#121 – An Interview with Zach Hoeken Smith - Creative China Commorant

Chris Gammell: This episode of the Amp Hour is sponsored by Club Jameco, part of Jameco Electronics, a leading component distributor for over 35 years. Club Jameco allows you to upload your kit ideas and start selling to your peers and the public at large. You never need to purchase large lots of components up front or bag and ship your kits. Sign up and submit your design, and if it's chosen by the community, you can start making up to 10% on the cost of your kit. To learn more and see some of Chris and Dave's favorite kits, go to clubjameco.com slash theamphour. This is the Amp Hour Podcast, recorded November 11, 2012. Episode 121, with guest Zach Hoken-Smith, creative China Comerant. Welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Chris Gammell of Chris Gammell's Analog Life and ChipReport.tv.

Zach Hoken: Hi, I'm Zach Hoken, and I'm with Hackcelerator.com. Hey, Zach. Thanks for being on the show. Yeah, thanks for inviting me today, Chris. Looking forward to it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think our listening audience may notice that we are sans a normal crazy Aussie, but we had some scheduling conflicts this week, and, you know, Zach's got enough awesome things to talk about that I think we're going to be A-OK.

Zach Hoken: Yeah, yeah, I think so, too. It's a little bit tricky trying to schedule between three different continents.

Chris Gammell: That's right, yeah. So, where is your current location?

Zach Hoken: I am, right now, I am in Shenzhen, China, the factory of the world. Wow. Okay.

Chris Gammell: And so, like, are there different parts of the city there? I mean, how does that really...

Zach Hoken: Oh, yeah, yeah. So, Shenzhen is about the size of New York City, I would say. There's about 8 million people here, and it's broken down into, like, five different districts. And it's kind of spread out in, like, a horizontal line is kind of the layout. So, on the far eastern side, you have Lohu, which is kind of like a commercial district, also a residential area. That's where most people cross the border from Hong Kong into Shenzhen. And then, going a little bit west is Futian. And Futian is kind of like the downtown, the financial district. It's where, you know, all the, like, kind of... It's kind of like the fancy part. And then, going a little bit west, you have Nanshan. Now, Nanshan used to be, like, the industrial area of Shenzhen. But in the past 10 years, it's become, like, the technology area. So, Nanshan is where the university is at. They have this giant technology park. And it's just, it's where all... Like, if you want to go find, like, where the big international companies are at, like, IBM and Lenovo and all the camera companies, they all have these big, nice, glass-building headquarters over in Nanshan. Okay. Okay.

Chris Gammell: So, when you say technology, you mean, like, R&D-type development stuff versus factories?

Zach Hoken: But... Factory. Yeah, versus factories. Now, if you want the factories, then you go a little bit further to a place called Bao An. Now, Bao An is... It's only about 45 minutes from Futian. So, it's not like it's way out there. But Bao An is where you can find all of the electronics, manufacturing, all sorts of, you know. Driving through Bao An is really interesting because you see all these factories and there's dudes with CNC's, like, big milling machines, just in little garage shops on the side of the street. And it's funny because, you know, most of them, all the signs are in Chinese. But every now and then, they'll have acronyms that are recognizable. So, it'll be like, okay, Mandarin, Mandarin, Mandarin, CNC. And then, you know, Mandarin, Mandarin, Mandarin, SMT. And you know that, you know, they only use that to describe the CNC and electronic sort of stuff. So, Bao An is a really, really interesting place.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that sounds like a trip, man. And it's literally, like, right onto the street, right? I mean, it's right there.

Zach Hoken: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these guys usually just keep their shop doors open. And, you know, the CNC's on those kind of shops, you know, they're not really, like, you know, shiny and new and that sort of thing. They're kind of dirty and grungy. But they're in use, you know. These guys are making stuff day in, day out. So, it's a kind of dirty and grimy of, like, hey, we're making stuff. We're building things, you know. So, this machine is a working machine. Wow.

Chris Gammell: Well, let's take a step back. I mean, what's your background? How the heck did you end up in Shenzhen? I mean, you...

Zach Hoken: I ask myself that every day sometimes. So, you know, certainly I never, I couldn't have predicted this. You know, I grew up in Iowa. Kind of had, like, the Midwest upbringing. And I got older and, you know, left college and said, okay, you know, I want to go where the action is. I went to school for software development. So, you know, when I got out, I was a web developer and kind of did a startup. It failed. Literally went down in flames. That may be a topic for another show. Yeah. But, so, wanted to go to kind of where all the action was at. So, kind of flipped a coin between New York and San Francisco and ended up in New York. And so, in New York, that was about four years ago, maybe five years ago now. And just kind of, I got a job out there working for a company called Connected Ventures, which makes both Vimeo and College Humor. And that was just a blast, man. I mean, those guys know how to, A, do good web development, but B, just how to have fun. So, worked there for a couple years and was just really enjoying it out there. And somewhere along the line, discovered 3D printing and robotics. And at that point in time, I knew nothing, nothing about electronics. I mean, it was always something that was interesting and intriguing to me, but just not really something that I understood.

Chris Gammell: Well, everyone starts with nothing in electronics, right? Yeah. Everyone's got to start somewhere.

Zach Hoken: So, luckily, I found the RepRap project kind of very early on when it was just forming. And so, you know, the thing I really like about open source hardware is it's perfect for learning. I mean, because nothing's hidden, nothing's kind of tucked away. You can dig in there, you can see, how does this work? How does that work? Okay, oh, here's your design. Here's how you did that. The people involved are usually friendly enough that you can ask them and say, hey, why did you do it like this? You know, what is the reason for this part here or that value there? You know, they'll tell you, okay, well, that part is, you know, that's a pull-up resistor. And I'm like, what's a pull-up resistor?

Chris Gammell: Right, right. I'm remembering all these moments in my life, too. It's just like, yeah, it's a common experience.

Zach Hoken: So, and with RepRap, just kind of got involved and, you know, tried to figure out where I could help and where I could contribute back to this thing that I thought was just really interesting.

Chris Gammell: How soon into the project lifetime did you jump into that? I mean, was it pretty new at that point?

Zach Hoken: I'm not sure. I'd like to think it was probably within the first six months. I mean, I seem to remember, like, reading a blog post on kind of the announcement and thinking, wow, that's really awesome. And then, you know, a few months later seeing like, okay, hey, check out this thing we posted. And when I got involved in the project, it was, you know, on the first generation of electronics. And I remember looking through the instructions on the wiki and it was like, okay, first get your raw PCB and then print out this thing and iron it on and then dip it in this ferric chloric acid and then, you know, do all this stuff. And so I'm in like underneath my loft bed in Manhattan or not Manhattan, but in Brooklyn and like playing with all this stuff.

Chris Gammell: Hailing all the chemicals. Yeah.

Zach Hoken: So, you know, and at this point in time, you know, certainly didn't know enough to contribute in terms of like electronics development. So, one of the things I did was say, okay, this is really kind of fun from like a hobby perspective. But, you know, if I'm going to like really build one of these, how do you really make PCBs? And so I went out there and started researching and trying to find out, okay, I know these little green flat sheets of whatever it is. I know that people get these manufactured professionally. They've got to come from somewhere. Yeah, they've got to come from somewhere. So, so I started digging into that and, and, and found a supplier and, and started emailing them and emailed them Gerber files and kind of got all the, all the right things in the right order and, and sent it off. And, and the thing I realized is that it's, it's about the same cost to order like 20 of them as it is to order just a single prototype. Like most of the places, you know, it's just like, nah, just order 20 of them. And then it's just the economics of how it works, I guess. And so, so I ordered that and got it back and, you know, hopped in the little, the rep rap forums and said, Hey, I just ordered these PCBs. Does anybody want some to, you know, mess around with it and all that?

Chris Gammell: And I think that's a way to make some friends pretty fast, right?

Zach Hoken: Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of how I got into it. And, and, uh, you know, it never, there never really was a, an intent to like, Oh, I'm going to make a ton of money making 3d printers. It was like, no, this is really cool. Let me try and build one myself. And then, Oh, it's actually easier and makes more sense financially. If you kind of like pitch in together to buy these things, then it does for everybody to kind of individually buy their own stuff. So, you know, so that's kind of, um, as I got into it, started a nonprofit foundation called the rep rap research foundation to basically, you know, do both purchases and kind of distributed. And, um, you know, it's, it, it kind of like snowballed to be honest.

Chris Gammell: Like it is just where it is today. Right. I mean, it sounds like it.

Zach Hoken: Yep. And, uh, somewhere along the lines, uh, a long time, like resistor, NYC resistor was kind of forming in parallel. So I found out about that very early on. Um, I, there was like a New York city microcontrollers meetup happening. And so I, I started going to those and then asking my dumb questions and in person there. And like, I was working on a stepper motor driver and, you know, just asking like, okay, what's this, what's that? How does this work? And, you know, had, had all these, you know, funny little questions. And, and luckily there were a bunch of smart people there that were able to help me with all the design questions I had. And, and, you know, just kind of provide moral support along the way. Cause, you know, I mean, I was, I was making quite a few green coasters at that point in time.

Chris Gammell: And, you know, right. Well, that's, that's great though. So then that, uh, that turned into something else that people might recognize, right?

Zach Hoken: Yeah. So that, that in, uh, the, the winter of 2011 and then officially in, in January of 2000, uh, 2009, we, uh, a couple of my friends, uh, Brie Pettis and Adam Mayer, we started a company called MakerBot Industries. And, and our goal was to take 3D printing and, and make it ubiquitous and easy and cheap and affordable so that anybody that wanted access to it could, could get a machine and, and, and, and it would just work.

Chris Gammell: They make their own coasters, right? They have to, no coaster making is in everyone's future, right? Yep. Yeah.

Zach Hoken: Yep.

Chris Gammell: That's cool.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. So did that for about three years. And, uh, last year came out to, came out to, uh, China to try and set up manufacturing. And unfortunately this is where the story kind of takes a, you know, not so happy turn for me. Um, and I don't know, I probably really not supposed to go into the details, especially not on like a, a public radio show, but.

Chris Gammell: No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even, even our listenership is more than one. So yeah, it's not a lot, but it's not, it's not zero. So yeah, I understand.

Zach Hoken: Long story short, you know, kind of, kind of went badly and, uh, you know, the, kind of shut down the operation and I decided to move on, uh, mostly because I just fell in love with China and kind of the, the, the setup here in Shenzhen. I mean, I've, I can't really say I've lived all over the world, but I've traveled to quite a few places and done workshops and, and like in few places in Europe and like Germany and Madrid and Portugal and in the States. And, you know, at first there's kind of like an overhead, like kind of an, oh my God factor of like, how do I do all this? Like, oh, I miss Mauser and DigiKey. But then like once, once, once you get over that, that hump, you know, it's like, there's the, one of the biggest electronics markets in the world where you can literally find anything. And there's so much, so much resource, so many resources out here for prototyping all sorts of stuff that I just couldn't imagine building and trying to design stuff anywhere else. I mean, uh, being able to go down to SAG and just get any, like all of it. It, so the electronics market is great for like your common components and it's really great for going down and, and holding stuff in your hands and getting like a real sense of the sizing on stuff.

Chris Gammell: Because switches, switches are the big one. Oh yeah. I think about it. I've bought switches on DigiKey before and I had to buy, you know, 20 of them just to get the right one.

Zach Hoken: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's terrible.

Zach Hoken: Yep. And so in SAG, you'll walk by all of these different, different booths and you know, these guys, it's, it's just like a, a two meter by one meter little, little thing with, and they all have their little glass, like glass plate window over their display. And they all have like little tiny, like arrays of switches or, or whatever they're selling capacitors or resistors or chips or diodes or, you know, like they all kind of like pick their little subcategory and, and they're selling those things. And they'll have them a little like super glued to this little like sheet of panel board or something like that. And then they'll, they'll have them labeled there and you can have them open the glass and kind of pick each one up. Or I guess it's not super glue. It's kind of like a, like a, like a gummy sort of rubber cement kind of thing. And it's just great. Cause you can say, Oh, that, that one's a little bit too big. And, Oh, and, and pressing the button. So you can like, Oh, this one has a nice kind of really solid click to it. Whereas this other one is, you know, kind of muted and you know, okay.

Chris Gammell: How do you put that into a parametric search? Right. Yeah. Click factor 1.2.

Zach Hoken: Well, they do, they do have like a, on, on DigiKey, they do have like, like plunger force, like the, the force required to click the thing. It's like 1.2 grams or something like that. But I mean, I don't, I can't translate that in my head to what it feels like to click the button. So.

Chris Gammell: Well, you need to have one in your hand. That's a one. Right. And then you could say less or more than that. Yeah. But other than that, I mean, even still, that's, yeah. I, that's tough. And I, I agree. It's, I mean, having it in your hand, it's awesome. That's, it sounds amazing.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. So.

Chris Gammell: So what were the first hurdles? I mean, like, was it just kind of like sheepishness when you first started? Cause you mentioned that it, you know, once you got over that hump of, uh, you know, not having like an online distributor to lean on, was it just sheepishness and language barrier or what?

Zach Hoken: Yeah. The, the language barrier is one. I mean, part of it is just, it's so overwhelming. Um, you know, it's like, Oh my God, the whole place is overwhelming. You know, I think for me, I was just kind of in, in shell shock for about a month, maybe longer. Um, I was kind of lucky when I first got here, we were situated in, in like a small town, uh, like a few hours outside of Shenzhen. So it was kind of like growing up in a small town in a way. That's how I kind of think of it. But, uh, what, once you get over that, you know, there's, there's partially there's the language barrier. Although in the electronics market, um, people don't really speak English, but they all have calculators and they, and everybody understands part numbers. So, so that's really, uh, that works pretty well. And, and there's a lot of kind of tricks you can do to, to make the process go a little bit smoother. Um, you know, the easiest way is just to bring someone who helped you translate, whether that's a friend or like a coworker or an assistant. Um, or the, if, if you're kind of independent and you want to just do it yourself, because, uh, that's really the only way to learn and improve. I think, you know, if you bring along an assistant, you're going to be one and, and you're out here living, you're going to be one of those guys who's been here for five years and can't speak a word of, of Mandarin. And you just, you just don't want to be that guy.

Chris Gammell: Right, right.

Zach Hoken: But one of the tricks I learned from a guy named Mitch, who's, um, I've, I want to say he runs a website called hackvana. He's kind of like a crazy Australian hacker electronics dude out here. He, he showed me this trick where, so you go on, uh, like DigiKey or Mouser site and they have like, there's in the URL, there's a little, uh, language like setting. And usually it's in English, but you can just go up there and change it to the little code for, for Chinese. And then all of a sudden the page for the part that you're on is in Chinese. So you print out that page and all of a sudden you can say, okay, I want this. And you, and you show the, the printout of the part to the guy and they're like, oh yeah, I know what that is. And oh, right. That's great. And, uh, and, and that works great because, you know, data sheets and technical specifications are, are, are universal. You know what I mean? The, what it's really translating is the name of, okay, tolerance and I want this resistance and, you know, all the little details like that is, is what it's translating. So.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's interesting from a, you know, the purpose of going to the markets too, because, you know, like, like I've seen like Ian from dangerous prototypes. He did some videos at seg and I've seen other videos at seg. I think bunny did one at seg as well. And, uh, and it, you know, it just, it's always the browse experience. Right. But I guess the, the, the, the mind switch I have to make is no people actually go there to shop and to actually, you know, make that transition and make that pickup of actual physical parts. Right.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. Yeah. You know, the, the other thing that I love that you can buy at seg that it just makes my life so much better is, uh, they have all of these little, uh, I, for lack of a better word, I think, I think they're called like pigtails where it's basically just a connector on one end. And, and then like maybe a foot of, of wire that just ends in like 10 and like stripped and 10 ends. Oh my God. They come in every size for every sort of connector. And, and it's so amazing because I do not have to crimp wires anymore. I, you just get one of these things, you know, you solder it on. Like, and so, you know, if I need to, oftentimes I need to like go from like a four pin for a stepper driver to like one of these six pin other different kind of pitch for on the stepper motor. And, you know, I just get two of these little pigtails, get a little bit of extra wire to go between them, solder them all together, heat shrink, and I'm done.

Chris Gammell: And I've just, you're your own little cable factory then, right? Yeah. That's great.

Zach Hoken: And I, I just remember struggling with crimping wires and just feeling like, why is this so hard, you know?

Chris Gammell: Right. Well, yeah, cause I mean, they make the tools and that's how a lot of the vendors make monies too, is on the, the tools and the setup and everything else. So it doesn't want to be necessarily easy, easy. So, so, so you mentioned the language barrier and we talked a little bit about that, but are, you know, how much, how much Mandarin do you know? I mean, is it a pretty, it's getting better?

Zach Hoken: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Let's see. It's, it's hard to, to gauge how good it is. I think for me, it's actually some days I feel really good about it. Some days I'm like, oh, I know, know nothing. But, you know, I mean, just kind of like the, the, the science importance that I have that I judge by is, you know, I can, I can feed myself. I can navigate around no problem. Buses don't scare me anymore. I have a girlfriend and she doesn't really speak English. So, uh, we communicate mostly in Chinese. So I think that, uh, you know, I think that's kind of a, it works pretty well.

Chris Gammell: Um, that's, uh, that's a, that's an interesting place to put a language barrier. But I mean, you know, you could speak the universal language, right? Uh, that's right.

Zach Hoken: That's right. No, it's, it's, it's surprising. You know, I mean, I, I would say I probably know somewhere around a thousand words and, and that's enough to communicate all a wide variety of stuff. And with modern technology, with like a smartphone and a dictionary, you know, I, the, the thing where I'm at is I know like almost all the connecting words. So it's really at this point in time, it's like, oh, you know, I need to look up a noun or a verb or an adjective every now and then.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Vocabulary stuff, right? It's just, yeah, that's, that's tough anytime. Did you see that, uh, that announcement from Microsoft?

Zach Hoken: I did. I did.

Chris Gammell: Uh, it's crazy. So people don't know there was an announcement from Microsoft. I don't know. I don't think that was Balmer standing on stage, but basically the R and D department at Microsoft has created not just an algorithm that takes a voice to text and actually translates that to, to Mandarin. It'll then actually take the timbre of your voice and then it will read it back to you in Mandarin with a voice that's mapped similarly to your own. So it sounds close enough to what you would sound like speaking Mandarin.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. I really need to check that out. I was, this weekend I was at the, uh, there's a Shenzhen startup weekend, which was, uh, was just really fun. You know, it's kind of one of those things where a hundred people come and, and just all try and work on a crazy startup idea over the weekend. And, uh, so it, it's also, it's kind of one of those like 48 hour hackathon things. So I saw the, I saw the Microsoft announcement and I was like, oh, I need to check that out.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Just didn't, didn't have time. I'll get there. I'll get there. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, that's cool. So, so what is, so this is, uh, I was going to ask about that. I mean, what is the, what's the community like over there? I mean, we've, I've seen some of the stuff with Chinese hackerspaces, makerspaces, um, in Shenzhen, uh, specifically, but what, uh, you know, what's the deal?

Zach Hoken: Yeah, there's, there's a pretty good hackerspace here called Chai Huo. And, uh, which means like firewood or like fire starter. Um, and which is kind of, you know, for, for my experiments with electronics is rather fitting. So, um, so that's, that's pretty active. Uh, right now they're in the middle of switching to a new space. So, you know, it's kind of, kind of quiet right now. Uh, the startup scene is, is, I think it's gaining momentum. I, I, I know there's definitely interest in it out here. Um, the startup weekend here had, uh, over a hundred people all, you know, kind of building and working on ideas. Uh, I'm, I'm trying to get more connected into that. Um, one of the challenges is, you know, at the startup event, uh, almost everybody was, was Chinese obviously since it's in Shenzhen. So, you know, a big chunk of the conference was in Mandarin and, you know, so I'm sitting there catching all of the connection words and, and, and looking upwards on my phone. And it was actually really, really funny at the, at the event. Cause, uh, uh, this, this one lady got up front. She was, I think she was from like the, the company that was hosting it like Tencent. It's like a, it's like the Google of China. It's like a really big, uh, web, web company. They have this giant glass headquarter building and in Nanshan. And, uh, so she got up there and she was kind of talking about, they have some sort of open platform for, for development. And so at first I could understand her cause she was, you know, going at a normal, nice, slow pace. But I think she started to get a little bit nervous as, as time went on. And so when people, when people get nervous, they start speeding up, they start talking faster. They start, you know, really picking up the pace and, and you get nervous, then she gets

Chris Gammell: more nervous cause she sees you're nervous, right?

Zach Hoken: Well, she was, she was in front of the whole group of, of everybody kind of giving a thing. And, you know, I was just a face in the crowd and, and by the end, like I was not getting anything at all. And then, um, so the, the structure of the event was on the first night, everybody gives a one minute pitch. So as you can imagine, the every, it was fast and furious on the, on the Mandarin. So, Oh yeah. You got to squeeze it all in, right? Yeah. You got to squeeze it. You only got a minute. Yep. You only got a minute. So, um, that was, that was pretty interesting. Oh, here, here's a good, uh, kind of, uh, gauge of, of where my Mandarin is at. I, I got up and I gave a one minute pitch on digital fabrication in Mandarin and people apparently understood what I was talking about. So. Yeah. Not bad. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I think I saw you write something about that. Did you say like, I'm a citizen of the world or something? Oh yeah.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. Well, I said, I said, which means I'm from earth. So. Cause everybody gets up there and they're like, Oh, I'm from Beijing or I'm from Shanghai from Shenzhen. And so I was like, well, you know, might as well make a joke to kind of kick things off. And it's, it's always nice. That's great.

Chris Gammell: Making people laugh for different reasons and other, other languages. Yep. Yep. Well, that's good. So, so, uh, so at that kind of, I mean, like, is, is that mostly electronic kind of stuff or is it, is it more like a lot of hacker weekends around here where there are more software centric?

Zach Hoken: This was, this was very software centric. Uh, I think there was maybe a couple people doing, uh, like, uh, hardware things. I think one guy had kind of like a bracelet that was like, uh, somehow Bluetooth to your phone that, that rang whenever, like the bracelet would vibrate when you got a phone call, which was, was kind of a cool idea. You know, it's like, I know my, you know, having the phone in the pocket, sometimes it just doesn't, doesn't let me know when it's ringing. So I could see how that, that would be pretty nice. Um, but yeah, a lot of it was very like web sort of set up. So I, I think that's just because it's easier to do web startups and, you know, all you need is a computer.

Chris Gammell: And yeah, most, most hacker weekends type that like that are usually software based. I know that, um, a guest we've had on the show previously, Jeremy Blum, he, he's actually won a couple startup weekends just because of the novelty of doing hardware there. Yeah. You know, he'll bring a kit and, you know, do some kind of hardware thing. And it's great. I mean, if people are interested in doing that kind of thing, they should, we always say do hardware, but I mean, at a startup weekend, that's even better because you get that, that automatic boost.

Zach Hoken: Oh yeah. Yeah. Definitely. And the novelty factor is, is pretty nice.

Chris Gammell: So what about, what about you? Did you do hardware? I mean, what's your, what's your balance between hardware and software these days? Because you started software.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. So, uh, I'm kind of one of those people that likes to jump around. So I, I have, um, you know, a few different projects going. I saw last week, you guys were talking about CNCs and so that's kind of a, a thing that's near and dear to my heart right now. So I'm trying to, trying to build a CNC for my shop and, which is great because there's, it's really given me a lot of experience on using Taobao, which is like the online, the online marketplace. Um, so, so Taobao is kind of the, I've, once I mastered Taobao, I think that was kind of like the, the last, uh, hurdle that now that I know Taobao, I feel like I have better tools out here than I did at home because on Taobao you can get anything. You can get anything. Um, yeah. I know a lot of people.

Chris Gammell: Is there any kind of analog to other stuff? Like, is it like Alibaba, but local kind of thing or?

Zach Hoken: Well, it's the closest in the States is like, is kind of like eBay, but, um, I, you know, my experience with eBay is you can't get this sort of stuff. I mean, you can get, I've gotten everything from CNC prototypes, uh, to coffee makers, to chips, to, I mean, there's, there's everything. It's like eBay, but it's also like McMaster and DigiKey and, uh, you know, there's laser cutting places. It's like everything rolled into one. So it's, it's like the giant marketplace and, and everything is so cheap and, you know, you gotta be careful, but there's, there's good tools on there to kind of filter. Um, basically, you know, there's a couple of golden rules. Like if it's too good to be true, it is. I mean, it's, it's, it's not true. Uh, and also for me, the thing that, that I use on there is, uh, you can filter by popularity and which is basically like the number of sales within the past month. So if you, you know, you search for your, your chip, you want to find, you sort by popularity, you find the one that's the lowest cost and has a bunch of people buying it. And I, that's kind of how I shop.

Chris Gammell: And I've never, that's how I do it on Amazon even. I mean, that's, that's just a good method in general. I think that's good. So what kind of stuff do you buy, buy on there? I mean, is this mostly CNC stuff?

Zach Hoken: Let me, uh, let me pull up my kind of like what list of things I bought. There's, there's so much cool stuff on here. So, um, so I bought some motor drivers. Um, don't be mad, but I bought some like knockoff Arduinos on there because it's so hard to get like real Arduinos. Um, Oh, really?

Chris Gammell: Interesting.

Zach Hoken: Thrust bearings. I got, uh, you know, just like linear rails for CNC. Oh, I found, uh, there's, uh, rotary encoders, like these really nice rotary encoders, like industrial style for like, um, God, they were, they were 68 quiet, which is about, about like $11 us for like a nice little, little, but it was the rotary encoder that was in that little stepper driver video that, um, that I made for this little test fixture. And they're really nice. Cause it's got two like radial ball bearings on either end and it's like a nice high resolution encoder. And, uh, you know, for, for 10 bucks, it's just, it's just kind of like crazy talk. Um, there's.

Chris Gammell: And we'll link that video in too, because that's a, so Zach did a, a video of test, test jig for, for different, uh, stepper motor drivers, which is real cool. I enjoyed that.

Zach Hoken: Um, and, and there's, it's great. Cause, uh, there's, it's literally like, I feel like on Tabao you can, you can buy anything to build kind of any sort of manufacturing stuff. So there's this, there's this build the world. Yeah. There's these there. And so the way it works on Tabao is like, as a person who's selling, you have like a store. And so all these people kind of have their specialties. So you have like the CNC equipment store, you have like the, the PCB manufacturing store, you have, you know, all these kind of different little subcategories. And so there's all these stores that sell like literally any sort of milling bit, any sort of like drill bit, like all this stuff kind of like to, to mill and fabricate PCBs is on there. And, you know, it's just, it's just great. So.

Chris Gammell: That sounds like it would be a big money, money hole for me. What about costs? I mean, like, is it a, is there any way to really tell like the difference in costs of being over in the States?

Zach Hoken: Uh, I can tell you it's a lot cheaper over here. Um, yeah. Just in general, everything. Just in general, everything is, is a lot, a lot cheaper. Um, you know, I, I found a little, uh, like, okay, so here's kind of just a basic, uh, I got like a 36 grid plastic kind of, uh, little storage box, you know, just a little, little, the little storage box that you can put a bunch of components in. Uh, I got that one for $2 each. Yikes. And, uh.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. They're like 10, 20 bucks around here.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the encoder was 10 bucks. Um, let's see the, uh, um, I, I got some Arduino Megas kind of the, the older version for 80 QI, which is about, I don't know, maybe like 13 us dollars for an Arduino mega. Um, you know, and, and it just kind of goes from there. Actually my, one of my favorite ones on this site is, uh, it's a company that sells kind of like the, the 2020 aluminum extrusions, except they sell everything like the 2020, 30, 30, 40, 40. So kind of like your big, medium, small. And, but they do, they cut to length, which is amazing. So like you send them, man, I want these, you know, I want these sizes and this length and this quantity. And a few days later you get it in the mail and it, and they're all like really nicely cut with, you know, they obviously have some sort of nice aluminum cutting machine because, because it's a service they provide. And, uh, yeah, it's just, it's just amazing. Uh, and then it's so easy to put together. And, uh, right.

Chris Gammell: So, so you're, you're building a CNC. It was actually me who was talking about the CNC last week. It was, um, my, I'm not building one. I was just going to buy one off the shelf, but, uh, what's, what's your impetus just for making other stuff? I mean, or you said you're building a shop as well. What, what's your, what's your shop going to be for?

Zach Hoken: Well, I, you know, I just have a little, little personal workshop, just a little, like few hundred square feet of, of space, just fit a few desks and a few machines and, and, uh, but just enough to hang out and, and hack and tinker and build. So, uh, you know, obviously with the experience and work in MakerBot, uh, I've just been really, really intrigued by digital fabrication. And, uh, so, I mean, first and foremost, I just want to build a CNC because I think they're cool. And I think it would just be a really, really good learning experience. And it's just the kind of thing that just, I don't know, it's, it's fun. You know, I have a, have a long day of going out and talking with people and, you know, kind of doing the hack accelerator thing right now. We're trying to like get people to apply and bring in companies. And, you know, when people apply, then it's like, okay, get ahold of them and talk for an hour. And, you know, I'm kind of a nerdy technical kind of person. And so for me, some people talking to other people for like all day, like they're super excited and they're, you know, really psyched about that. And, and they're full of energy. You know, I'm, I'm kind of like, Oh man, that was so much work. And I had to like have normal human conversation. And, um, you know, so I like to, I like to sit down and design something and play around in CAD. And so, so designing a CNC machine is kind of my way of like winding down at the end of the day of, you know, sitting down and like, Oh, I'm going to, you know, mess around with, uh, with solid works and, and, uh, do design in, uh, you know, Eagle working on some motor drivers and, you know, just kind of having some fun and, you know, maybe, maybe I'll like sell it someday as a kid or I don't know. I mean, there's not really like a master plan going on or anything like that.

Chris Gammell: Well, I don't think you have to explain yourself there. I mean, it's basically the whole idea of the maker movement. You don't, it's just building because building feels good, right? I mean, making stuff feels good. Exactly. So that's exactly. Yeah. That's great. Uh, we need to take a quick break for our, uh, our sponsor for this week, but we will be right back to hear more about, uh, Hexcelerator and some of Zach's other projects. Hey guys, Chris here. Still, we just taking a quick break from this interview to tell you about our sponsor for the week, Club Jameco. And they're part of Jameco who also not only set up Club Jameco to accept kit ideas, which I'll talk about in a minute, but also then package and sell kits on behalf of the inventors. So this week I picked out a kit and it's actually near and dear to my heart because it's a water level detection kit. So this kit is relevant to me because my basement flooded during Sandy and this kind of thing would be really helpful. Basically it detects when water gets to a certain level, like in a sump pump hole, and then it can actually flip a relay and turn the power on to a pump. So it's really great for that kind of thing. Looking at a kit, it's not super crazy in terms of part count, in terms of layout. Uh, it's, you know, a simple single sided edge board, but if you're getting started, if you're just listening to the show as a beginner, or if you're looking for a useful kit as an intermediate electronics person, this could be a really good choice for you. Club Jameco itself, you can actually submit your own kit ideas. What you do is you submit your kit idea, you do a little write up, do some pictures, and then you submit it to the community. And if people vote on it, you can then have Jameco manufacture the kit for you. They'll sell it on your behalf, and you can make up to 10% of that kit price. If you want to learn more about the program or see the kit I just talked about, go to clubjameco.com slash theamphour, and that'll help support the show. And we are back with Zach Hoken-Smith, and I was going to quickly ask what the deal is with your name.

Zach Hoken: No problem. No problem. So, you know, I was born Zachary Michael Smith, which is a wonderful name, and I love it. But unfortunately, it's just impossible to Google. You know, I mean, if you Google Zach Smith, I think I may be on the first page, but, you know, certainly it's the kind of thing where it's really just difficult for people to find you. And, you know, someone who likes to share what they're doing and share, like, designs and just kind of be a part of the internet community, you know, you want to be able to be found. You don't want to be hiding because you have a name that's hard to find. So, you know, back in, like, 2000 or, like, God, way back in the dark ages of the internet, you know, I sat down and said, okay, I need a real name that is something that's unique. And so I sat down with, you know, on Google.com and just kind of, like, made up names until I found one that, like, had zero search results and that I liked. You know, I like, I think Hoken is kind of, like, has, I like the kind of the O-E-K, kind of the way that looks together. So I was like, all right, that'll work. I'll use that one. And, you know, just kind of went with it and I've been using it for quite a while now. So...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I was going to ask you, are you going to make it legal sometime, you think? Oh, no, no. No? No. It's just a handle online, you know? Oh, weird things have happened. That's true. That's true. So, okay, so, you know, you're Hoken online, but how did you get to Accelerator, which is its own, that's a much weirder name than yours, obviously. Yeah, yeah.

Zach Hoken: So, let's see. So, moved out to Shenzhen in China last year in April. So, about a year and a half ago, came out here and, you know, just kind of working on manufacturing stuff and got a hold of a guy named Cyril Ebersweiler. And so, he is doing interesting things out here. And one of those is Hackcelerator, which is a hardware-focused startup incubator based in Shenzhen. And so, you know, being out here, being interested in hardware, you know, I agreed to sign on as a mentor, which basically means, you know, I would come by when available, try and help people out with whatever stuff they were working on. So, last year, they had the program ran from January until May. And basically, they brought 10 companies out to Shenzhen and said, all right, you got your hardware idea, make a prototype, find a factory, and then launch this thing to the world. And, you know, try and bring your dream into reality. And, which is just really cool. So, last year...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, we actually, we announced it last year, right beforehand. And we actually had one of our listening audience, actually, Tom, he applied for his motors, I think it was e-bike. Oh, yeah, yeah. And, yeah, that's how he had heard about it. And we can't take any credit past that. But it definitely sounded interesting when we first heard about it. So, that's great it worked out.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. So, last year, just, you know, kind of got involved tangentially, went through a handful of times, just saw the kind of smart and capable people building cool stuff in Shenzhen. And then, you know, after I left MakerBot, just kind of, you know, having fun hacking, building stuff. And Cyril approached me and said, hey, you know, we're looking to kind of take this to the next level. Because last year was the first year. And, you know, the first time you do anything, there's always road bumps along the way. And so, you know, let's try and make it better this year. Let's try and get a little bit more infrastructure in place. Let's try and, you know, have a little bit, you know, try and answer some of the questions that we had last year ahead of time. So, like, where do I go to get this prototyped? Or where do I go to get that prototyped? And which is great for me, because that's exactly what I was spending my time doing at that point. You know, I was saying, okay, I want to build stuff. I want to prototype here in Shenzhen. Where do I go to do that? So, you know, where do I go to get electronics manufactured? Where do I do CNC, laser cutting, this, that, and the other? So, basically, the past few months, I've spent just going and checking out factories and checking out just the marketplaces and just trying to, like, figure out where, like, everything is in Shenzhen. So that when other people come out here and say, oh, hey, hey, Hoken, you know, I got to get this part or I got to get this motor or where do I go to get these PCBs made? I can say, oh, that's really easy. You just go down here or just email this guy or go to this website.

Chris Gammell: Oh, man, you're going to be the guy, huh? You're the guy who gets things. You're the red, right? Like in Shawshank. I'm a guy who knows how to get things. Exactly. Exactly.

Zach Hoken: Which has been really fun because, you know, in addition to going out and visiting factories, which is just a blast. I mean, I love going to these places. Like, you know, if you go on my Twitter feed, which is at Hoken, like, I'm always posting, like, pictures and videos from the factories. Like, I went to the sea.

Chris Gammell: Like that one last week? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I didn't want to leave. That thing was crazy.

Zach Hoken: They had to, like, drag me out of the room because, like, it was a big room. It was a PCB factory. And so part of the PCB fabrication process, there's, you know, there's a step at the beginning and a step at the end. So the step at the beginning is, you know, you take the raw copper board and you drill holes where all the holes need to be drilled so that you can plate the through holes of your vias and where all your through hole components go. So they have all these giant machines with, like, five spindle heads on each one because they're doing all of these boards in parallel. And this room was full of, like, 20 CNC machines. And they're all drilling and cutting and milling. And it was just amazing. And this wasn't even, like, a big PCB shop. This was, like, a kind of average run-of-the-mill shop. So I can't even imagine what, like, the PCB shop for, like, Apple's products or some of the, you know, larger shops around here. There must just be places where there's hundreds or thousands of these machines all just running nonstop making stuff. And I need to go to one of those places because that would just be so, so freaking cool.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. You know, I never, I mean, I always, I realized that, you know, I send drill files, right, when I send for PCBs, you know. And then, you know, my brain just never really puts that together of not just, it's just, you know, it's actually drilling stuff out. I get that because I know there's vias and holes and everything else. But, man, just the volume of it. That is just the parallelism required. It's just, that's the craziest part about that video. And especially since you said that's a small-time operation. It's unbelievable.

Zach Hoken: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, I mean, it's just, oh, man. It's...

Chris Gammell: So you see this stuff every day, huh? You get to just, what do you do? Like, you knock on a door and say, hey, can I see your factory? How does that work?

Zach Hoken: So, actually, I, you know, there's a bunch of different ways. You know, one is just kind of, like, networking and saying, okay, you know, I'm looking for this kind of factory. Do you know anybody? So, you know, there's kind of, like, a decent expat community out here of people who are all kind of, like, manufacturing stuff. So I have a bunch of friends in kind of, like, the quality assurance area. A bunch of people who are, like, engineers supporting, like, oh, we're working on this project or that project and saying, hey, where can I go to get this? So that, I think that's probably the best way that I found places. Just because, you know, getting a recommendation. Like, people aren't going to recommend something if it's not very good. Um, the second way is kind of, like, a risky way if you're just going to, like, do it online and just buy without knowing what's going on, uh, is Alibaba. But since I'm out here, it actually works pretty well because I go on the site. I send them an email and say, hey, I'd like to check out your factory. And they're like, oh, yeah, sure. When are you coming to China? I'm like, no, I'm in Shenzhen. Can I come tomorrow? And they're like, I'm inside your house.

Chris Gammell: He's in the house.

Zach Hoken: So, you know, I've gone to a bunch of those. And it's great because you just say, you know, hey, you know, are you free on this day? I'd like to come by and check it out, see what you're doing, learn what you can, you know, what sort of services you provide. And they're like, yeah, no problem. Like, um, and, and usually I'll just take the subway to, like, the closest subway stop to where they're at and then they'll, they'll either send a driver or sometimes they'll take a taxi. But most of these places will have, you know, like a guy with a car, even if it's like the manager, you know, they'll come out and pick you up and take you to the factory and then just kind of give you the walk around tour. And then, you know, just kind of discuss what's going on. And, um, you know, I've, I've, I've gotten a nice thing set up because with Hackcelerator, you know, we want to find places to prototype and, and help the, the companies that we're bringing out here. And, you know, I've got a bunch of little pet projects that I'm working on.

Chris Gammell: So, um, you know, it gets all the overflow, huh?

Zach Hoken: Yeah. So, and, and, you know, I don't want to just visit a place and, and then recommend it to someone just based on like, Oh, I looked at this place and I thought it looked good. So maybe it'll work for you. So I want to be able to say, no, like I've worked with these people. I did a prototype with them and, and here's how it, how it worked. And here's what the process was, you know, being able to go a little bit deeper than just, you know, Oh, here's this place I found online. Um, so, you know, I go there, I'll throw them a prototype and, and see, and see what comes back, you know? So, which is, so it's kind of like a two birds with one stone kind of thing.

Chris Gammell: Okay, cool. What is, what is the reaction to prototype quantities? I mean, is it, uh, I think we've talked about that on here before a little bit, but it seems like most of them would be chasing production quantities versus. Yeah. Yeah.

Zach Hoken: Some of them are like, nah, we don't really do prototypes. Some of them are like, yeah, we'll do prototypes, but it's really expensive. And some of them are like, yeah, what, how, what do you want? Do you want five, 10, you know, we'll, we'll do it. No problem.

Chris Gammell: Nice. That's, that's a good sign. That helps weed them out, I guess, too.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Chris Gammell: I'm surprised. Are there any bundling services like, uh, like a Shapeways is in the state side, you know, with, they, were they, I didn't, I didn't know this at first, but Shapeways is actually just a service that receives designs and then forms them out to, you know, full-time shops. I always thought they, they did their own, um, manufacturing and stuff. Yeah. Is there anything similar in China?

Zach Hoken: I'm, I'm not sure. Uh, I'm, I'm visiting. So like the, the first thing I was checking out was kind of the, the like, okay, what's the electronics prototyping and electronics fabrication scene look like? Uh, so next week I'm going to start in on kind of like the rapid prototyping CNC kind of setup. So going to visit a place, uh, called star prototype, which front, like I've talked to a bunch of people and they're all telling me, oh man, star is a place to go. It's like really well run and it's really, you know, they do amazing work. So, and, and from what I can tell on the website, it sounds like they have, they own all their own machines. So I'm really looking forward to that. Uh, that's going to be some good videos. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think so. And, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm sure there's someone out there that would do kind of bundling if that's what you're looking for. But I think the, the typically is more of a, you know, we have, these are the machines we have, these are the services we provide sort of thing.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Okay. That's cool. So, so back to accelerator. I mean, uh, you, you were, you were kind of a little bit on the outside for the first round, but what is the relationship with the mentors like? Because, uh, I, I would be, I would be apprehensive because it seems like many of the mentors were kind of learning the whole thing as well. I mean, uh, is, is it more of a business side of mentoring, technical side mentoring, or is it, is it actually mentoring from the manufacturing side?

Zach Hoken: Well, it's, it's a little bit of both, you know what I mean? Like, uh, if you look through the list of mentors, there's, there's, uh, people with a business background, there's people with marketing background, there's people with technical backgrounds. So, you know, it's, it's really whatever, what do you need help with is probably a more relevant question. Cause you know, if you're, if you're very strong on the technical side, you know, you really don't need that much in terms of mentoring, but you know, a lot of people like myself included who are, who are, have skills on the hardware side, maybe need some help with marketing or, or coming up with a business plan type of thing. Um, so, you know, there's that, um, you know, one of the challenges we face is just being in Shenzhen. Um, a lot of our mentors are, are just not physically located here. So, so some of it certainly is done over email and kind of virtual style. Um, although we do encourage all the mentors to, to come through, uh, Shenzhen and, you know, stop by and, and see what help they can provide in person. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I see, uh, Scott, Scott Miller's one of the mentors as well. He's a former, uh, former AMP Hour guest as well. So this is, I approve of this list. It's very good. Cool.

Zach Hoken: Cool. So one thing I think is worth mentioning is that we're preparing for the 2013, uh, program of Hackcelerator. So, uh, the, the deadline is looming for, for applying. So if you have a hardware startup and you want to come out to Shenzhen and, and make it happen, um, act fast because we are.

Chris Gammell: I didn't actually see that. Where, where, what is the, what is the end date? What is the, uh, application?

Zach Hoken: I believe it's at the end of this week. So. Oh, yeah. We did it again. Yeah. But, you know, I think a week, I think a week is, is worthwhile and, you know, there's, there's, you know, really, um, obviously the more baked the idea is in the, in the kind of application process, the more likely it is we're going to follow through. Um, but basically the way it works is, you know, you, you apply, you, you send in your idea through the website and then, and then we're going to call you. We're going to, you know, talk to you on the phone and, and have you explain your idea in more detail and, and get to know the people because, you know, hardware and startups and, you know, the idea is very important, but also it's really a lot about the people. So, uh, you know, if you, if you post your idea, you're going to have a little bit of time between when we filter through the stuff and, and when we'll be able to, to chat with you to, to make sure that you can kind of fill in all the little, whatever gaps, if you scrambled to put the idea in. So, you know, I guess what I'm trying to say is if you have an idea, don't let the short timeframe dissuade you from doing it because really the program doesn't start until January. And you know, if you have to do is pack up your life

Chris Gammell: for a few months and move to China, no big deal. Zach did it. I mean, come on.

Zach Hoken: No big deal. You know, I'll tell you what, it, if, if you do do it, it's the adventure of a lifetime. I mean, there's, it's, it's, it's quite different from the States or, or Europe too. I mean, we're, we're not picky when it comes to where people are coming from. Uh, but you know, the, the language is different. The culture is different. People here are friendly. Um, I know I had a lot of like questions that are difficult to answer on the internet, but just living out here, like this is the safest place I've ever lived. I mean, I lived in Iowa and you know, Iowa is like, you know, you think Midwest and safety, but man, Shenzhen is way safer than Iowa. Like the people here, it's just like violence is not a big part of the culture. And certainly as a foreigner, like people, people are very respectful and very friendly and open towards foreigners. So, you know, it's not like, like in the States there's, I mean, it's sad to say, but there's certain, there's kind of like a, a, you know, bias against foreigners, but in, in China, you know, it's like, they're very welcoming. And if you can speak a little bit of Chinese, like everybody's like, Oh, wow, it's so amazing. You can speak Chinese. And you know, which is, which is really

Chris Gammell: funny. And, and I think like in the States, it's like, they took our germs, you know, like the South Park episode. And in China, it's like, thank you for bringing all the jobs. It's great. I mean, it's smart. I mean, that's the way to actually, I think that's the way to welcome people. So what's, that sounds really cool though. So what about the logistics of that? I mean, like, is it, I mean, so I'm reading, you know, in the about page of Hexcelerator, you know, seed funding is 25 grand. Is that also like travel costs and everything like that? Or is it kind of figure it out on your own?

Zach Hoken: I'm a little fuzzy on the details. I believe that the idea is that with the 25 K you cover your, your travel and living expenses as well over here. Um, uh, part of what we need to, part of what we'll provide is, is help finding that place. So, you know, what we'll do is we'll, we'll find a place close by and, and, you know, you can live there if you want, or if you want to kind of go and find your own place, then, you know, that's cool too. But, you know, it's kind of going to be like, okay, well, here's option A, or you can DIY if you want.

Chris Gammell: Right. Right. And it's probably great too, to have other, you know, other people coming over, you get, you know, a range of experience, you know, live together, work together kind of thing, party together, which is a big part of any, uh, program like that.

Zach Hoken: Oh yeah, of course.

Chris Gammell: There's always a relationship building in, uh, in many Asian cultures of having a few beers.

Zach Hoken: Yep. Or, or Baizhou. I don't know if we should go into Baizhou, but Baizhou, Baizhou is literally white liquor is, is what it translates to. And it's just like soju. Yeah. Have you ever heard of it? Like, like soju. And it's just really, really strong and it tastes like licorice. And, but if you go to dinner with the factory, you know, they, you're pretty much forced to drink it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Oh yeah. I spent eight weeks in Korea for Samsung and, uh, yeah, soju was a big part of my life for those couple of weeks. I'll never go back. It's like drinking like alcoholic toothpaste.

Zach Hoken: But, but really that only happens when you're, you know, typically that happens when you are, are established with, with a factory and you kind of, then you start building. It's a good thing, right? Yeah. It's, it's a good thing. So, um, when you're just kind of finding the factory, you know, really it's, it's more of like, at least in my experience, it's more of go out to lunch or maybe go out to dinner, but there's not really drinking involved at that stage. And.

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah. They're still trying to get your business. They don't want to get sloppy, sloppy faced. Yeah. Uh, so what about the focus on manufacturing? I mean, you're talking about proto quantities, but are, is there any volume involved in, in the hack accelerator projects or were any of the projects that were in the first round? Did they go to production at all?

Zach Hoken: Oh, definitely. Definitely. Um, I know the, the one that I've been in contact with is Nomiku, which is, uh, you know, they launched on Kickstarter. They got, you know, 600,000 bucks on Kickstarter. I know they're working with a factory right now and they're, you know, they're gearing up for production as we speak. I think they may even actually be to the point where they're doing the kind of pre-production trial runs. Uh, so, you know, I know.

Chris Gammell: And that was the, uh, that was the sous vide cooker, right?

Zach Hoken: Yeah. Yeah. This, yep. Sous vide cooker that, you know, they have a great story. You know, they started out as a couple of makers who are building kind of like an Arduino based sous vide cooking kit and, uh, came out here and, and worked on their design and kind of took it from the sort of kit based setup to a fully assembled, fully manufacturable design for mass manufacturing. And, and now they've, you know, they've gone pro they've, they've taken their kind of hobby slash not really hobby. Cause they were selling these things, you know, they were approaching it in this, in this professional manner, but taking it to the next level and to something that could be accessible beyond the, the kind of, uh, audience that's, that's, you know, that, that listens to this radio show, you know, the, um, you know, the kit based audience that people were like, okay, I'm into cooking and electronics. So, you know, let me solder this thing together. And, and now they're, they're on the verge of being able to reach this much wider audience with their idea. And, yeah, it's just really cool to see that sort of thing happen.

Chris Gammell: It's like, we need a new term, like how, uh, between consumer and professional is prosumer. We need some kind of similar term for, you know, like breaking into the mass market kind of thing. I'm not, I'm not sure what it would be, but we'll see.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. Yeah. It's like pro maker. It's like between, you know, you're making something, but then you want to go to the next level, but you know, you're not like manufacturing on a huge

Chris Gammell: scale yet. So, right. You're not, you're not like Honeywell or something like that. Exactly. You know, big manufacturer, uh, appliance maker kind of thing. Well, that's, that's cool. That sounds, I mean, that is, that is a great story too, with those guys. Uh, any other, any other notables from, from that first group? I mean, I, I can't say I've seen too many other announcements. Are there

Zach Hoken: any other kickstarters that happened from that? I get emails occasionally from, uh, the Kindara group. So I think, uh, but they have more of like an iPhone app kind of thing. So, uh, with like a, a temperature sensor component. So they seem to be doing pretty well. Um, and yeah, you know, you know, a couple of the companies kind of said, well, we gave it a shot and it didn't really go anywhere. And, but you know, I think that's kind of just the way some of these things go is that, you know, doing a startup is hard. Doing a hardware startup is even harder. And, uh, you know, occasionally you give it your best shot and, and you know, it just, it doesn't get traction or, you know, it's really tough to get it off the ground in three months. So you got to go back to the drawing board and, and take another whack at it. So. Yeah. Well, they call it hardware for a

Chris Gammell: reason, right? Right. So what about the investment side of it? So, so, I mean, this is all kind of based around the idea, similar to other accelerator type programs where, you know, you get a chunk of money up front, there's some agreement in place for, you know, they get some, uh, the investors get some guaranteed percentage of your company. If it goes somewhere, if they choose to invest, how does, how does all that go down? Where,

Zach Hoken: where, when does that happen? So I believe that happens when you sign up and, and this is one of the areas where I'm not totally sure on the details. I know that the, the basic outline is what you said, you know, it's a, it's a pretty typical exchange of equity for money. Um, yeah. And, uh, so, so my role in this is kind of more of program director of, you know, helping everything run smoothly and making sure that people are going to be effective on the ground when they get here and, and, you know, make sure that they can get what they need done. Um, Cyril is definitely the guy who, who knows all of those wonderful, wonderful details. Yeah. Okay. Um, and, but there is a,

Chris Gammell: there's like a demo day back in San Francisco back at the end, at the end of it. Yeah. So,

Zach Hoken: so the idea, uh, that, that we're trying to push here is you, you come out to China. Um, ideally, if you have a prototype, that would be the best, but you come out here, you refine your prototype to the point where you're ready to find a manufacturing partner. And then you use your time out here to, to basically get ready for, for manufacturing. So you find a partner, you get your prototype to the point where you're ready to do some sort of manufacturing handoff to, to their production team. And, and then at the end of it in, in may, there's going to be a big demo day launch in San Francisco where, you know, we invite all of our investor friends and, and the press and kind of the people who can help you spread your idea around and really take it to the next level. I know a ton of people plan on, on launching on Kickstarter because Kickstarter is, you know, it's a really powerful tool these days for, for raising money. And, uh, yeah. So, so basically the idea is come out to Shenzhen, get your prototype, you know, to the point where you're ready to rock and roll and make sure that you have someone, make sure you have kind of the, the, the backing you need to scale your idea. Cause you know, with the startup, it's all about, it's all about scale. Like, can you take your idea? And if you get really popular, can you deliver it to all those

Chris Gammell: people? And right. And you don't want to get stuck with the, uh, the, you know, like a huge, a huge buy-in from Kickstarter, right? That's the, the terror, terror scenario, but it's a blessing, blessing disguises as a curse or whatever way you want to do that. Right.

Zach Hoken: Exactly. And so, so hopefully, you know, what you would come out of this program with is, is the way to make it before you launch so that when you launch, you can say, Hey, you know, we've been through Hackcelerator, we have this manufacturer lined up, you know, it's not going to be, it's going to be some, some hard work to get it out the door, but it's not going to be a mad scramble of, Oh my God, we got a thousand orders. Now, how do we do this? It's going to be like, okay, now let's, let's do the, you know, the, you know, roll up your sleeves and, and go back to the factory and work with them to get it produced.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's cool. That's really cool. What about, uh, any, any, have you heard any rumblings more of interest from investors or just in general? I mean, it seems like, you know, we saw that we were talking last week or the week before about that Paul Graham article about, you know, hardware, the harder renaissance. And, you know, it's just been kind of this undercurrent that's growing. Are you guys seeing that? Are you seeing more applications or difference in applications at all? Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely quite a few

Zach Hoken: applications. Um, you know, I know like at the Shenzhen hardware event, actually, you know, I was there and, or the Shenzhen startup event and, you know, there were a few investors there who were kind of came there for the software, but, you know, ended up talking to a bunch of them and saying, you know, like hardware is really interesting to us and, you know, we'd like to get more involved. And, you know, can you point us at, at like some areas where, you know, you think might have some potential. So I would, I would tend to agree with the, the, the Paul Graham article. And, and I think that, you know, there's a convergence of tools here that are making a lot of the stuff simpler. So, I mean, first of all, you have the digital fabrication tools that are becoming easier to get, uh, the CAD software is getting much better and, you know, it's a, it's a lot easier to design stuff in that sense. And, uh, you know, I think there's also just a growing awareness of this that, Hey, it's, it's possible to do hardware startups. It's possible to, uh, make this stuff happen. So, um, yeah, it's, it's still, it's still tricky. It's still tough, but, you know, it's also a lot of really fun problems to solve. It's the kind of problems where when you, when you figure it out and you have something in your hand physically, that's working, there's, you know, it's, it's that

Chris Gammell: joy of making. And yeah, nothing beats that, man. Yep. Yep. So, so speaking of making, you have, you have a new other project as well, outside of Hexcelerator. What is, what is BotQ? It seems

Zach Hoken: like it seems to fit in here well. Yeah. Yeah. So, so BotQ is, um, I don't know, it's just kind of this idea I've had around in my head for a while. So, um, basically the idea is that, you know, for me, I think digital fabrication is, is cool for prototyping, but I, I, I think that ending at prototyping is selling it short. You know, I, I, I really liked this idea of direct digital manufacturing using, um, kind of inspired from my time as a web developer where, you know, Google's early, uh, early infrastructure and, and to an extent, Amazon's EC2 infrastructure uses a lot of kind of like commodity hardware to build this large computing environment. And so I, I would like to see the same thing or a similar thing happen with, with manufacturing, where you can have all of these like commodity 3d printers that are all individually have slow output, but if you get a hundred of them or 200 or a thousand of them, you know, you can really crank out a ton of stuff. And so, so BotQ is an open source set of software basically allows you to send, uh, create like a Q3D printers, and then you send jobs to this Q and they get distributed across all the different 3d printers. And so it, it, it's kind of geared towards using digital fabrication as a manufacturing tool and not so much as just a, okay, I got one 3d printer here and I want to print out, you know, a model of something or, or whatever. So, right. It seems, it seems almost

Chris Gammell: like a BitTorrent model where you say, you know, I want to have, I want to get a full rep wrap, right? I want a full rep wrap at my house tomorrow. And you're not going to go and print it all or print all the parts on one machine. You print the gears here and the, you know, the stages, you know, some of the moving stages here. And then at the end, it just all shifts at the same time. And then you, you know, you watch your, your downloaded movie or use your, your new rep wrap.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the other problem I was trying to solve too is, you know, even just with one machine, um, you know, with a normal 3d printer, as you start to build bigger things, it starts to take longer. So, you know, these days with the, with a good quality 3d printer, like a maker bot or, um, you know, that's really the only one I have a ton of experience with, but if you have a good, reliable 3d printer, it's really not crazy to be doing 20 hour, 30 hour builds. And you know, it's really easy if you go on like thingiverse or grab cat or one of these sites to go on there and say, Oh, that's cool. I want that. Oh, that's also cool. I want that. And so all of a sudden, you know, it's really easy to build up like a week worth of printing in, in 10 minutes online. And so I wanted a way to kind of like record that and save that and have the machine just be utilized more, more than, you know, than just when I remember to click print on the next thing. So, you know, it's kind of like a way of saying, okay, here's all the things I want. As soon as you're done building that one, start building this other one here. I mean, that's, you know, it's, it's a print cue idea. If you have a, have a normal 2d printer, you don't have to like, you can cue up lots of different things and it'll, it'll print them in sequence. And so it's kind of, it's like the next

Chris Gammell: thing you need to build out there is like a little mechanical claw arm to pull off one thing off the printing stage. And so it could just start on the next one without you being there. Yeah, that's cool. So, uh, we're, I mean, I've seen you writing a little bit about automation. I mean, this is, this kind of seems to speak to it. What, what are you seeing in China? Are you seeing that happen already? Or is it more of a, you're hearing about it? Well, it's a little bit of

Zach Hoken: hearing about it. Um, certainly in, in, in some areas, there's a ton of automation, like in the PCB fabrication, you know, it's, it's all automated. I mean, uh, some factories are less automated, but the good ones, you know, you can tell cause the good ones, you know, you basically just have people watching over the machines and making sure that everything's going, you know, working properly. Uh, so, you know, like in the, the one I have the most experience with is in like the, uh, uh, in the PCB assembly shops, you know, in a good PCB assembly shop, basically what happens is you have an operator at the first stop that puts a board into like this conveyor belt type thing. And it goes through the soldering, like the paste application, and there's an automatic machine that will, will apply the paste. And then it goes into the pick and place machine where it automatically gets picked and placed. Um, sometimes they'll have in a good shop, they'll have someone between the pick and place machine and the, uh, and the reflow oven that will look over it and just kind of double check that everything looks, looks right. And just, you know, it's kind of just a safety check for any like catastrophic failures type of thing. Uh, and usually these people won't touch the board. So I'll just be looking at the board to make sure that nothing has gone wrong. And then it'll go to QA almost, right? Yep. And it's just kind of slowly moving along this conveyor belt. It'll go through the reflow oven. And then from there it'll go to another QA and then into an automated inspection unit. And, uh, and, and then after that it'll go through, uh, uh, like the, the through hole placement, which, you know, that, that's a tough one to automate. I haven't seen any automated through hole stuff. It's usually just people, you know, putting components and holes and then it'll go through the reflow there. And then everybody has typically we'll do functional test fixtures that are

Chris Gammell: all, all pretty automated. Um, yeah. Sometimes like flying probe kind of thing as well. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. Really complicated. Those are, those are awesome to watch. Yeah. Those machines are cool. Yeah. Well, that sounds good. Yeah. I mean, and then, and then basically all it is then, it's people loading the reels and, uh, I haven't seen that either. I've never seen a automated reel loading, but I know that probably larger shops have that kind of thing.

Zach Hoken: Yeah. I could, I could see that. Um, you know, I think a lot of that stuff is still done manually because, you know, it, at a certain point in time, it, it's like, you know, I think robotics technology is just not there yet. I mean, I, I know within 20, 30, 50 years, like someone is going to make a human quality robot that can do all of these tasks, but, um, man, that's, that's a big one. And, you know, I, I, you know, the utility of something like that is just so obvious that, um, and there's so many people working on it that someone somewhere is going to figure that out. You know, it's going to pop out soon. It's, it's inevitable, you know, and, uh, and I'm, I'm excited for that. I mean, I think that's going to be really cool to live in a world where you can have a robot that is programmed to do human level tasks. And, uh, it's, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Any, any, uh, any word on, you know, the things I've been seeing about, about robot type assembly has been, you know, more mechanical, like, you know, placing wires kind of thing, or, you know, actually doing assembly or, and, and, and more tactile type things. I guess, you know, example would be through hole placement. I, I've similarly never seen that. Um, yeah. Have you seen any of the mechanical stuff being done with robots yet or not?

Zach Hoken: I haven't yet. You know, I think the way that is happening now is really in the, in the massive, large shops for like, you know, the kind of places that are building millions of units of, of consumer goods, or, you know, I know the automobile industry has a ton of that stuff. So, Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, that's kind of where that's happening. And, you know, uh, unfortunately these, these kinds of places just aren't really, you know, they're not too open to just a guy coming in off the street and, and, you know, they're not really, they're not really the right kind of place for hardware startups either. So, you know, it's, it's not really an area that I've been focusing too much time on because, you know, one of the important things with, with finding the right factory is getting the right impedance match. So if you're too small, then you're just going to be kind of lost in the shuffle. Um, whereas, you know, if, if the factory is too small, you know, they, they're probably not going to have the right resources for you and, and it might just be kind of difficult to work with. So you got to find the kind of right match of their size and your size. And yeah, that makes sense.

Chris Gammell: Uh, so any, I mean, you're going to be in Shenzhen forever. Is that kind of a, is that the feeling right now at least?

Zach Hoken: Well, forever in the sense of as far as I can see into the future, which really is maybe a couple of years. I don't know. Um, maybe in a couple of years, I'll get bored and want to move back to the States or I don't know for right now, if I had to choose, I would be living here for a long time. So, you know, I, I like it out here. Uh, I'm enjoying learning the language. I'm enjoying, you know, the food, the people and, and, you know, the manufacturing scene's kind of nice out here. So, uh, I know that, you know, I kind of have a requirement for myself that I'm going to stay out here as long as it takes to become fluent in Mandarin. So, you know, I think at a minimum, that's going to be another two to three years. So, you know, maybe, maybe it'll take me longer, but, um, yeah, we'll see.

Chris Gammell: Well, speaking of, uh, learning Mandarin and seeing interesting signage, you do have one other site. That's a bit of, a bit of fun for our listening audience. What is this thing?

Zach Hoken: Yeah. Yeah. So it's called English and, uh, I somehow managed to get a really sweet domain name for it. So it's E N G R dot S H. So the dot is where the I would be in English. And, uh, you know, it's just a Tumblr of all the weird English, like mistranslations and strange, strange things that I've

Chris Gammell: seen. So these never get old to me. I love them. It's so good. And you know what, actually,

Zach Hoken: I really enjoy being out here is I am now producing English in Mandarin. So, you know, it's like, yeah, it's, it's both ways, right? Exactly. So, you know, working with Taobao and, and working with, you know, a lot of these, like there's a laser cutting shop down the street that I work with a lot. And so the way I work with them is through instant messaging using QQ, which is kind of like the, the major instant messaging out here. So, uh, you know, I'm on, on the messenger typing Mandarin and just, you know, uh, communicating with these guys and I know I'm not making sense half the time. And, you know, you just got to like acknowledge that and just, you know, treat it as like something that, okay, you know, you're going to have problems every now and then, but just go with the flow. And if they don't get what you're saying the first time, just try and reword it and, uh, and just, and go with it. You know, Google translate really helps a lot there. Uh, although if you just rely on Google translate, uh, that's when you're going to, I mean, it, Google translate has put some weird stuff out sometimes.

Chris Gammell: Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh, so the robot revolution will not come with fluent, uh, fluent languages if it was going to happen today.

Zach Hoken: Well, let's see, you know, maybe the Microsoft stuff is, is better. I'll have to take a look at that.

Chris Gammell: Okay. These are so good. Just clicking through them. They're so much fun. They never gets old. Well, anything else going on that we should know about? I mean, uh, it sounds like you're doing some awesome stuff out there.

Zach Hoken: Well, thanks man. Um, you know, I, I think you, you pretty much covered all the things that, that are interesting to me right now. I mean, robots and manufacturing and 3d printing and, and all that sort of stuff is, is kind of what gets me up. You know, I, uh, I, I, I found a, a cool chip the other day. Um, you know, one of my passions is, is stepper motor drivers. And, uh, so, uh, Toshiba is, is a company that makes some really nice, like motor drivers that are kind of suited more for a little bit bigger motors, kind of like the NEMA 23s for CNCs. And, uh, so, so, so these guys have a chip called a TB 6564 AHQ and, and the data sheet, it also has THB 6064 AH. And, uh, so this guy is like, uh, you know, it's a standard like chopper style stepper driver, but it supports 64th step and like 50 volts at like four amps. So I'm, I'm working on a driver for this and I'm like super excited because, uh, they, they have a, another chip that was kind of like from a few years ago that is, uh, I forget what the name of it, but it's something similar. It's like TB 6560, which is kind of like the standard, like low cost stepper driver. So this is like their, their next version of it that has like much higher resolution. And I think it has a little bit higher amperage. So I'm really psyched to try this thing out. Cause, uh, you know, I know like, uh, on kind of like the maker bot style stuff and, and most rep rep designs these days are using the Allegro micro stepping chips, which have, you know, when, when everybody started switching to that, we're like, oh my God, it's so smooth and quiet. Now it's, it's using one, one 16th stepping. And so now I find this other driver that's like one 64 stepping. I'm like, oh, that's going to be so quiet and smooth.

Chris Gammell: And awesome. So, um, yes, that is awesome. That is that, that, that can be our chip of the week. We haven't done that in a while, but, uh, chip of the week will be this TB 6564. Yeah, that's good. That's a good one, man. It's interesting. Cause I'm, I'm looking at it on an octopart right now and it's not really showing up. And so I, you know, it makes me immediately wonder, you know, if it's one that's easier for you to get, or if it's just not necessarily out there as much. Yeah. I don't know. It just seems like it's really high quantity stuff.

Zach Hoken: You know, one of the things that, one of the things that I really like about being in, in, in China and, and like using Taobao and going to seg is like, so on DigiKey and Mauser, like, it's amazing. Cause you can find every single part under the sun is on there, but what it doesn't tell you is like, which of these parts is common and which of these parts is going to be available on a large scale for manufacturing. Cause like, I'll tell you the first time I came out here to China and it's like, we want to make this board. And we gave them our part list, which had all of like the DigiKey and Mauser numbers. And they came back, which is like a crazy number. Cause they're like, okay, well, these are the parts you wanted, but they're not the parts that you would use in a normal design out here. So, you know, there's all these like local cheaper options that you can use. And there's chips that are like more available or easier to get. And so going through Taobao and seeing like, okay, you know, you type in stepper driver on Taobao and it's like, what chip is, are you using out here? We're going through the seg market and saying, okay, what are the common chips people are displaying on like the transistors rack on the diodes rack, you know, that sort of thing. Like if I go through DigiKey, I can, I can pick out like some transistors, but come out here and people are like, oh my God, why are you using this like super rare weirdo diode? You know, it's like use this other standard diode that everybody has access to and it'll be like a tenth of the cost. So, you know, and that's just the kind of thing where it's like, man, where do you go to find that information? Like there's just, there's not really a good place other than like going to the market or looking at on Taobao. I think actually if you're in the States and you want to like try and figure this sort of stuff out, go on Taobao and, and this is actually an area where Google Translate does a really good job is on technical stuff. So if you want to find like ShotKey diodes, go to Google Translate, type in ShotKey diode and get the Chinese, paste that into Taobao and, and see what it gives you. And that'll give you a sense of like, okay, this model is popular. This model is not popular. And you know, if, if, if you're trying to make that transition to kind of like maybe like the pro maker level, and you want to start thinking about design for manufacturer, which includes both part sourcing and you know, how, what sort of parts and how you're building it. I think that's kind of a good way to get your, get your feet in the water without having to come out and, you know, really get into it. So you can do that from a computer anywhere in the world.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's a, that's a really good tip. Zach, thank you so much for being on here. I'm sorry that Dave couldn't be here as well, but you know, I think you have really, really interesting story. And I really look forward to seeing what, you know, you're, what you're putting out and what also, you know, the Hexdelerator folks are going to keep cranking out. Cool.

Zach Hoken: All the groups that are joining. Thanks, Chris. I enjoyed this. This was great. I was a little bit worried. I wouldn't have anything to talk about, but you managed to, you managed to pry it out of me, man.

Chris Gammell: So we, we tease it out everyone. That's right. Yeah. Cool. All right. Cool. People can find Zach at Hoken on Twitter and Hexdelerator.com. Yeah. Cool. Thanks, man. All right. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye. This episode of the Amp Hour was sponsored by Club Jameco, who allows you to upload your kid idea and make up to 10% of the sale price without ever needing to buy or bag components. Go to clubjameco.com slash the Amp Hour to see the kid discussed on this week's show and to support the show.

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