#78 – Alteritous Andy's Absquatulation

Chris Gammell: This is the App Hour Podcast, recorded January 16th, 2012. Episode 78, Alteritus Andes Ebsquatulation.

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

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

Dave Jones: Hey, Chris. We started a bit late today.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, a little bit late.

Dave Jones: We're both busy, busy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, man. It seems like they just keep piling on, all these projects I want to work on and everything.

Dave Jones: All right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You went on a field trip today.

Chris Gammell: I did.

Dave Jones: Are you allowed to talk about that? Anything exciting?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I had the day off today, actually.

Dave Jones: Oh, wow.

Chris Gammell: Well, today's...

Dave Jones: Jeez, you've only just started, you slack-ass-ing already.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It was... No, it's actually a holiday here. It's Martin Luther King Day in the U.S.

Dave Jones: Oh, right. Okay. Is that nationwide or is it state-based?

Chris Gammell: It's a national holiday, but it's... I'm not sure if it's a bank holiday. I think it's a bank holiday, but not every company gets it off. I didn't used to get it off.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. Right.

Chris Gammell: I know a lot of colleges are starting classes tomorrow.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: So, I had it off today, and that was a little different for me. But my friend, who was involved at the MC Squared STEM School here in Cleveland, so it's STEM, you know, STEM and, like, science, technology, engineering, math. Yeah. And so, like, there's this really great school here. And there's actually, like, there's actually four and a half fab labs in Cleveland.

Dave Jones: Four and a half. Okay. Do tell.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, there's one at Lorain County Community College.

Dave Jones: One's just abandoned and disused, is it?

Chris Gammell: No, no, no, no. So, there's one at the community college, but that's, like, an hour and 15 minutes away from me, so I don't want to go to that.

Dave Jones: You have a fab at a community college?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Actually, that was one of the first ones. A fab lab, yeah. Unbelievable. But it's open to the public. It's great. What? Yeah. So, anyone can go there. It's great. I love it. Anyone, why, go there and just, like, view through the glass, just peer through the glass, or? No, you can go there, and if you take their intro class, like, the hour-long training at the beginning, you can go use their epilogue laser or their shop bot or anything like that. It's great.

Dave Jones: Wow. Jeez. Nothing like that here.

Chris Gammell: Oh, well, maybe you should get one. And this is all based off Neil Gershenfeld's idea. Actually, I'm reading that book right now, too, as luck would have it. It's a book called Fab.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: But anyway, so that's one of the four and a half here in Cleveland. The other three and a half are, there's three at these STEM schools that are part of Cleveland Public Schools, and actually, I know the guy that runs all of them. And then the half is actually a mobile Fab Lab, so they call that a half Fab Lab, because, you know, you can't fit a shop bot into a truck trailer kind of thing.

Dave Jones: This just gets more ridiculous. Now you're saying you've got fabs in, what, schools?

Chris Gammell: Oh, you know I'm talking fab labs, right? These are like hacker spaces. These aren't like fabs. Oh, right. Okay. That makes more sense now? Right. Okay.

Dave Jones: That's why I'm, jeez, absolutely astonished.

Chris Gammell: Right. That would be very...

Dave Jones: Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that'd be very expensive, especially a mobile chip fab.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Trucky.

Dave Jones: Okay. Got it. All right. We're on the same page now. Yeah, okay. Right. Hackerspace. Right.

Chris Gammell: It's not a hackerspace, though, because it's for schools. Well. It's for... Well, yeah. And there's like this kit, basically. It's got stuff. Yeah, it's a shop. Yeah, it's a shop. Yeah. All right. And there's a kit that MIT, you know, suggests all the different components. All these fab labs, rather, have all the same pieces of gear. And so then they actually develop curriculum for different schools.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah. That's where I was today. I was playing with a shop bot. Just hanging out. I was playing with a shop bot and hanging out. And actually met some cool people. I might talk about them more later. But, yeah. It was great. It was a great time. So, I'm very lucky to have known... I know that I know the people here.

Dave Jones: I missed out on the Maker Fair, the first Australian Maker Fair on the weekend. Yeah. Unfortunately, it was in Melbourne. And, yeah. Circumstances meant I couldn't go. But, yeah. Yeah. Maybe in Sydney.

Chris Gammell: When it comes to Sydney, maybe you'll be able to go. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It'll come to Sydney. Rumor has it there might be another one this year in Melbourne. Oh, great. So, if it is, I'll be sure to actually make the effort. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I saw the video. There was a video about that, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah, there was. And it looked quite good. I was actually surprised at the size and the depth of it, given that it was the first Maker Fair. And it was organized in like four weeks or something. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Amazing. So, yeah. I'd love to know like the actual numbers, you know, how many people actually turned up and how many visitors. But it looked, you know, pretty darn good. So, I'm very impressed. Very excited that it'll take off. But it's no surprise that that was in Melbourne instead of Sydney. Melbourne have more of a culture for that sort of stuff. You know, they're more arty and cultural than Sydney, you know. So, I'm sure you've got cities like that where some cities are just more, you know, vibrant and cultural and have events like that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, I mean, you could see the other Maker Faires that are around here. I mean, there's a lot more in the Bay Area than there are in Cleveland. I mean, there's one in Detroit. Detroit wouldn't necessarily. I mean, Detroit's on the upswing, I think, personally. But that was more, I think, based around the car museum there and the auto industry there. Sure. But like New York, Austin. Austin's where I used to live. Great city. Yep. A lot of different cities that are artsy and, you know, have the right kind of situation for a mini Maker Faire. So, yeah, that's great. Hopefully, Sydney will get one, though. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's what I'm hoping for. But if not, I'll go to the next Melbourne one. Definitely.

Chris Gammell: Cool, cool, cool.

Dave Jones: You're a ham, apparently.

Chris Gammell: I am. I passed my exam. I think it was actually two weeks ago. It was right before.

Dave Jones: Oh, okay. But we didn't mention on last week's show because we had our guest on.

Chris Gammell: Right. And that was wonderful. So, thanks again to Howard if he's listening. Yes, indeed. If people haven't listened to it, it's, I'd say, probably one of our best episodes, would you say?

Dave Jones: I would say so, too. Yeah. I've got to mention, I didn't tell you this, but I posted it on the Psy Electronics news group. I saw that, actually. I saw that. Oh, you did? Yeah. Okay. And, of course, there's a few people on there who come out who have it against him and, oh, his book is shit and all that sort of stuff. Well, where's your one?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Right. Right. That is the best response to have. Yeah, they're all talk. Yeah. Oh, well. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, you know, there's errors in there, I'm sure. But, geez, you know, it doesn't become the industry standard text if all of it's complete baloney.

Andy: Right.

Dave Jones: So, it's just, yeah, rubbish. Anyway, there's people like that in every crowd.

Chris Gammell: Of course. But, yeah.

Dave Jones: Back it up, guys. Come on.

Chris Gammell: What do you mean, back it up? Like, back up your claims? Back it up. Don't just, yeah, back up your claims. Like, you show a page number.

Dave Jones: Actually write a paper and, you know, post it. And show what's wrong. And, actually, Howard, in his book, at the start of the book, actually says there will no doubt be errors in this book. And the first person to quote, to find a particular error and tell me about it so I can fix it, will get a signed certificate of appreciation that they've found a bug. So, come on.

Chris Gammell: Nice. Do it. Wasn't there a programming book like that as well? Well, we're, the author kept saying, you know, if you find a bug and you write to me about it and it's a legitimate bug, I'll give you, like, a certificate.

Dave Jones: Yeah, and you got, like, a special dollar note or something. Oh, that's what it was. Who was it? That's right. I can't remember who it was.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I'm going to have to look that up.

Dave Jones: We've mentioned that on here way back, like a year ago, I'm sure. Was it? Yeah, probably. Okay. And, yeah, I can't remember. I'm sure our audience will know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I'm sure, too. Yeah.

Dave Jones: But, yeah, that was cool. And, apparently, they're highly sought after.

Chris Gammell: The Don Neuth reward check. That's what it is. Ah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. The art of computer programming.

Dave Jones: One Neuth. Yes. That's a great idea, though.

Chris Gammell: I think that's a good way to, you know, bring your constituents in and, yeah. Yeah, it's fantastic. 256 cents corresponds to one hexadecimal dollar.

Dave Jones: Brilliant. Yep. Oh, boy. I love it. That's awesome. Do we have any shout-outs this week?

Chris Gammell: No. Well, me? I don't know. I got my hand. Were we done talking about that? I don't know, man.

Dave Jones: No, we weren't. No, we got sidetracked, as usual. Yeah. What is your call sign?

Chris Gammell: My call sign is KD8RND. Awesome. And, as was pointed out to me on Twitter this week, it's kind of a cool call sign because it's RND.

Dave Jones: Yes, it is. Yeah. I agree. But that was random, was it? Yes. That was just randomly. Yes, it was totally random. Okay. Well, that's pretty good.

Chris Gammell: Nothing to do with it. Yeah. So, it was lucky, I guess. Oh, well.

Dave Jones: So, KD is your state?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's how it works? No, the 8 is actually the area of the country.

Dave Jones: Oh, area.

Chris Gammell: KD refers to the license class, I believe.

Dave Jones: Right. So, the area can include multiple states, can it?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think so. I think 9 was California or something like that.

Dave Jones: Right. And would, can you get a different area in the same state?

Chris Gammell: I don't know.

Dave Jones: Have they actually got the boundaries like as in like a longitude or something?

Chris Gammell: No, no, no, no. You can actually, and you can get a, you can get like a vanity call sign. That's what Jeff did actually. Yeah. So, he got like W6 ohm. Yeah. So, he's not in 6, I don't think. Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: So, he wasn't in that area, but he could still get it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I didn't know you could do that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, yeah, like it's like vanity plates too. You know, you got to pay more or whatever, but I don't know. I'm more focusing on, excuse me, actually using a radio at some point. We'll see if that happens first.

Dave Jones: Now, is your call sign going on your business card?

Chris Gammell: No. Oh, no. Have you seen that before?

Dave Jones: I, probably once or twice, but I just think it'd be a cool idea.

Chris Gammell: I think it goes on my resume, I think.

Dave Jones: Right, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I don't know. All right.

Chris Gammell: That's, I'll have to see.

Dave Jones: Do your new company allow you to put things like that on your business card, or is it really strict and you're not allowed to put anything? You know, it's just a scamble. I don't know. That's it.

Chris Gammell: I just put my cards, like my request in the other day. So I put my mobile number on it. So I don't know if they at least let me do that. Which I think is a very good thing to do, too. If people don't do that out there, you know, it's not that big. If you're handing out a card to someone, just give them your mobile number because it's a nice thing to do. I don't know.

Dave Jones: I've got my mobile number on mine. No one's ever called me. Right. Exactly. They never do.

Chris Gammell: But if they need to, right? I mean, because I've had situations before where I try and look someone, especially like vendors or anything like that. You better have, you know, if you ever want to see any of my dollars, you'd better have your mobile number on there. But yeah. I don't know. I think it's a good idea. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Well, see, I'm not that fast because I don't call humans on the phone. You know, that's just so... You don't ever? Really? You know? No, I prefer to send emails. Oh, man. I'm not a phone talker.

Chris Gammell: I've gone the other direction. You know, like email is just so... Such a shot in the dark sometimes. If you get someone's phone number, like voicemail... You've got them. They've got to respond. Right. Exactly. And if you catch them at the time, I mean, even if you just say, hey, can you know, I know this might not be the best time, but can we set up a time later? I don't know. I try and impress it on people when they're looking for jobs too, like engineers or even non-engineers. You know, you've got to get on the phone, I think. Now, granted...

Dave Jones: There are circumstances where, yes, you do. But as a general thing, I prefer to send an email rather than call someone.

Chris Gammell: I do too, just because it's convenient for people. But if I have something I need to get done or, you know, like if I'm trying to find a vendor... You know, if I'm trying to find a chip vendor, right? I want to call them. I don't want to send an email because that is just way too easy to ignore. And I will not be ignored.

Speaker ?: Right.

Dave Jones: No, yeah. I just don't like... You know, unless it's urgent, you know, I really need something now. You know, I'm not going to call them. I'm going to send an email. Right? Yeah. So it's just... Yeah. Depends on the importance. I guess so.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Whenever. Shall we talk about...

Chris Gammell: We should.

Dave Jones: A YouTube... A YouTube thing. A YouTube thing.

Chris Gammell: A sad YouTube. I'm really sad about this.

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's... Well, it's... I was sad at first, but then once you realize why he did it, you actually... Well, I feel quite happy for him. So... All right.

Chris Gammell: Well, why don't you explain what it is so our listeners know?

Dave Jones: His name is Andy. He's the Photonic Induction Guy. Yeah, that's his channel name, Photonic. Induction. And he's a famous YouTuber.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, he's the guy that... He's from the UK. He's got a very distinct accent. And basically, he blows stuff up with electricity. That's the easiest way to say it, I think.

Dave Jones: Yep. That's pretty much it. And lasers and stuff like that. And, you know, he shines lasers into his camera and kills his pixels. And all sorts of, you know, weird and wonderful stuff. And he's big. I mean, he's got a much bigger channel than I do. He's got 20,000 or had 20,000 plus subscribers. You know, six or eight million views or something at least. I'm not sure exactly how many. I can't get the stats anymore because he's just upped and closed his account completely.

Chris Gammell: Closed up shop.

Dave Jones: You know, he just did it one day. And when you do that, you remove all your videos. You can't get your channel back. He actually shut his partner channel down. So, you know, he will never get that back unless he works from scratch again. And it's, you know, it's just a really major thing to do.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's all gone. It's gone. Yeah. And it's probably, what, two or three years worth of videos? I mean, he was on there for a while.

Dave Jones: Yeah, about two or three years. Yeah. And he didn't tell anyone why. So there's a lot of speculation. Oh, the government came in and shut him down and, you know, all sorts of things. So there's a lot of speculation. But he did actually come back and he did a short video and left it only up for a couple of hours. Right. A short video. Left it up there for a couple of hours explaining why. And then he pulled that down too. Right.

Chris Gammell: And then someone reposted it though. So we'll actually, we'll have that reposted video.

Dave Jones: And he does now have another channel where the video is there of him explaining stuff.

Speaker ?: So.

Chris Gammell: And so what was your take on it? It was because of spending time. It was like he didn't want to deal with it anymore. I think that was it basically.

Dave Jones: Well, I actually watched his two videos where he explained it. And from memory, please correct me if I'm wrong. But yeah, he was, he originally started the channel where he just wanted to show his experiments to people who were knowledgeable in the same thing. He never wanted it to be a big channel. You know, he just wanted to share his, you know, wacky experiments with other knowledgeable people, not with beginners and stuff like that. But unfortunately, his videos went viral. You know, some got a couple of million views and, you know. Yeah. And then everyone started complaining, oh, about the safety and everything else.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so dangerous. Oh, he's going to kill himself. It's like, no, he does this for a living. Oh, you're a nutter. Yeah. Well, he is crazy, but in a good way.

Dave Jones: In a good way. I actually, yeah, like the first time you watch him, you go, oh, this guy's crazy. But then you sort of warm to him and he's quite funny. And his videos were quite good. Yeah. So, yeah, and we just got sick of it all.

Chris Gammell: We should say maybe don't turn your speakers up at work. He does swear like a British sailor. Right.

Dave Jones: Yes, he does. Yeah. Yeah, and he just got fed up with it. That was never his intention for the channel was for it to be so popular and to get all the abuse about, you know, safety and all that sort of stuff. Because he does take safety seriously, but he never shows it on the – rarely shows it in the videos. Right, yeah. So, and apparently he doesn't really know what he's doing, even though what he does is – can be construed as, you know, reasonably dangerous.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I was figuring he probably did like high voltage design stuff. I mean, he was – he definitely had the gear. Like he was digging through a trash bin of – you know, he had like highly insulated, you know, pieces of equipment.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah, he generates, you know, hundreds of thousands of volts, you know, amps and just dumps massive amounts of energy from capacitor banks. And he does this up in his attic. Yeah, he did it all off 240, he says. Yeah, exactly. Didn't have a big three-phase supply or anything, but anyway, so he just got fed up with it all. He wasn't, you know, he wasn't happy. It was sucking his life away. And, you know, I can certainly understand. And he wants to get married and he wants to – Don't go away, Dave. I still enjoy it. It's okay.

Chris Gammell: All right. So one day you'll just go around the band.

Dave Jones: One day I might get jack of it too. And, you know, and seriously, I'm, you know, unless you're a YouTube – unless you're a content generator, you know, a content producer like him, you don't – it's very hard for you to understand the pressure.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: That – and, you know, I can certainly understand it. Yeah. You know, because I get the abuse. I get the hate mail. I get the death threats. I get, you know, everything. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, you know, I didn't mean to send you that email. You know, I meant to just let that sit in my – in my box, you know.

Dave Jones: Yeah. So, yeah, there's all sorts of nutters out there. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: So, yeah, while I agree with him, yeah, stop him. And he feels so – you can see the relief on his face, hearing in his voice that it's now all over and he can get on with his life and, you know, not have to worry about this shit anymore, as he says. Yep. And, yeah, I – so good luck to him. Definitely. Definitely. If he's listening. I doubt it. Because he's now has a life. So, he doesn't want to spend on the internet anymore.

Chris Gammell: Well, our listeners have a life, Dave. Come on.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. And he spent, you know, all the hours producing the videos and people just wanted more and more and more. And the pressure for him to produce more and more and more was, you know, phenomenal. Yeah. And there were people who were ripping off his ideas and capitalizing on them and he got fed up with all that. Yep. So, anyway, it's a shame, but I fully support him. I think he did it the wrong way, though. Yeah. I think he should have kept the channel open. Yeah. Sure. Take down your videos because he didn't want them. They were a safety issue, he thought. So, that's why he took them all down. He might put them back in the future with extra safety info, but he's not sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, why would you work up to get a partner channel like that? I mean, most YouTube video bloggers would be envious to have a channel with 20,000 subs and millions of views and partner status.

Chris Gammell: We really crossed Dave's threshold of YouTube and electronics and, like, dovetailed perfectly. Dave has lots of opinions on this. Oh, yes, I do.

Dave Jones: Anyway, I think he should have kept his channel because now somebody can hijack it. Yeah. And, you know, it doesn't leave you with any options anyway. Well, speaking of videos. No, sorry. No, I haven't finished. Oh, my God. And then, come on, I've got to tell the whole story. Okay. And then there were so many people re-uploading his videos that he had to come back on his second new channel and actually plead for people, please respect my copyright, do not upload my videos. And there's been some debate on the EEV blog forum about this, and I can't believe that some people actually don't support his right to actually do that. And I think that's bullshit. As a content producer, you have the right. You know, you should be afforded the respect as a content producer to take down your videos and not have people re-upload them.

Chris Gammell: I don't know, man. That doesn't work. It seems like that argument never works anywhere, right? Because it's like, oh, you put this out in the world. No, it's a respect thing, though. Right?

Dave Jones: No, it's – no, okay.

Chris Gammell: Well, because then people start saying, well, what if you design an electronics instrument that saved thousands of lives and then you said, oh, no one can make this anymore, right? Someone's going to eventually come up with that argument. No, no, no.

Speaker ?: Come on, no.

Dave Jones: Let's not get off track, right?

Chris Gammell: Oh, okay.

Dave Jones: No, no. Let's talk about the specific case, okay? Because I think it's important. I think it's a big topic, okay?

Chris Gammell: Well, for YouTube people.

Dave Jones: Well, no, just for anything, right? Okay. No. Well, no, right? Electronics content or video, you know, technical content production like this. It is unrealistic to expect people not to pirate your stuff, right? But as a content producer, you should have the right to be – you should be afforded the respect, especially from your fans, of them not re-uploading your material. If you come out and say, look, I would – you know, please respect my opinion. I produce this stuff. Please don't upload it. I may do so in the future. But, you know, please respect that. And for you not to, after hearing that, to go, oh, I think you're full of shit. I'm going to do it anyway. I think that is just – I think that is terrible. And, sure, if he just closed his account and you never heard from him again, you could argue it's fair game that you can upload his material again because he doesn't care. He's abandoned it, right? But when he's come out and actually said, no, I still care about this content and I don't want it uploaded, please. He's being – you know, he's not going to sue anyone. He's just asking politely. And for people to not respect that, I think, is terrible. So, anyway. And the only people who understand it are the content producers. I can guarantee you.

Chris Gammell: So, all four of you out there who are listening right now.

Dave Jones: That's right.

Chris Gammell: Who haven't shut off your show. Dave is on your side.

Dave Jones: Come on. You what? You don't agree?

Chris Gammell: I totally agree, but I just – this has gone like 10 minutes. Anyways, I'm sad to see him go. Let's talk about one of your actual videos. How about that? How's your MakerBot going?

Dave Jones: Jesus, if you – I thought I was talking too much about –

Chris Gammell: No, I said how's the MakerBot going. How's your – you started building one, right?

Dave Jones: No, I haven't started building it yet. I unboxed it. You saw the video.

Chris Gammell: Oh, I figured you might have built it too. It's just a way –

Dave Jones: God, as if I've got time to build it.

Chris Gammell: Oh, well. Okay. So, we'll check back in to see if you've ever built it.

Dave Jones: I'm trying to solicit help in building. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Well, speaking of that, speaking of the building of – I actually – so that's one of the – that's the guy I met at that – at the Fab Lab today. I met Rick of Maker Gear, which is actually –

Dave Jones: Can we call it something else? I don't like that name. It's so confusing with a chip fab.

Chris Gammell: Fab Lab.

Dave Jones: Is it actually called a Fab Lab or is that just your nickname for it?

Chris Gammell: Type in Fab Lab into Google. I guarantee it'll come up with the MIT thing. It's based on the book. It's confusing. Okay.

Dave Jones: I guess I'll just have to get used to it.

Chris Gammell: Sorry. Sorry.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Okay. Anyway, do tell.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, Rick from Maker Gear, though, he's – that's like another – they actually started because they started building part – like extruders that would work. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Surely the MakerBot ones work now, right? Or have I got a dud?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think so.

Dave Jones: Right. Okay.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I hope you didn't get a dud.

Dave Jones: Right. Well, it's Mark 7, isn't it? It's like the seventh revision. You think they would have got it – it would be reasonably refined by now.

Chris Gammell: Mm-hmm.

Dave Jones: Hmm.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, I don't know.

Dave Jones: And that's much cheaper than the MakerBot.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it was like $800 versus $1,200. Significantly cheaper.

Dave Jones: Once again, there's been some talk about that in the comments and on the forum about how expensive the MakerBot is. And it is. Yeah. And I'm not sure why. I don't know what their bill of materials cost is, but my guess is that they've just kept building this thing and refining it and gilding the lily until it works. And they haven't really taken a step back and go, right, we need to engineer this for cost now. Yeah. And, you know, I think that's what they need to do. Otherwise, they could find themselves in trouble. Right. Because I – you know, literally overnight, if somebody from China comes along with a – you know, a one that works pretty well and it's open and hackable and has good – or just has good software that works, then MakerBot's gone-ski. And so is everyone else, you know. Yeah. So is the RepRap and everyone else, you know. It's – it's just going to happen. It's just a matter of when. Yeah. Is it going to be next week, next month, next year? Yeah. And – It's certainly not five years down the track. It's – I sense it's very close.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I'm more interested in the – you know, like people have questioned us talking about 3D printing on here because we're not like a 3D printing show. We're an electronic show. But as an example, I mean, I've been doing 3D printing at work just because I'm expected to do packaging and electronics now. You know, like I think it's a very realistic thing that people will be doing packaging in the near future. Because if it doesn't need to look super pretty and you could print it on your desk, I mean, it wouldn't be a volume situation, but you could at least prototype.

Dave Jones: No, it would be – do protos. Yeah, of course.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. So that's what I've been doing.

Dave Jones: So do you have an in-house 3D printer?

Chris Gammell: Not yet. I am trying – Right. I am trying so hard to get one.

Dave Jones: But it's only about 10 grand for a really good commercial one, isn't it?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, about 15 grand with everything. 15? Right. And then like the cost – it's like $5 per cubic inch, which I didn't do the conversion. I ended up converting my – I actually was doing cubic centimeters.

Dave Jones: Why have they got gold-plated ABS plastic, do they? Well, cubic inch is – I don't know. A cubic inch ain't much. I mean, how much – it's only about $20 for a kilo of ABS plastic on a spool, isn't it?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, but these are – see, the problem with that is the newer – the expensive models that you get from actual vendors. Actual vendors? That came out wrong. From large-scale commercial systems. How about that? They're like – it's the HP model, like for printers.

Dave Jones: From the big boys, right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So you've got to buy the cartridges and everything. It sucks.

Dave Jones: Yeah, right.

Chris Gammell: But you get the coolness from it, basically. It's a powder and it does all this crazy stuff. But yeah, I think it is relevant for electronics, personally, because I mean, I think everyone's going to be doing it eventually just because of the continued expectation that engineers are everything engineers.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I agree. And I said it before and I'll say it again. I think 3D printer kits are gone.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah.

Dave Jones: They will be gone shortly. It will be at a price where it's just not economical to actually make it yourself. Yeah. And in talking to Rick today – You're better off. In talking to Rick today, he said – Oh, okay.

Chris Gammell: He said – you know, that's the trend they're seeing, too, because – Right. He said – he said, I spend 90% of my time helping people that shouldn't be building kits, basically, and 10% on the ones who are good at it and need to – and should be able to, you know, do the work. And so they spend so much time supporting that it becomes a very big hassle. And hassle is the wrong word, but a very big cost. How about that?

Dave Jones: Yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So, yeah, whatever.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. All right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Make a pot. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to actually having it built. I'm not looking forward to building it because it's probably going to take a day or two. Oh, man. Yeah. It's like, you know – yeah, if I had tons of free time, I'd love it, you know. I don't. So, unfortunately, hopefully I can get someone to help me.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. How's your power supply going?

Dave Jones: Yeah, it's going all right. I still haven't received my PCBs from IT Studios. It's ridiculous. I give up. Anyway, I'm doing a new version. So, I'm going to get the board made by a company in New Zealand. Really? I actually forget their name. I tweeted it the other day.

Chris Gammell: Playing nice with the Kiwis, huh, Dave?

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: All right. Anyway, they offered to make a board for me for free so I could try them out. Oh, cool. So, I'm going to do that. Nice. And their prices are pretty reasonable. I think it's like 90 bucks or something for like a double-sided proto board. But you get it in like three or four days. It's really – it's a fairly quick turn.

Chris Gammell: That's good.

Dave Jones: So, yeah.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that'll be a nice thing too, like kind of moving stuff local again too just to not have the wheat for the – or pay for the shipping. You pay for the shipping or wheat for the shipping, right? That's a big deal, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, shipping can be a problem. But also, yeah, it's just I want this kit to be as local as possible. So, I'm going to try and get the PCB manufactured in Australia or New Zealand. That's good enough, you know. Yeah. Same as Australia. Yeah, just anywhere but China. So, I'm trying to – Well, that's good, man. That's good. It's like my current kit, you know. The box is made in Australia. You know, it's assembled here. It's tested here.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah. How are you finding – I mean, is it – are you really struggling to find those locals? Right. And why are you doing that? Is that just a general principle?

Dave Jones: I want to make a statement. Yeah, it's a general principle. I just don't, you know, want to go down the China route and have it as cheap as possible. And if nobody buys it because it's too expensive, oh, well, you know, who cares, right? I don't care. You know, I'm not in it to make some, you know, multi-million dollar business selling freaking kits, you know. Yeah, yeah. If it was, yeah, I'd outsource the whole damn thing to China and I'd get it produced for the lowest possible cost at the lowest possible quality and just drop ship them.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, but I don't want to do that. So, yeah, it's a – yeah. So, I'm making a statement that, you know, I'm trying to do as much here as possible.

Chris Gammell: I know you don't really listen to NPR because it's an American thing. But there was actually a – there was a podcast on This American Life, which is an NPR show. But it was actually about a guy that went to the iPhone factory at Foxconn.

Dave Jones: At Foxconn, yep.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it was great. It was like a whole hour show about it. It was very in-depth. And if people are interested in that kind of thing, it's just – you know, if you're interested in, you know, producing locally, like Dave said, or even just, you know, wherever you are, it's an interesting thing. I think it might become a bigger deal. I mean, like people really kind of try and push that out of their mind when they're playing with their iPad or whatever. But I could see it, you know, especially as more manufacturing comes back to the States at least. I mean, I'm not sure about Australia, but I think there's some manufacturing come back to the States at least.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. No, there definitely is. I mentioned that before. And there's some – well, there's always been some here. It's hard to say it's coming back like it is in the U.S. But it's certainly not dropping here. So that's good. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: I mean, yeah. Kind of stemming the tide.

Dave Jones: We are clinging on. I think we've got one company here who still manufactures bare PCBs. So, you know, I should actually support them.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. I mean, there's always a limit on cost though too. I mean, like you can't just stop being an engineer and be like, oh, well, I'll pay $1,000 for a single PCB. You know, like at some point you have to benefit. You have to balance that cost-benefit, right? Yeah.

Dave Jones: But if it's 50%, 30% more or 50% more, you might be able to wear that, right? If it's 50% more than shiny, you know, you might be able to actually absorb that cost into your kit or your product or something like that.

Andy: Right, right.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. I think it's important. So I'm going to do as much as I can to actually do that because the kit's already expensive. I mean, you know, yeah, it's much more expensive. Oh, I won't tell you what the bomb cost is, but it's getting up there. Let me tell you. Well, you can find out yourself. Go look up each part on DigiKey. Oh, yeah. I'll definitely do that. You know, exactly. That's why I don't want to tell you because that's where all the hard engineering is. Oh, yeah. I'm just going to give away that information.

Andy: That answer's mine. You can't have it.

Dave Jones: Open my ass. Yeah, right? Open source hardware my ass. Yikes. Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: Oh, man. Well, speaking of open source hardware, actually, I was talking to you about this. Oh, I was talking to Ian, one of my friends, about this. Apparently, OpenCores. Have you ever been on OpenCores website before?

Dave Jones: Yeah, yeah, I have.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it's kind of shaky on quality. It's like, there's some stuff on there. But basically, they actually are working on an open risk, risk being, you know, reduced instruction set computer, right? CPU. Nice 80s term. Yeah, right? And I knew it. So, yeah. You're an analog guy. I know, right? But, yeah, they're actually working on an entire, I guess it would be code, you know, an entire design, but it is all in code, to be able to have a completely open CPU. And so I was talking to him about it, and I'm like, well.

Dave Jones: So it's in high-level VHDL or Verilog or something.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think Verilog, I think.

Dave Jones: So it's a soft processor.

Chris Gammell: It's a soft processor. But then there's also talk about trying to get it pushed to like a, you know, an older, an older fab, basically. So like 180 nanometer or 360 or something like that. So definitely not top of the line. And so that was confusing to me. Obviously, it would be expensive because, you know, you'd be going and actually fabricating in this case. And so I was talking to him, and I'm like, well, why the heck would someone want to do this? And he started telling me about the current way it works, and I guess I really didn't realize this, is that with high-level processors and a lot of the SOCs that are out there now or systems on chips, they actually don't give you full register maps unless you sign an NDA. And even then, sometimes, you know, if you have it, you can't tell anyone else about it. So basically, there's no way to access all parts of a processor. Right. And I didn't realize that. I always thought that, oh, well, you know.

Dave Jones: I always assumed, yeah. Like, I haven't been really deep down at that level for a long time, but I just assumed that was still the case.

Chris Gammell: You were still the case, you said? So it's always been my thing?

Dave Jones: Yeah, I assumed it was still the case that you could, you know, actually get that info.

Chris Gammell: Okay, still get that info. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because that's what I was thinking. You know, like, back in the day, everybody had access to all registers because there was what, like, a hundred, maybe, you know?

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. But now there's, you know, thousands of them.

Chris Gammell: Now there's literally millions, I think, even. I mean, like, and you can access parts of the chip that you're not supposed to, you're not supposed to, quote, unquote, right? And so that's kind of the drive behind this is that, you know, it's to have a processor that people can actually use and, you know, you can write a Linux distribution then that targets that processor. And there's actually, like, a pretty legitimate case for it, I think. And I was convinced. I wasn't convinced at first, but he convinced me.

Dave Jones: It depends on how much advantage you get from actually doing that, from accessing that, as opposed to using it at a more top level thing, you know?

Chris Gammell: I mean. But apparently the trend is it's getting worse to the point where you're not allowed to see anything. And even if you do sign an NDA, then you still can't see certain things.

Dave Jones: And who are we talking about here? Are we talking about the Intels? The Intels?

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I think the Intels, the Qualcomm's. I think Qualcomm, like a big. Qualcomm. Yeah, the big processors, the things that are going into commercial level products and stuff like that. Right. Because that's their competitive advantage, right? I mean, TSMC can make all this stuff, right? I mean, you can make this at any foundry. So, if you can make it anywhere and maybe you can even start to reverse engineer certain functionalities, well then, oh no. Then, you know, like you're going to really, the Intels and the Qualcomm's are going to guard that stuff like with their life. So.

Dave Jones: I still don't understand why because they sell chips, right? Right. Why wouldn't you want people to know the information so that they can use your chips and buy them?

Chris Gammell: Well, it's a closed, it's a closed-decker system then, right? I mean, like, say, then not only do they have to buy your chips, they also have to buy your development boards, they also have to buy your programmers, everything, et cetera, et cetera. And granted, a lot of that stuff's probably going to happen anyways, right?

Dave Jones: Yeah, but the money's in the chips. Maybe.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. I don't know.

Dave Jones: And no chip company makes money out of dev boards and stuff. It's in the royalties or it's in the, you know, the chips themselves. That's what they want to flog. That's what they ultimately flog. That's their currency.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, maybe. Whatever the reason is, I don't know. But I was listening to this argument and I'm sold on the idea. I mean, I don't know.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but in practice, who's going to actually take the risk, no pun intended, of using one of these open core, you know, CPUs. And like, I assume, is it compatible with like any ARM or anything? No, it wouldn't be.

Chris Gammell: You'd get super out of existence, right? I mean, the instruction set would be the same, right?

Dave Jones: But I mean, we're rapidly stepping outside of my... How many people have used it? How many bugs has it got? When are the bugs going to be ironed out? Yeah. You're taking a lot of risk by not choosing a proven industry, you know. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Industry device. That's a... I know. It's a chicken and egg thing.

Chris Gammell: Of course it is, yeah. But if people are interested, there is a donation page at opencores.org. I don't know. I think it's interesting. I think there's an interesting case about it, too. There was a Cory Doctorow talk. I didn't have a chance to watch all of it, but I watched part of it actually at that chaos communication camp, the one that Jeff went to. Yep. He gave this really great talk and it's called about lockdown. It's basically the same thing, how there is a closing off on a lot of ecosystems. So it's almost like a necessity. Ecosystems.

Dave Jones: Thank you.

Chris Gammell: Sorry, David. Where was I even going with that? Watch the talk. That's the end of that. I'm done now. You've...

Dave Jones: All right. Softcore processes. Yeah, I don't know.

Chris Gammell: They're not necessarily softcore, but...

Dave Jones: Right. Yeah, but still. They're hardcore. But that's the whole idea of open cores is that they are... Everything is soft. Yes. In quite much.

Chris Gammell: I think in the general case, yes. So you can go grab stuff and pull it out and use it in your product or design.

Dave Jones: I mean, Altium had the same issue with their tasking processor. Their TSK 3000 processor, which was the soft core that they used in all of their stuff, which is the one they promoted that you use. Well, you know, very few people really took it up because it was a big risk, you know, to go with that processor as opposed to a more popular mainstream one. Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Although there's always risk with that too. And yeah, I've gone through that calculation before. I've used the Altera one. I've used the Xilinx one. Yep. Yeah, they're not without their bugs either.

Dave Jones: No, exactly. But at least, you know... You can update it. There's 10,000 other people trying to get that same bug fixed. So you have a lot of support there.

Chris Gammell: So, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yep. I know. As opposed to, you know, I'm the only guy who's found this bug. Well, is the company going to fix it for me? Yeah. Yeah. Good luck, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Hope you enjoy debugging Verilog. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Or developing workarounds, you know. Right.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Usually there's a workaround. Usually that, you know, it's not going to be a showstopper. You know, showstoppers, true showstoppers are not that common. So...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Usually you can figure it out. Yeah, but it takes you time and it just, yeah, sucks away your development time out of your development cycle. And not good.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Speaking of chips, there's a video on YouTube that's pretty crazy. It's this guy that snuck all these wafers out of the fabs he worked in. Which people don't know. I mean, they very much discouraged that. I'm not sure what fab this guy worked in, but I don't think he left on good terms. Right. But it's really interesting because he actually shows... Where is this? It's 40 on our list, but it's actually... It's great because he's a failure analysis engineer. And I was trying to think, are any of my friends that I knew back at Samsung? I don't think it's any of them. But basically, he actually shows even some of the cutaway pictures, too. And if people have never seen those before, it's very interesting to see. You know, you have to kind of wrap your head around going from like a 2D top-down view to a side view. The side view, I think, is a lot more valuable. But first, you're just like looking at it and like, what the heck am I looking at?

Dave Jones: I know. I'm looking at it now. It's fascinating.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. And you can see defects, too. It's very interesting just to see. It's another side of how chips are made. And usually the side that chip makers don't want you to see. You know, they don't want... Oh, of course we don't have defects. Well, yeah, everybody has defects, you know. Someone somewhere has sneezed and your tiny minuscule booger has gotten on a wafer somewhere.

Andy: Oh, man.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy. And he says in the video, and I worked as a process engineer at a wafer fab for over five and a half years. And eventually the 14-plus hour work days got to me and I left the job.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, and that's true. You know, process life is not easy. It is not easy. So, yeah, it's definitely worth looking at. I found the video on Reddit a couple weeks ago or days ago. I don't know even. But it was great.

Dave Jones: Oh, brilliant.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. How's your quadcopper going? Same as the MakerBot, dude. Oh, man. What are you doing all day? Jeez, Dave. Get a job, hippie.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I know. Get a real job.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: You know, I'm making videos, doing stuff. Yeah. Having a life.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, well, that's good, too. You know, that's good.

Dave Jones: You know, there was a whole idea was going of going full time was so that I could have a life again, you know, rather than work my ass off and then work my ass off on the blog as well.

Chris Gammell: I mean, well, let's let's modify that first one, Dave. Come on. Work your ass off at work.

Dave Jones: Off at work. Well, yeah.

Andy: I remember. You've got to turn up, right? I used to talk to Dave. You know, we used to do the show on day is obviously the morning for day there. It's evening here. And you're like, all right, well, talk to you next week. And Dave would be like, oh, it's burger day. I'm going to spend an hour and a half in the cafeteria. Oh, man. It was funny. It's burger day. I'm glad you enjoyed that. I found that humorous. It was. It was just, it was always, it was, was it Fridays was burger day? Yeah, Friday was their good day. And you guys got free food, too. I don't know why you complained about that.

Dave Jones: Yeah, we got free food. Yeah, they've taken that away now.

Andy: Well, I was not with the company. Oh, no.

Chris Gammell: Anyways, the reason I asked about quadcopters is at CES, which, eh, I'm a CES. Nah, who cares? But there was an interesting thing about it. You, you wanted to go. Admit it. You want to trip to Vegas. Oh, I'd definitely go. I mean, it'd be cool just for the parties. I mean, you get to meet some cool people. You get to meet a lot of meh people. But, I mean, there would be some cool people there to meet. But, yeah, quadcopters, the Parrot AR drone. I don't know if people follow quadcopters at all. But that, you know, like, talk about kits versus assembled stuff. It's 300 bucks now. It's fully assembled, I think. I might be wrong about that. But it's got other...

Dave Jones: Yeah, it is fully assembled. Yeah, I think I've done my money on the RG copter.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah, yeah. And it's built-in camera.

Dave Jones: The RG copter is open source, though. I'm not sure if the...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Right? And that's what we want to do. The reason we got open source is so that we can develop our own algorithms for the autonomous flying and all that sort of stuff. So, that was, you know, a huge decider in going with the RG copter.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I'm not sure if it's open source or not.

Dave Jones: It's just a toy that you use with your iPhone. You know, you're... Yeah, it's got a 720p camera now.

Chris Gammell: I mean, like, it's like, it's a legitimate... I think it's going to have some legitimate effects. Oh, yeah. I mean, if you can buy a flying camera at 720p for 300 bucks, that's pretty cool.

Dave Jones: And control it with your iPhone. Yeah, you'll have, you know, dozens of these things buzzing through, you know, Manhattan.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah, exactly, right? I mean, that could definitely affect people's lives. And in the best case, hopefully people start to dig down in the electronics. I don't know.

Dave Jones: Well, but now they're saying it'll make a huge difference to all this citizen reporting and stuff like that. And social media. So, you know, if there's, you know, some big, you know, rally going on or something, you know, if there's an Occupy movement rally, you know, everyone will have all these cameras buzzing around in the air actually recording all this stuff. And the government hate it. They will crack down on this shit. Let me tell you, especially the US government. They'll go nuts over this sort of stuff. Yeah. What it'll take is one incident and they will, you know, there'll be a law being passed through Congress to, you know, somehow ban this sort of shit.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I hope not. But for now, it's a cool looking toy.

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Buy one now while you still can. Yeah, right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Hide it.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Before you need a, you know, a license to go and get it and fingerprint it and everything before you actually can buy one.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's, yeah. It just opens up so many, you know, surveillance possibilities. I mean, you know, just, you know, the US military have only gotten all this autonomous stuff going in the, you know, fairly recently. Yeah, past 10 years.

Chris Gammell: 10 years, probably.

Dave Jones: Yeah, exactly. And now you can buy it for 300 bucks and control it with your iPhone. Yeah. And you can, you know, hover over the White House and, you know, land on the White House lawn.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Which I totally encourage. Go for it.

Chris Gammell: Oh, okay. Yeah, you heard it here first. And by the way, this is now our last broadcast and it's been great, people. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: These rabble-rousing from across the pond. See if those missiles work, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's great.

Dave Jones: Let them see if they can hit a little 30 centimeter wide target.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Make for a great YouTube video. It'd go viral. Yeah, it would. Yeah. It'd be awesome. Go for it.

Andy: Blow up a glidecafter.

Dave Jones: Just make sure you have a second one filming it. Yeah, yeah.

Andy: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Oh, boy. What else should we talk about? Oh, there's tons of stuff on here. This is what I was talking about, Dave. Yeah, I know. We got too much stuff on this list. Too much stuff.

Dave Jones: That's our problem.

Chris Gammell: Yep. What can we do?

Dave Jones: Alan. My mate, Alan Garfield. Yeah. Hey, Alan. Yeah. He helped me set up my new dedicated server. Yeah, yeah. Linux Penguin. He speaks penguin fluently. And so thanks for that. Anyway, yeah, he's been having a bitch about IDEs.

Chris Gammell: IDEs. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jones: Yes. I believe he was trying to set up the microchip, the new MPLABX or something. And he's bitching that there's no command line tools. Hmm. So, yes.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, you know, I was never a big... Yeah, they kind of pushed the IDE thing. And I was never a big... I always use them. But I know a lot of people like writing their own scripts. And if you really want to automate stuff, you really... You need those command line tools because otherwise...

Dave Jones: When you talk about a lot of people, you're talking about the minority. You think so? That's the thing. Yes, absolutely. But then third-party tools too. They've had IDEs for... They've been pushing IDEs for 15, 20 years now. I mean, you know, command line tools were dead 15 years... I don't think they were dead. Not dead, but, you know, they were... You know, not... You know, they were the least popular, you know, 15 years ago, let alone now.

Chris Gammell: I don't know. I think... I mean... I think there's a lot of competitive advantage too because if you're a chip maker...

Chris Gammell: If you're a chip maker and you have command line tools, then a third-party company can come in. Like, I think about it for like FPGA vendors, right? They... Because obviously I do FPGAs more than I ever do microprocessors. If you have a third-party... Or a command line tool, rather, then a company like Simplicity can come in and they cross-compile against all the different chips. And basically they are another player in the system. I don't know if that's actually what the chip makers want, but basically the end result is sell more chips, right? If your chip is better then versus your IDE being better, then you win.

Dave Jones: But the thing is, I thought those command line tools have always been there. The IDEs call up invisibly the command line tools. And I'm sure MPLab worked in that way. I'm not sure about the new MPLab X because I've barely touched it. But I'm sure the old MPLab worked that way. It would actually call up the command... I'm sure, you know, you would put in the path. But when you install the IDE, it automatically installs all the paths and puts the options for all the command line tools. But if you want to, they're there. So I don't... You know, I'm not sure if he's, you know, if there's just something option that he's missing or something. But anyway, I don't know. But I was under the impression that they were still there and accessible if you really, really wanted to. So...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I might have to be doing some programming soon too. I don't know. I hope not. But I have a new project. I don't know if I told... Did I tell you about this? I don't know if I told you about this.

Dave Jones: No, I...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, maybe I did. Probably not. So, you know that open source SMU that we talked about in here?

Dave Jones: Oh, yes. You did tell me about this. Yeah, so the CEE.

Chris Gammell: I'm actually... I'm going to be making videos for that.

Dave Jones: SMU. SMU.

Chris Gammell: Source Measurement Unit. Yes, Source Measurement Unit. Yeah.

Dave Jones: It's a power supply that you can control.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, so I've got one on my bench right now. And it is fun. Let me tell you. I'm like tracing curves with it. I mean, I'm not like pushing the product necessarily, but I really am excited by the fact that like it very easily... I don't know. I don't know how you are with like transistor curves, but that probably took me a solid two years to really get... I don't know. I'm like, you know, just beat my head against the wall.

Andy: Like, why am I looking at these?

Chris Gammell: And now like I get it. I get it now. I mean, obviously I got it before, but I think I would have gotten a lot faster with this thing. And so that's actually the videos I'm making is talking about, you know, I'm going to throw like a NPN on there and a JFET and a MOSFET and lots of different things. So I'm really excited about it.

Dave Jones: So you're using it as a curve tracer, basically.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, there's a couple of things you can do with it. But yeah, I'm using it as a curve tracer and you can use it for other things. It's low res, but it's cool. I'm very excited about it. I don't know if that sounded too much like a product plug, but it's... I'm doing a pro bono, so...

Dave Jones: What's the maximum output voltage? Because that determines how useful a curve tracer is, especially when you're talking about component stuff, you know? Right. If it's only zero to five volts and that's not...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, it is.

Dave Jones: Massively right. Okay. So that's not massively useful for transistor character or, you know, MOSFET character.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, exactly. You can do NPNs pretty easy, but you start getting up into power fets, uh-uh. Right. Not going to work. Okay. Yeah, I've already fed that back to them and we'll see if they come up with a 10-volt or a 20-volt version, but...

Dave Jones: Yeah, 20-30 would be a nice usable, you know, sort of output range.

Chris Gammell: Did you ever use the old tech curve tracers?

Dave Jones: I've used curve tracers back in the day. Yep.

Chris Gammell: Man, people hold on to those like they're gold, you know? Oh, yeah. Was it a 585 or something like that? Is that the...

Dave Jones: Yeah, something like that. I don't remember the exact number.

Chris Gammell: And they're so clunky looking and like awkward, but, you know, they work. You know? You need to trace a curve of a transistor and look at it in a tiny little CRT screen. You're... I don't know. Yeah.

Dave Jones: You're in heaven with one of those bands. Yeah, right?

Chris Gammell: But, yeah. I love it. It is useful, I think. So, you know, especially if you're doing like audio stuff or output stage design. Yeah. That stuff's awesome.

Dave Jones: But, you know, I mean, devices these days are fully characterized in the data sheets and you just buy them and they're guaranteed to perform like that. I mean, it's... There is limited utility to...

Chris Gammell: Yeah, that's true.

Dave Jones: ...curve tracing these days as opposed to back in the 70s, you know? You would salvage parts from the... Yeah. ...from old junk equipment. You had to characterize them because you had no idea and the spread was so wide, the manufacturing spread and... Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's true.

Dave Jones: And now it's like, you know, for two cents you can buy a transistor that's fully characterized.

Chris Gammell: Right. That's true. Well, the things I always found with it is troubleshooting. So, I would pull stuff off a board and then trace a curve. And that actually is very useful. I found a problem once where I was... The threshold voltage was... It spread probably two volts. You know, and it allowed to. You know, that's actually what the spec was, but it was out of spec. Right.

Dave Jones: Well, hey, you weren't designed... Somebody didn't design around the full spec, right?

Chris Gammell: Right. Yeah.

Dave Jones: They were actually relying on it being tighter. Is that the...

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Which is okay until you get caught with your pants down and then... Yeah. Yep.

Chris Gammell: No, it wasn't me.

Dave Jones: You feel like an idiot. Yeah, right. Okay. So, it was your design, was it?

Chris Gammell: No, no. It wasn't me. I was fixing it. I wasn't... Oh, right. Okay. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: And the other thing is if you are pulling off parts that you don't know what they are too, like if you're working with real old electronics that you...

Dave Jones: Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Like when I fixed my piano, I pulled off a transistor. I had no clue what the marking was. Looked it up online. And man, that is frustrating. When you have like a very distinct marking on something and you just type it in Google and you're like, ah, there's nothing there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. It was just made by like some Russian fab in the 60s or something like that. It's like, oh, well, I guess I'll just try some stuff out. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Oh, well.

Dave Jones: We have... Can we have a wonky shonky product of the week?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Jones: Because I added one. I know we had a couple on here before, but...

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I got quite excited by this one when I found it the other day.

Chris Gammell: Oh, no. Oh, no.

Dave Jones: Okay. Go ahead. And it's the Hojo Motor. Oh, that's a great name. Yeah. Hojo Motor dot com. And there's this video there. And it is ClickBank sort of video marketing 101 to buy their electronic. I don't even know how to shut this thing up. It's like a flash video player. Hang on. It's too loud. Oh, yeah.

Chris Gammell: That's loud. I went there. And then I tried to close it and it says, before you go, click the cancel button right now to stay on the page. Leave this page.

Dave Jones: Oh, God.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: That's it. Anyway, you've got to see it. And it's basically, it's a perpetual, yes, it's a perpetual motion motor, magnet-based motor. And I love how they actually, they actually say it's actually perpetual motion. They actually use the term. Most scammers like this have actually avoid, now avoid those terms, you know, in big writing at the top. This is not perpetual motion, you know, this is. And then they insert, you know, some new physics thing.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, that's right. Because they don't want to be associated with the previous scams that have been revealed. Right, right. But this one's just blatant, you know. And I love, the other aspect I love is that they, the guy who'd originally developed this, he got three U.S. patents. And in the video, in the big, booming, professional American voice-over-voice says something along the lines of, it wouldn't work. The U.S. patent office does not grant patents to things that do not work. And this man has three of them, so it must work, you know.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: And I almost wet my pants. I really did. And it was $200. But now you better act today because our website will get taken down because the big oil companies don't, energy companies will shut us down. They've shut us down before and they'll do it again. We can only guarantee the website will be open for the next 24 hours, you know.

Chris Gammell: I can guarantee it will be there in perpetuity and you won't be able to get rid of it if you wanted to, you know.

Dave Jones: Oh, it's hilarious.

Chris Gammell: Oh, that's pretty great.

Dave Jones: Oh, it's just, yeah. It's just, and the prices now dropped down. Oh, they've discounted again for $39.97. Oh, boy. And 100% money back guarantee, folks.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Yeah, right.

Dave Jones: Oh, the Hojo motor. Anyway, go check. It's freaking hilarious. Hojo motor. Yep. Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: We actually had a, we had someone write in actually about an op amp that they wanted to be chipped.

Dave Jones: They physically wrote in, did they? You actually got a letter on you.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, I got a letter, you know, because I publicize my home address. Right.

Dave Jones: But yeah. I've got a P.O. box, folks. I do too. It's on my website. If you want to send me any old-fashioned snail mail, go for it.

Chris Gammell: Maybe I should post mine as well.

Dave Jones: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to send a shit, I will happily take it. And then if it's shit, we'll toss it down in the bin.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: But no, if it's something good, I don't know. Maybe we'll talk about it. Who knows?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. So what's his name there? I think it's Clifford. Yes. Clifford Wolf wrote in about an op amp he wanted to highlight. And I've actually worked with op amps like this before, but I had- Is this the chip of the week? Yeah. Chip of the week. Chip of the week. And he said, too, he was very excited about the chip of the week. And I think that is something that a lot of people like. So we'll try and bring that back.

Dave Jones: Oh, let's see. Bring that back. It's a C6042.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: I didn't know about that.

Chris Gammell: How old is that one? That's not that old, is it? I don't know. Rings a bell. 20 femtom amps, though. I don't know if that's typical, though. So that's always the thing with these smaller input bias current. You got to watch out if it's typical or max. If it's typical, I'd be careful. Right. Right. Yeah. Oh, that's typical.

Dave Jones: And how does that change with temperature? Just take a look at the thermal graphs as well, folks. Yeah. You know.

Chris Gammell: And it is a good one, though, because it's low power, so it's not sucking down current on the supply rails. You know, it's only 10 microamps. But it's TI part-

Dave Jones: And it's single supply?

Chris Gammell: It is.

Dave Jones: It is. I'm telling you, it's single supply. Oh, it is single. Okay. And it's got rail-to-rail output as well.

Chris Gammell: I don't like single supply.

Dave Jones: And the input common mode range includes ground. Nice.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's good. But I'm more of a-

Dave Jones: See, I could have perfect for my new power supply kit.

Chris Gammell: You are using it for this or no?

Dave Jones: No. It's overkill. But I'm just saying. Yeah, I was going to say. Because it's input common mode range includes ground. That's what I need. I need my input common mode range to include ground. I need a single supply operation from- This one's four and a half to 15. Perfect. And it's got rail-to-rail output. So the output goes down to ground. Perfect. All right. So I could use it. Yeah. It's a direct drop-in. You could drop it in if you want to pay five times the price.

Chris Gammell: Yeah, right? If you needed two femto amps or whatever the- Yeah, exactly. The max spec is. Yeah. But that is one thing to watch is the max spec. But it's still a good part. And yeah. So if you're looking for precision kind of low input bias currents. I always liked the LMP7721. That's actually the three femto amps max. Which is-

Dave Jones: Right. Crazy.

Chris Gammell: But that's-

Dave Jones: What is the typical? If the max is that?

Chris Gammell: I don't even know. I think it's- What's full of femto?

Dave Jones: I need my XKCD chart.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. Atto. I think it is at a couple hundred.

Dave Jones: Come on. You're the analog guy from bloody Keithley who specializes in this shit. It used to be. You don't know what's under femto?

Chris Gammell: Yeah. It's been a while, man. It's been a couple months.

Speaker ?: Yeah.

Dave Jones: In one ear, out the other. Oh, yeah. You have no idea. Like I said, I've been doing 3D models for the past couple weeks. I do have an idea. Yeah, right? Yeah. The amount of stuff I've forgotten, more stuff than I've remembered. Oh, yeah. I can guarantee you that.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Oh, boy.

Chris Gammell: So you said this would be gilding the lily for your project? Did you-

Dave Jones: It would be gilding the lily. Yeah, you had something else on the list about that. It would be really thick gold plated. Right?

Chris Gammell: Did I? Yeah, I thought you had something else about gilding the lily with your-

Dave Jones: Oh, yeah. Possibly from a couple of weeks back, which we never got onto.

Chris Gammell: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Up in the DAC to 12-bit, you said.

Dave Jones: Yeah, to 12-bits, you know. And it's like, well, the thing is, is that they make a pin-combatible. I'm using the microchip DAC and analog-to-digital converter, separate ones, and they make compatible, pin-compatible 12- and 10-bit ones, which is really nice.

Chris Gammell: Which I love. I love it.

Dave Jones: I know. So you can just, you know, you can start it, if you want to save some cost, you're whacking the 10-bit one, but then you've designed your project so that if people want to pay, you know, a dollar more per chip, then they can bung in the 12-bit one. And the crazy thing, too,

Chris Gammell: is they're probably doing that with laser, with sorting and laser, what do they call that, where they use lasers on it at the end, after bidding.

Dave Jones: So you think it might be the same die?

Chris Gammell: Oh, I guarantee it's the same die.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: I guarantee it. And I'm sure people out there that work in the chip industry would agree with me. Okay. There is no reason to have a separate die. I mean, I don't think, because you just, you basically, what you do is you test for the 12-bit ones, and the ones that suck, you, you know, you use a laser, and you blow out a little bit of the metal on the top. Yep. And you blow, oh, it's blowing a fuse, basically. You blow a fuse on the top, and you have a... You sell them as 10-biters. Yeah, exactly. So, guarantee it. Very common. And it's good, too, because, you know, then you could save cost if you want to, and then you have compatible parts, which we like. So, yeah, I'm A-okay with that.

Dave Jones: Right.

Chris Gammell: Yeah.

Dave Jones: Okay. Fair enough.

Chris Gammell: Yep.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I have no problem with it at all.

Chris Gammell: All right.

Dave Jones: Yeah, I think it's a good design. You know, it's a good aspect to design to do stuff like that, you know, so that if you can find pin-compatible parts, use them. So you can upgrade things, downgrade it, and, you know, I could sell two versions of my kit, you know, use an up-spec, you know, 12-bit one, and 0.1% resistors, or I could sell a low-spec one, you know.

Chris Gammell: Oh.

Dave Jones: So...

Chris Gammell: You could do air budgets to figure out which ones.

Dave Jones: Yeah, but in the end, you know, it's... There's not much in it, you know. The cost of it... People will say, oh, why have you included my little micro-current chip in the power supply? You know, oh, you massively add into the cost and all that sort of stuff. No. You actually look at it, no, it's a very small part of the cost, you know. The chip only costs a dollar, and, you know, there's a few resistors around it, which cost cents, and compared to the cost of the kit, no, we're talking very insignificant. Right.

Chris Gammell: And then you have to also factor in margin, too, so if, you know, if people are... Yeah. The little costs don't add up, but if you start adding boards or you start adding, you know, features...

Dave Jones: the LCD's eight bucks and the box is six bucks and, you know, and everything else. Well, if you added, like, a second LCD, right? The heatsink is five bucks.

Chris Gammell: If you added a second LCD or more knobs, that kind of stuff is big stuff. Oh,

Dave Jones: use your design from a couple of weeks ago where everyone's using a freaking iPad, right? Yeah.

Chris Gammell: Some people agreed with me on that, Dave. I don't think you... Yeah. People agreed with me on that.

Dave Jones: That's because people weren't understanding my... No,

Chris Gammell: you didn't understand me. ...viewpoint. No.

Dave Jones: I know. I totally agree with you. I just said it would be much... It would be not as popular as you thought. It'd be quite niche.

Chris Gammell: Yeah. That's probably true.

Dave Jones: You thought it was a be-all end door. Hang on. Somebody at the door is a package.

Chris Gammell: Really? You're going to answer the door? All right. Well, that's Dave going to pick up the UPS. So, we'll see if he comes back and if not. You can find us on Twitter at The Amp Hour if you want the feed. You can find me at Chris underscore Gamble. You can find Dave at EEVblog. We're on Google+. We're on Facebook. Man, we're on everything. and we always love seeing comments. Apparently, Dave... I'm back. He's back. Oh, my God.

Dave Jones: He's back. Hang on. I'm putting my headphones on.

Chris Gammell: All right. All right. I'm back. Sorry about that. I just gave an outro there.

Dave Jones: I thought the wife was... I was home and no. So, I had to answer the door and it's a package. Who's it from? It's from Hong Kong.

Chris Gammell: Dave's board showed up, maybe.

Dave Jones: Maybe. No, it's too small for my boards. No, it says PCB.

Chris Gammell: All right. Well, I just wrapped up the show, Dave, so...

Dave Jones: Oh, you did? Yeah,

Chris Gammell: yeah. Well, I didn't wrap it up, wrap it up, but, you know, I told people where they could find us, so...

Dave Jones: It's only an hour and six minutes.

Chris Gammell: Any last minutes? Yeah, I know. Yeah, any last words now that our hour 23 minute episode set the new standard?

Dave Jones: Right. Hang on. I'm going to look at my boards. Oh, no. Yes, they are. Here you go. Ta-da. My power supply boards have turned up. Speak of the devil.

Chris Gammell: All right.

Dave Jones: There you go. They eventually turned up, which is a shame because I've changed the design.

Chris Gammell: Ah, that's nice. But they did. All right.

Dave Jones: And they look at first glance quite reasonable. These are the IT'd studio ones I've had issues with before, but, yeah, don't quote me on that, but it looks not bad at all.

Chris Gammell: Throw them right in the trash.

Dave Jones: Yeah, pretty much. All right.

Chris Gammell: All right. Catch you later. See you guys next week. Bye.