. Sorry. I understand what they're doing there, but like, like looking at it from far away. Yeah. Yeah. Cause like, it's like exposed. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, well, they've only got four colors to work with. For those who don't know, you know, you've got your plan. If you get your regular PCB, you've only got four colors in quote marks. Right. So you like you, you've, you've got the bare fiberglass. Well, that's right. No, actually, no, technically five. No, you've got five colors.

Chris Gammell: One, two, three, four. And then, yeah, usually, well, not in black. It's solder mask though.

Dave Jones: No, no, I can. No, you've got five. I can tell you how. Okay. Okay. Tricks of the trade, my son, my young Padawan. Right. So you've got the fiberglass itself. Right. So that's one color. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Right. And then you've got the copper, bare, bare, bare copper. Bare copper.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Usually plated in some way, gold or silver.

Dave Jones: Well, yeah. Yeah. Right. So let's just say gold plated. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Usually gold.

Dave Jones: Right. So gold plated. You can have bare copper if you want. But yeah. Anyway. But then you've got to do selective plating and stuff like that. And that's, you know, that's a different process. Anyway. It's harder. Anyway. So yeah, you've got your copper color, whatever that happens to be. Then you've got your solder mask color. And then you've got your silk screen color. If you only choose one color silk screen, which is standard. But you can get multiple color silk screens. Yeah. That's right. They just put it through multiple processes and they charge you. Yep. Just cost more.

Chris Gammell: Yep. Okay. So you're at four. Would you like eight colors solder mask?

Dave Jones: Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. They like that. Yeah. Yep.

Chris Gammell: All right. So give me the fifth one. And remember I said, this is black solder mask.

Dave Jones: Yep. Okay.

Chris Gammell: I know what you're going to say. You're going to say it's solder mask over copper or over bare.

Dave Jones: No.

Chris Gammell: But there's no difference here.

Dave Jones: I know. It's not that. Okay. What is it? You haven't thought of it. Okay. You remember when the first one I said was fiberglass color. The fiberglass color changes depending upon the copper on the other side. If you have dark copper on the other side or if you have light copper. I'll pay that. See? There you go. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Chris Gammell: Now I would say you would get a sixth color if this wasn't black solder mask. That's what I would say.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. And that's true. And actually you can do. I've seen. I, you know, badge life is like all about this kind of.

Dave Jones: It's all about those funky looking arty PCBs. Yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And you can do like multiple layers as well. Or if you're doing backlit, you can start to do that stuff. Yeah. Oh, you can do all sorts of things. And yeah. Has done a bunch of great art. You know, that's a PCB art's its own thing. Yep. All right. Totally. Here's my thing. This is a posterized version of Bob Weidler, right? So this is basically taking Bob Weidler's image and then basically GIMP or GNU image processing or whatever the process or Photoshop basically splits it into four colors.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And I think the proper way to do this is stippling. What's stippling? Stippling is, if you read the Wall Street, have you ever seen like those images in the Wall Street Journal where they take someone's photo and then they just, it looks like it's got different like tones, but it's actually because there's different size dots. Oh, yes. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. I think stippling is the way to go. And that's what the Zap and Hyron from.

Dave Jones: You could do. That'd be an interesting comparison. And then you're talking just stippling and not a combination of stippling and the other aspects?

Chris Gammell: You could do both. You could do both. So you might want to do, so you would want to do stippling though.

Dave Jones: You could have like a gold color dot of any size and then you can have a black color dot of any size with the, or any color. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, so basically this all comes down to like the image processing you do before you bring it into a program like Icat. Don't get me wrong. This is still super cool. Like this is really, this is a great thing.

Dave Jones: That could be a plugin, right, for some clever programmer out there, right, who wants to convert like images into, you know. Yeah. You can, you can choose your process, you know, you can choose stippling. You can choose, you know, it'd be great if there's a drop down box and you can choose, no, I want it as all copper. I want it as, you know, and choose the different methods of doing that.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: So there are internet points on offer for the first person who comes up with a plugin for KeyCAD for doing really good images.

Chris Gammell: For importing already. Yeah, I've never imported. Right. That's, that's, that's one, that's the plugin that currently exists. So that's going from, I think, Inkscape to KeyCAD directly.

Dave Jones: Got it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But it, but it doesn't do anything fancy, like tonally change.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, no, you have to have the art all ready to go. And really, yeah, you have to kind of, I think really over time you have to kind of just start to, you have to do it a couple of times to be like, oh, actually I could have done this or this. And, you know, look at other people's art too. It's like I said, it's its own, it's this weird, like own realm of the art space. Yeah. We're like artists, Dave, you know, like I'm like a PCB artist.

Dave Jones: Yep. Nice. All right. Well, the first person to do that will get a shout out. Internet points. On The Amp Hour. Wow. Wow. That's, that's worth it.

Chris Gammell: It's worth a lot. It's worth a lot.

Dave Jones: You could actually sell it though. Seriously. You could sell. I would buy that plugin. Right?

Chris Gammell: No, you wouldn't.

Dave Jones: Why?

Chris Gammell: When's the last time you paid for software? Now you pay for some software.

Dave Jones: I pay for software all the time.

Chris Gammell: When's the last time you use Packhead?

Dave Jones: Yeah, but no.

Chris Gammell: I don't think you actually would. Come on.

Dave Jones: I would. I would pay for it. I don't think you would. Why?

Chris Gammell: All right. Now, now there's a thing. You could say people could make the software and then they could get a check from Dave and prove me wrong.

Dave Jones: I don't understand why you think that I wouldn't pay for software. I know you do pay for software.

Chris Gammell: I know you do because you use Sony Vegas and stuff like that. And yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. I just don't think this is, have you made any RGPCBs lately? I mean like.

Dave Jones: No, but if I needed to, I would buy that plugin.

Chris Gammell: Ah, okay.

Dave Jones: All right. All right. All right. No, I wouldn't just buy it if I have no plans to use it.

Chris Gammell: Got it. I wouldn't, you know.

Dave Jones: I mean, you know.

Chris Gammell: Okay. All right. All right. Sorry. Sorry.

Dave Jones: But if I wanted to use it, I would go, yes, there is value in that.

Chris Gammell: Right. There is value. To recap, the ways to get mentioned on the amp hour.

Dave Jones: Like I, and I'm not talking hundreds of bucks for it, right? Yeah. You know. 20 bucks. Yeah. You'd pay a 10 or a 20 or something, you know. Sure.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Totally. Yep. So there's money to be had there. I think there's money to be had.

Chris Gammell: The ways to get mentioned on the amp hour are two ways. One, make this plugin, which we just came up with. Or two, or two, be a cartoon dog that has an Australian accent. That's the other way to get mentioned on the amp hour.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yep. But no, they're not just a cartoon dog. They're a.

Chris Gammell: Dave, I don't want to. No. No spoilers.

Dave Jones: Anthropomorphic. They're an anthropomorphic dog.

Chris Gammell: No spoilers. Thank you.

Dave Jones: Oh my God. Blue is great. Come on.

Chris Gammell: I know. I can tell how you feel about blue.

Dave Jones: You're going to love it. You're going to love it. Well, maybe you won't, but you know. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: It doesn't matter though. You've already, you've already. Yep. You've made your.

Dave Jones: I've already seeded it. You're right.

Chris Gammell: Point clear. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: Okay. So let's talk about the chip shortage again. And a way around it. Yes. The ESP USB bridge converts ESP32S2 or S3 into a USB to UART chip. One part I cannot find often is the CP2102, which is what I use for a lot of. Hang on. Hang on.

Dave Jones: So you're talking. So you're saying I can't get this UART RS232 bridge chip. So I'm going to use an even more rare STM32 chip to do it.

Chris Gammell: No, no. ESP32. Oh, ESP32. ESP32. I will say props to Espressif. I mean, they, I have been seeing a lot of availability for them. Like, I think, I don't know why. Maybe it's just where I'm looking and the types of things I'm looking at.

Dave Jones: This is where you'd salvage a chip. This is like, because can't you buy these like things for like, I've got a dozen of these bloody things lying around, right? If I needed a chip, I would, you know, like, obviously I don't have any volume, but you can buy these for like two bucks on AliExpress or eBay.

Chris Gammell: I can go and buy a USM serial converter on Amazon. Yeah. That's not really the problem. It's more designing a new product.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Right.

Chris Gammell: Also, it's a thing to talk about in the amp hour.

Dave Jones: But that's, oh man. And imagine, imagine if you did that, right? I mean, how much is an Expressif ESP32? I don't know.

Chris Gammell: It depends if it's a module or chip, but I'd say a chip, one to two bucks.

Dave Jones: Right. And how much is a UART to RS-232? I've been priced one for a while. 10 cents? 20 cents?

Chris Gammell: It's a Silicon Lab CP2102, about three or four bucks. What? Surprisingly expensive. Yeah, they're expensive.

Dave Jones: Wow.

Chris Gammell: It depends on the volume. But yeah, I guess I've paid as little as I think. I'm usually low volume. Maybe one or two bucks.

Dave Jones: Why would anyone pay that for a UART to... For a USB to... Like, you can get any USB micro and convert it into that. I don't know. Any USB capable... I haven't bought one in a while either. Come on. All right. Any USB capable micro can be turned into a USB to UART bridge, surely.

Chris Gammell: With software, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So why would you pay a couple of bucks for a bridge chip? I don't get...

Chris Gammell: Sometimes they get specced in as other things. All right. Here we go. Looking at the completely barren DigiKey CP2102 list. Actually, no. That's not true. There are some here.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but these are the ones you can get all those Asian clones of. That's right. This is how you can get it for $2 delivered.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know? I mean, surely the chip has to cost 10 cents. Look, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go to LCSC, right? Mm-hmm. And what is the cheapest USB UART? How would you... USB UART? How would you search for it?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, USB... I'd say if you search USB UART. Interface ICs. You know, there's other features in here. Sometimes the other thing is that they get specced in because that's what reference designs have. Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: Of course. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Other interesting thing about the CP2102, because I've used it a bunch, and I've also used the EFM8, the part it's based on. It is an EFM8.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: What? It's the EFM8 UB1 with a ROM. So that's pretty cool.

Dave Jones: Hmm. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So it's kind of basically exactly what you're saying. You know? Any USB capable... I wouldn't agree with any, but like, yeah. I guess... No, I guess any could be. Any.

Dave Jones: Any could in theory.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, anyone. Yeah, you're right.

Dave Jones: Even if it didn't have a UART, even if it didn't have a hardware UART, you could bit bang a thing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right?

Dave Jones: So, yeah, I don't... Yeah. Yeah. True.

Chris Gammell: True, true. But this has a ROM, so it's already there. Right? I mean, that's the idea. It is a... Yeah.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: I don't know why, because you're right. It's the CP2102 GMR on DigiKey, single quantity, 506. That's... Oh, it's an old one. Okay. That's why.

Dave Jones: Hmm.

Chris Gammell: That's bonkers.

Dave Jones: That just seems... Yeah. That just seems nuts. I don't know why anyone would...

Chris Gammell: USB 2.0. Yeah. Not recommended for new designs. There you go. But you can get 40,000 of them, so, you know.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: So that's a balance point there. Weird times we're living in, Dave. Weird times.

Dave Jones: I'm having a hard time, actually, searching for this on LCSC, so...

Chris Gammell: Search for CH340. CH. CH is... I forget the name of the chip maker, but they're coming up with some crazy-ass parts. We've talked about them on the show before. They're in USB IC. I remember first hearing about them, I think, the 330, but that's like a, you know, low-cost USB to serial.

Dave Jones: 48 cents. 122,000 in stock. One-off price. 48 cents. CH340.

Chris Gammell: So what we're saying here is parts in China are sometimes lower-cost than in the US. Is that the conclusion we've come to?

Dave Jones: Dun, dun, dun.

Chris Gammell: I know, right? Oh, my God.

Dave Jones: Seriously. We've cracked it, Dave. And there's another brand. So this is a WCH, Jiang Qingheng brand. Oh, no. They're all WCH. Okay. So CH is... That's who the company is. Yeah. And if you want, okay, if you want quantity, 31 cents in 1,000-off quantity. That's what I'm talking about. Right? So there you go. They've got no shortage. They've got hundreds of thousands in stock. How did we start talking about this again?

Chris Gammell: I have no idea. We were saying... It doesn't matter. I was saying you could turn an ESP32 into this. That is correct. I think what it really comes down to is you could make other... You could have it do other things then, too. And you might also have another one on the board, right? You've talked about design downs, right? So you might up your volume and that sort of thing. Yep. So say you were actually using an ESP32 on another part of your board. You could do that sort of thing, too. Hmm. Okay. I'm actually not sure.

Dave Jones: I would say good luck using this. I hope there's an English data sheet because the Chinese data sheet is not easy to read. Yeah. Let's put it that way. Oh, boy. What is it like? They've got the C variant, the N variant, the G variant, the T variant, the N variant, the E variant, the B variant, the S variant, the K variant. What? They must be different packages, are they? Jesus.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That is insane. I know a lot of the parts come in SYC16. That's how I often see them.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. That is the most common. Yeah. But anyway. Yeah. There's like 200,000 in stock. No. Yeah. Well, like three, 400,000 in stock if you count all the different variants. Yeah. So there you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to LCSC more often than I used to. I'll tell you that much. Yep. For better or worse.

Dave Jones: Yeah. They're one of those things that we couldn't do without, almost couldn't do without now, aren't they? You know, it's one of those.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's just.

Dave Jones: One of those things, once it's there and you go, oh, gee, you know, and it becomes like a go-to place. It's like, I've been using it in heads and videos and stuff like that. I'll go anywhere that works at parts at this point. Yeah. Right. This is like any port in a storm. And this is a port. Yeah. Yeah. But they're great. So anyway, no, no, no shortage there. So I'm not sure where you're getting those bullshit few dollar prices from DigiQ or whatever. That's just, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's right. I was calling out a specific part that's always been more expensive.

Dave Jones: No, I can't.

Chris Gammell: And then we were talking about a Chinese part that was made as an alternative to this always more expensive part. So I think that's why. Got it. There are other parts that you could also use that are cheaper. I'm just saying the ones that I'm using often. Now, like the, what's the common one? What's the Scottish company that makes USBD? Serial Converters. Not JTAG. Yeah, they're Scottish. What is on all of the Arduino boards? FTDI.

Dave Jones: Oh, I didn't know they were Scottish. Okay. I'm pretty sure they are.

Chris Gammell: Yes.

Dave Jones: The famous FTDI debacle.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think that's when I learned about that they were Scottish. Yeah, right. Because I remember we were talking about it because they bricked a bunch of chips. Yep. And I was like, oh, Scotland. That's interesting.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Corporate profile.

Dave Jones: Didn't remember that at all. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Talking about failed companies. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

Dave Jones: Can we end with the success and fire at Pebble? Geez, I thought Pebble failed years ago, but this seems to be a new article.

Chris Gammell: They did.

Dave Jones: I thought they did.

Chris Gammell: This is Eric Mikofsky, the founder.

Dave Jones: Oh, is it? Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. So, Eric moved. He's at YC, I believe now. Y Combinator. And so, he advises a bunch of companies. Right. And then, basically, this is, you know, he wrote, so he wrote this kind of mea culpa. Yeah. Not really mea culpa. It was just a, you know, kind of a retrospective, I suppose. And he said he never published it, though. Right. And for some reason, he said he never published it, dusted off for the 10-year anniversary of Pebble's launch. I think, secretly, he's also talking about his new project. Oh, okay. That's really at the bottom, you know. But, hey, I'll take some dirt on the old stuff and, you know, take a little ad at the bottom and exchange. And, you know, Eric works on cool things, so who cares?

Dave Jones: Anyway, I've done three videos on the Pebble. This was way back. This was six years ago. 760. And I did a teardown. I did an unboxing and review. And a torture test where I took it through an obstacle race just to see if it would survive the obstacle race. Wait.

Chris Gammell: You said you never wear smartwatches, liar.

Dave Jones: Oh, it was all the fad, you know. I was going after the views at the time, you know. Yeah, no, I never actually used it. I just, you know.

Chris Gammell: You're wearing one right now, aren't you? No. Tell the truth. No. Look. Tell the truth, sir.

Dave Jones: I will post a photo on Twitter of what I am. You can't handle the watch. There is not a single smartwatch in this entire lab that actually operates. No, I did. Yeah. There's a couple that I have because people have sent them in or whatever. I actually won once. I've actually got a YouTube smartwatch. I don't know what that means. It's actually YouTube branded. So I actually won that at a YouTube conference once. Interesting. So, yeah. No, I've got a Casio EcoDrive analog with hands and everything. So empowered.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. Do you wear watches? Sorry. I actually don't wear a watch.

Dave Jones: No, Casio. Citizen. EcoDrive. Citizen.

Chris Gammell: Jobby. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's really nice.

Chris Gammell: Sure, sure.

Dave Jones: Sure. I'll post a photo.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Dave has very fancy watches. That's what he wants people to know here.

Dave Jones: It's not fancy. It's just a nice solar powered analog watch. It's really nice. Nice small diameter for small wrists. It's really thin.

Chris Gammell: You know, you're saying it's not fancy, but you're talking like someone who has fancy watches.

Dave Jones: Well, I am a bit of a watch aficionado.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, you know. Also a thing that people that have fancy watches say.

Dave Jones: No. No. No. I refuse to wear any watch that doesn't get me at least multiple years battery life. That's what I'm saying. Got it.

Chris Gammell: Right. Not a smart watch.

Dave Jones: No. Exactly. Not a smart watch. Well, I've got calculator watches. Right. That are, you know. But, yeah. I even designed and sold my own calculator watch at one point.

Chris Gammell: I've heard about this.

Dave Jones: Yes. The micro watch.

Chris Gammell: Ampower, I think. Yeah. I think Ampower. We've talked about it.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yep. I used to sell it. It was very popular. You could play chess on it. You could play chess on this smart watching quote marks. On this calculator watch.

Chris Gammell: So, speaking of people who start selling things at the end of an article or a show. So, what do you think of this article? What did you think of Pebble? Oh, Pebble.

Dave Jones: It was like, meh. It's like, I didn't really get it, I think. Like, you know. No, I just don't like the smart watch. Thing. I didn't really get it.

Chris Gammell: I think the thing that's interesting, rereading this.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I haven't read the article. Sorry. So, I didn't know about this.

Chris Gammell: I mean, there's a TLDR at the top. So, that's probably enough, right? The interesting thing to me is I'm reading this article and I'm like, that must have been like 2008 or something like that. And no, it was 2014, 2015. You know, which, to be fair, was still seven years ago. But, like, just thinking about the ubiquity of, you know, Apple watches and Samsung watches and all these other things where, like, it wasn't even a category seven years ago. And this was, you know, relatively one of the first, if not the most successful of the first. And it's just like, and then they folded. You know, and so that's what this article is about.

Dave Jones: They basically had a cash crunch, which was one of their problems, right?

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And so, he, you know, further down, he kind of talks about some of the technical stuff. He talks about his CTO, Andrew, who we've had on the show before. People don't remember that. So, I will link that in. And Andrew talked about some of the technical challenges at the time.

Dave Jones: And, yeah. And they also, their quest for huge growth. Whereas, you know, they started out as the geeky hacker user base. And they, you know, and they just, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, trying to pivot to whatever that other thing is.

Dave Jones: Yeah, this huge growth model because they got investors in or whatever. I'm sure they got investors in. Yeah, I think they did. Yeah, they got huge investment in. And you have to show huge growth, right? That's right. And that just killed them. It's just, yeah. No. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Oopsie. I can't tell what your, there's no comment section on this episode of the Amp. I'm not sure if I turned it off or if our site's failing. Probably the site. Probably the latter right now. But there's no comment page. And that's how I tell what year it was. But it was episode 175. That sounds, that sounds pretty old. It's pretty old. Yep. Yeah. This is so weird. Is this because it's a tag? What is going on here? Dave, how does our website work?

Dave Jones: I don't know. You're the one in charge of the website.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I know. Word for us.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I was actually looking at this the other day and I went, yeah, our, our post, our, we need to update our WordPress thing because it does not put the published date on it. I was just thinking like, or weeks ago, last month or something that, yeah, there is no, like I was looking for a date.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. I was looking for a date and it's not, I think we need to, there must be like a show date option, show published date option in WordPress somewhere.

Chris Gammell: I think there, there surely is. Yeah. I could probably put that in the design or something.

Dave Jones: I think we need to, need to update that because that's valuable.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It is valuable. And I think, like I said, usually I'd look at the comment section, but then like, if there's no comments. If there's no comments. This is why people should comment so that I can.

Dave Jones: Right. So that Chris can, and we can both know. Oh, you know what?

Chris Gammell: That's what it was. That's why. So we close comments after a certain amount of time to get rid of the spammers.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah, that's right. Yep.

Chris Gammell: And so if no one commented on it is then closed and so it doesn't look like anything's there. Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jones: But we do enable comments again now, so you can actually comment.

Chris Gammell: That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: And we, and we haven't been spammed. So.

Chris Gammell: Oh, sure. Sure. We have. Just not, not much.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Right. I haven't seen any. Yeah. Hmm.

Chris Gammell: Last thing. Did you like my art on the two episodes ago? I didn't get a chance to ask you about it, but I was very proud of it. Which one?

Dave Jones: Star Wars one or?

Chris Gammell: The Star Wars one. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I did like it. I commented on. I believe I commented on Twitter about it. I think you did.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Can I scan your badge?

Dave Jones: Do you want one of our PCB rulers? What is your estimated yearly volume? Says Princess Leia. I would tell Princess Leia in anything. Yeah. A hundred million. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred million. Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Pretty cool.

Chris Gammell: I guess that's an hour, you know? Yeah. We've been good. We've been literally all over the place with this show, but it's, you know, it's good old good old fashioned amp hour right here. Yep. I'll try and add dates to future posts.

Dave Jones: And you'll watch Bluey and get back to us and you'll report on the next show.

Chris Gammell: I mean, it's 944 here, which means 944 PM. That means I probably have what? Like at least 10 hours to go watch that before I have to start work tomorrow. So yeah. Bring it on.

Dave Jones: Got heaps of time.

Chris Gammell: I'm going to go brew some coffee.

Dave Jones: You do know that each episode is only like seven minutes long.

Chris Gammell: I'm sure there's like a thousand of them though. Well.

Dave Jones: Yeah. There's, I don't know. It's probably 50 now. I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Bluey fan for the future.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Bluey's awesome. Talk to you soon.

Dave Jones: Catch you next time.

Dave Jones: Bye.

Speaker ?: ! Thank you.