00:53.20 chrisgammell Welcome to the Amp hour I'm chris gamble of contextual electronics. 01:00.36 Florin _Voltlog_ My name is floring but most people know me as volog from the Vollog Youtube Channel I'm doing good and how are you chris. 01:05.23 chrisgammell Hey Flouren How are yeah good I find that I increasingly have stuff I point to stuff on my benchion people are like oh where'd you find out about that I was like well volt log made videos about this your your Youtube channel and your videos increasingly you find stuff that I'm like. Oh yeah, that that that's got to be on my bench. So Thank thank you for that. 01:27.35 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, no problem I like doing that stuff and I think that's probably 1 of the the main reason that people follow my channel because I discover interesting stuff that they can learn about it and then later on use it for something. 01:42.43 chrisgammell That's right? Yeah I think the ah the things that the the main 1 on my bench is the is the the long throw microscope. It's really It's like a can't it's like a webcam almost but super useful for basically. Monooccular not binocular but monocular vision and then I put it to a a small monitor on my bench. You actually put that into a trinocular setup right on your bench. 02:03.89 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, and that's the great thing though because you can use it in different setups like you have the monocular and you have it at the higher distance up your workmanch because I've seen a picture of your setup and that works great for you for me, it works better on a trinacular microscope. So. 02:15.79 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah. 02:23.82 Florin _Voltlog_ That's great because we have the flexibility for for that kind of camera. 02:25.97 chrisgammell Yeah, you know it also seems like you kind of find stuff that's like lower costs usually like aliexpress bang good things like that and that that's always useful too just because it's ah it's pretty It's a lower risk. It's not necessarily the cheap. It's not like ten dollars but it's like you know, maybe 1 hundred dollars for a microscope versus. You know, looking at something like Dave has like a Mantis I'm like oh I'm not paying 3 grand just to try it out. You know so like that's that's a tough sell. 02:45.20 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, like anyone would love to have a mantis but not anyone gets 1 and and so we we need the alternatives like. 02:55.68 chrisgammell So yeah, that's right. 03:01.13 Florin _Voltlog_ Most of most people need the alternatives. 03:02.32 chrisgammell I have ah I have a running ebay search and there's like some album. There's like some like cd or album from the Seventy s that has mantis in the name and so like every like probably like twice a week I get this thing that's like oh new Mantis listing I'm like ah the cd again. 03:16.77 Florin _Voltlog_ Oh my God that happens to me as well for various searches. 03:21.46 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's ah you got to be real specific but sometimes it's good to have like just the really broad search and do the like the the human filtering just because you might get someone who like labels it wrong or whatever. It's just you know you you have to do the put the work in you know. 03:33.21 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, and and for that reason you could get like a really low price for for a specific item which would otherwise sell for a lot more. 03:38.59 chrisgammell Um, that's right, That's right? Yeah I used to ah so I used to play drums and I think I mentioned this on the show before but I used to have running searches on Craigslist which is like a you know ah classified listing in the Us and I would always spell symbols wrong. 03:49.33 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, yep. 03:56.59 chrisgammell So instead of like symbols C Y M B a L s I would do like s y M B O L S and like just get people who are terrible at spelling and try and like try and get some some cheaper cheap equipment off people who can't spell. It's good. Yeah. 04:00.60 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah. 04:09.70 Florin _Voltlog_ That's really clever man I never thought about doing that. 04:14.54 chrisgammell It's so it's a little more helpful when it's like you know, really available stuff. You know like a mantoscope or microscope is going to be a lot more rare. It feels like so you're usually buying this stuff. Ah. 04:20.93 Florin _Voltlog_ Kept. 04:28.92 chrisgammell From like a aliexpress or bango or stuff but you are shipping it to Romania where you live. What's it like in Romania what's the electronic scene like what's it like getting stuff imported from china equivalent. What's that like. 04:36.43 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, so I I would treat these as 2 separate subjects so 1 of them importing stuff into Romania is not as easy as as 1 would think of like when you compare the experience that you have in other european countries or even with. 04:48.94 chrisgammell Okay. 04:56.53 Florin _Voltlog_ Importing stuff into the us. So first of all, ah when you import something from outside the european union into an european union country you will have to pay v eighty on that and and recently they changed the rule on that because previously there is to be this rule that. 05:07.25 chrisgammell So yeah, and. 05:16.00 Florin _Voltlog_ Anything under 10 or 15 years wasn't really supposed to be charged so a lot of these small packages used to go through without being charged vt but recently they changed that so now it doesn't matter which value your package has. 05:27.40 chrisgammell And. 05:35.60 Florin _Voltlog_ It has to be charged with v 8 and because of that various postal services also started charging this handling fee because they are now collecting that v 8 for the government. 05:44.37 chrisgammell Oh geez Yeah, and just for people that are us Centric V is value added tax is that right? yeah. 05:52.28 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, that's just the tax that gets added to every product every purchasecha. 05:57.41 chrisgammell Yeah, well you operate as a business hour. Are you like allowed to do that the pass through thing and. 06:02.10 Florin _Voltlog_ It It depends like it depends on what because you could be registered with different types of handling of V So the most common way is that you still pay V a T So there's no, but once you reach once you go. 06:15.75 chrisgammell And. 06:21.61 Florin _Voltlog_ A certain threshold in your business. You are obligated to to switch to you know collecting and dealing with v. 06:28.20 chrisgammell Oh got it got it. Yeah, that's yeah I mean the handling charge too that I mean what the what I did you make a someone made a video about this I think it might have been you but it was basically like a lot of the the low costst packet. So like something where you might get like a five dollars supply in ebay they got power supply. It's like that. 06:40.60 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, yeah. 06:46.12 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, just because of the handling charge which is fixed rate and sometimes that's higher than the actual v 8 But then you have also a number of other limitations that might happen for various products I don't know. 06:46.34 chrisgammell Becomes that doubles the price and becomes a hassle now. Yeah. 06:53.97 chrisgammell So yeah, okay. 07:05.51 Florin _Voltlog_ Some some types of products have these additional tax additional import tax on top of V at but it depends on on the category that that product falls in so I Really don't remember any specific examples right now. But. 07:16.20 chrisgammell And. 07:24.26 Florin _Voltlog_ Often cases you are charged with additional import tax and yeah, and and it's also not just about collecting these taxes. It's It's also about how slow the process is because. 07:26.25 chrisgammell Got it all right? So more of a hassle than it used to be which sucks. But. 07:39.73 chrisgammell Oh right. 07:43.34 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, a lot of at least here in Romania a lot of this stuff doesn't happen automatically so I would be happy if the package was delivered next day with an invoice and I'll just have to pay that invoice but a lot of the times. It's not like that. It's it's a hassle. 07:49.95 chrisgammell Yeah. 07:57.15 chrisgammell Yes, yeah, oh. 07:58.98 Florin _Voltlog_ It's a lot of emails have to be sent a of documentation needs to be supplied to the like customs Authority and and that just takes times and add delays when you're like doing consulting for a client and you have to build a board and you have to build some prototypes you have to explain to that client that. 08:10.50 chrisgammell Right? right. 08:17.28 Florin _Voltlog_ There's a one week delay because some authority in in your country needs to process that import until you get it. 08:23.70 chrisgammell Right? right? I'm I'm walking him through what a capacitor is and an inductor and why I had to buy these. It's like oh my God Yeah oh boy. So yeah. 08:26.42 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah stuff like that. Yeah, so that definitely adds a layer of you know, complexity and delay to every import I have to do but there are also you know, ah good stories like for example, mauser has this system where they collect. 08:36.12 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah. 08:46.12 Florin _Voltlog_ All the text and they file all of the documentation required on their end. So so yeah I could have like a mouser order replaced Friday evening and have it delivered Monday morning and that's like six thousand miles away from me and that's impressive and and that's totally because they handle this on on. 08:48.45 chrisgammell Oh really? oh. 08:54.76 chrisgammell Um, Wow That's that pretty killer. Yeah yeah. 09:05.53 chrisgammell Yeah. 09:05.99 Florin _Voltlog_ Like a higher level it. It doesn't have to go through the local authorities here anymore. 09:12.11 chrisgammell That's nice. Yeah, that's great and then see so then you also said there was like a 2 parter there as well. So so then what is Romania like so is there an electronic scene that locally stuff like that. How did you get an electronics. 09:16.16 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah. 09:25.75 Florin _Voltlog_ It's It's a funny story. Actually how I got into electronics like I don't know but how it used to be in the us. But here when I I was a little child. You know the old cars used to have very basic electronics in them. 09:40.34 chrisgammell And. 09:42.68 Florin _Voltlog_ But still they have a couple of blinking leds or stuff like that and and I was always curious. You know when when I when I saw those things and I always wanted to understand how that works and I wanted to be able to build my my own circuit. So I started as a very young kid. 10:00.86 chrisgammell Usually usually the next the next line in the story is ah then I started taking things apart I'm a little worried I'm a little worried for the adults in your life At this time that they walk out to their car being disassembled. 10:01.30 Florin _Voltlog_ You know, tinkering with with electronics. 10:10.11 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah I mean I did it all like my my parents keep telling stories like I used to plug things into the wall sockets and I used to get shocked early on yeah and and I did all of that as. 10:22.73 chrisgammell Ah, yep. 10:29.20 Florin _Voltlog_ Early as possible, but but then you know so I started getting some electronics books some of the stuff in there was very hard to understand and and I realized I need to follow some some kind of. School education that would help you understand what they're saying in these books so I can understand those circuits and actually build them and modify them. So then you know the the obvious followed I studied I got my bachelor's degree and and from then I started. Doing all sorts of projects and even consulting like I'm I'm pretty happy to and like it to be able to say that for example during my bachelor degree I was able to design this development board based on. 11:09.26 chrisgammell Um, yeah. 11:23.48 Florin _Voltlog_ On a microcontroer and actually sell it to the school where I was studying at yeah, so not all people not thought of people get a chance to do something like that. So I was pretty lucky to be able to do that. 11:26.22 chrisgammell Oh really. Wow. 11:37.52 chrisgammell What was and what was um, what was on that board. 11:39.63 Florin _Voltlog_ So the the issue was that we we had these microcontroller classes in in school but we we studied a lot of theoretical stuff like we wanted to be able to test the the programs that we were thinking about the algorithms that we were. Implementing and you know we wanted to see how coding for these registers inside the microcontrollers would actually behave on on a real hardware and we were missing that in Class. So I just built a board that used a peak 30 2 microcontroller and had lots of peripherals on board peripherals that. Are typically fun to play with like sensors temperature sensors accelerometer. You know an lcd the serial interface stuff like that would be fun for for someone to write code and actually see something happening with that board. 12:21.93 chrisgammell So yeah. 12:34.91 chrisgammell Right? And I think you also remove a lot of the the Jumper wire aspect that a lot of a lot of school programs do which is you know it has value in its own way. But if you're focusing more on the code than the you know what hooks to what then that can that can really help to. 12:50.52 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, certainly but then to to answer your your other question. What is the electronic scene here in in Romania. It's not as good as I would like it to be I know for example that if you want to work in this. 12:51.76 chrisgammell Move things along and let people go a little deeper on the code side. 13:09.95 Florin _Voltlog_ Field. There are a few companies mainly in the automotive space that hire people to build electronics. But other than that I I don't think that there is a lot of electronics industry here in Romania and it was the obvious choice for these big. 13:14.15 chrisgammell Oh. 13:29.37 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, themotive companies like continental and and others to open up shop here in Romania because there are a lot of talented young people and it's it's probably cheaper for them to hire talent here than it is in the west of europe. 13:40.71 chrisgammell M. 13:44.91 Florin _Voltlog_ But other than that I don't think we have an electronic scene here in in Romania so that's why um, a lot of my activity is in the like online playground. 13:47.63 chrisgammell How interesting. 13:53.23 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah, that's I mean that's great and it opens it all up so that you can you know be in the marketplace and offer your services and obviously make great videos like that's that's awesome. Yeah, cool. Yeah I I you know like I remember. 13:58.82 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, totally. Get toy. 14:11.89 chrisgammell Ah, Hungary has a decent amount which is east of Romania looking at just like other countries in the area poland has you know we've had ant micro on they've they're up I forget where they are Pazlan maybe but they're up in Poland so like kind of like obviously eastern europe or yeah eastern europe and stuff like that in general. 14:14.35 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, yep. 14:31.80 chrisgammell Has some electronics but it is it seems kind of it's a large area. Of course you know it's just so almost seems ah equivalent to the us and like spreading across the Midwest there's like pockets of there's pockets of electronics in in different areas. But if you're not in that specific pocket. It's like okay well what is this really going to do for me. 14:46.52 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, exactly and in the the actual city where I live is constanza which is near the seaside it. It lacks even more in the in the electronics industry so I had the choice of either do something in in the online space. 14:53.66 chrisgammell And. 15:05.10 Florin _Voltlog_ Or relocate and I really like the the place where where I live I wouldn't want to move unless it's absolutely necessary. So yeah, this yeah yeah I Love it. 15:11.44 chrisgammell yeah yeah I mean living by the sea. The seaside is it's pretty nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, black sea that's cool. That's really cool I'll have to look at some photos later that seems like ah there's like 1 really interesting looking old building right on the seaside in the Google images I'm not sure what that is looks like a. 15:29.62 Florin _Voltlog_ It's the casino. Maybe it's called the casino. Yeah, that's actually renovating right now. 15:29.97 chrisgammell Eighteen hundreds. Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, oh cool. Okay, yeah, that's great. All right I'll add it to the list got other places I got to visit in a yeah, that's great. That's great. Yeah, of course. 15:39.74 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, yeah, yeah, actually and Andres peace. You know him you've had it as a guest on the empire he he was here he visited and he liked it very much. Yeah, yeah, was pretty cool to to hang out with the. 15:48.70 chrisgammell Oh awesome. That's you guys get the hungout hangout. Yeah. 15:56.41 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah, it's the swiss youtuber yeah, so let's talk about some of the videos you've been so you mentioned the automotive industry and I have noticed you've done quite a few videos on on on like interfacing. 15:56.58 Florin _Voltlog_ And dress piece The legend. 16:02.34 Florin _Voltlog_ Yep. 16:11.48 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, yeah. 16:12.47 chrisgammell To a car things like that. Ah you you just did a recent 1 about esb 30 2 and controlling controlling a car over can bus. What's your what's your general interest in automotive. 16:17.33 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, so this kind of this topic kind of opened up to me when I was in in France in 2000 eleven 2012 I was there to get my master's degree and. As part of that study program we had to do an internship with a company in the field of electronics and at that point I went with freescale and I was assigned to their analog and mix signal and power division. And they generally deal with automotive in in that freescale division. Well yeah, yeah now Nxp yeah and and and during my internship at at freescale I got to work at this really cool. 16:58.93 chrisgammell I gonna say we should say free scale rest in peace now now Nxp yeah yeah. 17:12.77 Florin _Voltlog_ I see that they were developing it. It was supposed to be the next generation. Ah engine control unit. So like the cpu inside an engine control unit and as you know across all of all industries everyone tries to. 17:13.29 chrisgammell Ah. 17:31.41 Florin _Voltlog_ You know, increase their profit margin and to do that for an engine control unit. You basically need to integrate as much as possible into a chip and avoid populating that stuff as external on on a pcb then that. 17:40.57 chrisgammell Ah, yep, yeah, right? Which which these days would probably make you seem if assuming you could get the ecu chip it would make you seem very smart because you wouldn't have all of the other chips that you would need to buy and couldn't get in the automotive space. So. 17:53.82 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, that that would probably be a a good idea these days. Yeah, so that was like my first incursion into like the automotive electronic side of things and I thought it is I really liked it I mean there was so much stuff that I didn't know it worked. 18:04.63 chrisgammell N. 18:13.55 chrisgammell Any any examples of that. 18:13.58 Florin _Voltlog_ Way it did and kind of like this stuff that I worked on this chip like they integrated so much stuff inside a chip like both analog and digital like they used to need all kinds of these external filters like. 18:29.67 chrisgammell Um, yeah. 18:31.74 Florin _Voltlog_ No more we will put them all inside the chip and on top of that we'll put multiple values and we'll add this like selection matrix and you can control and enable all of those filters digitally and all of the sudden you have all of these new capabilities that. 18:39.28 chrisgammell M. 18:48.47 Florin _Voltlog_ Enable so much more for for that issue. 18:49.52 chrisgammell Got it and I mean when you're looking at an ecu as well like I I guess my my inclination is to think that it's just kind of like maybe a can bus or 2 and a lin bus or 2 and then that's the main interface to it but it seems like you're talking more like gpio and like direct interfacing there. 19:04.51 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, because I guess that can vary from manufacture to manufacturer. But the ones I've seen like they they have like a bunch of sensors that tie in directly to the ecu because the isu is the 1 taking decisions on how to run the engine and. Running an engine is based on a lot of sensor sensor data sensors that are spread around the engine. 19:28.14 chrisgammell I see so it it would be too much overhead time to have it go through a second secondary processing or you wouldn't want to have it on a bus where it might be time multiplexing and that sort of thing. Yeah. 19:37.83 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah I would guess so like many important sensors tie in directly to the E Su box. 19:44.37 chrisgammell Got it? Okay, yeah I guess the other thing too is that like I get a little confused about the term ecu because I thought that other processors in cars are sometimes called ecus even though they're not directly controlling ecu or the engine is that is that correct is that correct or incorrect. 19:59.98 Florin _Voltlog_ Well from from my side of things the way I see things and the people I've worked with we were only calling isu like the control that deals with the engine. 20:10.39 chrisgammell You got it? Okay all right? So then that that makes more sense then too I mean so then what is the relative Spec I mean obviously this is 20112012 you said so like but what is the relative spec of a processor in that space is it like a cortex m zero cortex m four cortex a something. 20:18.80 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah. 20:25.80 Florin _Voltlog_ So I can tell that it was all custom like it was all custom and I can tell you that due to um, wanting to get the the most out of it. It was. 20:30.14 chrisgammell Oh interesting. Okay, so. 20:41.80 Florin _Voltlog_ All coded in in assembly. So it was running assembly code, but it doesn't have to do like very complicated stuff. It just needs to take very fast decisions based on you know, sensor data. 20:42.48 chrisgammell Oh Wow Oh Wow. Okay. Yeah, got it. So like pipelining you know if if this sensor goes up then do this other action on the other side on a Gpi or something like that. Yeah. 21:00.70 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, and at the same time control like these high current outputs that sometimes drive you know the injectors that inject fuel into the engine at the same time all of this operation needs to happen over a very wide range of temperatures and. 21:07.66 chrisgammell Ah, ah, okay. 21:18.96 Florin _Voltlog_ Like supply voltages which complicates things. Yeah, but you know we were talking about how how this opened up my my interested my interest for the automotive electronics and you can kind of see how there's all sorts of. 21:20.96 chrisgammell Um, yeah, yep, yep yep, Ah, that's. 21:36.22 Florin _Voltlog_ Complicated and interesting stuff happening in the automotive electronics and I like it and so I kind of continue it after that and and started thinking about these small projects that I could design in in my lab and and play with automotive electronics and 1 of them is the. 21:52.81 chrisgammell E. 21:55.92 Florin _Voltlog_ Can light. This is a board that I designed probably ah started designing that a year ago and what I wanted to do is to kind of interface with some of the electronics on board of my car so I wanted to kind of read some information from the canvas. And maybe put something on the can bus that would trigger a reaction in the System. So I made this board which has an esp thirty two on board that is the processor of the board then I have the can trans receiveiver for interfacing with the can network. 22:19.10 chrisgammell And. 22:33.34 Florin _Voltlog_ The sp 32 does have a can interface but it needs an external transiver to you know switch the lines at the correct voltages and I also added a couple of automotive highight switches to this board now. Automotive highsight switches are like you know. A mosfet just that it has some added intelligence. It has some added protection features so you deal with it approximately the same way. You just switch a logic high or low to control it. But it does its own thing to protect it to protect it against transients. Protected from over temperature over current situations and and that's really nice to have because from this little board I can then turn on or off a a small motor I can control something on power to something that is hooked up to to my car. 23:13.65 chrisgammell And. 23:28.20 chrisgammell How does the yoga. 23:29.81 Florin _Voltlog_ And I was ah sorry I wanted to say that it also contains an automotive Grade D C to Dc Converter for power because you know you can't just go and use any Dc to Dc Converter on 1 of these boards because what might happen is there are a lot of transients on the. Like a 12 volt line on a typical car so there is a high chance that typical converter might fail at at some point due to all the stress that it encounters. 23:56.85 chrisgammell Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah I mean it is ah it is a rough environment and the the esp 32 what is what is that rated for in terms of temperature like could you actually put this whole unit into a you know automotive rated. 24:13.80 Florin _Voltlog_ No I mean it's It's more like standard. It's more like standard temperature range so you wouldn't expect it to kind of work at those extreme temperatures. But then again, if it sits on the inside of the car. It's probably not subjected to to those. 24:14.88 chrisgammell Environment or is it more like Zeroed zero to forty. Yeah, ah yeah. 24:28.64 chrisgammell So right right. 24:31.63 Florin _Voltlog_ Most of the times it's with it will not be subjected to those extreme temperatures. 24:33.92 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah I mean and this seems like this is a great way for people to kind of start tinkering with their car. Maybe not make a product out of it. But then they you know they could get a better feel for what's going on and then Harden Harden it over time and stuff like that. Yeah. 24:47.25 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah I think it's an awesome little can hacking platform because otherwise what are you going to do? are you going to grab like 1 of these big s stm 32 development boards. And yeah, that's going to take up a lot of space and it's gonna make your life harder. If. 24:53.26 chrisgammell Yeah. 24:57.54 chrisgammell Right see. 25:05.40 Florin _Voltlog_ You just need a can interface and a beefy processor to run your code. 25:05.83 chrisgammell That's right? Yeah, well, that's interesting. So so obviously you talk to your your users. The people that are buying these boards. What are they? what are they doing with it. 25:15.34 Florin _Voltlog_ So They're doing lots of interesting stuff like 1 of the users emailed me some pictures and he actually just grabbed the source files and spun a new board based on that design and it's actually grabbing some useful information from the canvas like speed of the v. The temperature various fluids and it's showing them on this headup display that he put up on his dashboard. 25:43.29 chrisgammell So that's cool. Yeah, so a lot of people that are like tweaking and they like to they want to like optimize their car and driving and stuff like that. My ah. 25:48.50 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, typically yeah yeah, there might be other interesting stuff. There might be some secret stuff I don't know people are not telling me everything. 26:02.99 chrisgammell That's right, that's right, yeah, it's not. It's not sending back telemetry from the esp 32 to to florin's computer anything like that. So yeah, that's great I mean and I think having that connectivity to that as well. I mean you might even be able to put it. You know under the hood through the firewall without having actually punched through the firewall of a car. 26:08.10 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, yeah. 26:18.95 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could adjust settings on the fly and just from a simple web page that you open up on your smartphone. 26:20.73 chrisgammell And you could have some more connectivity which is great. Yeah, yeah, and I mean isolation then as well right if this things and not that it would be floating to high voltage levels or anything like that. But I guess maybe in a if it was in a ev or something it could maybe float up right. 26:36.78 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah I mean it's it's It's always nice that you if you don't need to touch the hardware Once you've installed it. It's It's always nice if you don't need to get back in there and mess with the wiring. 26:46.68 chrisgammell Yeah, right? Yeah that's great that's great I mean and so so then interfacing with can as well we've had ah ah. Maana folks on here many years ago and they were doing some can bus stuff I remember them talking about like you just kind of like can kind of it's not encrypted you just kind of push and pull readings off of there. It seems like it's kind of the wild west you just have to like know what you're looking at and know what you're reading is that said sunrie. 27:16.79 Florin _Voltlog_ Yep. Yeah, yeah, So so you do pick up everything that's on the bus but knowing what every byte of data means that's a whole nother story because there is literally almost no standard I mean each manufacturer does have its own standards. 27:36.39 chrisgammell Yes, yeah, got it. 27:37.96 Florin _Voltlog_ But they're kind of secret about it and they're not releasing it to the public so you kind of do a lot of reverse engineering to figure out what's going on on the bus and what each frame Id points to and sometimes manufacturer they go on top of the standard. 27:50.58 chrisgammell Yeah. 27:57.84 Florin _Voltlog_ Canvas Spec and if they want to transmit more data and they wouldn't be able because of the canvas you know framing and how it's organized, but what they do is they sometimes split their data across multiple can transmission transmissions and they. 28:13.69 chrisgammell Um. 28:16.66 Florin _Voltlog_ Kind of add their own protocol on top of canvas to be able to reconstruct all of that that data and you're really in trouble if you're trying to decode something like that. Yeah. 28:23.91 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah, you're like this doesn't make any sense you got to glue it back together. That's that's really weird So like in terms of like the can protocol and stuff like that then too is it just if the bus is available. It's just like you can kind of take control or their priority levels. How does how does that kind of. 28:40.78 Florin _Voltlog_ So I'm I'm hardly an an expert on on on this field. But here's how it works. Yeah, it's it. It's based on the so the way the can bus is designed is that it's based on the priority of the id. 28:41.33 chrisgammell All get coordinated. Um, more expert than I am here's yes, that's all the matters here. 28:59.67 chrisgammell Ah, okay. 28:59.84 Florin _Voltlog_ That you're sending so you're you're so the the lower the id the higher the priority and that message is going to be ah processed first and what happens in in a typical automotive canvas network like the most important stuff that's related to the engine the breaking the. 29:08.10 chrisgammell Okay. 29:18.84 Florin _Voltlog_ Critical stuff that has the lowest ids on the network. So those messages yeah it it depends I mean I I get I get that priorities can vary from from 1 man to another. 29:24.14 chrisgammell Breakings Only if you don't want to go fast man I mean come on true true true racing Mindset is you know breaking is last. Ah, yeah, that's and and is that like setable then as well is that setable like can you set what priority is what like. So if I open up the hood and started tinkering with the brake system. 29:38.57 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah sorry I didn't get that. 29:49.72 chrisgammell Is there like a dip switch in there so I could switch priority from like a 6 to a 7 29:51.42 Florin _Voltlog_ No, so that's based on a fixed id that that particular module has or or that particular sensor has so for example, I'm just pulling numbers here. There might not be real addresses but let's say some hex address which is 1 hundred and 10 29:56.34 chrisgammell Um, okay. 30:02.33 chrisgammell Sure sure. 30:11.14 Florin _Voltlog_ Has a higher priority than a higher number right? so. 30:13.10 chrisgammell Yeah, got it and is that yeah I've I've done something like this on an rs forty five bus where it was like lowest wins because it was actually like it was like X -oring the addresses or something like that. But it was like going through all the different addresses and basically once it hit the bit. 30:22.78 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, yeah. 30:30.70 chrisgammell But once it hit like ah a 1 in ah in a binary number. It's like okay now I know I can talk to this thing. 30:33.28 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, so it's canbras is doing a similar thing and I don't know all of the details. But if 2 devices want to talk at the same time because of the way the the network is is constructed the the lower id is is always going to have priority. 30:49.80 chrisgammell Got it got it that sounds like kind of hectic. 30:52.47 Florin _Voltlog_ So he's going to talk first. 30:58.27 Florin _Voltlog_ And yet is is used for the most important stuff. 31:04.21 chrisgammell That's right? Yeah yeah, well I'm going to start riding a bike more I think the. 31:11.30 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, yeah I think there's there's really a lot of backup built in into these these protocols so there are a lot of check sums and a lot of you know opposing values that need to match for the most important stuff for that. Computer to actually consider that information good and and well received. 31:32.49 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah I guess I'm thinking about it in terms of like if I was just grabbing Modules off the shelf and like you know, Okay, this brake module this engine module. Whatever whatever, whatever and gluing it all together. But in reality the car maker knows they they can decode all the packets. They know what's going on when they piece it all together. 31:49.85 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah. 31:51.87 chrisgammell And then we're just kind of reading it if we want to if we want to peek into their world right. 31:54.64 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, and and to complicate things on typically on a car. You'll also find a can gateway because on a car. There's usually more than 1 can networks. So all of these different can buses tie in to ah a can gateway. 32:00.78 chrisgammell Um. 32:12.86 Florin _Voltlog_ And the can gateway has to like interface between all of these buses and let through only some of the messages from 1 bus to another. 32:21.80 chrisgammell The got it. So it's like ah it's like a translation system almost. 32:26.30 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, almost like some of the messages from the engine. We want to propagate down to the like the Multimedia system so we can show by rpm and speed on the digital screen but we don't need to send all of the data from the engine canvas. 32:36.89 chrisgammell Ah, yeah. 32:45.94 Florin _Voltlog_ To the multimedia can bus so all of this filtering happens. 32:49.14 chrisgammell And yeah, that yeah, you don't you don't need like the ah the temperature of the the cooling fluid or something like that unless you're doing some really crazy stuff. Okay, that's great. 32:55.32 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, you yeah and on on top of that to complicate things even more with more recent cars. They have also started encrypting some of the stuff so like modules will. First try to authenticate with the isu to make sure that they belong to that car and they have not been like harvested from ah another car and just installed on this car so they use some encrypted keys to authenticate and. Only after authentication is successful. They start talking on the can Bus. So. It's even more complicated with newer cars. 33:32.60 chrisgammell Ah I see. But so then what what are you are you messing with your car I mean what is the what's your interest in this. 33:43.00 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, so what I wanted to do is it turns out you can kind of display your own information on the small display you have inside your cluster with the speedo and to do that. You'd basically have to first capture the information that you want shown there from the canvas and then you'd have to send it in a certain way to the cluster computer such as to create this custom menu on that small lcd and show your own data so they have actually built in this. Functionality into the cluster firmware because there are some modules on a car that would natively want to do this so I wanted to build this board to replicate this functionality and show data that wouldn't otherwise be. Visible on that small lcd screen. 34:38.29 chrisgammell I I see and so and you're monitoring like are you doing some mods and stuff like that to your cars I want. 34:47.40 Florin _Voltlog_ I'm not big fan of doing mods to my car but it's just the electronic side which is very interesting and just reaching that milestone of finally being able to do that. It just means a lot to me. 34:57.86 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah, that's great I mean and and I guess we we've implied here but you are selling these as well. I mean once you when you can source the components you just made a video about having trouble sourcing but what what is the experience like like selling Tin D Tiny and equivalent. 35:35.80 Florin _Voltlog_ Okay, so the selling side of things on tinndy is pretty straightforward like they take care of everything and that's pretty easy and I mean I've only been on on the platform for starting this year so I don't have a lot of experience but it's been going great for me. Now the actual building of the electronics during these times. It's it's a that's a whole different story. So for example I am already at revision d for the cam light board just because I need to constantly switch some parts and find new ones. 35:55.71 chrisgammell Yeah, ah. 36:11.13 chrisgammell Yeah. 36:12.98 Florin _Voltlog_ Because the old ones are not available anymore and they have those delivery dates of I don't know like next year or 2 years ahead and I can't wait that long and the people on my tinty store. Can't wait that long. 36:26.25 chrisgammell That's right? Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's ah it's It's a shit show out there for sure. It's ah especially I mean well especially automotive I mean like that. Yeah more than anything else. You're just kind of scrape in the bottom of the barrel. 36:31.40 Florin _Voltlog_ Especially yeah, it's it's It's probably the the worst kind of business that you can be in at the Hobby level that I am right? it's it's worse for the big Auto Manufacturers but. 36:43.83 chrisgammell Ah, yeah. 36:49.12 Florin _Voltlog_ If you think about it's it's gonna be much worse for for the little fish like like myself. 36:51.88 chrisgammell Yeah, well, it's nice that you you know you offer the files you're like if you want to try and build this yourself Good good luck. 36:59.76 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, and I've had the biggest trouble you know finding the highsight switches but some people don't need those. They just want to hack their canvas and they just don't need to switch anything. So. 37:10.63 chrisgammell Yeah, yep. 37:15.80 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, have the option of ordering the board without those high side switches just in case I can't get them anymore. 37:16.53 chrisgammell Um, that's good. Yeah yeah, that's it's ah it's it's it's crazy times I mean so do you have any any tricks you'd like to share about sourcing components anything are you? ah do. 37:32.10 Florin _Voltlog_ Like 1 trick which might be too late to apply for most people is to keep a good stash of of the components that. Yeah yeah, so that saved me like with a recent project that I was doing for a client. 37:39.56 chrisgammell Yeah, right right? time machine. That's that's called. 37:50.37 Florin _Voltlog_ On my consulting side of things it I just had a bunch of the parts that we needed for the prototypes that I was building for for this client I had them in my own stash of parts because I do have a lot of parts stashed in you know these Ikea plastic bins in in my lab and. 38:02.33 chrisgammell Yep. 38:07.90 chrisgammell Yep yep. 38:10.36 Florin _Voltlog_ You know, sometimes that really helps because just went to my boxes and found the istn thirty two s that he needed I had about 10 of those left from a a a previous project so I was able to build his 10 prototypes and everyone was happy. 38:24.77 chrisgammell I mean you wrote you really should have done as you should have sold those s tm 32 s on the open market and just retired. You could just been you know, living living large by the seashore. 38:29.75 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, yeah, skip Yeah yeah, skip the skip the hard work of building the hardware. 38:39.13 chrisgammell That's right? Yeah yeah I mean how is it? How is it on the consulting side of things. 38:43.30 Florin _Voltlog_ Well, it's it's hard like I mean recently I've I've had clients that are not necessarily building stuff in the you know hundreds of Thousand or human thousands of pieces. So it's it's mostly they're they're building stuff in the tens of pieces. So. 39:00.70 chrisgammell So yeah. 39:02.77 Florin _Voltlog_ Quantities. So that's much easier, but still you have some some difficulties like you you try to work your way around the design phase such as to have some backup plan like is is this I see really the the only 1 the that we could get it because if this becomes. 39:12.79 chrisgammell E. 39:21.85 Florin _Voltlog_ Hard to get then we're going to be unable to build these boards. Yeah so I try to do my best to you know find and select some some components that have some that can be replaced at some point maybe with a little effort. 39:24.81 chrisgammell That's right, Yeah, you can have a bad time. 39:41.30 Florin _Voltlog_ Just by switching to a different footprint or adjusting some of the I o but I try to keep in back in my mind that I need to find a part that should and be able to be replaced at some point with a different part. 39:52.76 chrisgammell Yeah, how are how are people finding you for your consulting work. 39:58.13 Florin _Voltlog_ So I think my my Youtube Channel is the main gateway into finding clients for the consulting work. People will typically search online for a particular topic that they're interested in for building stuff and sometimes they. 40:13.42 chrisgammell And. 40:17.29 Florin _Voltlog_ End up on my videos which might where I might be talking about that subject and they see hey this guy is talking about exactly what I want built. 40:23.59 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's nice too because then they come to you like hey can you build me a esp 32 with a can bus is like oh actually? yes yes I can yeah I mean it's ah it's interesting I mean would you so then as somewhat so you have 30 three thousand. 40:33.41 Florin _Voltlog_ Yep yep. 40:41.77 chrisgammell Youtube Subscribers You know, not not small, not huge. Ah, but definitely a good size seems like a good community. Would you recommend people start a Youtube Channel just for kind of showcasing their services or is it Not really worth it just for that. 40:43.34 Florin _Voltlog_ Yep, something like that. 40:54.72 Florin _Voltlog_ I think it's an excellent idea I mean it's a little more difficult these days to you know, kind of get noticed on on Youtube there are Youtube is so big like these days and it's it's a bit more difficult to get noticed. But ah. 41:06.46 chrisgammell Yeah, yes, yeah. 41:14.20 Florin _Voltlog_ You you know from a search engine perspective. It's like what the the second biggest search engine that that people use so that has to count for something you you know that at some point people are going to be searching through Youtube stuff and they are going to be ending up on your videos. 41:18.74 chrisgammell That show? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 41:29.91 chrisgammell You? Yeah yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, and I think especially if people are you know, showcasing their own projects right? if they want to like start consulting I think it makes sense or you know just start doing electronics for a living broadly even if they're not consulting. Maybe they want to work for a company. It's like if you're showcasing your own projects. You want to Like. Show off what you've been working On. You're excited about electronics. It just seems like that's a a good venue to to do that sort of thing. It's just a lot of people are not wanting to be in front of the camera. Obviously I think you're very, you're very natural in front of the camera. So That's a that's a good start. Ah yeah. 42:02.10 Florin _Voltlog_ I mean it's it's something that you work on. It's not going to be easy or your first video is probably not going to be so great, but it's something that you work on and get better with over time. So that's not the reason not to start. 42:10.17 chrisgammell M. 42:16.48 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah I think that's right, Yeah, it's so you just got to not care at the beginning. 42:22.87 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, and it's also good to not care along the way because there's going to be some ugly comments that you receive but it's part of the course and you just have to move on. 42:30.72 chrisgammell Oh well. Yeah. 42:37.80 chrisgammell Yeah, that's great. That's great. Ah yeah I mean over time as well. I'd imagine that you're you know you build out your lab. Yeah I mean you but you do a lot of videos about your lab you build out that sort of thing over time. It just kind of seems like gradual buildup. 42:49.32 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, I mean I've switched to like 3 different labs since I've started the Youtube channel in 2015 so you kind of built and improve with each new 1 the latest 1 is is the greatest in my opinion I have this great new workbench I did the video and on the workbench build I built it from aluminium profiles instead of the usual you know wood timber frame construction and this. 43:09.97 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah, well yeah, yeah, yeah. 43:20.16 chrisgammell Yeah I saw that that was a good 1 and you did like ah you be able to design. It was like an online design tool is that right? Yeah, got it? yeah. 43:26.50 Florin _Voltlog_ yeah yeah I mean I did it in fusion 3 sixty. It's it's just I just built it how I imagine it and then there are these online shops where you order your aluminium profiles. 43:42.53 chrisgammell Ah, that's that's what I was thinking? Yeah, that piece is what I was thinking about? yeah. 43:43.29 Florin _Voltlog_ Already cut to size. Yeah, and that's super helpful. I mean if you can get those almin profiles cut to length then the only thing that you have left to do is to assemble it with screws and Nuts. So it. 44:03.10 chrisgammell I'm just I'm just staring at your profile your ah cover image for this video. It's it's like ah you increase the size of your head or something. It's very. It's very like uncanny value style. It's like yeah yeah. 44:12.42 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah I thought that would be an interesting stop nail. 44:18.43 chrisgammell It looks like ah like a like anime almost you know. 44:19.98 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah I mean you you have to get creative with these thumbnails and I don't do it all the time but when I do it you you notice it in in the yeah people just click that thumbnail more than they would otherwise. 44:24.15 chrisgammell Yeah, you can do you go all the way. 44:34.70 chrisgammell Silly. Yeah yeah, that's that's the tradeoff I suppose of ah the Youtube The Youtube side of things that's great. So I mean so on the consulting side and generally like the stuff you're making videos about that you are interested in like what what would be. 44:40.34 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah. 44:53.69 chrisgammell You know what's your sweet spot I suppose on the consulting side is it sdm 32 kind of stuff is it esp 32 is it automotive sensors. What are you? What are you hoping to do in general. 45:02.11 Florin _Voltlog_ I haven't done any specific you know automotive stuff for my consulting side because that's typically what you know companies that build stuff that actually goes into cars. They tend to deal with you know, bigger. 45:06.18 chrisgammell M. 45:19.50 chrisgammell In. 45:21.35 Florin _Voltlog_ Consulting companies. Not a 1 man show like I'm running So I guess that's 1 of the reasons which I haven't you know, built any any projects on on that side of things professionally. But I do build a lot of Iot stuff on my consulting business have a lot of clients that. Like to build in general you know small staff that's wirelessly connected and somehow contains some sensors somehow transmits data over the air. 45:50.48 chrisgammell I yeah, that's great I I have said many times before I think my ah my my paycheck for the next 10 years will be things that people want to hook to the internet. You know like a lot of industrial things that they're just like yeah I just want you know I have this thing I want it to work or I had it already works. 46:04.23 Florin _Voltlog_ Yep. 46:09.58 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah I think that's yeah I think that I think that takes a good share of of the market in in this field and kind of specifically I think it tailors best to this type of business and this type of consulting business where you would. 46:09.64 chrisgammell I Want to make a work and talk to the internet. It's like okay well that's not trivial but we can make it do it. 46:25.53 chrisgammell This is. 46:29.25 Florin _Voltlog_ Hire 1 or 2 engineers to work on that project and design it for you. 46:31.93 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah I think that's right I think it I think the scaling piece. Especially it depends who they come through with I've had people come through as like software companies and then they're like yeah we just need the hardware at the end piece is like okay yeah I can do that. And then I've had other people who were like I need you to do all of it and then I have to usually pull in pull in some software people and that sort of thing and then it's kind of a different.. It's a different style of thing where it's so almost like ah standing up an entire system for them versus kind of slotting into the system they already have. 47:03.92 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah that's that can be nice. For example I have my new lab in an office building and there are some software coding guys here which are really good and I did work with them on on a past project client of mine and it was a really good cooperation. You know being so close with them and I dealt with the harder side of things they did the softer side of things for the client. It's nice to have these kind of people that you can. 47:25.21 chrisgammell Yeah. 47:32.16 chrisgammell So yeah, that's great. That's great and. 47:39.52 Florin _Voltlog_ Collaborate with on on such projects because you deliver more value in the end to the customer. 47:42.20 chrisgammell Yeah, it's almost like you're building out like a little ad hoc team and then kind of you scatter afterwards. It's ah yeah, it's good to have those those kind of partnerships and stuff are you? Where are you mostly like. 47:47.70 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, yeah. 47:58.15 chrisgammell In your area like where where are your customers located. They kind of all over the place. Oh yeah, okay. 47:59.89 Florin _Voltlog_ Most of the times international customers. Why I have I have few customers from here from Romania but most of the times it's like United states germany united kingdom. 48:09.43 chrisgammell Yeah. 48:17.00 chrisgammell Yeah, that's great. Yeah international consultant of mystery. 48:18.72 Florin _Voltlog_ I Think those are my. 48:25.75 Florin _Voltlog_ And know it's It's nice to meet all of these people. It's nice to work on such a variety of projects Sometimes you get to work with other teams because sometimes you just you're just brought on to to help on on a particular project on which. 48:33.48 chrisgammell Um. 48:45.48 Florin _Voltlog_ An existing team is already working on. 48:46.14 chrisgammell Yeah, ah can I try and convince you to go to embedded world in Mars maybe we can meet up I'm going to be there. 48:53.20 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah I was actually thinking about that because I've heard you mention that in in in a previous am power so I was actually thinking about that. 48:58.62 chrisgammell Ah, it it. It doesn't doesn't look like a short trip from ah from your part of the world. But ah yay. 49:05.99 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, so the last time I wanted to go to a similar meetup was to Hackaday bellgrade I think I even got plane tickets and booked some accommodation there. But. 49:14.30 chrisgammell Um, yeah. 49:24.17 Florin _Voltlog_ You know in the end it got canceled. So yeah, some yeah I'm kind of eager to to you know, live the country and go to 1 of these meetups. 49:24.63 chrisgammell Oh it was the 2021 that sucks. Yeah I've heard rumor that that will come back. So that's good. 49:38.78 chrisgammell Yeah, is same. Yeah, it's I've it's been. It's been a little too long since I've had like had like a true nerd out session. You know in like in person and it's just not the same on on online. You know. 49:47.77 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, site. Yeah I think there's a good chance. Well will I'll be there. 49:57.87 chrisgammell Okay, great. We'll we'll coordinate after we'll ahll. We'll talk about that. But if other people are going too then we could all meet up. You know in a safe way. Of course you know assuming that there's no flare ups of Covid like usual ah I long for the old days. 50:04.14 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, yeah. 50:12.50 Florin _Voltlog_ You know we have to adapt. 50:18.12 chrisgammell Yeah, ah so you also are a ham so I saw I was watching your video about the repeater you did a couple but a month ago or so what's ah, what's what drove that interest. 50:23.66 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, so actually I wanted to to get my ham license even before covid and here in Romania the exam I mean it's not super difficult but it's not as easy at. As it is in in other places like you still have to pass this theory exam where they put you through all of these different subjects and kind of need to know them all to pass the exam and I studied for the exam then covid came then the exams. 50:50.27 chrisgammell Um. 51:00.64 chrisgammell Oh cheese. Yeah. 51:01.39 Florin _Voltlog_ Got canceled or yeah or delayed and then I was reluctant to go to the next exam because of covid so it kind of took me 2 years until I got back on track and and finally managed to. Go and and take this exam for for the ham operator license and I I got it. My call sign is yankee oscar for victor lima tago that is in Colsine language. 51:22.21 chrisgammell Nice. 51:37.17 Florin _Voltlog_ I'm happily using that language even though it's not necessary. 51:42.13 chrisgammell Ah, you said Yankee Askcar for lima Tango is that right? Victory lee. 51:44.76 Florin _Voltlog_ Victor Lee My tago. It's like an abbreviation from vollo. 51:53.78 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, I'm probably too excited for this. 52:00.20 chrisgammell Ah, that's great. Oh cool, well and and how how far afield are you is it taking you are You are you making contacts far and wide. No. 52:07.59 Florin _Voltlog_ Well no, no ah for once because of lack of gear and I'm probably also not really into that thing making no long range contacts. 52:22.97 chrisgammell Um, sure. 52:24.89 Florin _Voltlog_ You know it's it's a thing in in the ham operator world. But it's not what attracts me? um I just have a small bow and radio and I just use it to connect to 1 of these repeater networks that. 52:34.34 chrisgammell Yeah. 52:42.41 Florin _Voltlog_ The awesome guys here in Romania built. It's called rolling and so what they did is they they built this network of repeaters so you can connect locally short range to 1 of these repeaters. 52:43.48 chrisgammell Yeah. 52:59.19 Florin _Voltlog_ Over analog and then it just goes through the internet into this National network. 53:02.77 chrisgammell Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah I mean it It is interesting in like the days of like the internet too. Obviously you and I are talking over a very very large distances and you know we're near perfect quality. Ah, but but there's there's still something about it of like you know doing that to a hand. 53:12.29 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, yeah, yeah. 53:21.58 chrisgammell Handheld. Basically you know you have you know, just it's for the interest of of doing the the ham radio side of things. So. 53:26.41 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, so as you're saying I built 1 of these small repeaters myself because for once you can connect to 1 of these you knows let's call them higher power repeaters that some people build and maintain. But at some point. That repeat is probably going to be offline or you're probably going to be going off coverage and I built this portable repeater unit that just uses a small single board computer and orange pie and. 53:47.37 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah. 53:54.68 chrisgammell Yeah. 54:01.67 Florin _Voltlog_ It uses 1 of these wokitay modules I believe the part number is essay 8 1 8 So it's it's a module the size of an esp thirty two module that basically has all of the wokitaie functionality built into it. 54:14.11 chrisgammell Yeah, like yeah txrx it does the keying for you all that kind of thing right? It's just like simple Gpi Inputs and a single antenna. Yeah yeah. 54:17.28 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, yeah, and half a what or up to 1 watt of output power. So you have this portable node that you can connect to like a wireless hotspot that you generate from your smartphone and it goes through the internet and you're onto the network From. Like any place where you get cell coverage. 54:36.50 chrisgammell Yeah, that's pretty awesome I mean like that is that is really fun for like you know if you're doing events or similar kind of things. It's just that's yeah, it's a lot of fun. That's a yeah true. That's true. That's true huh. Yeah I Yeah I just finished. 54:44.75 Florin _Voltlog_ Definitely yeah and it can hold more users like not just for yourself. 54:55.73 chrisgammell Ah I just finished the surely you're joking Mr. Feynman and there's an anecdote in there where he's like trying he's in Brazil and he's trying to get data from caltech like he was on. He was on sabbatical in Brazil and he like he was using these long range contacts to contact caltech you know like pasadena california. 55:13.42 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, yeah. 55:15.16 chrisgammell And it's like oh that that sounds terrible like like that's what it was really really important that you had that sort of thing but now it's just like okay well it send an email or a you know call or exactly. Yeah yeah, but now it's just for fun and I mean that's that's a super cool module. 55:22.20 Florin _Voltlog_ And nobody thinks about it anymore. Yeah, distance is is not a problem anymore. 55:34.50 chrisgammell So then in terms of like the interfacing was it tough to actually get it to getting that walkie-talkie module to talk to the pie. 55:38.40 Florin _Voltlog_ Now because I have this kind of mindset when when I'm building these projects and this is partly due to the fact that I present them on youtube and I do a video each week so I kind of don't have a lot of time at my disposal to build these projects and document them. 55:53.60 chrisgammell Is. 55:57.66 Florin _Voltlog_ And present them on on a Youtube video. So usually that's not enough time to build both hardware and software. That's usually just enough to build harder and maybe just a little bit of software. You know, just the timeframe is is too short and what I like to do is. 55:58.38 chrisgammell M. 56:08.92 chrisgammell I got it? yeah. 56:17.26 Florin _Voltlog_ Try to build projects where I can do a lot of the hardware side and very little of the software side and this is 1 of those examples where the software side of things was already done for me because. 56:23.94 chrisgammell So yeah. 56:31.89 chrisgammell Yeah, because of the it's on the the pie and the just like a software stack on the on that linux board and stuff. 56:35.67 Florin _Voltlog_ People Just? yeah yeah, they they just built this linux image that you just load onto an Sd card and it already has all the required scripts and software Printed. It's just a small config file that you need to adjust to your own needs. And then you're up and running. 56:56.71 chrisgammell Yeah Floren when are we gonna want to get better at software. This is the thing I Keep struggling with you know, like ah yeah I just I don't I don't know you know. 57:04.97 Florin _Voltlog_ I don't think there's enough pressure these days like like 1015 years ago maybe there was a lot more pressure and you really had to do it yourself, but these days I take on on a new project and even if it needs a. 57:15.88 chrisgammell Ah, yeah, yeah. 57:23.13 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, large chunk of software to be written with for I can just collaborate with a programming guy that does of the programming for me I deal with the hardware he deals he deals with software and we're both happy at the end of the day. 57:37.70 chrisgammell Bingo. Yeah yeah, see now this is another thing where the internet it just ruined things you know and ruined the long range contacts. It ruined the collaboration used to. You know it used to be more self-sufficient I guess I don't know. Yeah, we just get to. 57:47.85 Florin _Voltlog_ yeah and I yeah I have I have a lot of examples like this in in my you know recent projects the other 1 is the valve controller based on esp 32 57:51.77 chrisgammell We just get to play around with the stuff that we really like the hardware. You know. 58:04.56 chrisgammell Easy. 58:07.19 Florin _Voltlog_ That 1 just was designed to run this open source firmer which is called tasmota and it's this mtt based ah platform that runs on esp 2 12 on esp 32 it's just great for. 58:21.82 chrisgammell P. 58:26.27 Florin _Voltlog_ Building automation type stuff because it has drivers for most of the stuff that you would normally connect to an esp thirty two and you just load that that firmware image and you're good to go you just need to configure some gpio and everything just runs. 58:41.54 chrisgammell But and what what kind of valves. We talked about here. 58:44.22 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, I'm talking about these thermostat valves for a floor heating system so they are yeah yeah, they are electric valves. They are typically based on this wax cartridge and they have this. 58:49.90 chrisgammell Ah, oh cool. Okay, like a ah radiative like ah style heating. 59:04.00 Florin _Voltlog_ Small resistive heater. So when you apply power it starts heating up and ah, you know it takes about two minutes to for the wax inside that cartridge to completely expand and push the spin to actuate the valve. 59:18.58 chrisgammell Huh whack. It's wax space. That's really weird. 59:19.56 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, I and don't code me on that it's It's probably not the the most accurate piece of information I'm just guessing here because other other types of simmer valves are are built on on wax cartridges. 59:26.49 chrisgammell Ah. Yeah, well, it's yeah, that's I mean that's really cool if it is though I mean like that's I just feel like that would wear out but I guess the you know if it works it works Ah wait. Yeah hu. 59:39.61 Florin _Voltlog_ It's Nope. It's the most reliable way it turns out it's the most reliable way of controlling these valves because the other way would be to have some mechanical you know gears or and that's a lot more parts that have to move in and. 59:49.86 chrisgammell Yeah, right, right? right. 59:56.80 Florin _Voltlog_ That's a lot more stuff that could fail in the long term. 59:57.11 chrisgammell Yeah, right I was I always worried about that sort of and so this is like ah so this is like resistive heating or is just like the fluid style. Okay, so. 01:00:03.49 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, resistive. It's just a resistive component in there that hits up something could be wax could be another type of fluid that just expands with temperature inside the cartridge and through the action of you know the that. 01:00:13.16 chrisgammell Um, yeah. 01:00:22.77 Florin _Voltlog_ Fluid expanding it just pushes a pin that actctuates a thermostat valve. 01:00:28.78 chrisgammell That's super cool. Yeah, and so this is what's keeping your lab warm or your home or what do you use it for. 01:00:32.41 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, yeah I use it in my home because I recently installed 1 of these four heating systems and it you don't really need this level of automation. But if you're like an electronics engineer. Why wouldn't you do it. 01:00:45.75 chrisgammell Well yeah I mean what? what do we really need though in our lives in that way, you know? Ah yeah, totally. Ah. 01:00:51.71 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah I mean you can go without it but it's fun to build and and and you can then get statistics and what engineer doesn't love seeing nice statistics and graphs in his home automation project. 01:01:03.25 chrisgammell that's right yeah yeah yeah that's great that's great I always think but I yeah you know like that they also have those kind where they ah they have like liquid going through piping in the floor. That's what I thought it was at first. 01:01:08.89 Florin _Voltlog_ I Love that stuff. 01:01:19.46 Florin _Voltlog_ Well yeah, it's based on liquid So there there are pipes laying in in the floor and yep and no so there's actually liquid going into into those pipes and. 01:01:21.38 chrisgammell You're talking about. But. 01:01:26.59 chrisgammell What is that? Okay, all right, all right? Okay I thought it was I thought it was resistive like like a wire in the floor like a heating element. Ah, ah. 01:01:39.25 Florin _Voltlog_ And because you have different circuits going to different rooms or different sides of the the room you want to be able to control those circuits individually so you have 1 of these valves on each of the circuits so that you could turn on or off based on the heat requirements for that specific room. 01:01:41.36 chrisgammell Yeah, okay, yeah. 01:01:55.21 chrisgammell Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah I've always I always wanted something like I always just felt like that idea of like having like a nice toasty warm floor would be like super nice and like to be able to dial it in so that when you're not in a room. It turns off whatever and my answer instead was to move south. 01:02:10.17 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, yeah I heard about that in in your recent empire talks that you move South and the winter is much nicer Now you go for wax. 01:02:16.51 chrisgammell Yeah, oh it's that's right? Yep yeah, it was 70 other day or when I was Twenty Twenty Two C the other day. It was great. It was yeah it's ah I'm I'm quite wimpy now though I yeah. Ah, get cold I get cold much easier so that that's the downside I'll be traveling to I'll be traveling to see family for for the the Thanksgiving holiday here and I'm a little worried I'm a little worried about how ah how I'll handle it. That's right? yeah. 01:02:44.24 Florin _Voltlog_ Probably gonna gonna have to pack some warp clothes. 01:02:50.46 chrisgammell Yeah, does that does this ah floor heater does it work for like heating clothing. 01:02:54.90 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, now what I do think they sell something that works off a power bank or something like that. 01:02:58.43 chrisgammell They do? Yeah yeah, they do I saw they actually have it at like the home repair store here. They they sell them there and I had see I had heard about it like on bang good as well. You could get like resistive heating elements for your clothing. Ah. 01:03:03.45 Florin _Voltlog_ Yes. 01:03:09.69 Florin _Voltlog_ Um, but I think you've lived in in the cold side for for a lot of years so there should be something left in you. 01:03:14.86 chrisgammell I Just I you'd think so you'd think yeah I hope so I hope so well I will find out soon by the time this episode is published I'm sure I'll I'll have I'll have some feedback. 01:03:26.14 Florin _Voltlog_ Well I am the kind of person that much prefers the cold over the worm and I'm talking about extremes here I would rather stay in extreme cold than extreme hot weather. 01:03:31.77 chrisgammell Oh interesting. Yeah. 01:03:40.52 chrisgammell Huh What? what? What are the ranges of temperatures and in your part of the world. 01:03:45.16 Florin _Voltlog_ I it depends I mean especially in in the last few years with we've we've had some change of of things in in what the weather is like and I think anyone over the world can say the same thing. 01:03:56.11 chrisgammell E. Yeah I Agree. Yep. 01:04:03.90 Florin _Voltlog_ Not the same as it used to be um, but typically in the winter right in in in December to January right here where I live we can get minus 10 degrees in the night celsius and it. Can go you know positive five degrees over the day if it's nice and sunny but during the summers if it's a very hot summer. We can easily get 35 degrees celsius even higher than that. So yeah, so. 01:04:34.50 chrisgammell Oh yeah, okay so that's pretty big swings. But I mean you are right near the water too. So that helps I'm sure for yeah I mean if if nothing else then to just be able to run and jump in the water. Yeah. 01:04:41.89 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, that that helps yeah definitely helps. 01:04:48.56 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, that definitely helps. 01:04:51.52 chrisgammell Yeah, that's great. So ah, we are approaching the end of the show but also approaching the holidays I wanted to point out, you have a really fun video about gifts for electrical engineers I Thought that's you kind of? do you? Always you do a lot of mailbag stuff. 01:05:07.25 Florin _Voltlog_ Okay. 01:05:08.61 chrisgammell But I think this is really useful for people that are looking to ah you know, tell their family. What to what to get them for for the holidays you know. 01:05:11.65 Florin _Voltlog_ I Mean yeah I mean I look at my family members and they really struggle when they're trying to get me a present. 01:05:19.69 chrisgammell Yeah, like what you want what for? what. 01:05:25.38 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, yeah, yeah, and and they kind of kind of they they've gotten used to it that it and they they kind of feel the stress when the holidays come up because they really need to find something that's going to be appreciated. 01:05:39.80 chrisgammell Ah, the. 01:05:41.37 Florin _Voltlog_ And they go through this stress and I was thinking hey there must be other people out there going through the same trouble and I like doing these videos every year and I typically like showing stuff that I have owned and have tested in in these videos. That's. 01:05:48.99 chrisgammell That's great. 01:05:58.78 Florin _Voltlog_ Always a positive thing when when I can say about a particular tool that I have used it for past year or even more and I find it useful. 01:06:06.72 chrisgammell Yeah, so can we get out of the 10 that are in this list. Can we get it can maybe a preview of 2 of them. So that people can to hear hear some ideas like price range and what they are. 01:06:15.79 Florin _Voltlog_ So yeah, yep I'll give you a very cheap 1 that I think it's really useful and every electronics engineer that builds proypes and tiners with electronics should have and that is the aluminium syringe plunger. So you know as. 01:06:31.43 chrisgammell Oh yeah. 01:06:33.60 Florin _Voltlog_ When you typically order these flux or solder pasty wringes. They tend to come either without a plunger or with a very skinny plastic 1 so there is this aluminium designed 1 that fits over a standard you know solder paste or fluxyringe and so it's reusable. When that sringe is done. You can just install it on the next range and it just you know it just feels good when you're dispensing solar paste or flux for meringe to use 1 of these. They're sometimes called boosters on aliexpress and they're really cheap. They're like you know. Four five dollars apiece 01:07:09.88 chrisgammell And is it just because it I mean it doesn't push any harder right? But I guess it won't snap if you push really hard. But. 01:07:14.10 Florin _Voltlog_ No, no yeah it. It just feels like something solid as opposed to a flimsy plastic plunger that you take from a standard syringe. 01:07:27.00 chrisgammell Okay, that's a good 1 I like that. 01:07:29.53 Florin _Voltlog_ And on the more expensive side of things. Ah I can talk about the Unity waveform generator which I got this year it's a yeah, yeah, it's that 1 because it's I believe it's just over. 01:07:40.56 chrisgammell Okay, was that the 1 that you said everybody should have must have this 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay yeah, yep. 01:07:48.74 Florin _Voltlog_ Hundred dollars or something like that ship and and it's It's a really cool waveform generator I mean if you're an advanced User. It's probably not for you. But if you're just starting out with electronics or if you want to run your own experiments. If. You don't need anything high frequency or very very clean. Signal I think it can work just great for you. You know for just for experimenting just for educational purposes I think it's great because most people Yeah, it's very small. 01:08:16.52 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah I mean what is this is like looks like it's like a tiny bench instrument just looking at the size of the ports and stuff. 01:08:26.12 Florin _Voltlog_ Very small, very small and compact. It's powered by a usb line so you could very easily turn it into a portable unit you can power it from a power bank just as easily. 01:08:36.93 chrisgammell Yeah, and do you think this has benefits over I guess this is a bench instrument over like a usb-based instrument I was talking about the analog discovery to last last episode and it seems like it's about the same range and stuff I'm guessing the chips that's probably pretty similar. Um. 01:08:53.41 Florin _Voltlog_ I haven't used the Analog Discovery I Know about this functionality I don't know about its its specs or cost. But if it's in the same price range then it probably depends on how your preferred way of working is. 01:09:04.18 chrisgammell No, no, it's like almost double or triple so depending where you are. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay yeah, this is I mean this is good. This is a good bench 1 for sure. It's very cute and compact I mean it definitely like has the right. 01:09:09.72 Florin _Voltlog_ Ah, but it also adds a lot more functionality I would guess. 01:09:22.24 Florin _Voltlog_ I Mean some people prefer to work standalone on with workbench type instruments some people prefer to work in front of a computer so it also depends on how you prefer to work. 01:09:22.56 chrisgammell Form factor. That's pretty Fun. So. Yeah. 01:09:35.81 chrisgammell Yeah I think that's right, Yeah, a lot of people are they just say no I I need to have a screen I need to have Knobs I could turn buttons I can push that sort of thing. So I think that's this is a nice interface for that sort of thing. 01:09:47.92 Florin _Voltlog_ Yeah, so these would be like my my cheap and bit more expensive selection from from that video that I would recommend as as gifts for engineers for holiday season. 01:09:56.60 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah, and I think too is like ah if you're gonna get stuff out like so like the the waveform Generat is off bang good and it's like you got to probably get the order in now to to get it in time for the. 01:10:11.68 Florin _Voltlog_ Oh yeah yeah, yeah I've been hearing that it's especially difficult this year with the you know the whole postal and logistics systems worldwide it. We're going through some tough times. 01:10:13.58 chrisgammell Ah, holidays as well. So. 01:10:22.46 chrisgammell Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, buy your buy your gifts early folks or else you're you're gonna have to shop in person. Good Lord oh man. Well floren i. Would highly recommend people check the rest of your videos out I enjoy every single 1 of them. You are a mustwatch channel on my youtube subscription so please keep making great videos I really I really like the stuff you're making. Ah yeah, well that. 01:10:51.83 Florin _Voltlog_ Thank you so much Chris if men's allowed to hear it from you because you talk to other people. 01:11:00.45 chrisgammell I Do talk to a lot of people but you know this is this is you're you're making the kind of content I like including including Kaiket videos. So keep that up to where where could people find you online generally. 01:11:06.14 Florin _Voltlog_ yeah yeah I so people can find me on youtube dot com slash voldog I Mainly publish youtube videos once a week but I'm also on Twitter dot com slash well log I tweet once in a while. 01:11:22.92 chrisgammell Great and you have a tindi store as well. 01:11:25.60 Florin _Voltlog_ I Also have a Tin D store. Ah just search for vlog on tiny dot com and you'll find some of the products showcased on my Youtube videos. Some of them can be purchased for my Tin D store. 01:11:37.92 chrisgammell Awesome! Well thanks for joining me today floren I I really enjoyed talking to you. 01:11:41.62 Florin _Voltlog_ It was a pleasure to talk to you Chris Thank you for having me on the show.