#5 – Girl Power

Dave Jones: Hi, welcome to the Amp Hour. I'm Dave Jones from the EEV blog.

Chris Gammell: And I'm Chris Gammell from Chris Gammell's Analog Life.

Dave Jones: And this is...

Speaker ?: How you doing?

Dave Jones: Good, good. And this is episode number five, isn't it?

Chris Gammell: Yes, it is. Number five and going strong. With a bullet. Yeah, with a bullet.

Dave Jones: As they say, right up the charts there. Oh, I don't know about that, but... Right. But we do have quite a solid audience at the moment, so... Yes, thank you for tuning in again. Yes, and subscribing to our RSS feed. And we're trying something new today. Instead of using Skype, we're using Google Chat, which is... Because I am here in Sydney, Australia, and Chris is in Cleveland, Ohio. And yeah, we have to talk using something. So Google Chat is... Because Skype, you heard in the last post, Skype actually cuts out if we both talk at the same time, which is pretty silly when you try that. Now we can talk over each other as much as we want, right? There we go, yes. Yeah. All right, we tested it out there. It works and I can actually hear you. There you go, at the same time as I'm talking. All right. How novel. Yeah. Jeez. Yeah, so we're giving that a go. So if it dies halfway through, well, blame Mr. Google. There you go.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well...

Dave Jones: It certainly seems better than Skype because it's all web-based. Yeah. And it's just excellent. I love web-based stuff. It took...

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah, browser-based, yep.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, actual, yeah. It doesn't use the underlying HTTP. It uses some other technology, but, you know, anything browser-based, I just love. And we're using Google Documents here. We've got some ideas for the show and they're all listed in Google Documents here in front of us. And...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So there you go.

Chris Gammell: All we need now is Google Sponsorship and we'll be set.

Dave Jones: Google Sponsorship. Yes, please. One of those right here.

Chris Gammell: We are available for purchase.

Dave Jones: Yes, we will whore ourselves out to the highest bidder. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Chris Gammell: In so many words, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yes. So what have we got today?

Chris Gammell: Well, a lot of stuff. I guess we could start with shout-outs. Usually we end up starting with shout-outs and that works out pretty well.

Dave Jones: Shout-outs are pretty good, yeah. I think let's... Yeah. Let's do a rule that will start out with shout-outs and...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Then we'll just break our rule at blog number 10 or something like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Well, rules are made to be broken.

Dave Jones: Absolutely. There you go. Who have we got? We've got Tech Dirt.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That was one that I added. It was... I hadn't really seen it before. Actually, I got linked through from Hack Gadgets. He's got a big old list of links. And I was kind of just clicking through there today. And Tech Dirt's kind of interesting. It's a lot of... Not necessarily just straight technology stuff, but a lot of IP issues. Your last blog, your video blog was about IP and whether or not you should get a patent. Yep. And this has some really interesting stories on there. The one story I was drawn to was the... Oh, boy. What was it about? Sorry about that. Tech Dirt's slow, I guess. But...

Dave Jones: I've got it open here and it's a... Oh, yeah, yeah. Professor says 24-hour protections.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So just a lot of like IP... Oh, well, like he wants to have news feeds be protected 24 hours a day. So if CNN is covering an event 24 hours a day, Anderson Cooper's on scene, they want to be able to say, no, this is protected now under IP or copyright and you can't link to it. And so it's just kind of like that whole open internet stuff.

Dave Jones: Right. And that comes back to the actual Google News, isn't it? Because Google News sucks all the news stories from everyone. And I know there's been lawsuits over that. And I think, you know, Murdoch, all the big players, Rupert Murdoch, aren't happy with Google News stealing their news feeds. And it's crazy.

Chris Gammell: Every time I run into like a site like that, you know, like a lot of sites are starting to do where they have a paywall. Like there's a local business paper like that here. And it's just like, I just say, why bother? You know? It's like going backwards. Why are we going backwards from open internet to closed internet? So I don't know. This site's good for it. There's a lot of legal stuff on this site. But a lot of technology stuff too. A lot of IP related kind of things. And so I thought that was kind of relevant. It's got tons of updates. So if you're really looking for a lot of stuff to read, check out TechDirt.

Dave Jones: Excellent. And the other one is Kickstarter, which is kickstarter.com. One word. And this is pretty exciting. I just got onto it now. And it's just, it's brilliant. What it basically is, is it's a micro funding site. And you can put your, if you've got a project or an idea or something like that, you can put it up on here and people will basically send you money. They will fund you for your particular idea or your particular project. And it's really great. On the main page here, you can see that one, there's one project which has had $200,000 pledged to it.

Chris Gammell: But it's like, where does that happen? It's all kind of like grassroots kind of funding, small amounts. Yeah. But it's not just giving away money either. A lot of it is, hey, I got this great idea. If you give me some funding at the beginning, you're going to get some kind of special offer for that. So you might get like, if there's an electronics project, you might get the first rev of the board or you might get a signed copy of the schematic, something like that. So there's a lot of incentive for people to help fund those kind of things.

Dave Jones: Great idea. It's just, yeah. I had no idea such a thing existed. But that's all the rage these days. And outsourcing your work as well. I can't actually remember some of the names of some of the sites. I'm not sure if you've seen those. But you can actually job yourself out on the internet. Oh, yeah. And so if you need something done, if you need a specific, you know, if you need a PCB designed or some code written for your website or whatever, you just go to these websites and you put your job on there and people will bid for your job. And you can build up an online rep for, you know, for actually doing good work and stuff like that. And, yeah, there's tons of sites like that. And, yeah, I mean, geez, we won't be, you know, everything will be done. You know, I can see in 30 years time, you know, everything just being done, you know, there won't be a traditional business. You know, yeah, you don't have to have a business and a place of work and you don't have to have employees, full-time employees. You just job out all these little jobs and people actually bid on them and do the work and off they go. And, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I don't know. I know one of those is, you know, like Elance. That's like one of the names of the sites. And the electronic stuff, I have a friend who does it and you kind of have to underbid. That's the only problem with it. You know, you can build up a name and build up a rep through that. Yeah, I've heard. That's the only real downside. You got to kind of cut your legs out from under you to start getting jobs. So, I don't want to sound like it's totally rosy, but it's cool that you, I mean, other than that, you'd have to know people directly who need help. And it's kind of a good way to start building up contacts. So, from that regard, it's great.

Dave Jones: And then you can bypass the system in the end. If you're doing a good job for them, then, yeah, then they can trust you and then you can just do your own thing afterwards. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Do your own deal. But definitely check it out, kickstarter.com. It's, yeah, it's pretty cool. Like, there's a combat robot on there which has met, you know, 121% of its funding target of $1,000. It's actually received $1,210 for this combat robot. And, yeah, very cool.

Chris Gammell: And like I was telling you before the show, too, there was another one on there that was actually mentioned in one of our links from the last show. We linked to 3Pedasus site about the Fab Labs. And, you know, there was a list of all these different pieces of equipment you might need in a Fab Lab. And one of them was LaserSore, which is a laser cutter, kind of like an epilogue laser where you can cut out plastic pieces, which are awesome. So cool. So much fun to play with. And now this is an open source one called LaserSore. And that was actually funded, I think, at least the beginning was through Kickstarter. Right. So you might see the next big thing out there. You could have the next big thing yourself if you need to get a little cash to start up. And just go through and click through. And there's a whole technology section, which is pretty awesome.

Dave Jones: Excellent. All right. Well, now I've got some news, I guess. I found this one. Stanford apparently got this new solar cell technology. And, okay, you think, you know, okay, no big deal. You know, everyone's coming out with a new process. But this is actually a bit of a new paradigm kind of thing. It's not just a tweak on the traditional manufacturing process. What they, it's called, here we go, photon enhanced thermionic emission. And it's basically a semiconducting material, but it's got a thin layer of metal cesium on top. And that means it works at very high temps. And they're claiming up to 60% efficiency on this thing, as well as cheap to manufacture. And, you know, but they always claim that. Right.

Chris Gammell: I don't want to speak against Stanford, but I don't know about that. I mean, they're still in the teens, I thought. I mean, I don't think they're.

Dave Jones: Well, 20. No, the University of New South Wales does upwards of 30% now, I think. Oh, really? Oh, wow. Yeah, it's just a matter of cost, really.

Chris Gammell: It's just a PN junction, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, how cheap can you make these things? Yeah. You know. So, yeah, they're easily doing over 30% in the labs, I think. But the commercial ones, I think, go over 20. And then there's those high temperature ones, as well, which, you know, only, which work. And that's the other advantage of this one. It works at high temperature, whereas a normal solar cell will die at like 100 degrees Celsius. It's, you know, just drops off completely. Whereas this one starts working at 100, you know.

Chris Gammell: Have you ever worked with solar cells before, like designing with them at all?

Dave Jones: Oh, not serious size ones. No, only small ones, you know. We're talking.

Chris Gammell: Oh, calculator size kind of things. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Sort of, yeah. Little tiny calculator ones.

Chris Gammell: But really fascinating device. I mean, like when you look at it, it really is. I mean, it's like, okay, this is like a diode, you know, PN junction. But when you get in down into the physics of it. The actual physics, yeah. The quantum physics of how it works. How you have to bias it and everything. There's a lot of really cool electronics that, I mean, it's not even electronics. It's just about how you kind of run the thing. And then how you balance the sunlight and the capacitance involved and all that stuff. And it's just like this, if you try and model it in spice, it ends up becoming really difficult to do. Oh, yeah. But it's awesome.

Dave Jones: Oh, I love, I love solar cell technology. I would, you know, it's definitely the future. And anyone who doesn't think so is just an absolute fool. Because these things are getting better all the time. I've watched them go from, you know, from, you know, just nothing using calculators. And now it seems like every second home in Australia now has, is putting solar cells on. Yeah. They're all from China, of course, because we pissed away our manufacturing thing. As I think I said on a, yeah, I think the first blog or something I talked about that. We pissed it all away. But, yeah, because we've got new incentives now, government incentives to install solar panels now. So, you can do your home for like, you know, $2,000. My mum in her retirement village, she has solar cells now. Her entire retirement village. I'm so, I'm really annoyed. I want it. I know. Now, when my mum has something cool and I don't have it, that's, you know. Yeah, she's like telling you how to put it in. Exactly. And the reason I don't do it, though, is because here in Australia, when you, right, these, it normally costs about $8,000, $9,000 to install like a full solar system.

Chris Gammell: Like completely with an inverter?

Dave Jones: With an inverter and it's 1.5 kilowatts or something like that. You know, it's quite a big, you know, it's a reasonable size system. And, yeah, it's about $8,000 or $9,000 or $10,000. But all these companies offer them at, you know, only pay $2,000 and that's it. Really? Yeah, because the government offer these renewable energy certificates, which if you install a solar system of a certain value, you get these renewable energy certificates, which then get traded. You can sell to big companies and they offset their carbon pollution and all that sort of stuff, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, I got to say that's something that seems like Australia might be a couple steps ahead. I mean, obviously, I'm in Cleveland, so. Yeah. Well, Cleveland, you probably haven't. The sunlight's not too great here.

Dave Jones: It's not too great, but in Australia, it's awesome, so.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, we don't even have, I mean, those programs aren't here either just because of the.

Dave Jones: Right, okay.

Chris Gammell: The bickering that happens, so.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, the problem I have with this and is why I haven't got one is because I don't want to sell my renewable energy certificates. And the general, because then it promotes the big polluters, you know. So, you're actually giving them a license to generate dirty energy, really. Really? Wow. So, yeah, there's a lot of detail involved in it. It's very difficult to understand the whole market of it. But, yeah, generally, yeah, you're giving, you know, you're giving your certificates to the big energy pollutant, you know, the big, you know, the coal-fired energy, you know, and everything else. And they're getting the advantage from it. So, you're basically selling out. Wow. And I don't want to do that. But that's what most companies do. Most people in Australia don't know about these renewable energy certificates because the company who installs your system just keeps them for you. Just take them, right. And they, you just sign a bit of paper. Oh, it'll only cost me $2,000. Great. You know, I have my solar system. Free energy. Yeah. Yeah, and they go trade their bloody energy certificates on the market, you know. Wow. So, you're signing those away and you don't even know it. So, anyway. So, there you go.

Chris Gammell: Take heat, Australia.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, and the other thing we have here in Australia, we've had it for many years. You can opt in to buy 100% green power. Yeah, we have something like that. Right. You can pay, like, I currently pay 60% more on my bill and I get 100% wind energy. Wow. Yeah. That's impressive, Dave. Yep. Yeah. That's good.

Chris Gammell: I mean, that's good incentive for you to kind of reduce your energy usage too. So, that's nice.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And, of course, once again, there's sort of like a bit of a scam involved in there. There's a thing where, you know, of course there is, where you can sign up for green energy for free, you know. And 5% of your energy comes from green power and it only comes from old infrastructure and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's all a bit of a con, really. And so, people sign up to that en masse thinking, oh, yeah, I'm signing up for green power. I'm doing my thing for the environment. Yeah, yeah. And it's just a wank, really.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah, unfortunately.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, you've got to do a lot of research into it. Anyway, that's all government controlled and stuff like that. Right, right, right.

Chris Gammell: Well, speaking of making some PN silicon, what about the chips? We have that on there, too. You know, I don't know how it's been by you, but getting chips out here is still really tough.

Dave Jones: Chips in what way? Actually getting them?

Chris Gammell: Well, like purchasing, you know, trying to get them on the open market, trying to be able to buy, like, source chips. Have you had any problem with that?

Dave Jones: No, we get them from DigiKey and Mouser. What's the issue?

Chris Gammell: Oh, okay. Well, I don't know. At my work, there's some... I don't want to talk about work here. But, I mean, there's other stuff, too, where there's, like, a lot of sourcing issues for trying to buy larger quantities. You know, you talk to all the vendors. Oh, yeah. And they're all having problems just because they're still getting whipped around by, you know, if Apple's... We talked about that in one episode, too.

Dave Jones: Oh, yes, yes, we have, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, I haven't had any problems because we don't manufacture high volume where I am. So, yeah, so we haven't got that problem. I've heard there's a real shortage in caps and things like that. Somebody's stealing all the... Oh, okay. Yeah, somebody's stealing all the caps again. And it's just, like, a tantalum capacitor shortage of, you know...

Chris Gammell: I saw an awesome picture on your forum today about a counterfeit part. And I forget who it was that posted it on there. But there was a picture of a capacitor. You know, it was, like, a 2200 microfarad... Or no, it was 68,000 microfarad. Yep. So, 68 millifarad, I think. And then they cut it open. And there was just a smaller capacitor on the inside, inside the casing.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I've seen that. I've actually got that photo up on my website somewhere. So, I'll post a link to it. It's hilarious.

Chris Gammell: Oh, it's so brilliant. It's like, who took the time... You think that the time to do that would be, like, why don't you just go get some more electrolytic fluid? Yeah. Make your own capacitors at that point. You know, like...

Dave Jones: Exactly.

Chris Gammell: Why are you doing that?

Dave Jones: I know. It's crazy. But, hey, there's big dollars in that. Because one of those expensive low ESR caps might be $5, $10, you know, for a large value low ESR cap.

Chris Gammell: And if people are having a tough time getting them, too, they're going to pay four times that. Yeah. Yeah. On the black market. Exactly. Whatever.

Dave Jones: And then, you know, when you buy them, you put them in and they kind of sort of work in your first prototype. And then, you know, ship them out in the field and they, you know, fail in the first week. And, oh, God. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Counterfeit parts.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, I'll definitely put that photo up on the links for the show.

Chris Gammell: That's a great photo.

Dave Jones: It's hilarious. I don't know. I just cack myself every time I see it.

Chris Gammell: I think... I mean, like I said, I've been talking to vendors about this kind of thing and they're still having issues. But I think it's just, you know, it takes so long to start a fab back up where they shut everything down. Yeah. And so, they're still having problems getting this stuff out there. And, you know, you hear lead times, which are, you know, how long it takes to get a part. And they're still way out there, you know, 30 weeks, 40 weeks. And it's like... Oh, it's crazy. Yeah. I can't really handle that.

Dave Jones: Well, that's one of the art of design. That's part of the art of designing high volume products is not only do you have to choose parts that you know are going to be available and you've got to juggle stock and things like that, but you have to have parts that have to choose parts that have a second source and a third source. Yeah. That's a big design issue. You know, if you buy some evil, you know, chip that's only available for one vendor, you know, you're screwed. You are reliant upon them to, you know, otherwise your product goes nowhere. If there's no other pin compatible part out there, you're totally screwed. So, you know... Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And it's nice using the... Oh, go ahead.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. If you're designing serious high volume products, then, you know, you've got to think about not only this run coming up, like the first run, you know, you might be making 10,000 in the first run, but you've got to, you know, oh, great. I can buy it from, you know, Mouser or something like that. But, yeah, you know, three runs down the track in a year's time, will you still be able to get that part?

Chris Gammell: So, very important business. Right. And I don't know if people know that. I mean, like, maybe some more of the hobbyist type people out there, but when you buy from Mouser or Digikey, you're actually paying a pretty good premium. I mean, if you see a chip for $10, you know, you could... If you're buying that in volume, you're probably getting that for $3, $4, maybe even less, depending on how many you buy. So, that's actually a pretty interesting... I mean, I'm not sure about the span of our listeners, how much they've experienced that kind of thing, but I never knew that before. I always thought, oh, it's a $10 chip, it's a $10 chip. You know, a lot of that money is going straight to Digikey for holding that part for you. So, that is why they can have extra parts.

Dave Jones: It's not as bad as it used to be, though. I mean, you know, especially with Farnell's, for example, you know, Farnell's would charge 10 times the price of what you could buy. Yeah, yeah, oh, it was horrific. Yeah, if you went to Farnell's 10 years ago, oh my God. But now they match Digikey prices, and Digikey are pretty good. If you're making $10,000 or something, and you just need one reel of parts, then Digikey have got pretty good prices. Same with Mauster, and same with the others. You know, you don't save a huge amount, but yeah, when you go into real high volume, you know, if you're talking like a million of something, then yeah, you wouldn't be buying it for Digikey.

Chris Gammell: I think you can see it even more with Digikey. I mean, Digikey is still, like, so there is a Farnell to Digikey difference, but I'm saying Digikey to direct buying from the vendor or distributor is different, too.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's not as, but that's what I'm saying. Yeah, it's not as high as it used to be. Oh, really? Oh, you meant everything up. Yeah, they're pretty competitive. If you're making $10,000 of something, it's still completely viable to buy all your parts through Mauster and Digikey. Yeah. I always thought there was a big difference. No, not when you're talking like a single reel or something like that. You know, so a reel might have 5,000 parts on it. So, you know, that'll do a whole run of 5,000.

Chris Gammell: I'm sure a lot of our listeners are buying parts in the 5,000 at a time kind of thing, too, right?

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah, exactly. Well, we're buying them at work. Let us know. We're buying parts and we get them from Digikey and stuff like that because they're available. That's the thing. Yeah. I mean, it's such a big deal right now. You don't have a choice often, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: It's a big deal.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So.

Chris Gammell: Well, I mean, I guess we have some other news on here about chips, too. I mean, I don't know how much more news we want to talk about, but. Yeah, let's do it. The chip startups, actually, they're starting to get money again. You know, there was a big time. There was a time probably all of 2009 and most of 2010 where they weren't getting any money, but now a new startup is getting some money. So that's kind of nice.

Dave Jones: There's more venture capital coming through again, the venture capitalists. Well, they've never stopped giving out money. They're just getting more frugal, you know, of who they give to. And really, you know, and the only return on their investment they're going to make is when the company goes public. So, you know, anyone who took a public company in the last couple of years, you know, it was suicide, basically. So, but it's starting to come back now. Big companies. Who's the big company that's going public?

Chris Gammell: GM.

Dave Jones: NXP.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know.

Dave Jones: NXP are going, oh, GM, right. Well, yeah. That's a different issue. So, the chip vendor, NXP is going public. I don't know if it's already happened or it's about to happen or something like that, but it's pretty close.

Chris Gammell: I think that already happened. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're right. That's a big money. Yeah, that's a big deal. But at a certain point, how do you, so if you're at MIT, right, and you're working on technology, where do you really, you know, that's almost one of your only avenues right now. Yeah, exactly. We talked last time about making chips at home, and actually one of the commenters on our blog or on the site was talking about how printing, like actual printing right now, is getting down to the 20 micron range. So, it's almost conceivable that eventually people could be printing chips at home. But that's kind of lagging technology, and this is all leading technology stuff. Exactly.

Dave Jones: No, well, you know, people, I read the comments about that on the forum. People go, oh, you can make your own chip. Well, you know, prove it. I think it's bullshit. I'm sorry. You know. Getting that chamber in your house. Yeah, you might be able to print, you know, something down to 10 microns or something. Right. But, you know, that doesn't help you, you know. Sure, you can print the mask, but you've still got to make the damn chip, and you've got to make it reliable, and you've got to, you know, it's just, no, I'm sorry. You know, maybe I don't see that happening for, God, foreseeable future, which is at least the next 10, even 20 years, making a chip at home. There's a reason they have these fab plants, you know. Even like an old fab plant from 20 years ago that was manufacturing, you know, any micron, you know, a large, you know, a large. Large feature size. Yeah, a large feature size. Those fabs still cost, you know, 50 million.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah, and they still make a ton of money now, too. Yeah, so, you know. No reason to shut them down.

Dave Jones: You know, churning out all these, you know, old, you know, you can still, you know, they still make 74 series chips, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I don't think they're at 20 micron anymore, I've got to say. I think they're down in the.

Dave Jones: Right, yeah, the die size. 250 nano.

Chris Gammell: Right, yeah. But there still is a lot of nano. I mean, like 250 nano, I think, is pretty common still, where a lot of analog fabs, you know, I look at those sometimes. And they're still running up in the, because they don't need to be down in the 90 nano stuff. They can still make 4-inch wafers making 180, 250 nanometer feature sets. Yeah. And, you know, making power chips. And the die itself is maybe half a millimeter by half a millimeter across. And you can get 200 chips on a wafer, even at 4 inches, even having people sling them. Exactly. Manually. And you still make money. And there's a lot of demand right now, so there's not really any reason not to do that.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Exactly. But consider it a challenge, people. There you go. Some people say, is that a challenge? And yes, it damn well is. I reckon, you know, you can't do it viably, but prove me wrong, please.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, you know, as soon as someone starts growing polysilicon in their house, we'll see. I mean, I have a little bit of background in that stuff, and there's some nasty chemicals there. But if you're doing it, it is awesome.

Dave Jones: Oh, it's pretty awesome. And I'm sure you can do it as a, you know, as a showpiece, you know. So, you'll see at some fair, you know. I don't know about that. I'm sure you'll see at the next Maker Faire, you know. Here's a way to make your own chips.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well. Just a beginner? Come on in. Try out dry etching. Yes. Watch your fingers.

Dave Jones: Exactly. Wear these two-inch thick gloves.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, dear. Anyway, yes, consider it a challenge. Go forth and produce, people.

Chris Gammell: Yes. And we'll try out the chip for you as soon as you make one.

Dave Jones: Absolutely.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, there's another link that we saw was actually from Marjorie Connor from EDN. She linked through to a story. We were talking about renewable energy before. Yeah. But there's a story from the UK about how little people understand that most people who are most vehemently for, I guess, I don't know if you can say vehemently, but the ones who are most gung-ho about green energy usually have the least idea about how to do it. And just kind of the scale of how hard it is to produce energy. And it's a pretty good article. We'll link through to it. But I don't know. I liked it.

Dave Jones: And it also comes back to those companies who are basically trying to scam people. And I've exposed one of them. It was the Wi-Fi energy harvesting device and things like that. And people think, oh, wow, you know, I can charge my mobile phone through Wi-Fi energy. And people just don't understand the power scales involved. And, you know, people get sucked in.

Chris Gammell: A milliwatt is very different than a kilowatt. Exactly. Even if they do run.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And it's just, yeah, it's just a huge difference. And, yeah, people get sucked in all the time for products like that. And, well, I'll keep exposing them. If you've seen any dodgy products like that, please send it to me. And, yeah, I'll certainly do my bit. That's for sure. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And you had a, oh, good.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And there's a little article we've got here that the design news people have just announced the TI Launchpad. Well, you know, they're a bit behind the times, aren't they? Better luck next time, guys.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Better luck next time.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly.

Chris Gammell: They're good people. I mean, I've talked to Chuck Murray before. He's a real nice guy. Yeah. But, you know, it's just interesting seeing how the hobbyist market kind of latched onto that right away. Yeah. And I'm not even sure how they announced it. But now it's kind of getting to the industry stuff. And I don't know if there's as much value for industry, but time will tell.

Dave Jones: Probably not. No. It's really the beginner hobbyist entry level stuff. Yeah. And somebody on the forum. They're replacing it that low. Yeah. Somebody on the forum, I think, mentioned that it's not available anymore. They've sold it out and they're not replacing it or something. I haven't checked. Oh, really? So, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I could be talking out my ass there.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep. Don't quote me on that.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's still out there, hopefully. But if not, I'm sure you can get them secondhand. I know a lot of people ordered two or three because they were so cheap.

Dave Jones: So, I'm sure you pick one up on eBay. Yeah, I've got three. I was going to do like a mock unboxing of it, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah. Maybe in the future.

Dave Jones: Maybe I'll do that. And speaking of design news, that brings me on to a rant. Nothing to do with design news, but EDN. Oh, yes. Yes. And are they? No, they're not the same mob. Are they? Design news and EDN?

Chris Gammell: No, no, no. They're different. No, I think they're different.

Dave Jones: I think so. Anyway. Anyway.

Chris Gammell: I mean, they're all tech magazines.

Dave Jones: Here we go. Here we go. Rant time, right? I got, you know, I'm on the EDN email list for some, you know, for various things. And they spam. They're one of the most spamiest companies. Oh, yeah. EDN. Oh, you go to their websites. Pop up, pop up, pop up.

Chris Gammell: Oh, my God. It's not the 90s. It's annoying.

Dave Jones: But anyway, so they came through. Oh, there's a survey. You know, EDN are doing a survey. Oh, great. You know. But, hey, you can win an iPad, right? Okay, cool. And they said, oh, it'll only, in the email, it'll only take a couple of minutes of your time. So, I thought, great. Okay. I get on there. Start doing the damn survey. I know. I know. I'm, you know, idiot for believing them, right? And, you know, 25 minutes later, I'm still doing the freaking survey.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's an iPad. It's an iPad, Dave. I mean, you got to work for it. I know. You got to work for it.

Dave Jones: But I'll put up some of the, I'll have to link in. I got a screen capture of some of the questions. And it's a big grid matrix kind of thing. Oh, yeah. What are you in charge of purchasing? Oh, my God. It's ridiculous. And it's run by Canon Communications. So, I'll give them a serve in the KMPS group, whoever the hell that is. But your surveys are shit. Really? There you go.

Chris Gammell: Oh, my. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, man.

Chris Gammell: Stay away from Dave.

Dave Jones: Oh, here we go. To add insult to injury, at the end of it, when you're filling out your details to win your iPad, of course, they assume everyone's just in the US. They don't even have a country, do they, to put you there to where you're from? And I bet you, if you read the terms and conditions, it's only. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: You probably can't even win.

Dave Jones: I can't even enter it. And they don't tell you that. Oh. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: I'm pissed off. Oh, sorry. You talk funny.

Dave Jones: So, oh. Bloody EDN. And I sent them an email telling them so and how they dickheads.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Well, now it's on the radio show.

Dave Jones: It's on the radio show. There you go. EDN.

Chris Gammell: If anyone ever hears it, they'll never talk to us again. Oh, well. There goes EDN sponsorship. Yep. Not a problem. I don't know. It's interesting because there's so many. I mean, there are. Once you have a professional position, they just clamor for your information because they just package it back up and sell it to vendors because they're hoping to get into your design.

Dave Jones: There's a huge market in that. Selling niche information like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Because it's people that are actually buying parts for new designs. So, I mean, there's a lot of good. Don't get me wrong. I mean, there's a lot of cool information in a lot of those tech magazines. And a lot of people that are listening could probably really benefit from it because there's good tech articles and stuff like that. Yeah. You pay the price, don't you? Well, sometimes. It's kind of like an old media, new media kind of thing. I don't know. Yeah. I don't think we're new media, but it's just like they've operated the same way for a lot of years. And I think they're suffering because of it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. But we're actually social media, I believe, is the correct. Yeah. Is the new industry wank word for it. Yeah. So, my video blog is social media. This radio show is social media because it's a podcast. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I was listening to Leo Laporte about that today. Right. They post their stuff Sunday night and he was complaining about social media too and just kind of how it's a... You know, you're kind of in your own little world really. I mean, like, to be honest, like we've talked in other shows. If you and I were just talking and we posted this stuff and no one listened to it, we'd never really know. You know, there's a lot of stuff like that with Twitter and stuff where people shout stuff into the abyss and they're like, hey, did anybody hear me? No, no.

Dave Jones: No. No. That's right. Sad. It's a one-way push medium, you know. Right. Yeah. I think that's the term for it, push media. Yeah. You just push info out there and you don't get any feedback at all. Right.

Chris Gammell: But, yeah. Well, all we want to do is talk about electronics and engineering and bitching about people.

Dave Jones: And just bitching about the market and other things. Yeah. We do a lot of kind of, I guess, off-topic stuff, don't we? Because if you're wondering why we don't talk about, you know, electronics design, you know, because you can't do that on the radio. It's very difficult to go, oh, yeah, I built this new circuit. You can. Oh, yeah. But then, you know, when it's not visual, you can't, you know, you don't have the schematic in front of you. So, you can't talk about how schematic, you know, how a circuit works, really, without that visual thing in front of you. So...

Chris Gammell: If only there was a video...

Dave Jones: If only there was a video blog to do that. Yeah. Ah, somebody's going to start one of those. Maybe someday. Yeah. I reckon there's, yeah, there's huge money in that. It'll make you rich.

Chris Gammell: Doubtful. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yes, exactly.

Chris Gammell: Well, speaking of engineering, I wanted to point something out. I got a link the other day about women in engineering, which is, you know... I think you said you had seen it, too, and they're actually casting a show. I'd seen it.

Dave Jones: We meant to talk about this last show, but we didn't get around to it. Yeah, I really want to talk about this one. Go for it.

Chris Gammell: Right. And, well, I mean, like, I... Obviously, the engineering profession is a little skewed towards the male gender, but, you know, there's a lot of good stuff that's out there for kind of encouraging women to enter engineering. Obviously, girls, when they're getting interested in it. But, like, you know, like Make Magazine or all the Make stuff, you know, like...

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Teaching children when they're young about the interesting things you can do with electronics and all the, you know, just curiosity about the world, stuff like that, and even STEM, not necessarily engineering, but, you know, science, technology, engineering, and math. That stuff, getting them interested in the beginning is obviously a very good push, and that is gender neutral. But now there's this new reality show.

Dave Jones: Yes, reality TV.

Chris Gammell: And, oh my...

Dave Jones: Oh my God. Electronics has come to reality TV, or engineering's come to reality TV.

Chris Gammell: It looks horrible. I just... I don't even know where to start with it. It's called nerdgirls.com, and they're casting a new show. If you happen to be a female who's interested in being on reality TV about engineering...

Dave Jones: If you want to get your head on telly, yep, there you go. All you need is a set of tits, and you're on. There you go. Oh boy. I've offended lots of people, I'm sure. Oh boy. Yeah, I mean, that's what it's going to come down to. Like, they're... I think they're casting, like, supposedly nothing to do with your, really, your interest in engineering. It's more how that... Right, right. You're a woman outside of engineering, you know? What are you into outside of... Style. What do you do outside of engineering? Well, you know, it's kind of, I guess, to prove the stereotype that you can be, you know, a traditional girly type girl and be into engineering at the same time. Well, you know, I... Yeah, that's... Is that needed? I mean...

Chris Gammell: I mean, I think it's an identity thing. So, it's like, you know, oh, well, I can be a strong woman and still be an engineer, which is very true. But the way they're going... I mean, they have a promo video for it. And they're, like, showing clips of women shopping and going and getting their hair done. Yeah. It's like... Exactly. I don't want to see that show. I don't... What's... Who's the one from... Oh, jeez. The show on Discovery Channel. Yeah. The show on Discovery Channel. Jamie and Adam Savage. Oh, Mythbusters. Oh, God. What a brain fart. Carrie Barron. Oh, that was such a brain fart. And... So, what's her name? I'm sorry. Sorry? What's the lady's... What's the lady's name on that? Her name is Carrie. Oh, Carrie. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, like, she is, you know, doing really cool stuff. She is cool. So, why not just show that kind of stuff? You know, why not have contextually, yes, this is a woman doing really cool things. And then it's like, it's not as in your face, oh, you have to be styling and profiling kind of thing. Exactly. I'm shopping. It's like, oh, come on. It's like women do really cool engineering things every day. Why not just show off the engineering thing?

Dave Jones: Exactly. You don't need to show off that they can dress up and go to, you know, freaking ball or something like that. It's ridiculous. Right. Yeah. I don't like that at all. And you just know that they're going to choose the hot looking ones, right? They're going to choose the bimbos, the hot ones to show, oh, look, you can still be a really traditional kind of, yeah, it's hard to explain, but it's hard to use the right word.

Chris Gammell: It's just crazy. If I was going to watch that show, I would watch it for the engineering stuff. And maybe it's, obviously it's not marketed towards me, but why not just do, show some awesome engineering things? Absolutely. Have it as a group of women doing that. And then contextually, young ladies who watch that show, they'll be like, oh my God, they're doing really cool things. Exactly. Why does there need to be this style element to it?

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, yeah, every girl knows that. Well, you know, I can still be a girl. I can still, you know, go out and do girly type things without, yeah, it's just nuts. It's just, you know, it's something you enjoy doing. It's, you know, it's either a hobby or it's a career or something else or both. And it's just, yeah, it's nuts. But you know, that's the way it's going to go. And they've got some, yeah, and they've got some clips on there of, you know, of people. And Nerd Girls actually, I've actually seen them before. Oh, really? Because I think it might have been through the IEEE website or something. They've got videos or something. There you go. They might be useful for something. I don't know. Maybe. I saw it somewhere. I saw their videos. And Nerd Girls has apparently been around. It's a group. Oh, is it? Yes. It's a group of girls, engineering students. And they're from some university. I don't know. There's so many universities in the US. But some universities, it's not one of the big name ones, I don't think. But yeah, they formed this group called Nerd Girls. It was quite a few years ago. And they work on, you know, they were building a solar power car or something. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I watched like a 15-minute doco on it. And they were, yeah, they were, you know, how they spent years building this, you know. And at the end of the documentary, they still hadn't finished it yet. So, yeah. Yeah, but anyway, yeah, Nerd Girls was this existing group. And I guess some, you know, TV channel or, you know, is it? Who's the channel? Who's the channel behind?

Chris Gammell: I thought it was internet TV. I thought it was internet TV.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay. Well, anyway, yeah, somebody's behind it. They've latched onto it and gone, oh, yeah, let's get some hot-looking chicks with boobs on there. And, you know, and it's like, no, I really enjoyed seeing the, you know, the other women just doing real engineering.

Chris Gammell: That was so much better, you know? I mean, I think a lot of it might be like the Hollywood style. I mean, like you look at Hollywood style shows and stuff like that. And obviously, a lot of the Hollywood style shows, they favor attractiveness over other things anyway. So, if that's the case, they're screwed from the beginning. But I think at least my final rant on it or my final point is I'm not trying to hate on women in engineering because I think it's a really wonderful thing. But I think this show is going about it in completely the wrong direction. Yeah, I think so, too. Yeah. You got to, I mean, start getting young ladies interested from an early age doing, you know, projects and general interests and stuff like that. And change the paradigm by, you know, having these women come up through engineering because they love it. Not because they are in it and, oh, well, you know, anyone can do this and don't worry, you can be stylish, too. No, that's wrong. I think you have to do it with general interest and like, you know, that inquisitiveness that you would watch in a program like Mythbusters or something like that, you know? So, oh, man, I got worked up over that. I got to say.

Dave Jones: I can hear it. There we are. Chris is going internally berserk.

Chris Gammell: God, yeah, I guess so.

Dave Jones: Oh, there you go. But, you know, I love Kari Byron, you know, I think she's so cool, you know, and you've seen her on Mythbusters. She's been on there for donkey's years now. She's got all these spin-off shows now. Oh, really? Yeah. She's doing some kids science show now where she does science projects for kids and things like that, you know? And she's just really cool. And she doesn't try and be, you know, some stylish chick. She's just, you know, she's just doing cool stuff just like Jamie and Adam and the other Mythbusters. But, yeah, she's female. Well, who cares? Yeah, she's a bit better to look at than Jamie, for example. Who is it, right? But still, well, yeah. I can't talk. But, yeah. But, yeah, it's just cool. Just do cool stuff and people will like it. That's it. You know? You don't need to be, you know.

Chris Gammell: Seriously, just blow some stuff up and you'll be sad. Yeah, just blow some shit up.

Dave Jones: That's it. That's the way to do it. Yeah. And on to our, we've got another rant as well. Oh, yeah. I think that's enough of girls there. Let's go on to how that, it's a fundamental issue, I guess, in the, not just in our industry. It's probably any, in many industries, how that, those, the people who get paid the most are not the engineers who develop the actual product. It would be the people who market it and sell the product. So, if you're designing, you know, an oscilloscope or something, you won't get, you know, you'll get paid half of what the guy selling the oscilloscope gets. You know?

Chris Gammell: It's just cool marketing. Yeah, it's a, it's a good example even, like, you think about movies, you know, like, you could be, I mean, obviously not like the biggest movie stars, but a good example would be like, say, say you're in the Blair Witch Project, that crappy little movie that came out that, you know, $60,000 and they made millions. Well, if you don't have it in your contract at the beginning that, you know, it's going to all come back to you, you know, as like some percentage of the sales, then, then you're screwed. But if you're the, you know, the executive that is, that just quote unquote discovered this movie, oh, well. Exactly. You get $3.4 million. Why wouldn't you discover this awesome movie that you did nothing to do about it? I mean, like. Yeah. Yeah. What can you do? I mean. Talk about Chris getting worked up today. I mean, man. I want to overload this microphone. Yeah.

Dave Jones: He's in a frenzy.

Chris Gammell: I guess, yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, you know, but that's, that's just the way the world works. I mean, you know, I, I don't know if there's any way to change that really to fundamentally change, you know, just, just the way the market works. And.

Chris Gammell: Well, you could though. I mean, you could write it into a contract, right? So, you know, it would have to go both ways though. So you think about like even stock traders and stuff like that. They always just get the upside. They never have the downside where they, they get punished for bad performance. But, you know, you can do that with a product kind of thing where if you're designing an oscilloscope and you have a team of 20 people, everybody on the team gets 0.5% of revenue. Well, not revenue. I mean, maybe, maybe revenue. Maybe if it's such a ridiculously awesome new product that maybe it would be in a contract like that, you know?

Dave Jones: Well, yeah, I can only, I can see that only working at small companies. You know, if you're working at Agilent or somebody like that or Fluke, you know, I can't see that happening. You know, it's just, that's big company mentality, you know? And it's just, there's a pecking order, you know? Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's, yeah, it's distributed. I mean, there's distributed load and distributed, you know, who's working on what. So, that obviously hurts a lot too, but.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And, you know, and those people do their job too, you know, marketing, sales, you can bag them all they like, but they've got a job to do. But, yeah, when they're earning twice as much as the guy who actually designed it, you know, you've got to say, well. Right.

Chris Gammell: Well, it's a question of who's, I mean, where's the value there? And, I mean, obviously, you've got to sell it. And there's, that happens with a lot of startups where they don't even think about that. They're like, oh, we'll just have a great product. Like, well, okay, maybe, but you've got to sell it. But, on the same side of things, it's like, well, is it, I mean, is how the world works right now? Is that how it should always be? I don't know. I mean.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Well, like, you know, there's ways to change it, you know? Go to small companies. And, yes, you will get, you know, you will get a percentage. But it's usually done via stock options or something like that. Yeah. It's usually done by other mechanisms. Like, some companies offer a return. If the company makes a profit, then all the employees get a cut of the profit. You know, there's a shareholder return. There's an employee return, you know, kind of thing. And that's fairly popular in the industry for employees to, you know. And then it's hard. Well, how do you scale how much everyone gets, you know? I mean.

Chris Gammell: Well, yeah, there's two.

Dave Jones: Yeah. And at my previous company, they did that. I think they did that reasonably well. Like, if the company made a profit at the end of the year, then everyone got a fixed amount as a base. And then on top of that, it's scaled X percentage based on your salary. So, if you weren't, you know, so everyone would get, say, you know, $1,000 or something. And then on top of that would be a percentage of your salary. So, if you earn $100,000 a year, you'll get more than a guy who only earns $50,000 a year. And the reasoning behind that is that the person who earns more typically has more responsibility within the company. And so, you know. So, they're trying to make it fair in that they scale your, try to scale your worth within the company based on your salary. And then add that to a fixed base, which I thought was, you know, quite a reasonable way to do it. I can't think of any better. Yeah, that's good. I mean, I don't know.

Chris Gammell: Maybe that doesn't happen everywhere. But, I mean, it's just a matter of when you're actually getting a commission for a sale, right? That's different than, you know, you can't get. Yeah. How do you pay a commission back to someone who designed it? You know. Yeah, exactly. Obviously, the way that you were just talking about is a good way to do it. But, anyways.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I don't see any solution there. It's one of those age-old problems that, well, you know, you get into the engineering for the love of it. If you're in engineering for the money, get out now. That's right. Seriously. I mean, you can earn a decent living in engineering, you know. But, I mean, you know, you're not going to get rich through it. No. That's for sure.

Chris Gammell: And if you really want to make a lot of money, I mean, you do what I want to talk about next, which is, you know, make and produce and market and sell your own product.

Dave Jones: Do your own stuff. Yeah. If you do everything, you get all the money. Yeah, exactly. There's a fair bit. You know, there's a lot of people out there who think that you have to, you know, go full-time at something like that, you know. Right. And that's just guaranteed to fail. If you'll just start out, you know, part-time in your garage and, you know, and just let it build. And then there's zero risk, you know. Yeah. I just laugh at all these people who, you know, quit their job and they borrow money and they go and get, you know, they go and rent a shop somewhere. And they, you know, you're like the odds of failing are like seriously like 90%, you know, of businesses like that fail in the first five years. It's just crazy.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's, ah, your odds are stupid. Yeah, because cash flow is such a hard problem there. Cash flow and, yeah. But if you just start off, you know, if you buy 500 bucks worth of parts and you sell, you know, 2,000 bucks worth of, you know, you sell, you know, you sell 100 of your little products, cost you 500 bucks and you get a $5,000 return. Well, you made some money that funds your next production run and your next product and so on.

Chris Gammell: And it just builds up. And to be realistic about that, I mean, the $5,000 or the $4,500 you're making there, you're probably working the equivalent of, you know, $18,000 worth of money, you know. Oh, yeah. Because you're working in your garage at night. Yeah. And that's got to be the labor of love kind of thing.

Dave Jones: Labor of love kind of thing. Yeah. Don't, yeah. Yeah. That's the delusion you get is that, oh, yeah, I'm making all this money. But no, look at the amount of, you know, if you went out and actually worked a second job, you'd probably get paid more. So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Or some dishes somewhere.

Dave Jones: So, you do it for the love of it and do it for the thing down the track where, you know, you could possibly potentially take it full time, you know, once it takes off. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Why not, right?

Dave Jones: Things like that. Or you just have a hobby income. I mean, yeah. I mean, here in Australia, I don't know what it's like in the US, but there is no tax on hobby income. So, if you do something as a hobby, it's a very, it's a bit of a blurred term, but it basically means no reasonable expectation to make a profit. So, you know, it depends on how you want to go about it.

Chris Gammell: So, just keep your expectations low and you can make millions.

Dave Jones: Keep your expectations low and stuff like that. Or, you know, but you can always argue that, you know, if you took it as a full, you know, you might earn, you know, $20,000 a year from something like that. Yeah. But you might argue, no, I've put so much time, effort and passion into it as a hobby that really if I did it full time and charged, you know, if I set up a company and paid myself a wage, I'd be making a loss every year. And the tax department doesn't like that. So, they'll go, okay, it's just hobby. Okay, it's just a hobby.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, there are, you know, you're allowed to earn a certain amount, which is really quite good. So, you can start off there and, yeah. All the more reason to get something published because then you can say, oh, look, I got it published in a hobby magazine. It's a hobby. There you go. So, a little backdoor tip there.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's just for the Aussies out there, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yes, I think so.

Chris Gammell: So, I had an idea, actually. Jeff Kaiser from Mighty Home, he had commented on our site that he wanted to hear more about actual projects. And so, I was actually thinking about a new idea for one. It was kind of, well, not kind of, it was straight up inspired by the Lady Ada project. They're doing a PID controller for the reflow oven. Yep. Have you seen that? Yep. And they're doing that, actually, with AC power because they're going to do, like, you know, 600 watt, 200 watts. Oh, yeah, it's your experience.

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right, right. So, I wanted to do one with a, just a pretty simple thing, just Arduino. I wanted to do a FET, you know, driving a FET, and then just through a copper wire with a known, or with a voltage source. Yeah. And just have, then have a temperature controller back to the Arduino and then use a PID or similar to try and control that. And basically, you would kill a battery or a power source, whatever, but you would know the temperature of this wire. And so, you could add little temperature add-ons wherever you needed to. So, if you needed to balance out something like the Lady Ada project or anything, or any other kind of temperature source, you'd burn out a lot of power probably. But, you know, this would be a DC solution as opposed to AC. So, what do you think about that?

Dave Jones: Excellent. Well, as I always say with project ideas like this, don't talk about it. Do it. Just go out and do it.

Dave Jones: You know, there's one thing, yeah, and not just as an aside, you know, there's one thing I hate is people just talking about stuff, you know. Just, geez, go and do it. Jump into it.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, head first.

Chris Gammell: Well, that's next.

Dave Jones: Go for it. There you go.

Chris Gammell: All right. All right. Excellent.

Dave Jones: Excellent.

Chris Gammell: Any updates on your secretive project?

Dave Jones: No, I'm working on a project and I don't, I lose interest a lot and I only do like an hour spurt here or there. Just do it, Dave. I know. It's hard to get it finished. I've got many, many, many things on the boil and, you know, it's, yeah, I jump around like a hot potato. So, I do lots of things. I know this. This American keep calling you every day. I'm not sure if you can hear it, but, yeah, somebody's trying to call me. Uh-oh. Oops.

Chris Gammell: That's the government saying it's actually not hobbyist income that James has been getting.

Speaker ?: Oh, right.

Dave Jones: Geez. It's, yes, the tax department monitoring method. Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: They're listening in before anyone else.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: So, let's see what else we had on here. Transformers versus switchers I had on there. Do you do a lot of transformer design?

Dave Jones: No, not much. I haven't done transformer design for quite a few years now. You know, I did a bit as part of, you know, custom DC to DC converters and stuff like that. Certainly not big power transformers, as I've said before. I'm not really into big power electronics and things like that.

Chris Gammell: Oh, you mean like AC?

Dave Jones: Yeah, like big, huge, you know, 500-watt, you know, switching power supply or something like that. Right, right, right, right. I'm not really into that sort of thing.

Chris Gammell: Oh, no, I just meant like just straight power transformer because it seems like the trend is moving towards switchers. You've talked about switchers on your show on EEV blog before. But, you know, a lot of the ways people did that before is you'd, you know, get power from the wall, either 120 here or it's 220 there, right? Yep. Yeah, so, and then you'd switch it down or you'd put it through transformer, get your turns ratio, and then put it into a rectifier and then into some caps.

Dave Jones: Yeah, standard filter caps, standard linear power supply stuff, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Right, yeah. So, I mean, and that still happens a lot. But, you know, as we move towards mobile type stuff, there's no chance you're going to have a transformer in there unless you're carrying it in a backpack.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. Well, interestingly, the government actually banned those type of plug packs here in Australia. It's ridiculous.

Chris Gammell: Oh. Yeah. Well, those are actually really, those are really bad. I mean, those are really inefficient.

Dave Jones: Yeah, they're inefficient, but there's no reason to ban them. I mean, it's just, you know.

Chris Gammell: Well, no, there is, though. There is a reason to ban them because they, even when there's nothing, so say, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know the standby power and the whole energy thing, but, you know, there's more things you can spend, you know, you can spend your energy on. You know, like actually designing good switches and just let the market naturally take out. There's no reason to actually ban them. Like they banned light bulbs. They banned incandescent light bulbs here in Australia.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, they do that here, too.

Dave Jones: It's ridiculous. And they just put a blanket ban thinking that, oh, they're all the same. And then they don't realize that, you know, some things you can't put a compact fluoro in, you dickhead.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: So, it's just, when you start banning stuff without understanding all of the issues, you know, it's just crazy, really.

Chris Gammell: Well, I don't disagree with that, but I think the transformer thing, at least, is because, you know, you think about every, if so, if every person in Australia had a cell phone and it came with a charger.

Dave Jones: I know, it's a cumulative, yeah. I've mentioned this on forums before. I've gone through and done the math and things like that. But I've measured some of the new Energy Star compliant switching converters. And they have a standby power of 0.1 watts, which, you know, I think is fantastic, you know. Yeah, that's pretty good. I just have a problem with banning the old ones. I just think it's stupid, you know, because there are niche applications where they're going to be useful and to ban them and not understand those niche applications. Whereas switch is not, you know, you can't use a switcher. You know, they aren't a universal solution.

Chris Gammell: No, no, I agree with that completely because, I mean, like, yeah, you're right. Kind of giving that blanket ban is not a good idea. But I think that in general, you know, like, in terms of what people are going to do and especially what China is going to do in terms of what they ship with a product, it's a hell of a lot cheaper for them to throw in a, you know, a 30-cent transformer wall wart that, you know, they ship with every other phone. You know, they ship with old Motorola Razors that they're actually buying in the black market than to go out and design a new power switcher. So I think that's what they're really targeting. I'm not really coming down on one side or the other for banning stuff. But I think, you know, you got to try and control the cheapo manufacturers. That's what you're really trying to influence in the end. Obviously, the niche stuff gets really hurt.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it does. And that's, yeah, that's a problem I have with it.

Chris Gammell: But yeah, there you go. It's interesting, though. The other thing I want to say about transformers is, you know, there's a lot of, you know, like you look at engineers from, 40 years ago or even just hobbyists and stuff, right? That was like a huge thing because, you know, you really had to do that stuff. That was one of the main sources of power because switching chips just weren't an option. And so there's a lot of knowledge there. And now you look out there and there's, I mean, I took E&M kind of courses in school. But, you know, like just in terms of the general knowledge about designing a transformer or even winding your own transformer.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. It's a lot of.

Chris Gammell: It's just, it's not there anymore. So it's interesting and it's useful. It's really useful to have because you can do a lot of cool stuff. But I think that knowledge is kind of drifting off to maybe the dark corners of the internet.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's a pretty specialized knowledge actually designing, you know, a transformer for your custom app. You know, it's actually getting it right and making it as most efficient as you can and lowest cost of the smallest size. And there's lots of trade-offs and, you know, and yeah, it is complex business. And it's a very niche kind of field. So, yeah, I think your average engineer wouldn't, you know, have a average electronics engineer wouldn't have a clue how to design their own transformers from scratch. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, you know, it's one of those niche things that you traditionally don't have to do that often, you know, if you're into that sort of thing. Because, you know, you can buy off-the-shelf ones, you can buy complete switching modules and stuff like that.

Chris Gammell: That's the new standard because there's always companies that are like built into that market now where they really want you to buy them.

Dave Jones: Yeah, and they do it well, you know. And there's, you know, it's one of those things you've got to put twice as much work into it to gain an extra 1% efficiency in something like that, you know. So, the amount of – and tweaking it, you know, and getting it just right and the interwinding capacitance and all that sort of stuff. And getting it, you know, there's an art to actually – there's an art to getting it. Anyone can do it and make it work. But, you know, is it going to be, you know, is it going to be as efficient as it can be? You know, there might be people who, you know, specialize in, you know, eking an extra, you know, 1% efficiency out of a DC to DC converter design. And, you know, that's –

Chris Gammell: Right, and if that's where the market's going, you know, like Energy Star and all of those other regulations, that that's going to be a very needed skill in the coming years too. So, you know, learn your transformers, learn your switchers, people. We need designers in here right now. We do indeed.

Dave Jones: And that's about all we have for the show today because our what hour is up. Our amp hour is up. Our 3,600 full ohms are up.

Chris Gammell: Which I spelled wrong last time apparently.

Dave Jones: Yes, yes, I noticed that. Yes, you did. Cool. I will. It's one of those tricky words, you know, it's got O's and U's and stuff, you know.

Chris Gammell: Right, like color, right, Dave?

Dave Jones: Yeah, color, exactly.

Chris Gammell: Yes. Color. Color. That's right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, there's a few fundamental differences between yanks there. Color is one of them.

Chris Gammell: Ah, yes. Like how you say patents. Patents. Patents.

Dave Jones: Patents. Patent. Patent. Patent. Patent. Patent. Yes. I'll have to ask my brother-in-law because he's a patent attorney. I wonder how he says it. So, he's Australian but he's a... You just said patent there. You said patent. Patent. You didn't say patent. Ah, well, I'd probably switch between them depending on the, you know, the intonation of my sentence or whatever but yeah.

Chris Gammell: USA. USA.

Dave Jones: There you go. Well, thanks for joining us everyone.

Chris Gammell: Yes. Thank you. It's been another good one. We really enjoy you listening. So, tell your friends, please.

Dave Jones: Yes, please. And we'll see you next time.

Chris Gammell: Bye-bye.