#705 – Psst...Hey buddy, wanna buy an Octopus?

Chris Gammell: This is The Amp Hour Podcast, released October 8th, 2025. Episode 705. Psst. Hey buddy, you want to buy an octopus?

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: Contextual Electronics. Still a thing?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, still a thing, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, okay. Excellent. Sydney is the hub of everything at the moment.

Chris Gammell: Oh really? What kind of things?

Dave Jones: Well, everything space related anyway. If you're not aware, the International Astronautical Congress.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I did see your post. If I get the name.

Dave Jones: Because they call it a Congress? I don't know, what is a Congress?

Chris Gammell: Congress. My only real reference point to that is like the Chaos Communication Congress as well.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay, right. That's a Congress too. Okay. It's like an old school word for conference. Anyway, it's a big ass conference. Anyway, it's a week long conference. It's the big space event of the year. And it's held in a different city every year. And this year it's Sydney. Yay, us.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, truly international you're saying too, huh?

Dave Jones: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Yes, every single country is there. How to stand, you know. Yeah, cool. Oh yeah.

Chris Gammell: Very cool.

Dave Jones: Yeah, the Polish Space Agency, you know.

Chris Gammell: Might as well go to Sydney, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm sure everyone was devastated that they had to come to Sydney, you know. Yeah, oh gosh darn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Sydney in the springtime, beautiful weather, you know, nice folks.

Dave Jones: I assume that's a thing in the US. It's like, you know, Yanks would be excited if the company's sending me to Sydney, you know. Sydney's like one of those, you know, bucket list destinations for Yanks and Europeans, isn't it? I think so. Because it's just so far away and so, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's a beautiful city. It's, you know, nice folks. Yeah, right. Yeah, I think so. I've been. You know, I've been on holiday there, Dave, you may recall.

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yes, I do recall. I think so. I think the real thing is a lot of them just wouldn't send anyone. Yeah, especially. Unfortunately, I think a lot of space stuff in the US has been quite defunded. One of my friends just had to move out of NASA. So, he's going private.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Oh, right.

Chris Gammell: Sucks.

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: So, what did you see at this IAC?

Dave Jones: It's huge. I've got two walk-around videos. I've got one which is like a bird's eye view. So, I stuck my GoPro-y thing up on a large pole and I just walked around like the entire floor. So, that's like a 30-minute walk-around of just that with some space music on top. And then I actually did a physical walk-around. That's an hour-long video. I just released that this morning. So, yeah, it was like tons of stands. So, what it basically was if you were a big international company, you had your own stand. But if you were just like a little two-man company, you know, they would have their own stand, but it's on your country's stand. So, if you're from South Africa, if you're from Germany, if you're from Poland, then, you know, like your country would rent a giant stand and then you'll have a little like sub booth inside that stand, you know, for your little two-man company. So, yeah, yeah, it was cool. So, there was just hundreds of them.

Chris Gammell: It's always jarring to me like when I go to stuff like, I remember that machining show I went to and this one as well. Like these like huge conferences, you go to those things and you're just like, oh, yeah, there are so many other people that are doing technical work that's just so different than my own. But it's still like you could have just switched out a couple of the elements and it would have been a little bit, you know, pretty much the same thing, right? You know, like the same trade show stands and similar stuff like it. So, yeah.

Dave Jones: There were a couple of companies there that were familiar. It was like, okay, test instruments. Yes, RF test instruments. Of course. Yes, need those, right? And there's, oh, there's a company selling space connectors and they're all, you know, just, you know, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Is there anything different about space connectors?

Dave Jones: No, they're just regular connectors except, I don't know, they sell them to space customers.

Chris Gammell: So, what we do is we take regular connectors and then we charge you 10 times as much because we have to take all the oxygen out.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, there were a surprising amount of Australian companies there. You know, there was a huge Australia stand and then each state had their own stand. So, you know, Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, you know, they're all there. And, yeah, yeah, so they all had their own stand and then all the companies from each of the states were there. You know, they had their little mini booth inside the larger thing. And, yeah, there were just so many companies working on all these niche space gear, you know. It's just crazy.

Chris Gammell: Are there launches that are going up from Australia?

Dave Jones: There was our first attempted launch. Got like 10 metres off the platform and then went sideways and then sort of returned to Earth pretty quickly. Anyway, I did a tour. The video's not up yet. I did a tour of this new mission control. You know, like a regular mission control thing with, you know, the flight and all the terminals, you know, and everything else. They've built this into a B-double trailer van, completely mobile so that they can drive it all around Australia. And then so if you're launching anything, it doesn't have to be a rocket. It could be, you know, one of those sounding probes or it could be anything, right? So if you're launching something, of course, we don't have the big launch facilities like they do in the US and Europe and stuff like that. So it's better if we just build it into a big truck that you can just take it to the location and then the company that's launching it installs their own servers in the racks. And it's basically a mobile platform that you can use as your mission control kind of thing. And then you just install your things in the rack and then you can be up and running in like an hour or something. Yeah. It's just, yeah. That's great. Yeah, it's really cool. So I'll have a video tour of that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome.

Chris Gammell: And the mission control stuff is like computers and stuff like that or is there other special activities?

Dave Jones: It's basically computers. It's basically a, you know, a semi-trailer with a whole bunch of screens going back to big server racks with redundant power systems and comm systems and everything like that. So it's basically a generic platform that any space agents, any, you know, space company or any other company can use as their control system if they don't want to spend the money on their own control system. They can just, you know, have a server, shove it in there, hook it up to all these 200 monitors, you know, and then everyone's got their little headset and everyone can be monitoring their independent things. And, you know, so, yeah, I thought that was a good idea. But, yeah, I was just amazed at all the little, I mean, there were hundreds and hundreds of companies there, each doing their own little tiny niche thing, you know.

Chris Gammell: I always wonder, like, with companies like that, like, what is the expected outcome? You know, like, are they actually getting business from it too?

Dave Jones: Well, it's basically not just like, you know, you're unlikely to get random walk-up business, I guess. It's about meeting people, you know. It's about, so they had a whole section of the floor which was just these soundproof booths where you go in and you can have your secret meeting about, oh, yeah, we'll buy 12 of these rockets, please, you know, kind of thing. So, yeah, it's about the people, you know, actually meeting because everyone's in the one spot. So somebody you would be an emailing or something for six months trying to get something done, you can actually meet in person, you know. That's kind of how it works. So I'm sure you get some walk-up business, you know, like there was everyone, like, you know, like the stands, oh, I need, yes, I need a space flight computer. Yes, I, there was one company that specialised, there's an Australian company that specialised in lube, space lube.

Chris Gammell: Space lube.

Dave Jones: Oh, that's got to be the title of this episode, space lube.

Chris Gammell: Maybe.

Dave Jones: Yes, come on. Come on. Don't let me down, Chris. I'll write it down. Space lube. Don't let me down. I think it's an Australian company. They specialise in just lubricants for space satellites and gear and stuff, you know, because you have actuators that move and stuff.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, if you have, like, any kind of, like, water element in it, it's going to, like, evaporate away, I'm sure.

Dave Jones: Yeah, absolutely. It's going to boil off and boom, you know, gone. Yeah. Or it's going to freeze up and then your gear seizes up, you know.

Chris Gammell: Everything's more expensive.

Dave Jones: Yeah, totally. So, yeah. I'm sure this lube is very expensive. So, yeah. But anyway, yeah, it seemed like they just specialised in that. Great. You know, I'm sure they own the market.

Chris Gammell: Well, speaking of specialised racks of equipment, I have a new quasi-obsession with something that's very old.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I'm like, hey, Dave, I just learned about this really cool new thing. It's called DIN rail.

Dave Jones: DIN rails. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I know it's very old. I know it's, like, you know, everybody uses industrial spaces. Mostly it, like, came from, like, just the madness that was my desk. So many dev boards. I have to get them off my desk. I started just thinking about, like, how I could do it. Started looking around, like, you know, printables and similar, like, Thingiverse, different 3D printing sites. And somehow I came upon DIN rails. So, one, I found an actual use case for 3D printers. Yeah, I've been, you know, putting up DIN rails. Did you ever do that back in your testing days?

Dave Jones: Well, yes, we do. But that was more for automation of production test gear and stuff like that, you know. So, if you needed, you know, some automated test system, you'd have a little PLC that plugs into your DIN rail. You'd have a power supply that plugs into your DIN rail. You'd have a comms thing that plugs into your DIN rail, et cetera.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, landing all your field wiring and that sort of thing. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Aren't all of your things in your electrical switchboard DIN rail mounted?

Chris Gammell: No. They're not.

Dave Jones: They are here. If you look at my new box, it's all DIN rail. So, I've got all DIN rail fuses and switches. And that's where it's more common.

Chris Gammell: No, I think that's a great plan, actually. And, like, especially the way that you guys have kind of those more – I mean, both are modular, right? The U.S. system is a little different. But remember I talked about in the U.S. We have that – because of the split phase, we have that weird, like, push type. Yeah, right. And then the type of breakers here, they push onto the – it's like a serpentine connector.

Dave Jones: Yeah, you guys have your own system. But I think most other places in the world are a DIN rail system.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You'll see that in Europe, I think, as well. It's very similar.

Dave Jones: So, yes. So, I do believe it's the same over there. It's just everything's DIN rail mount. So, yeah. Anything – yeah. Everything power-related, anything comms and switching and, you know, all sorts of things.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And so, for mine, it's smaller stuff. It's not high power. It's really just – like, literally, it's just to get it up off the desk. And then, you know, I have wire racks. My new setup is not to have, like, mounted shelves. Like, I used to have mounted shelves on the wall.

Dave Jones: Do you have them? You've got, like, a big mobile trolley thing, like, with, like, shelves and stuff.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. I have, like, wire racks, kind of like they have, like, in restaurants or, like, you might have for storage. I like the kind of the rolling kind, like the black wire, the black epoxy type. And then, so, I found a size that fits on my desk. And so, then that's also where my lights are underneath it. And then, my test gear is up above and then storage. But now, the front of that now is also DIN rail. So, it's also storage and, like, kind of frontage of that thing. So, it's, like, basically anything I can zip tie it to, I'm putting DIN rail on, too. So, I liked and I still do like the Jay Carlson method of, like, the baker's trays. Oh, yeah. Right. I think we talked about that back when I got it. Yes. It's a little tucked away in my office and I'm not actually using it, like, like a project-based tray. Like, the tray, if it was, like, one tray per project, I feel like that would be a better setup. Mine's more like everything from a certain class of boards kind of goes onto one tray. So, each board's kind of a mess on its own. But if it was, like, actually project-based, that would make a lot more sense. Gotcha. So, instead, now I'm kind of moving all that stuff off to racks. And like I said, it's a good use of 3D printing and stuff like that. Like, I was able to print, like, a Raspberry Pi case and other mounting cases for different things. You have kind of, like, a generic clip-on one. The only downside is, like, really small stuff doesn't go on there very well. So, I have to, like, make custom stuff at that point.

Dave Jones: Got it. I just sent you a photo. I follow someone on X called Fish Pointer. Okay. Anyway, Fish Pointer, I just sent you a photo of their desk. But they've got all the test equipment up. And they've got, speaking of those tray kind of things, they've got this tray system. I don't know if you can see that photo. Can you, I can copy you the actual image.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah, I can see it. Yep.

Dave Jones: They are constantly posting photos of their desk. Like, and they have different projects they're working on. They've got these trays with. Oh, you're doing it on the left side? Yes.

Chris Gammell: Oh, so, you know, that looks like Zach Friedman's, what do they call that? It's like the 42 by 42 millimeter box system.

Dave Jones: Yeah, they've got, like, a big tray, sort of, like, on some sort of angled platform kind of thing. And then they've got little sub trays all in there, all with, like, little individual components that they can then in the middle as a breadboard. And so, they've posted a few photos like that. And I really like them.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And that's, like, a very printable setup as well. It's, like, very modular and made to, like, make it interchangeable. Despite me, like, distracting myself with printing. It's like, no, actually, I just need to, like, every day at the end of the day, I need to go and, like, put these things away that I worked on. Or in the case of, like, a tray, I need to be able to, like, move it off to the side. And, you know, you deal with this too, right? It's just like...

Dave Jones: Yeah, I've been trying to do it down in my dungeon. Like, I've got a new desk set up and I installed some lighting and stuff. And I installed some monitors. Like, I found a dual monitor stand in the dumpster, you know, one of those elevated monitor stand arm things. So I installed some monitors and then I've got cable in all there so that any time I get a... Find something in the dumpster, I can just bring it over to this desk, which I managed to clear mostly. And then I've got everything there I need to plug in. So I've got all the cables. Like, I've got all the different types of, you know, video cables and everything that I can plug in and keyboards and computers. And it just, you know, so I can get something up and running really fast. Whereas I've always got to scramble around for something like that. You know, oh, I find a dumpster computer. Like, okay, I've got to get on the bench. Oh, well, I need a power cable. Oh, I need a video cable. Oh, where's a monitor? Oh, I need to find a monitor. Oh, where's a spare keyboard and mouse? Where's a, you know? And it's like, oh, God. And just spend so much time dicking around.

Chris Gammell: I feel like it's kind of like deciding whether to like tie pieces of equipment to a project or to make them float. But then the float problem is like what you just said, where if you do float, it's like you're kind of always breaking stuff down in order to build the next thing.

Dave Jones: It helps that if you're working on the same thing all the time, you know, or the same similar sorts of things all the time. But if you're working on totally different stuff, then, well, how do you even set up a lab to do totally random stuff? Yeah. You know? Right, right, right. It's like, it's kind of hard. Especially if you're in our, especially if you're in our kind of thing and you're like filming stuff and you need to film stuff. And there's an extra level of complexity on top of that, just being able to document and film stuff.

Chris Gammell: So Adam Savage has a bunch of stuff on his workshop and he's in like this extremely constrained environment, even though he has an amazing system. Like the most amazing thing to me is that he keeps that system, right? It's like that he's, he's following it. Laura Comps, another one who like, Laura has all these systems about like, just like sorting out parts and like storing stuff. And, you know, she has a bunch of junk all over the place too. But like, even just having and following those systems, it's just like, that's, that's, that's the most impressive thing to me.

Dave Jones: Thick into it is hard. Yeah. Yeah. The old, you know, once you go in there and you're just so proud of yourself, you just cleared the entire workbench. And then, you know, a week later, it's like.

Chris Gammell: Bring it, bring it back out. Hellhole again. Yeah. Yeah. The person you sent me photos of, what are they building?

Dave Jones: I believe it's all sort of like RFE kind of serial comms, hackery, decodery type stuff. I don't know. Something like that.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I think this is gridfinity. You seen that video you sent me? So Dave sent me a video as well, where they're switching out the, like some cases for the power supply. Look at the thing underneath it. There's like, there's a, see those three boxes. Those look suspiciously like 42 by 42 millimeter boxes. So I think this is gridfinity. And then he's printing the.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Right. Yes, there's a grid under it that, that sort of holds them in place.

Chris Gammell: I think that's what it is. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Okay. So this is actually a commercial thing. It's not something that they've just.

Chris Gammell: No, not commercial. It's just, it's just like an ad hoc standard that like.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: 3D printing community came up. Maybe Zach, I don't even, I don't know. Zach talks about a lot. He's, he's my main reference point for it. He's Voidstar Labs. If people don't know who I'm saying Zach Friedman, but Voidstar Labs talks about this a lot. He's into 3D printing and these kinds of things. And yeah, it's gridfinity, shitfinity, like there's gamefinity. There's like all of these, you know, plays on words. But remember those kids when we went on a hackerspace tour? Robots and dinosaurs. The person there was, was showing us like a Adam Savage-esque kind of sorting system. That's like the slide out tray. Kind of looks like a tackle box. There's like a handle that's like plastic molded into the plastic. And then there's a case that flips up. And then there's usually like modular cups that fit into there, usually squares. And then you could fit different parts in there. But then the whole thing closes and it seals it so that if the whole thing turns over, you know, screw from cup one doesn't go over into cup four. They're very expensive.

Dave Jones: I'm just looking at these where they've got these 3D printed plier holders, like side cutter holders. Oh my God.

Chris Gammell: Now I need this in my life.

Dave Jones: Oh, Jesus. Yeah, but once it, like, I'll never keep it like that. Like, I don't, I don't think I have the discipline to.

Chris Gammell: And you have to keep printing, you know, like.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I just, yeah, you've got to, I think you've got to be a certain kite.

Chris Gammell: It's probably a good experiment to try it. You know, it's pretty low, low effort, low cost. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Low effort. Yeah. Well, I've got my big 3D printer, which can print, I can print anything up to 350 millimeters by three or is a 400 by 400 or something. Yeah. So I can print like fairly large things.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You know, I have these, I have on my desk, the bench that I have, I would like the pullout drawers. These are like the Husky style desks. I think I've shown you photos of before. They're like two tool style trays. That would be good for it because it's about the right height. You could get it, you know, gridded in there, but I don't think I should do this. I don't think it's a good idea. I don't need another project. I've got DIN. DIN fills me up for now. You know, I'm cool.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay. Well, I think I might turn on my 3D printer today. Okay. Yeah, I might because like, well, I haven't found the, I assume that there's a link to the, all the 3D models and stuff. I can just download. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, I think there's like a tag on printable. I don't know what you're using these days for marketplaces, but like printables is the one that I use.

Dave Jones: Whatever shows up on the search. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And so you could just search gridfinity printables, I'm sure, or gridfinity print, 3D print, and I'm sure you're going to find a ton. So.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So that is the name everyone's using, is it? I think so. Gridfinity generator. Oh my God. There's a website. You can actually design them. You can design a base plate. Oh God.

Chris Gammell: I've just found a gridfinity for dummies YouTube video. Maybe I can send you that one.

Dave Jones: Oh God. Oh God. Okay. Well, yeah, I'm probably going to have to do that. Yeah. I think I'm going to have to be printing some stuff. Well, that's a great thing. Now that I've got a 3D printer that just works, you know, I can just literally turn it on. Which one do you have? I've got the Creality K1, which is, yeah, they sent it to me. It's like a big thing. They offered to send me, they just got an email the other day. They offered to send me another one, which is like, has like the five different colors at once, you know?

Chris Gammell: You know, Dave, you could print even more gridfinity with that. I know.

Dave Jones: But the problem with that is that, okay, you've got five different colors. That's great. But unless you're using those every day, you have to take out the reels. You've got to put them in a sealed bag with a moisture, you know, absorbing thing so that they don't go brittle.

Chris Gammell: Actually, I just got a filament dryer for all of $42 and it does two reels at a time. Rolls. Two. Spools. Spools.

Dave Jones: Right. So after you dry them out, you what, you shove them in a bag?

Chris Gammell: No, you just use them often enough that you run out of filament and you buy new ones, I guess. I don't know. This happened because I was using three. Yeah, I was using three-year-old filament. I kept breaking in the printer. I'm like, I need to fix this.

Dave Jones: Yeah, no. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I've done the same thing. So you need to, I print, I've been 3D printing a lot of stuff lately for the kids. And like I was going through like a few reels. Yeah, I was actually, I was actually churning those out in bulk, you know. This damn thing was running 24-7.

Chris Gammell: Making your kids into trinket dealers, huh?

Dave Jones: Yes. Yeah. Trinket dealers. Psst, buddy. Flexible octopus. Anyway, they're fantastic. Yeah, they just work now, you know. So like all I can do, like it's downstairs in the dungeon. But if I literally turn it on, it's hooked up to my network. So I literally turn it on. I come up here and I can control it and download stuff from my desktop here. And it just prints. It just magically prints. It's so good.

Chris Gammell: It's really nice to be in that era of tooling and stuff like that. Thank you to all the tinkerers that made it work.

Dave Jones: Yes, yes. Thank you to the MakerBots of the world. I've still got two MakerBots that I built. And yeah, they were just so finicky to use. You just didn't want to use it. It was like the dread and like the thought of just having to 3D print something and then battle this 3D printer to get it to consistently print was just sheer dread.

Chris Gammell: You know, speaking of dread, your children should have pure dread thinking about when you finally go around the bend and they have to clear out your workspace.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: Back up the dump truck, hire the strapping and lads and just throw all that shit out. Yes.

Dave Jones: I kind of need an exit plan, don't I? I kind of need like, yeah.

Chris Gammell: You do. You know what you need is a couple of suckers who also like to collect stuff. And then you can just slowly dribble it out. Oh, you know, I have another piece you might be interested in. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the antiques industry in a nutshell.

Dave Jones: Yes. And do you remember all those tins I got? All that like 330 tins of all the different can, like tins of all the screws and everything. And yeah, I don't know if you saw the video on that, but I actually decided like I've got 330 of these tins on my shelf down in my dungeon. And I decided to finally, you know, attempt to sort them. So I did like a live stream video, like there was a couple of hours long, just go opening these tins and just sorting them and going, nope, I'm never using 300 PCB spaces.

Chris Gammell: Oh, it was that level of, I thought it was going to be like M3 screw, like hex nuts and stuff like that, you know?

Dave Jones: No, no. I was doing the more obscure things like, you know, support mounts, feet, you know, like I don't need 2000 different types of rubber feet, custom rubber feet for products, you know? And these are all used, right? These are all used, salvaged from 19, yeah, harvested from 1970s, 1980s vintage test gear and stuff.

Chris Gammell: Just think about how much lead you were touching that day and Freon and I don't know what else. Yeah, I know.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. All the good stuff and all the stuff that puts hair in your chest. And then it immediately falls off. It's so great.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So I poured them all out into this bucket and then I got contacted by somebody in the US who's into retro vintage tech repair and stuff like that and said, hey, I'll take that entire unsorted, because it's now unsorted, because I've poured them into thing and like, I'll buy that, you know, I'll actually take those off your hands. Just, you know, I'll pay shipping or whatever. And unfortunately, I did email him like a quote and he said he'd be happy to pay the shipping and everything, but I haven't heard back yet. So I don't know if anyone wants my random assorted box of, and that's only like one box. Like I only went through like 50 tins. I've got like 330 of them. Yeah. So anyway, if anyone wants a box of a, like a five kilo, I think it's about five or six kilo box of just random assorted feet and spaces and bushins and grommets and stuff like that from ancient test gear. I'm your man. I'm probably the only source on the planet.

Chris Gammell: So they're all yours. It is interesting. So much military stuff in the US at least is like these mom and pop assembly shops. They've been making a lot of the same stuff, you know, for better or worse, right? It's been like their livelihood and they're all retiring and they're, you know, their kids, their kids went off to other places or in software or whatever. They're, you know, there's just no backfill. I think, I think private equity is probably going to come in and like buy it up and maybe manage it, whatever. But like, it's, it's an issue waiting to happen.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah. They've, they've had this problem. And especially when they're trying to onshore everything again, like all their latest fighter jets and stuff, they would outsource stuff. And now they're trying to bring it back and they're going, well, there was only one company that made this stuff and now they're out of business because you didn't keep them in business. And like, how do you, how do you get it back?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And, and like a lot of it is like the margins are also like, they're like these unrealistic margins. So it's not like they can go and get, you know, like a commercial gig down the street. You know, someone's doing an injection molding for like a kid's toy in like the injection mold or for the military, like just the, the scale is completely off. And so it just doesn't support other types of business. So it's very dependent on contracts and things like it.

Dave Jones: Who's that new US, he's a, founded by this like total like nerd kind of guy, but now they're one of the biggest defense contractors. What's it?

Chris Gammell: Palmer Lucky. And that is- Yeah, Palmer Lucky. That's it. Anderil. Yeah. Anderil. That's the company. It's the name of the sword that the King uses in Lord of the Rings.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I saw some sort of like doco on his company or something. And it was about how they know this problem where like, you know, there's these mom and pop stores who manufacture this stuff. So they're trying to like do as, use as much off the shelf stuff as humanly possible in their latest things. And that's how they can spin them fast and get things out there and things like that.

Chris Gammell: Many, many, many thought pieces about like Silicon Valley kind of arriving to military electronics. It's, I mean, if I'll be completely honest, it makes me a little uneasy. Like most, because it's like they're doing a lot of like drone projects first and foremost. And I read a lot of, you know, science fiction where similar plot lines exist. So it makes me very uneasy. Also drones make me uneasy. Generally, I think they're scary. The sounds are put me off. But, you know, it is kind of like modern warfare stuff. So it's, and there's, and there's a lot of, a lot of jobs in that space right now too. There's just a lot of funding going towards it. I mean, US passed some funding bills for military stuff. So that's like, everything's juiced right now too. If people want to blow stuff up and they're young and technology focused, they could go do that.

Dave Jones: Well, well, that's the same for the space at the moment. Like, you know how that, well, there's money going down in the US for space, but there's no shortage of actual private money. So it's like, you know, I'm having dinner with a friend on Thursday night and he's got a new space startup. And it's like, I'm pretty sure it's not going to work. Let's just say that. But there's no shortage of money for it.

Chris Gammell: I think they see, you know, the investors see like the dollar signs in their eyes, especially for big stuff. Like, you know, it's not quite winner take all, but there's only so much space out there.

Dave Jones: Oh no, yeah. Space is huge at the moment. Space is just like, it's everywhere. This is why there's 20 new space channels on freaking YouTube trying to cover everything and they can't even cover everything. Space is just so hot. Whereas a decade ago, 15 years of space was dead.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Cause you had to go through the big iron. You had to go through Boeing.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. You had to go through the big iron. Exactly. You go, I had to go through the Lockheed Martins and the, yeah, the rest of them. And now it's like, no, I can literally go on a webpage right now and book a slot on the next SpaceX flight. I can put it in my shopping cart, put down my $5,000 deposit and I'm on a bloody SpaceX flight.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I was talking to my, to some friends over the weekend about the, the Mark Rober, like the, the selfie from space thing. And just like, I mean, it's a very fun project. And, and just like, but like you said, like just the fact that you can do that, they build a piece of electronics and it works and it's great. But yeah, the, the lift part was something they just bought.

Dave Jones: Well, I did an interview. I'll probably edit that today, which will go up on my second channel. I was talking to an Australian space company called Fleet. And they, they had on the stand there, it was a giant one-to-one replica of the Firefly Moon Lander. Right. And, and the reason that they had that, it was very cool. And the reason that they had that is because this Australian company is making one of the scientific payloads. It's a seismometer that'll drop onto the surface. Right. And so I was talking to them about it and I asked the question, how do you go about getting a spot on the next Firefly Lander? You know, you know, who's asked did you have to kiss to get, you know, a spot like a, to get your payload on that Moon Lander? And he went, they were begging for people to put payloads on. They were like, it's actually opposite to what you think. They need people to pay in. So if you've got a small company, you've got some funding. Yeah. You can easily get a slot on a Moon Lander somewhere. People are begging you to put payloads, you know, pay in payload. onto their Moon Lander to make it all, you know.

Chris Gammell: Make it go. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Actually. Yeah. Money, money makes it go. So yeah, it comes from, you know, so you've got 20 different payloads on there and that's coming from seed funding from 20 different small companies. And then that helps pay for the seed funding for the Lander. You know, it's like turtles all the way down.

Chris Gammell: Kickstarter to Rocket Fuel, huh? Yeah.

Dave Jones: Turtles all the way down.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's wild.

Dave Jones: Lunar turtles. Oh my God. Yeah. I couldn't, I was, I was taken aback by that, that they didn't have to beg to get on there. They were begging them to put the payload on there.

Chris Gammell: That's just amazing. What is interesting too, because like, so when my friend Todd was on the show a couple episodes ago, he was talking about kind of like what the, what the businesses are in space. You know, it's like sensors are kind of like the big one for like small stats and things like, it's like, you're going to sense something, you're going to take photos of something.

Dave Jones: Well, actually making money from this gig is a different, is a different matter, but there's lots of money flowing in. I, I'm not sure there's lots of money coming out of it, but you know.

Chris Gammell: I think there are actual businesses, you know, like, so like a Planet Labs, right? We had, when Sean Meehan was on the show a long time ago, like you're talking about Planet, like they make money by selling photos of the earth.

Dave Jones: Yeah. They mapping. Yeah. I had a look at one stand and they've got a mock, they've got an array of satellites that's about to go up. That'll do SAR imagery down to 0.3 meters of the entire earth, you know, or 0.15 meters. You can, you know, SAR imagery of the entire planet, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And that has like a marketplace, right? People want that. That's going to be useful. But like seismology on the moon. What do I do with it? I guess I can make an app. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So I can see how it's, you know, if you're providing SAR imagery or satellite imagery or, you know, any other type of, you know, you're detecting minerals in the ground or something somehow, you know, using some whiz bang tech.

Chris Gammell: I'm just going to throw it out there for like a fifth time. Delta V, the Daniel Suarez book. Great book. You should read this one. It's about space mining and then the follow-ups on the moon.

Dave Jones: Well, I've already publicly said space mining will not be a thing. It's not going to happen. It's not going to be economically feasible to get minerals back to the earth. It'll be a thing if you're mining on the moon for the resources to be used on the moon. That's fine. But you aren't going to go and mine an asteroid for gold and bring it back here and suddenly become a trillionaire. Not going to happen.

Chris Gammell: Well, they talk about that in the book. I definitely agree with like bringing it back down the gravity well. Like that does make sense because that would be ridiculous. But I do think building stuff in space, I think that's the real money.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah. That's where potential, yeah, we might be 50, 100 years out from that. But yeah, that will happen. Yes, of course.

Chris Gammell: Sending material up is very expensive.

Dave Jones: Well, and actually people don't realize the cost of getting it back down. Like the cost of getting a one ton of gold back to the ground is insane, right? Like actually mining, getting it up there, mining it and bringing it back through the atmosphere and landing it is like, you know, it's just mad.

Chris Gammell: Well, you don't, I'm not, I'm not going to do it. But something I was going to bring up earlier when you were talking about the grommets and the old, the old electronics is, I don't know if you saw the news item, but the Commodore Corporation recently changed hands.

Dave Jones: Yes. They, they back, can you, I think you can order one, can't you? You can order a new C64 and it looks and feels like a real C64, right?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yes. That, I believe so.

Dave Jones: Yeah. They bought, yeah. A consortium of just, you know, enthusiasts, I think just bought all the rights back from, I don't know who owned it. I've got no idea of the history of that, but yeah, they bought the rights back and they've released a new Commodore 64, I guess.

Chris Gammell: I didn't see anything about the releasing the new one, but definitely I know they were, they bought it. I was watching all the videos and stuff like that.

Dave Jones: No, no, I'm pretty sure they had a Kickstarter or some other fund me. Anyway, I don't really have an affinity for the Commodore 64 cause I never had one and I never knew anyone who had one. So I never, you know, apart from using one at the local, you know, computer shop, wasn't a thing for me.

Chris Gammell: Same. I didn't even get to see it at the, yeah, I saw it at like Maker Faires and stuff like that. That was, that was my exposure much later. So it'll be interesting to see what they do with it. Yeah. I think, I think it is going to definitely target a lot of nostalgia and probably educational market as well. You know, that sort of, that sort of thing. So.

Dave Jones: All right, here we go. Here's a video, a retro recipes video, the new Commodore 64 ultimate. Yep. I'm just, just playing it now. The world's first transparent keyboard circuit board to let the tech speak for itself. 982 plus 2025 creator autographs etched forever into the main copper. There you go. So they got the original, the original designers to sign it. It's kind of cool.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. They had a bunch of people involved. Oh, right. Some past guests of the show, of course. Yes. Jerry was listed. Bill Hurd was listed. Jerry Ellsworth was listed. They didn't mention Chuck. I don't think this, was this a 6502?

Dave Jones: No, it's a 6510. It's a 6510. 6510. So it's not the 65. I thought it wasn't the 6502. It's the 6510. Running at 1.023 megahertz for the NTSC. The PAL even ran slower at 985 kilohertz was the PAL version. So if you bought one in Australia.

Chris Gammell: You're losing out. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Modified from the 6502. This is interesting.

Chris Gammell: Like, you know, I like the idea of this and like how you can, you know, really dig into a lot of the stuff. But like we're so far outstripping this with like some of the chips that are out there, like outstrip it so much, you know. So it's like, it's truly just good feels, you know, that sort of thing.

Dave Jones: Oh yeah. No, totally. Totally.

Chris Gammell: I'm sure people really like the keyboard though too. I recently joined the ranks of people that can't stop talking about keyboards, Dave. My coworker Mike is very into him and he wore me down and wore me down and wore me down. And then he did the most important thing. You know what the most important thing is, Dave? What is it? Sending a AliExpress link to get one for only like $68, like shipped. Oh, okay. Then it's like, okay, I'll try it for $68. And yeah, it's been interesting. Okay. Send me the one you've got. At first I was like, oh, this is going to be like a kit. And then I was like, oh, but there's like a finished goods one for like $68. I'll go do that one. I don't want to deal with, you know, 3D printing, whatever. It shows up. It's in a 3D printed body. It's a split keyboard. So it's a Korn C-O-R-N-E V4 tied together with like a 3.5 millimeter jack. That's how the two boards talk to each other.

Dave Jones: Oh God. Oh, I see it.

Chris Gammell: Let me send you a link. It's great though. It's the thing that I really like about it. It's learning some more keystrokes and stuff like that to make it a little.

Dave Jones: Oh God, no, I hate that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it has fewer keys. So I didn't think you'd like that.

Dave Jones: Oh God, no. What? No, no. And it's got a cable between the two split halves. This is like, no, this is one of these, you know, ergonomic, you know, keyboards from the 19, that were all the rage in the 80s. No.

Chris Gammell: Okay. Well, you don't have to do it. I don't know if you know that. Okay. But I'm just talking, you know, this is a podcast. We do talk about things that we've done.

Dave Jones: And I'm surprised that you relented on that and didn't go, what the fuck is this?

Chris Gammell: I am a little surprised at myself, actually. I think it really is just the like, oh, $68. I think that's what it really was. And I thought I'd try it out. You know, I am typing a little faster. I like that. It's less kind of like hunting around on a bigger keyboard. I kind of spilled coffee all over this one. So, I did have to switch back to my other keyboard for half a day. It was very different than I like remembered it. You know, I'm just like thinking about it now. So, that's the big thing. But yeah, it's the thing I really like about it is actually not related to the hardware at all. It's actually, there's a web serial based app where you can reconfigure it. Oh, okay. Yeah, of course. And it just pops up. It's RP2040 on board. And like that is just like interaction with hardware. Like if I could do that for a lot of, like I got to, I got to dig into the code. Cause like that was just like such a pleasant, you know, the UI is like in the browser. It's got like a visualization of the keyboard itself and you just like reconfigure it like that. It's literally like pull down menus and like clicking and whatever. And it's just like, and then it's just.

Dave Jones: Rechargeable battery.

Chris Gammell: This one's wired. So, there are rechargeable ones.

Dave Jones: Oh, wired. Okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: There's like rechargeable Bluetooth ones that'll last for like a week.

Dave Jones: I'm totally out.

Chris Gammell: Okay.

Dave Jones: No. Don't worry about it, man. I want my keyboard to last for a year. If my keyboard lasts for a week, I am out.

Chris Gammell: We need to plug it in for like 20 minutes. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Nope. Nope. Nope. I'm out.

Chris Gammell: I have no dog in this fight. Cause I mean, I like literally, I bought it on a whim, but here, let me send you the link.

Dave Jones: Oh God. There's an RGB version.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. They're, they're all, they all have lights underneath them, the ground lighting and stuff like that. So, you know, I'm joining the ranks of a crossfitters and, you know, vegans and similar. Like, how do you know you're talking to a vegan or crossfitters? Like they're going to tell you, right? Same with a keyboard person.

Dave Jones: And how do you spot someone who's got a big home battery? You don't have to, they'll tell you. Yeah. Right. Exactly. A big home battery. I laid a slab. Oh, you did? Oh, wow. I laid a concrete slab because, um, the wife said, uh, like, cause we've, we've just got new paving outside where we just got the paving re-leveled. Cause we had a giant tank. We had a giant water tank that had been there for 20 years. And, um, that just like sunk in all the paving and everything. And so we, so we had all the paving relay, but it was on a slope so that the water would drain off. And you can't exactly put these giant, um, eight foot tall racks on a sloping surface. Cause they would like lean away from the wall and that would just freak me out forever. And of course they're going to weigh a lot cause I'm getting these new batteries, um, installed two giant outdoor racks, which will weigh probably 450 kilos each or something like that. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Pretty heavy, right. Beefy, beefy outdoor racks, beefy batteries. This is a lot of battery packs, 75 kilowatt hours of battery. Right. Yeah. And yeah. So, so there's nearly like 800 kilos, you know, 800, 900 kilos or something of batteries that we're going to install outside. And she said, no pavers, I don't want to bodge job, do it properly. So I had to take up the pavers on the weekend and I made a frame and I pulled my own concrete. Oh wow. Pulled my own completely reinforced concrete slab. I think it's rated for about 1500 kilos, something like that. This concrete slab.

Chris Gammell: So nice. Did you get one of those really cool zip tie tools for a rebar?

Dave Jones: No, I got a mesh. I got, I got a pre-welded mesh. So yeah, I just, I got a large one and then I just, um, use some bolt cutters to trim. That down to size. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Got it. Okay.

Dave Jones: For the rebar. No, I didn't want to have to, you know, tie it all and all that sort of crap. No.

Chris Gammell: I just watched, uh, Colin first do that with his garage and.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's a cool tool. Like how it just like, like as power tool that wraps around the. Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's just, yeah. Pornographic. Special purpose tool. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's great. So when are the batteries coming in?

Dave Jones: Um, I don't have a final date yet. I've already paid for them. Um, but I don't have an install date yet. Um, because everyone's backlogged at the moment. So it's hard to, of course, cause you know, the government's given our free money. Um, so the batteries were basically free. They were literally free quote marks. My kids will pay for it. Um, sure. So yeah, thanks kids in the future with their tax dollars will pay for it. But, uh, yeah, no, the, the batteries, um, were completely free. So I'm only paying for, I'm only paying for the racks plus the install and, um, stuff. So.

Chris Gammell: Hear me out. Like you are potentially, you know, reducing carbon emissions. So like that could have positive benefits, you know? Don't care. Okay. Well, I'm just saying there are cause, there are future externalities. No. They're not captured in the current models.

Dave Jones: Current models are bullshit. All models are bullshit, by the way. Blanket rule. All models are bullshit. All models to do with anything ever for the history of humanity are bullshit.

Chris Gammell: I think the space people might, might, uh, might take issue with that, but you know what, Dave, you are welcome to your opinion.

Dave Jones: I will qualify that. I'll qualify that. Any model of a complex system is bullshit.

Chris Gammell: On Tuesdays, when the moon has vibrations as measurable by devices that have landed on them, then models are BS. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Then we'll be, the models will be correct. Yes. Anyway, no, I just want the warm, fuzzy power in my entire house from batteries, you know, and solar. So yeah. And like, I don't like to participate. Like I would actually prefer if the government not subsidize, use my tax dollars to subsidize all these batteries. I'd actually prefer if they don't do that, but if they're going to do it and they are, then I might as well personally take advantage of it. So otherwise it's not like, oh, they're going to say if, if, if I don't do it, they're going to save the money. No, it doesn't work like that. They're going to max the scheme out and yep. So I might as well get advantage of it. Free power, man. Yeah. Free power. Yep. Yep. Anyway, anyway, it's cool. Yeah. So Peter, who's a former guest of the show who actually designed the, who, who actually designed the batteries that I'm using. He suggested that I actually power my entire house from the new inverter and I actually have like an off grid switch and I actually, you know, but yeah, no, I don't think, I think that's a bad move. Cause I'm only getting, I'm getting a new inverter, which is eight kilowatts. So that's sometimes we draw more than that. So that's going to be a problem, you know, especially if we're charging the EV and then he said, oh, but you can connect your EV to the grid. And it's like, oh, then I've got multiple complex things that are connected to the grid and aren't connected to the grid. And it's just a mess. So I will have a big changeover switch. So if the grid fails, technically I should be able to do the big clunk and changeover knife switch or, you know, it's a round switch.

Chris Gammell: It's not going to be a knife switch. No, no. It's going to be a very safe.

Dave Jones: It should be a knife switch, damn it. Very safe switch. No, I want a knife switch. Yes. So anyway, a changeover switch. So in theory, I should be able to run my house from the inverter if the power fails, but our power never fails. So, you know.

Chris Gammell: Those buried lines. You got to be like, you know what? Hey, power company, do it like the US. Put them up on poles near the trees.

Dave Jones: Right. Anyway, so yeah, I don't know when that's being installed, but I'll keep you updated. So anyway, I've got a nice new concrete slab I'm proud of. The concrete slab is not going to be the problem. The concrete slab is going to break. It'll be the foundations that it's laid on, you know, will sink.

Chris Gammell: Maybe this though, Dave. What if your concrete pouring skills do fail you and then the whole thing sinks into the ground, but then you could put like a tub over it, like a little plastic, like carp, and then you put some water in there and then the battery, the heat from the batteries, boom, hot tub.

Dave Jones: Well, I've already got the pool and I'll have so much energy. I'll be able to turn the pool into a hot tub. I'll have so much excess energy, you see. Okay, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. I can send you a photo of my concrete slab. Would you like to see my concrete slab? I would like to see it. Yeah. Here we go. I'm going to post it to you right now. There is, it's, this is just. It's a manly thing to do to build a concrete slab. Oh yeah. Grunt. So there's my concrete slab after it was just poured. So I haven't leveled, haven't, you know, finished it properly or whatever. It's still, yeah.

Chris Gammell: And how much is that supposed to support?

Dave Jones: Uh, that'll restore 55 megapascals, which for that size and thickness block is at least 1.5 tons. But of course I can't guarantee the base as well. The base is a compacted road base. And I think there's already a sub concrete slab under that further down as well. Um, so it should be pretty good. So yeah, yeah, we'll see. So, so it's, I think it's concrete slab on top of road base on top of concrete slab on top of compacted soil. Anyway, it's right on the side of the house, which is right next to the retaining wall, which has a bit of a lean on it. Cause the pressure of the house is kind of over the last 20 years or whatever is kind of, and the wall's a bit leaning because our block is up sloping. So the house had to be sort of leveled on one side and there's a retaining wall.

Chris Gammell: I know so, so very little about construction and walls.

Dave Jones: Same here. I got no idea.

Chris Gammell: But I believe you. I believe you.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I've got a concrete slab. These two giant racks there, I can support up to 20 batteries, but I'm only going to have 15. I'm cutting back.

Chris Gammell: Well, I can't wait to hear about them getting installed. We should probably talk about those next time though. Yes, we should. All right. Great. Well, good show.

Dave Jones: Called Space Loop, right? Space Loop.

Chris Gammell: Space Loop.

Dave Jones: Space Loop. Come on. Come on. You can do it.

Chris Gammell: Maybe. See ya.

Dave Jones: Catch you next time. Outro Music