#696 – It Works With Option Number 5

Chris Gammell: This is the Amp Hour Podcast. Released June 18th, 2025. Episode 696. It works with option number five.

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.

Dave Jones: Same lame-ass intro, decade later, 14 years later.

Chris Gammell: 15 years later this year, Dave.

Dave Jones: Oh, is it? Yeah. Damn, you get less for murder. Yeah, you really do. Oh, boy. Anyway, you want to know what I hate?

Chris Gammell: No. Yes, sorry. I don't know what you hate. But I would like to know what you hate.

Dave Jones: Well, it's not necessarily a hate. I find it amusing. Have a look at the Reddit. I just added this before the show. So I'm not sure you've seen this yet. But it is the Useless Product of the Day Award winner. And it's a multimeter.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: Starting? Yep.

Chris Gammell: Good. I mean, yeah.

Dave Jones: I'll wait until you pull up the image.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Here we go. Oh, my gosh. A wrist-worn multimeter.

Dave Jones: It's a wrist multimeter. Oh, my God. That has, like, the old-school curly probes. Have you ever had those curly probes?

Chris Gammell: No. They make me think of, like, a telephone receiver. Like, that kind of, like, expandable. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: The old-school telephone receiver. Yes. I can remember having, like, they used to be, like, I'm not going to say they were big in the 80s, but I first got my first coiled multimeter pros back in the 80s. They sort of, like, came standard with, you know, various multimeters and stuff at the time because people thought that you didn't want, you know, these long leads hanging over your desk. Yeah, it didn't get tangled. But I found they get bloody tangled all the time. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: And it would catch up, like, hair and, like, it would catch everything in there.

Dave Jones: Totally. Yeah. But they were a thing back in the 80s and I always found them just incredibly annoying. Anyway, it's got... So it's a red, like, sort of cheap-looking PV. Like, it's like $8, by the way, I think was the price.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I mean, like, the front light or the back light, it, like, looks like it's a single LED.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, this looks like a toy. Okay.

Dave Jones: It is totally a toy and it's like $8. And I wanted to buy one, but I couldn't find it. But somebody, one of the YouTubers, I forget who, has done an actual review of this thing. So it's a wristwatch multimeter and it's got these long, like, standard curly, you know, cheap-ass, like, pros, but they're the curly to make them kind of, you know, small and not dangle around all the place. But what the hell are you going to do? Like, it's got no probe holders on the side of the wristband, right? So it's not like you can, like, click the probes.

Chris Gammell: Honestly, it looks like you're going to get electrocuted. I know. It's like... They're plugging into, like, it looks like they're plugging into the outlet of a wall.

Dave Jones: They're plugging into the mains.

Chris Gammell: It's measuring 237 volts. It is. It's on your wrist.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Anyway, I'll try and find the original link video, which has a teardown as well. And it's like, yeah, it's like Cat 1 kind of safety rating.

Chris Gammell: I'm not sure about putting that on a wrist.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not. And it's got two buttons on it. But the other thing you may not have noticed yet is if you're using this, look at the angle the screen is facing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's like a wave. Well, he's, like, holding it sideways. He's holding... So it's like you're reading the time on a watch, but then it would be 90 degrees.

Dave Jones: It would be 90 degrees. So it's sort of, like, aligned with your arm instead of perpendicular to your arm, which would, you know, grab your arm.

Chris Gammell: Well, what if you're showing your friend what the voltages?

Dave Jones: Oh, of course. And it's fine. Look how much, Dave.

Chris Gammell: Look how much I'm getting shocked right now. 237 volts. It's worth... Oh, I'm sure it's double insulated. At 500 hertz as well. Oh, maybe there's a dot in there, actually. Right. Oh, there's a dot. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a dot. 50 hertz. Yeah. Okay. So this person's obviously not America, despite him plugging in the...

Dave Jones: They're in China, which uses the same...

Dave Jones: You know. Oh, yes. It is an American outlet, isn't it? It's the two... Yeah. Totally is. Yeah. Right. Okay. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I don't know.

Dave Jones: Mike, what is the point?

Chris Gammell: Yes, this is a dumb product. I'm going to pass.

Dave Jones: It's just so stupid.

Chris Gammell: Do you crawl, like, AliExpress and similar these days? Like, do you...

Dave Jones: I want to do it for, like, a video... Sure. Like, I want to do, like, a mailbag where instead of people sending me stuff, I, like, go out and find, like, the really dumbest, cringiest crap.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's like Florin does that from football. Oh, right. He does that sometimes. Oh, yes, right. And then Great Scott does that, too, sometimes. Yes, yeah.

Dave Jones: I think Great Scott's done a couple of videos on that, hasn't he? Pass guests of the show, both of them. Yes, yeah. Cheaper.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there is something about a mailbag, you know, and especially when it's like, oh, maybe it could be a good deal, but, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, it's like... I'm guessing a lot of the time it ends up in the bottom of the bin, you know? Oh, yeah. No, totally.

Dave Jones: As most of these things do. Yeah. They're just, yeah, so I thought about, yeah, just, like, spending all day just trawling through AliExpress or Alibaba or whatever, but I couldn't find this product. It's the CZ Dang K8. Watch multimeter. It's just, oh, my God. And, and as a lack of a bonus, because that's what you get with a product like this, you get lack of bonuses. Yeah. It doesn't even tell the time.

Chris Gammell: Oh, right.

Dave Jones: So it's like a watch that doesn't even tell the time. And even if it did, as you said, it would be angled wrong. So you wouldn't, you'd have to...

Chris Gammell: This definitely looks like a, you know, like a generic, like off-the-shelf case, basically, too. It's only got the two buttons. Yeah, probably. It's probably like a medical device type of thing.

Dave Jones: Yeah, and they've repurposed it to go, oh, we can put a multimeter in here and we'll sell 5,000 of these things before people realize it's absolute garbage and they do like a single run and then it's gone. Like, it's gone. Right. Never to be had again. You know? Yeah. Never to be made again. Unbelievable. So, yeah, like I wanted to get one to do like a review of this thing, just, you know, ragging on it. But no, I couldn't seem to find it on AliExpress. So anyway, I have to look deeper. But, oh, my God. It's like, like, are they that desperate that they'll just like... Yeah, it is interesting with the motivation, you know? Yeah, the motivation. Is it so easy in China to just do like a run of like 5,000 of these things, like a 5,000 of anything that they just go, oh, what might we be able to sell for eight bucks or whatever it was? It's like, and, oh, multimeters, they're popular. And we'll just, oh, put it in a wristwatch. And you just don't care about the rest of the details. You know?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think it's that, you know, Bunny wrote about that remix called, the culture in that changing handbook thing. You know, I think it's just that. It's just, it's a small, small changes over time. And there's probably something that looks kind of similar that had some success. And so, oh, what if we made it a wristwatch or whatever? Right.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think it's very evolutionary in that, in that kind of way, regard. So.

Dave Jones: Well, devolutionary because you're not evolving the product.

Chris Gammell: No, there might even be a, there might be a worse version of this, Dave. That's what I'm trying to say. Oh, right.

Dave Jones: Okay. There could be a worse version. A $7. Yeah. Yeah. Not eight minute abs. Seven minute abs. Seven minute abs. Yeah. The abdoer. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, you just got off doing a different mailbag with actual things, it seems like. So, anything of value that came through the actual mailbag?

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. A couple days ago. Oh, right. I can't remember what was in it.

Chris Gammell: Well, I can tell you from looking at your cover image, LED thing, a quantum diamond, logic gates. Oh, the quantum diamond.

Dave Jones: Yeah. That was kind of interesting. Although, like, visually to look at, it was just kind of, oh, red light comes on. Like, you know, like, that's literally, you turn it on and it glows red, you know. And it reminds me of that scene from Rambo 3. You lost me. Is it? No? Yeah. You haven't seen the Rambo movies?

Chris Gammell: No. I've seen, like, one part of the first, like, part of the first one.

Dave Jones: Oh, really? You haven't seen the Rambo? Anyway.

Chris Gammell: I think it's just a time thing. You know what I mean? Right. Like, if it came out, like, right in the right time for, like, Teenage Dave, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I was too young. Yeah. That's right. Or non-existent.

Dave Jones: Well, anyway, there's a scene in Rambo 3 where he's, you know, prepping for this mission and everything. He's in Afghanistan, which the Afghanistan, they were the good guys back in the 80s, you know. Mm-hmm. True. And so he was fighting with them. So he's like, and he has all this equipment that he's getting together for the mission or whatever. And the guy who's helping, you know, the Afghan guy is helping him, you know, he's going through his bag and he goes, what is this? And he snaps it and it turns blue. And he goes, what does this do? And Rambo says, it turns blue. That's it. It's one of those chemical glow light things that turns blue. Like, like, he thought it did something high tech. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Important. No, it just turned blue, you know.

Chris Gammell: It would have been like, blue, blue, blue, blue.

Dave Jones: It turns blue.

Chris Gammell: Blue, blue, blue, blue.

Dave Jones: Anyway, that just popped into my head.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, nice.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah. So it just turns red. But the actual, but there's actually a hand-selected diamond inside. And when you hit the diamond at the right angle or something with the right frequency light or something like that, then it fluoresces. It's a quantum effect. So they're actually demonstrating a quantum effect. And this is used in schools to demonstrate how this quantum effect inside diamonds works. So, yeah, I don't know the physics of the quantum theory behind it or whatever. But, yeah, it's kind of, yeah. That is cool. Kind of cool. Yeah. That is cool. Very interesting. They wanted to send in something that we hadn't seen before on the mailbag. And certainly we have not seen a quantum fluorescent diamond before. So, you know.

Chris Gammell: I don't know if I've seen a quantum fluorescent anything. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: But it just turned red. So you turn on the battery and a little red light glows, you know. But still, the quantum theory behind it is kind of cool. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Ah, boy. That's great. Anyway. That's great.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Last week, or I guess last episode, we were talking, I was talking with Sam Aldeher about educational stuff and, you know, just like the RF visualizations he does. And just, I still stuck with me. Yeah.

Dave Jones: They're great. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, just how impactful it can be to have something like that. You know, just like the visual cue. So, like the diamond having, like, you know, a red light that, like, just. Yeah. That is so easy to, like, for my mind at least to grasp onto. And same with, like, you know, the stuff we talked to Sam about of just having, like, these visual elements. It's so critically important, I feel like, from an educational perspective.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's great. Yes.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. For those who don't know what we're talking about, he uses Blender to, he's written, how does he do it? Custom scripts or whatever? Like a programming.

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

Dave Jones: It's a scripty thing you can plug into Blender or whatever?

Chris Gammell: Python glue code. Oh, it's actually Python, right. Okay. Well, there's an old, so there's, like, two things. One is the Inductor Simulator is actually an old MIT tool that he repurposed. Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Interesting.

Chris Gammell: And then the other one, I think, I forget. I think it maybe is built on top of, like, OpenEMS. Yeah. It's been a couple weeks.

Dave Jones: Got it.

Chris Gammell: No, it's fine. So, yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway, so he uses Blender, which is a visual 3D animating tool that does practically anything you can absolutely, you know. Oh, man. And he shows the field lines.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Dave Jones: Like, he shows the field lines around inductors, PCB traces at frequencies and stuff like that. It's just, you know, it's really great visual tool. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So good.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Fascinating.

Chris Gammell: I've been watching video. I was, you know, when Sam was on, I was, like, looking at a bunch of Blender videos, and now, like, my YouTube feed is just all like, you want to learn Blender? Hey, man, you want to learn some Blender? He's like, yes, I do, but I don't have time.

Dave Jones: I highly recommend the YouTube video, The World's Best Blenderer, which is YouTuber Captain Disillusion giving a talk at the Blender conference. It's really nice. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're a Captain fan. Yeah, I am a fan. Yes. Yes. Captain D.

Chris Gammell: Cool. Captain Disillusion. Yeah, I'll check that out. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Somebody just did a studio tour of his. I actually tweeted that.

Chris Gammell: That's right.

Dave Jones: Last week. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it was Gerald Undone. Man, that's, like, one of my favorite YouTube channels.

Dave Jones: Gerald Undone. I just sort of like Discovery, and he does tours of all these different.

Chris Gammell: Oh, he's great. Yeah, he's, you got to be careful with, you know, like, I've talked in the past about, like, don't watch YouTube, like, camera review tutorials. Yes, I know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, he does. I notice camera review tutorials.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, like, he'll get so deep on, like, you know, like, of course I need a Sony a7S4 or whatever. You know, I'm just like, I don't actually need this.

Dave Jones: I just, yeah, I kind of just got sucked into that, unfortunately. Oh, no. I just upgraded my field Sony camera. Has it been delivered yet? I think I've been diddled. I ordered the bloody thing, and I actually did watch Gerald Undone's review on the new Sony ZV10 Mark II or whatever it is. So I ordered that because it uses the replaceable lenses. So I want to use the replaceable lenses in my field kit. So I've actually ordered one of those, can you? Yeah, yeah, I got sucked in. Abre's not broke, guys. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I haven't bought, I haven't had a new camera for donkey's use now. And, yeah, so I thought I'd upgrade my field kit. But, yeah, it's been like a, I've actually been away, but it's been like two weeks, and they haven't even shipped it yet. So I think I'm going to have to get onto them today. So, yeah, something I think I've been diddled.

Chris Gammell: Could be. Yeah. Could be.

Dave Jones: All right. Don't know what's going on.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so just people listening. If you're, if you're, just go in with open eyes. If you go watch camera reviewers, like, oh, I need to know the specs of like a camera sensor or whatever. And then you're like 10 videos deep and you're like, oh, do I want a $4,500 camera body or like a $3,500 camera body? The answer is neither. I have no need for this. It sits as a webcam. Exactly. He says as he looks into his expensive webcam. So you just keep it, just keep it in mind.

Dave Jones: Right. You've been warned.

Chris Gammell: I can give all kinds of channels. I got them all.

Dave Jones: Oh, God.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep. Yep. Oh, it's so bad.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Anyway. Yes. Sucker.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. What do you do? What do you do? Are you planning to travel with, with a camera here sometime soon?

Dave Jones: No, not really. I just thought, yeah, I'd upgrade my kit because, yeah, because I can't change the lens on the one on the kit one I've got. So, yeah. Whereas I could put my wide angle lens on the one because I've actually got a Sony wide angle lens. So I can put the wide angle lens on it. So, yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I've been in, I've been in the world of making like a YouTube shorts lately and lots of, lots of content-y type things now that I'm a full-time, I have my full-time video editing rig. I now use that as my daily, my daily computer as well. And, yeah, lots of, lots of video and stuff like that. And, but I, I don't use anything. I just use a phone. It's just, you don't need a, you don't need a fancy camera for it, but you could use a fancy camera for it. Yes. Yes, you can. Yeah. It's all about getting stuff off a camera as fast as you can, I guess.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But, you know, there's only so much you can do with a shoe phone though. I mean, it's, yeah. Okay. Okay. It has the different lenses on it. You can select the wide angle lens and then you can, while you're actually filming, you can go to the regular lens or zoom lens or whatever. But, you know, and then the audio is not that great. And, you know, it's like, you know, the quality is not that great. And, well, it's fine if you're outdoors and stuff like that and you've got tons of light. But if you're in a low light, you know, environment or something like that, nah, you know. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty how you're doing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, yeah, you got to think about light and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: But the problem is, right, is that you can buy $5,000 worth of Sony camera gear or like the best lenses and everything else. And people will still complain because the image stabilization in it is nowhere as good as a cheap ass DJI GoPro-y clone. Yeah. Right. You know, and it's like, oh, just your phone's actually better. Your phone has better image stabilization. But people don't realize that the image quality is actually kind of meh if you actually really compare it, you know. But, yeah, it's more stable. Okay. They've nailed the image stabilization settings and stuff like that. Whereas, you know, you buy a really high-end camera. And even though you've got optical image stabilization inside the Sony lens, it's still nowhere near as good as, you know, the software that they do inside the freaking GoPro, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right, exactly.

Dave Jones: Or whatever. Because they've just optimized that for, you know, for these adventure sports things and stuff like that. So, you know, which is crazy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right, exactly. They're like averaging like tons and tons of bins of sensor bits and stuff like that. Yep. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Have you seen my downhill mountain biking video?

Chris Gammell: No, I don't think so.

Dave Jones: Oh, I wish. I will show it to you right now. And I'll show you what these bloody things are capable of. Because this is just insane. Right? Yeah. There we go. There we go. I'll send you the link right now so you can see it. This is mountain biking at Mount Kosciuszko. And hang on. Yep. There it is. You should be able to see it now. And just watch that at any time point. And especially when I'm like going over the bumps and everything like that. And you'll notice how smooth the damn thing is. It's just, it's insanely good. and you will realize that and the amazing thing is is i just like i actually forgot the uh gopro mount for the bike right so like a shock mount or something like that yeah like well just any sort of mount so what i had is i just gaffer taped it to the handlebars right just gaffer taped the handlebars so it's like you know it's getting the massive vibrations on the handlebars and i'm using the internal mic and even the audio is great on it like what like the audio actually took it you can actually hear my commentary i was amazed when i got back from the ride and had a look at the footage i'm going to go this footage is going to be like it's going to be hopeless right i won't be able to hear anything because there'll be constant shocks and everything no the audio came through crystal clear and the video is smooth as silk yeah this is very smooth that's wild yeah

Chris Gammell: have you ever seen it where they uh they have accelerometer um data from like from something else and then they they don't have it internal of the camera so like they'll do this for a lot of like

Dave Jones: first person video out of uh like a drone and they won't have yes yeah one of my oh sony cameras do that oh really oh yeah yeah i've got a little tiny thing which i haven't used for donkey's years one of those little action sony action cam sure and and it actually um it records the uh gyroscopic information as a separate file and then you can load that but you can only load that into the sony software and sony have this destabilizing software which is really amazing when they combine the image with the actual separate file stabilizing software maybe not destabilizing software oh sorry did i say what destabilizing software is called twitter dave right oh god yeah and um yeah and it works really amazingly um but yeah you've got to have the separate gyroscopic you know file or whatever yeah so yeah so so as you can see in the video it just looks absolutely like smooth as silk it's fantastic and the audio is absolutely amazing but the image quality is kind of art actually it's pretty good right but if you compared it with a proper you know big camera you know big expensive yeah huge sensor right there's you know there's there's going to be a lot of difference but yeah it's absolutely amazing this 4k footage with this gopro just stuck on the bloody handlebars

Chris Gammell: what else do you need man yeah it's just yeah look how much money you just wasted on this new camera

Dave Jones: on this on this new camera yeah i should just carry around the bloody gopro yeah um yeah anyway

Chris Gammell: good i guess yeah i doesn't even watch videos anymore anyways you know yeah right yeah

Dave Jones: it's all in podcasts that's where it is everyone's listening yeah it's all podcasts yeah right yeah everyone's starting to podcast these days we're head of the curve there yeah fortune and glory kid fortune that's right man that's right oh god yeah all right i'm gonna have to uh rant about um possible bad product design um again yes yes that's how we started this is actually some sort of bad implementation of the actual design something's going on here right this is my um solar inverter this is my hybrid battery di solar inverter right yeah i know it's the cheapest china brand you know di or whatever but they're extremely popular right anyway now i'm i've just changed my uh plan i just

Chris Gammell: changed my energy plan is this the one that burnt up didn't you have one that burned up burnt up didn't you have like a like a production circuit that burnt up or something like that the inverter on the inverter or somewhere else i'm just trying to remember what we've heard about here

Dave Jones: no i had a failed in phase micro inverter maybe that maybe that's what it was yeah right okay okay all right anyway um so yeah so this is my di hybrid inverter and uh oh my dc isolator did catch on fire one well it didn't catch on fire it kind of melted okay maybe that's what it was maybe that's what you're thinking of yeah so um my di hybrid inverter i've just changed my plan right energy plan i now get three hours free power every day during a time window right so yeah i can use as much energy as i want right so i can charge my ev and i can charge my storage battery even if there's no solar or whatever i can charge at the maximum rate into my battery so it lasts all night right so in theory regardless of the season regardless of the weather i should have a full battery at the every single day and it should last all night so i should be sweet now right can can you explain the

Chris Gammell: free what is the what is the free from the power company or free from the power company free from

Dave Jones: the power company and why is that three hour window every day it's because in australia here we've got so much solar that our wholesale energy prices go negative during the day right right right this is

Chris Gammell: free so you you're generating some amount from your panels and then there's additional that you're

Dave Jones: pulling in there's additional which i can pull from the grid okay for a three hour window every day

Chris Gammell: got it so like the sunniest part of the day where the power prices go negative or whatever exactly you're able to okay yeah i'm i'm able to pull i'm on board now i got it yeah and and then but

Dave Jones: there's only one company australia that actually offers this right and um i i think they're doing it like on average they're they realize they're going to make money right so yeah on a good day when there's lots of solar and everything the the uh the energy utilities will be paying them my energy provider to take the power right so they're right but on a bad day they'll be paying them to for that power right but they that they've probably crunched the numbers that on average they're going to make a profit and they're selling it to me for zero cost whereas they might be getting 12 cents or something

Chris Gammell: for it which is the good day for them which is the bad day for them in terms of sunshine so sunny super

Dave Jones: sunny days are good days super sunny days yes they they will be earning money even though they're giving

Chris Gammell: me the power for free i see i see so they're like basically lining up loads they're lining up loads yes

Dave Jones: they can guarantee we've got x number of customers we can now get them to put their turn their loads on during this um time window and therefore yeah got it yeah so this is almost like how us for that yeah

Chris Gammell: my the program i'm signing signing up for is like uh they give me a flat rate over the month yes but then they they have options to turn on the load or sorry they have options they can they can source the energy from your battery when they need to at the dip times right so it's like the inverse of that

Dave Jones: okay yeah yeah exactly all right so mine's a bit dumber than that it's only a fixed free hour window every day sure right right so anyway so i thought oh great okay my uh my inverter has a timer on it right so i can set it to charge at the charge the battery at the maximum rate regardless of what the solar is doing during that time window fantastic right so i i set it all up it's a pain in the ass to get working but i got it working and then the next day i looked and i went oh i didn't set the time properly i didn't set the clock properly so i went and changed changed the clock and you know sure enough it turned on at the right time and then i check it the next day and i'm going the time's not right it's like lost like 10 minutes oh no what's going on and yeah it seems to be losing like 10 minutes a day something which of course adds up if you're you know over a week or whatever boom i'm suddenly out by an hour and it's currently an hour behind an hour and a bit behind the the internal clock and i can't change it remotely via my solar assistant software which i'm staring at right now i can't i've got to change you don't have any control over yeah i don't have control over the system date time so i like what the hell's going on this thing's losing 10 minutes a day like it couldn't be like a thermal thing right it's not like it could be like the real-time clock

Chris Gammell: battery yeah as you say the real-time clock battery is dead and it's still yeah depending on an rc circuit but even 10 minutes 10 minutes off i know any any modern circuit is bad it is bad

Dave Jones: you can get rc that's better than that it's more accurate than that you know like a trimmed rc you know

Chris Gammell: internal oscillator kind of thing which is better and is this is this like uh networked or not networked

Dave Jones: it is not networked it's only serial output to my solar assistant software so my solar assistant can send it commands and stuff unfortunately setting time and date is not one of them so it is not is not networked what are the available commands oh i can i go into the configuration here and i can set the work mode timers i can set um a ton of stuff i can set the charge rates i can set the whether or not charges discharges during certain time i can change all the timers and everything i can do that right

Chris Gammell: in front of me right now um but i can't change your solar your so it's called a solar assistant

Dave Jones: that's like home assist that's your home assistant it's like home assistant except it's called solar

Chris Gammell: so could that just like kind of slave the the inverter to the home assistant and then

Dave Jones: unfortunately no it doesn't it does everything else but the system date time on the no no no i don't

Chris Gammell: i don't mean setting the time from there i mean actually just so like solar assistant knows it's

Dave Jones: you know 3 p.m oh okay yes solar assistant has the correct time i've tried to do that it does have its own timers but i couldn't get it to work so i have to use the internal di timers which rely on the internal system date time interesting yes i have no idea so i thought maybe oh maybe it's running from the mains right maybe it's getting its is it's a clock reference yeah i said it's 60 hertz instead of 50 hertz right but i checked no it's 50 hertz and then i checked i'm staring at the chart right now and i get these frequency dips during the day there's like just today there's been one two three four five six seven eight frequency dips really yeah how significant like a jump drop from 50 down to like 36 hertz or something like that i'll send you a screenshot yeah so like very briefly yeah i don't

Chris Gammell: know what's going on that's a discontinuity probably from just like the switching power yeah yeah i mean that amount of i mean i think they start taking action when it's like what like 10 10 10th of a

Dave Jones: hertz off sort of thing you know right at least i i just sent you an image capture of the of the grid frequency there and it's dropped out you can see it's dropped out like several times today sitting at 50 and then it just hiccups yeah like i yeah i don't know that's got to be some kind of weird discontinuity that's just oh yeah yeah it's like it's yeah it's turned off for a second or two because there's some pulse load or something yeah right you know something like that um yeah and it's not something i can easily troubleshoot it's not like i can tear it off the wall and see and get on my bench and start measuring stuff you know it's like you know how much work it is to get that damn thing off the wall and discount can you um so like when you talk to

Chris Gammell: it over serial could you do can you ask what time it is like does it report that well it it knows it

Dave Jones: can read the time so it's my solar assistant is telling me what the inverter time is but unfortunately it doesn't let me set it so i can see what the time is right yeah yeah just just you could like you

Chris Gammell: could but you could potentially you could chart out of solar assistant you could basically track you could have it ping every minute or 10 minutes and say what is your latest time and then you could

Dave Jones: start to see when drifts happen potentially so i could maybe i don't know how you'd script it to do that um but in theory i bet the dummy box knows i've been leaning on the dummy box a lot lately dave

Chris Gammell: that's what is the dummy box the dummy box is is the llms i'm just giving him the general name because i feel like a dummy they're often i've already asked rock i've already asked rock

Dave Jones: yeah and it said oh maybe you can change the time but it doesn't know because it doesn't have any

Chris Gammell: data no no no i would say if there was a scripting setup that would be if there was a scripting setup

Dave Jones: well because it's a web page you could use any sort of scripting thing to do it you could like put you could just uh you know ping the web page and then pull the date and time off the web page i guess yeah you know but yeah yeah i don't know i'm not a script kitty so yep well i if you don't mind me um

Chris Gammell: i'd like to come back to solar stuff but um yep i have something that is kind of tangentially relevant here um i just spent friday and uh the weekend and a little bit of today on a hack project and uh it was pretty cool actually so i use the dummy box a little bit i use the dummy box a little bit on the zephyr side of things so i built this board i don't know a year ago now probably more year and a half ago it was the cellular board the white one that i think i showed you the white oh yeah yeah right yeah it's got click headers whatever it's cellular board it's got esp32 for wi-fi offload that sort

Dave Jones: of thing so that's like obsolete now right yeah right yeah right i mean it's it's getting up there yeah

Chris Gammell: um it's you know the the part family has already moved on but it's still it still works great

Dave Jones: the the internet of things obsolescence guarantee yeah oh my god yeah yeah um so uh he works with

Chris Gammell: goliath obviously that's the company i work for yeah and um i had i had this thing in my head from like three or four years ago we used to have this feature called remote shell and it only worked on expressive boards back in the day and it would be like on the console so like you could like talk to a device over this sort of thing and it just didn't really work for that many things but it's been stuck in my head for about four years all right and so hack day rolled around which we do quarterly and i was like you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna do this me and the dummy box we're gonna get this thing done and so on friday i spent all day uh basically rewriting the back end for the shell i think we've talked about shells here before yes yeah so it's like zephyr has a lot of like built-in shells for like things like um talking i squared c you can do like an i squared c i squared c scan you can talk to sensors you can toggle gpios all the different things basically any feature that's in zephyr usually has a shell associated with it you can you can turn on with a symbol and then you can compile it in and that's what i do it all the time and i talked it over you are and it's got these other interfaces too it's got you know rtt which is like the jlink output but uh there's a way to write a custom back end and so that's what i was doing and so i wrote a custom back end me you know me me quote quote unquote me yeah yeah uh and uh and there was a lot of direction just just to be clear you know like i yeah there was a lot of direction it was very vibey it was very vibey it was not as vibey as some some things coming later but um okay right yeah there was some vibey uh but you know so it was basically a lot of like reading and just interacting with like you know directing the the dummy box a little bit but also like you know writing my own code in there and and writing some of the parts that i knew because i've used the our sdk a whole bunch anyways got this um thing working and um basically then when was it i guess it was so then worked on it a little bit over the weekend as well then sunday night finally got it to the point where i needed to and then the vibing started okay so now i have a cellular device talking back over cellular to goliath and and then there's this thing called remote procedure call and so from there basically i wrote a remote procedure call that could accept a command called remote shell and then i could type in the shell command and then it would spit it back out as a as a return to the remote procedure call so basically now the internet was my remote was my shell right so it's called remote shell um and so now that's when i kicked it on and i was able to uh then i started vibing and uh so then uh i i basically just had it right like a javascript front end and then it's just like talking to the remote shell basically like an api call for this remote shell command now and um and i'm able to like so now i have a uh what looks like a terminal input uh and it looks like it's talking to a shell like you would over you art normally but it's actually doing it all over the internet so like through the internet over cellular to this device and back up again and so if you wanted to go and like query your serial you could use like the serial output from it or you could toggle gpio that sort of thing that's what i was i mean i was pattern matching pretty hard there don't get me wrong but like that's what i was thinking about and like being able to like troubleshoot and so like instead of you then having uh uh what's it called the solar assistant you could have something like this that then toggles bits and does serial readbacks and stuff like that so yeah so that was my that was my weekend great yeah it's it's cool and it looks i mean it looks it looks legit man like here let me send you a photo okay yeah how do i do this oh i don't know i haven't used google chat in a while here we go control paste yeah here we go i even got like colors working and like line endings and all that stuff it looks legit like quite legit oh yeah yeah nice yeah that's all actually there's even a web page for it um but it wouldn't work for you but it's all right okay yeah so anyways i think like but setting up that sort of thing and then using the dummy box you could use the dummy box in the same way to i think it's you know the same thing it's like if you just ask rock or whatever your your flavor of dummy box is you know you just say how does solar assistant work i i just or sorry get solar assistant to talk to this thing over serial i don't think that's going to do it right you're going to have to dig in no i have to drill

Dave Jones: down no i've only done a top level thing and it didn't know what model di they have to put in the

Chris Gammell: exact model number and if they don't know the latest either then you're going to have to like yeah you got to kind of connect the dots at the end of the day oh yeah oh totally yeah oh no it's

Dave Jones: quite a lot recently you know i've used my uh you know i've used grok or whatever to um you know ask something and then and then you know can something do this and then it goes oh yes it can and then i go yeah i think you're lying to me and sure enough it's lying to me it's just assuming it can do it you know rather than actually yes all right yes of course it is um but it was actually genuine today when i actually asked about this problem you know a di solar inverter and solar assistant blah blah blah i cannot do it it actually had admitted that it didn't know but it assumes it can do it because it can get all this other information therefore why wouldn't time and date be you know a thing you could set so right right yeah yeah but it was actually on us this time which just getting better yes um but yeah yeah i have been uh trying out different different dummy boxes

Chris Gammell: like i said as well and i've tried out uh the clod 3.7 and 4 api and then this this past weekend was gemini 2.5 all right oh they're fine yeah got it no i just stick to undifferentiated i always have

Dave Jones: the x window open so you know oh sure sure sure it's just the most convenient thing no i know i use this

Chris Gammell: and uh incline which is like a you know vs code kind of assistance oh yeah if i was doing something

Dave Jones: serious like if i was like you know designing a project and i was going to use it all day then i would you know research to find which one's going to give me the best result and then use it extensively you know right a thing but yeah yeah i think the thing i think that's interesting about

Chris Gammell: it like you know so we had we had this hack day and i was i felt empowered even though i have yeah right like i just feel like uh sometimes it's just getting out of your own way you know like like i've written a decent amount of zephyr code at this point like i'm not great at it but like but often the thing that's getting in my way is still my dumb brain you know it's still like yeah yeah of course oh yeah i quit i'm not the type of person that does this but then like you read the docs and you read the you know like you find examples and you modify and it's just like you just gotta just push yourself over that edge and the people that are good at it they're the ones who are like yeah i will figure it out you know that mindset of like that like growth mindset of like i am the type of person that figures stuff out like that's that is an important step and i as as much as i hate to admit it like this has has improved that for me because i can always go ask the dummy box if i need to exactly so it's psychological games i guess as well but don't don't get me wrong there was a lot of chris in this so none of the javascript i take no i take no responsibility for the

Dave Jones: javascript stuff that's ridiculous i i think it's always interesting when i look back on old like code especially like yeah yeah assembler code i've done right i look back on old assembly code and i like and i can't make heads or tails of it and i went shit i actually wrote this

Chris Gammell: you know it's like yeah one there's like the stranger kind of aspect to it like who wrote this thing yeah then it's also then you realize it's you and you're like oh i wrote this thing i was very

Dave Jones: capable yeah yeah i'm very capable at one point yes right right well i think the other thing too

Chris Gammell: is that like you know the kind of the the rose-colored glasses of time too like you don't you can remember you can look at the code and you could see that it was written by you yeah but you don't have that like condensed experience of like banging your head on the desk well you probably did right i mean like yeah maybe some of it but like everybody bangs their head on the desk at some point just like ah you know and it's hard to actually at least for me i have hard time with recall for that you know i look at my old code and i'm like oh look how smart i was and it's not like oh look how many hours i spent on this very mediocre code and there's some you know i

Dave Jones: comment a reasonable amount you know i think i'm a decent commenter um but you know not not every line of my assembly code is going to get comments you know um saying what it you know it does because it was at the time it was just so obvious what that line of code did yet now i look you know set bank zero one you know like what yeah right why why did i do that i don't know like it was just yeah

Chris Gammell: yeah there's a lesson in there just being being kind to your future self anyways right like just

Dave Jones: yeah yeah as a commenter like and then there's the dumb comments like as i said like set bank zero like and and then the comment will be set bank zero and it won't explain why you set bank zero it's just like yeah i can see that the command is set bank zero why is the comment just duplicating that same information it doesn't tell me anything useful right you know the classics uh fix this later

Chris Gammell: right to do uh this probably won't work you know i don't know why this works yeah yeah fudge factor you know fudge factor magic number yeah a lot of classics in there yeah yeah works what works when i use

Dave Jones: the number five yeah oh my god yes uh bloody comments yeah good anyways i think you know you and i are uh i'd say hardware first uh and yes we are hardware first yes we are but i think you should you should

Chris Gammell: feel empowered to to try more things that's what i'm trying to say oh yes no it's it's a time thing

Dave Jones: it's totally it's a yeah time yeah i think that's a commitment thing you know that's another i can't just do like oh an hour here and an hour there on a project no i've got to like spend the whole week on it i can't you know can't just do a bit here and bit there it never works i mean i've been trying to

Chris Gammell: shake i mean i did it this week i'm just trying to shake it off so i just stopped thinking about it too you know this this point where it's like especially with like the kind of ticky tacky like of i'm just directing it to move you know like spacing and just trying to like tweak little things here and there just like just chris just stop man just it's over just commit it go to bed you know and it's totally different

Dave Jones: when you when you've got a jet when you've got a job you know you've actually got an actual day job okay i'm gonna spend eight hours on this today yeah and and it's like yeah you can get into the groove and you can get stuff done yeah but when it's not yeah job and you've got other things it's like yeah you just context switching you know 20 times a day and it's like yeah nothing ever gets done so yeah it's true it's true yeah yeah unfortunately that's just the uh trap you fall into so yeah yeah when you become a youtuber a youtuber yeah of course well uh back to the solar test stuff real

Chris Gammell: book i am uh i by the time you and i next record i will have i will be solar powered myself uh i have a date set and uh it's about a week and a half from now right when when you're getting your full system

Dave Jones: with the battery and everything with battery and everything how big is your battery it's a 12 and a half kilowatt 12 and a half kilowatt hours yeah yeah yeah yeah that might be yeah like i thought like you know like a single so that's equivalent to a single uh power wall for example for those that plan long at home it is oh it literally is a power yeah okay right yeah and um so i i thought that was a lot but now that i've got my battery my battery is 25 kilowatt hours yeah i mean right and it's still

Chris Gammell: not enough for my electric car is 58 kilowatt hours you know it's just like okay mine's actually 38 yeah mine's an older one but yeah but i think that's just like it's relative amounts of juice you know like you get a power your whole house and no car single car it's crazy yeah you know okay and my yeah the uh

Dave Jones: peter who uh from australian renewable energy um uh lab i think it's called um who installed who designed and manufactured my battery installed it um for me and helped install it um is that um yeah he just contacted me last week and he's oh this new government subsidy because our government just won their election and one of their election promises was you know four billion dollars for home batteries right yeah yeah yeah we did and he and he and he says look they're almost free there's a you got to upgrade man come on it's like yeah and he's telling me you should install a 75 kilowatt hour home battery wow okay yeah oh my god yeah that's it's insane i mean that's when you might have him sit down with the wife and he he can explain it to her right he can explain it to me darling it's peter yes yeah um the uh battery's almost free in fact if you buy a cheap chinese you know no name brand battery it's basically free um even with installation maybe anyway we'll see what happens it was the new house once your old one burns down right exactly so um yeah so i can get the battery for like 150 bucks per kilowatt hour or something like with this uh with this government rebate so it's like super cheap but that doesn't include the installation and what's the what's the normal rate i don't actually know it'd be uh two thousand dollars per battery uh sorry um it'd be no two thousand dollars for a five kilowatt hour battery um so four bucks so four four hundred per and now it's like a hundred bucks per kilowatt hour or something crazy it's like wow it's like yeah it's it's really cheap with this um government rebate although i'm paying for it my kids are paying for it you know the future of my kids with the tax bloody sure anyway um but yeah yeah i i might expand it but i've got i've got to move the thing outside um because it's taken up too much space in the garage we're gonna have to move the entire battery system outside then you gotta yeah you gotta worry about spiders and then you gotta worry well you gotta worry about rain on your battery so you gotta get an

Chris Gammell: outdoor radio day you know no dave you gotta worry about spiders spiders are nothing burgers nothing burgers oh man yeah i just started reading a book that's all about space spiders and it is fantastic i love it right adrian tchaikovsky children of time it is right great okay yeah all right so 75 kilowatt so so like what is your usage like what could you i i could use the entire 25

Dave Jones: kilowatt hour battery in a day okay depending on what i'm doing like if you've got a bad day and you've got a you know you uh yeah you have to put your washing machine on you've got to put your dryer on because yeah that's because they aren't going to dry out on the clothesline right with your free solar energy from the sun so that's not going to work so you got to put your dryer on then you've got your cooktop oven um thing which you know choose you know and and then you might turn your oven on for dinner and you know for an hour or something because you're cooking dinner or something you know and it can easily oh and you might have to emergency charge your ev because you forgot to charge it the day before and you desperately need to go somewhere tomorrow so you know you could easily i could easily chew through my battery in a day so yeah so you're saying if i stay home and i don't eat anything and i sit my dirty clothes i'm fine okay yeah you're fine i i use about if we you if we're so frugal we don't do much at night um then it takes maybe 20 25 of the battery something like that so that's just general you know lights and power and maybe a bit of the stove and you know things like

Chris Gammell: that and the fridges um yeah so yeah i started looking at um uh what is it called like basically per line measurement systems as well so like current clamps on uh on different different lines in in like i know oh yes yes i've got my solar analytics uh system is like that i've my my box has like a dozen current clamps in it it does okay yeah i've been looking into that sort of thing yeah i've never

Dave Jones: never thought of doing it before but now it's like handy yeah yeah yeah because i've got you know how have you seen the output from mine maybe i don't remember yeah i'll send it to you today i'll send the here here's my usage right now today my energy usage and it breaks down all the different things that i've got hooked up to it boom there it there it is you have it i think yes there you go and you can see that our pool turned on you can see that our hot water system turned on um no air con today uh we just didn't need the air con um but there was a brief um ev oh no no there was a brief um air con this morning for some reason um although my my labels are back to front the the other is actually the air con and the air con is just nothing so oh i see yeah yeah yeah so that that orange graph there that orange peak there early in the morning that's an air con switching on you know so yeah yeah it's handy you can just monitor all your different right right you know what i think i mean if i

Chris Gammell: remember from your breaker box videos as well like you have kind of fewer breakers overall compared

Dave Jones: to a us box it feels like oh have you seen my new box have you seen my new upgrade i've now got 18 breakers dude oh okay i've got 18 of them yeah that's different so that that's a lot but then again i've got two solar systems and i've got you know yeah hot water systems and pool and all sorts of things now so right right yep okay well anyways

Chris Gammell: yeah so i'm thinking about doing it and what is this this is the solar system that does this

Dave Jones: uh this is the solar analytics system which is an australian one so i'm sure there's ones in the us um well you could use this system if you wanted to i'm sure but there's no i don't want to i mean i

Chris Gammell: i was looking at uh open energy monitor which is kind of an open source oh yeah yeah it's an open version of it yep yeah and then there was uh something view emporia view right i'm sure there's a dozen yeah and then i'd be surprised i also saw recommendations for that sense uh joe what was his name one of our past guests is joe i can't remember his last name sorry joe um he worked there um but it was basically like it was like a adc that kind of just listens on the the main panel input like the 200 amp input yeah and then and then it watches for signatures and it says oh okay yeah that's not as good yeah

Dave Jones: that's not as yeah i'm not as interested in that yep yeah but it's cheaper it's a lot cheaper oh yeah yeah yes no you want the individual current clamps it's just great you can just monitor see how how often you use stuff how much standby power you you know if you if your uh fridge is on a different circuit you know you can monitor how much your fridge takes yeah exactly stuff like that joe bamberg come on chris geez so how many circus does your newish because your house is pretty new right yeah 2018 20 yeah yeah yeah right very new um so how many circus does your house have

Chris Gammell: a lot uh i have a 200 amp panel which higher higher current is we we have lower voltage here uh and i was gonna say because mine's only 60 amp yeah yeah i think we have i think they're 20 it's at least a 20 panel 20 breakout panel thing but some of them are doubles remember in the us so like when you need yeah so like so it's like it's like a zigzag configuration right and uh because it's two phase

Dave Jones: and so most breakers are single phase oh right okay oh yes like in my office right now i have yep

Chris Gammell: i have uh plugs in the wall and those are on one phase right but then the this the stove that's right and the dryer those are all two phase right you weird yanks for those who think for those who think

Dave Jones: that you're a 110 volt country you're not you're actually 220 there's uh 220 volts coming into your house it's just that you guys split it weirdly your fuse box and then you're right yeah it's one

Chris Gammell: one time on the one time on the wall man it's one you know you stick your fingers in you get it you get a little 110 zappy zap zap zap so yes it is weird and uh very strange yeah you know everything everything's different dave it's just different different can be beautiful you know yeah right

Dave Jones: but no we did but like through the house we don't we've only got like our our house when a house was built there were only two circuits for the entire house yeah that's wild that that was like you know that's for all the powerpoints all over the house and then you know expansion over the years we've got an extra one for the garage um the people we bought it from they were gonna you know install it and they were going to convert the garage into another room you know and so they installed another circuit there and then when we expanded the house even more we got another one for the back of the house and you know so we've slowly expanded that but still yeah it was only like two circuits for the whole house that's wild plus lights yeah yeah there was two two power point circuits two light circuits and a hot water circuit and that was it that was our entire house so yep did they have like hot plates

Chris Gammell: and stuff like that they plugged into the power points in the kitchen or what oh sorry yes there was an

Dave Jones: extra one for the uh hot plates yes sorry yes it was yeah because it's like 32 amps or something it's like you know very high power yeah yep oh and there was one for the oven there was one for the oven one for the hot plate so yeah i'm not yeah i'm just talking about changing your story here dave i gotta say i'm just talking about the power points you know there are only two circuits for all the power

Chris Gammell: points that's that's the thing that's interesting to me is that it is kind of ad hoc there like when you

Dave Jones: you did you had your video about that yeah the fact that it's not the same thing in the us if you if you expanded your house out which you would add on extra no sorry so don't get me wrong the the ad hoc

Chris Gammell: nature i didn't mean it is like a pejorative i meant like ad hoc as in like it's not a standard form factor right the stamp metal of the us is what i'm used to that's like what i expect okay and and because it's hand wired and you know it's configurable that's the piece that i meant as ad hoc sorry right

Dave Jones: it's dumb that's what i'm trying to notice now it's just uses a internal plastic we can use those metal boxes if we wanted to sure yeah you know there's there's nothing stopping you it's just a cost thing really yeah yeah so yeah yep i got no dog in this race that's what i'm trying to say oh god yep anyway solar yes so i'm excited battery okay very good okay so we can talk about that next time yep but no you'll find that that you that power wall won't last you very long even if the energy company don't steal any of it from you during the day um yeah

Chris Gammell: yeah i'll see maybe there's futures future build out second second batteries whatever who knows right

Dave Jones: yep we'll see and yeah who knows in another couple of months i i think the rebate starts july here or something so once that comes around i'll start thinking about maybe doing it and it's not something i can do myself um either because to to get the new rebate um peter's told me that there's a lot of official paperwork involved yeah and that's so it's not something you can do yourself it's something that you have to have an approved installer yeah do which is trying to stimulate the economy too dave yes exactly yeah yeah yeah stimulate it with the funny money yeah yeah that's fine print it out of thin air yeah magic magic dude it's just yeah yeah get you some of that magic oh boy anyway so yeah i might get a bigger one i don't know we'll see but i've got to move the damn thing out because it's just taken up to your room much room in the garage and we uh might and we're gonna have to buy a new car shortly now one is 15 years old it's on its last legs oh man you got that car when the amp hour started huh yeah it is one amp hour i had kids yeah yeah yeah before i had kids we got that car

Chris Gammell: you're not gonna be like keep it around for your kids to like you know drive it into the ground sort

Dave Jones: of thing oh well it's already driven into the ground i know but they can you know i was a teenager i

Chris Gammell: could drive a car i could drive an old car into the ground you know what i mean right right really into the ground like literally wheels flying the crap out of your box and everything yeah

Dave Jones: well i i drove my old holden vectra literally into the ground where i took it to the mechanic you know it just had endless problems and he said he used the term death trap when your mechanic uses the word death trap yeah then you know you've driven it into the ground that's right it's like yeah oh boy anyway i was coming right we were we just went to uh canberra so we're driving on the highway back last night and um well yesterday morning and um uh and it was um it was super cold in canberra and you know and we thought you know we're talking about which you know wait a second wait

Chris Gammell: wait wait wait a second what's super cold for you come on give me a give me a number here i will give

Dave Jones: you the number in a minute okay as as i as i tell the stressful yeah because that has to do with the temperature okay right the story has to do with the temperature and so so we're talking about you know the car and how it's you know 15 years old and which you know which one we're going to replace it with and everything and and we were hoping that it had last this last trip you know we're hoping that yeah yeah you know it'd hold together yeah yeah yeah we don't want to get a tow truck on the highway you know like stuck in the highway in the middle of nowhere right and um and so we're driving down the freeway you know 110 k's an hour now this miles rubbish and and this warning you know so we're talking about this and then this warning message pops up on the screen with what what looked like like a gear symbol or something and i go like i've never seen this message before i go what the hell oh no the car's finally died in the middle of the bloody nowhere on this highway and um it turns out no it wasn't the car dying it was a low temperature warning message which i've low outside temperature warning message which i'd never seen before i had no idea because it reached three degrees celsius

Chris Gammell: oh wow outside that actually is pretty chilly for that yeah yeah it's pretty cold and it might be a

Dave Jones: combination because i'm sure i've driven in that sort of temperature before when i've gone to the snow for example right yeah um you know i'm sure it's been that cold outside snow you know snowing kind of thing um but it might be combined it might be where they keep the snow is the cold spots so it might only trigger itself once you're over a certain speed and a certain and under a certain

Chris Gammell: temperature uh so mine gives me notices about just like iced highways and stuff like that yeah no well

Dave Jones: i assume that that's what this is for like it's an ice although it didn't use the word ice it just said low outside temperature warning three degrees celsius warning will robinson um yeah so i assume it's like you're australian be careful out there you have no idea what what this ice thing is like yep so yeah anyway that uh freaked me out for until we figured out what the hell that was traveling down the highway but yeah the car didn't break down but yeah low temperature warning and then i turned that into i meant to bring it back to engineering i i turned that into a um a lesson on hysteresis for um for uh sagan who was in the car with us and yeah yeah he yeah so i mentioned very quickly no i mentioned you know i bet it's got some hysteresis and he goes what's hysteresis ah let me

Chris Gammell: tell you that's like an after school special there right there yeah let me tell you son i bet you

Dave Jones: today's episode of bluey is about i i bet you because it was flashy it continually flashed at me right and and i bet and and i bet him that it'd turn off flashing when it back went back to five degrees celsius and sure enough it did and that's hysteresis as i explained that is not hysteresis what

Chris Gammell: that is not just you being right about it going off at five no it's not hysteresis it's the fact

Dave Jones: that it turned off it would only stop flashing after it went back through the upper hysteresis level dude which was set at five which was set at some temperature which wasn't three right right so it it might have been four or but i i guessed it was five and i was right but um you know got it

Chris Gammell: so it was just your storytelling style here that i was making issue with i suppose right anyway so

Dave Jones: yeah so i explained how there's a hysteresis level at five degrees and there's one at three degrees and it has to go below three and and if it just suddenly peaks like 0.01 degree above three it

Chris Gammell: isn't gonna talk about power cycling you got to talk about power cycling yeah what cycling or rather not power cycling but cycling yeah if you're if you don't have hysteresis then yeah on off on off on

Dave Jones: yes it'll continually trigger it'll continually trigger on just just based on the thermal noise you know of the temperature sensor you know so yeah i explained hysteresis and how that how that works and how they had a threshold of three degrees and they had a threshold of five degrees yeah anyway and demonstrate it it's quite an effective demonstration he was quite impressed

Chris Gammell: yeah that's good that's good anyway yeah i always think uh hysteresis curves also look like uh magnetic uh

Dave Jones: magnetic curves you know yeah yeah the bh curve yeah yeah bh curve that's it yeah yeah i was uh

Chris Gammell: watching mr krasnow's recent stuff about uh magnetists you watch that one no yeah ben yeah relatively new uh not super new but um right yeah he was doing like magnetic material he was making his own magnets of course because why wouldn't you yeah yeah yeah yeah that's really good stuff as you do

Dave Jones: yeah i'll link that in as well of course terrific no well very good i think your amp hour's almost up

Chris Gammell: there are any large any tricks um i continue to do uh i'm doing some bluetooth stuff and making videos about it if people want to check it out uh i'll put some links in the show notes as well and uh thanks to everybody who filled out the survey i think next time yes we haven't gone through the survey yeah i've had a look at it but not an in-depth look yep yep yep yep yep all righty have a good one man

Dave Jones: catch you next time

Chris Gammell: x