A Conversation with The Awkward Engineer

In this episode, which might just be our nerdiest one yet, we are joined by Sam Feller, aka The Awkward Engineer.  First and foremost he would like everyone to know that he is the awkward one, the engineering is top notch.

Sam is a long time Worthington/CircuitHub customer, product manager at Tulip, former engineer at Amazon, and founder of the Awkward Engineer where he works on quirky hardware project and now does consulting! 

It was a pleasure to have Sam on the show. Some of the topics we touch on include: 

• Why having common stock parts set up on reels is not actually the simplest idea to execute.
• Interesting sourcing stories.
• Soldering techniques for building prototypes
• The importance of having structured processes in place for your hardware of software development team .
• Sam's vickrey auction for his Voltmeter Clocks

If you want to get in touch with Sam you can email him at questions@awkwardengineer.com

pickplacepodcast.com

Transcript

Chris: 0:08

Welcome to the pick place podcast. I show where we talk about electronics, manufacturing and everything related to getting a circuit board into the world. This is Chris Denney with Worthington.

Melissa: 0:16

And this is Melissa Hough with CircuitHub

Chris: 0:19

Welcome pack, Melissa.

Melissa: 0:20

welcome back, Chris.

Chris: 0:22

Now see we're recording. What? Like barely a week apart. This is unusual for us. Normally we wait like a month before we record again.

Melissa: 0:28

I got about less than 12 hours notice this time.

Chris: 0:34

I do my best. I do my best. Yeah, so, pretty good week. Got a lot done. We we've been hammering away trying to get ourselves prepared for our new pick and place machines and we've got

Melissa: 0:44

Any updates on the arrival? Chris: Oh, yes. One boat that left Japan late is still in the middle of the Pacific and expected to arrive in the, on the coast of Los Angeles on the 22nd or 23rd, which means it might be sitting there for another two weeks before it actually gets into into the port. Who knows. Let's just put it this way. I'm going to Acadia next week. And I'm not at all worried about installing pick and place yeah. Nice. Is it coming on a train or a, or a truck?

Chris: 1:15

the truck. Yeah.

Melissa: 1:16

A truck. Cause I know there is a truck driver shortage. So you might be waiting a little bit longer now,

Chris: 1:21

That's the other problem. Right. And that's the reason that they can't even get into the port sometimes, cuz they can't get the, they can't get the dock unloaded. So then they can't get the ships unloaded onto the dock. So then the ships have to sit in the ocean. Oh it's a whole

Melissa: 1:33

Yep. Well, thus is life

Chris: 1:35

That's okay. It has more time to call electricians and riggers and everybody to get prepared. It's all good. It's all good. But here we're not here to talk about pick and place machines, even though this is literally the name of the show, the pick place podcast. This week, we have very, very special guests, a long time customer, friend of the show, Mr. Sam feller, AKA the awkward engineer. Welcome to the show. Sam

Melissa: 1:59

welcome. Awesome.

Sam: 2:00

Thank you. I am, I am the awkward engineer. That's that's right.

Chris: 2:05

Do you still go by the awkward engineer?

Sam: 2:07

I sign my emails as the awkward engineer with usually capital THE. Proud of that fact that I am the awkward engineer. Although, funny story I had, I had someone reach out to me the other day and he was like, Hey, I need some aluminum welding done on this like trailer hitch that broke. And I was like, I don't know why you would reach out to me for that. And I was like, where are you? And he gives me like some address in London and it turned out he was looking for awkward engineering and I was

Melissa: 2:40

Ah,

Sam: 2:40

I was like, I was like, no, no, the engineering we do here is top not I'm just

Melissa: 2:48

Okay. So you are the awkward one, not the engineering is awkward.

Sam: 2:51

engineering's top

Melissa: 2:53

Okay,

Chris: 2:53

Yeah. But the, the end product tends to be quirky in my experience. Yeah. Yeah. Like I'll never forget when I met you you were wearing you had a nice bag that you kept various, you know, personal effects in, but the strap was a seatbelt.

Sam: 3:11

those are the it's the, the bike messenger. I can't think of the name in the bag, but yeah. Yeah. I still have that.

Chris: 3:17

Yeah,

Sam: 3:18

it's like lying on the, laying on the floor in the corner of the room over there. Yeah.

Chris: 3:22

parts are like, if you can repurpose an automotive part into your product, they're some of the best parts you can ever get your hands on.

Sam: 3:32

Very true. I remember talking to,

Chris: 3:34

highly engineered

Sam: 3:35

yeah, I remember talking to this was my boss a long time ago and we were looking for like air coolers for something. It is some like refrigeration system. And we talked about, we looked at like cost for heat exchangers on an F-150 and we were like, that's that's the line. like that is a cost reduced, like high volume optimized, like designed to be made in like quantities of millions. Like you're not gonna do better than that. And

Chris: 4:03

right. That's why home brewers. We all use we all use cooling systems from diesel pickups for our heat exchangers. They're like the perfect size. They're like so totally appropriate to use. Cuz they do you know, cool water to hot, hot beer. Well, they call it work. But anyway, the automotive world, I remember one time somebody was telling me that they were struggling to find a vacuum pump under whatever, like $70 for their, whatever, you know, application they had it for. And they couldn't find anybody who could make one. They had the right specs, yada yada, yada, everything was coming in over a hundred dollars. And then they found one from GM, they somehow got ahold of the engineer at GM. And they said like, to like, you know, can you tell us more about this vacuum pump, blah, blah, blah. It like exceeded all the specifications they needed. It was like so much better than what they needed and that the engineer was complaining that he couldn't get it for less. He couldn't find anybody to make it for less than $13, but like 13

Melissa: 4:59

What huh?

Sam: 5:02

Yeah.

Chris: 5:03

it's the best. Yeah. If you can find a way to repurpose and I'll, and it's the same way with like everything. So a lot of these sensors and chips and everything that everybody's using on arduino and raspberry pi projects, they all come from cell phones being made in the millions, like inheriting, all that technology that's being made at scale is so great.

Sam: 5:22

Yeah, no, very true. I couldn't agree more.

Chris: 5:25

All right. But Sam, this isn't here for us to go on and on about automotive parts. We have, we have a few things, you have a few things that I was fascinated to talk about, really excited to talk about. Why don't you talk about your first your first subject and let us have it. You lean into us. Good on

Sam: 5:41

Is this is this like common stock and, and designing parts around common stock because this started at this started as like an email rant, I believe. So like designing things. So like volt meter clock was one of them like long, long ago.

Chris: 5:57

For listeners who aren't aware, the vault meter clock is a product that Sam has designed and manufactured and sold.

Sam: 6:02

that I ordered through CircuitHub and like, and I worked with Worthington on the box build as well. I think that's how I first, first met you guys. And so. I was obsessed with designing for like small batch on that. Like it was designed for a Kickstarter and it was designed to be profitable in like quantities of like 50, like which small, very small batch size. And so I wanted to know if I could get like the batch size, even lower. Like what if I did a, what if I did a batch of like 10? And so I, I know that a lot of your cost is like setup cost, just like loading the feeders for the pick and place machines. And I think the, the email

Chris: 6:45

Opening boxes from DigiKey and putting them into a kit. Yeah. Like all that stuff.

Sam: 6:50

I think the email rant was like, why don't you have a set of common parts that are already on feeders? And then you explained to me why? And I, I just, I wanna argue with you a little and then I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna concede cuz I think you're the expert here, but we should

Chris: 7:04

No, no, no, no,

Sam: 7:05

why, why can't, why can't you have like a common set of like, like, oh 6 0 3 components for like common resistor sizes and capacitor sizes.

Chris: 7:14

Yeah. Yeah. So the, the argument that we've always made is simply a matter of capital costs. Most of the time it comes down to capital costs. So you're, you're investing, let's say, you know, a, a pick and place machine

Sam: 7:29

what is a real, what is a reel of resistors cost?

Chris: 7:33

anywhere from 10 to $15.

Sam: 7:36

So you're gonna like to get a full set. I don't know of like, like one K 5k,

Chris: 7:42

no, that's not the cost.

Sam: 7:44

not the cost. You're gonna tell. You're gonna tell me you're gonna tell me it's the feeders.

Chris: 7:49

yeah. So like, so as as mentioned in the opening of the show, we're waiting on delivery of pick and place machines. We bought two pick and place machines the associated heads and cameras and, and verifiers, and you know, all the various accessories and carts and feeders. The retail cost of that, we didn't quite pay the retail cost of that, but the retail cost of that was over 1.2 million

Sam: 8:10

But that's the machine

Chris: 8:11

that's for two machines.

Sam: 8:12

two machines, but, but I'm interested in like, what would it take to have the feeders like already stocked, ready and loaded?

Chris: 8:21

So there you go. So, so the feeders alone, each, each eight millimeter feeder, which handles most of your 6 0 3, 0 8 oh fives, and those kinds of things all your, all your, you know, typical 10 K resistors 0.1 mics and all that. Those are anywhere from about a thousand to $1,200 each.

Sam: 8:38

For the feeder.

Chris: 8:39

yeah.

Sam: 8:40

crazy to me.

Chris: 8:42

so then, so then if you let's say machine can hold 135.

Sam: 8:47

why I've, I've seen feeders,

Chris: 8:49

Yeah. If you, if

Sam: 8:51

there's not 1200 of metal in there and I don't think there's 1200 of assembly labor putting it together. Like how did

Chris: 8:57

But if. If, you know, if you know how Gillette makes their money, then, then you'll know

Sam: 9:03

razors and blades. Okay. All right.

Chris: 9:05

Yeah. So the machines are very complicated and very expensive. And I have to imagine

Sam: 9:10

can't get like

Chris: 9:11

about a break even.

Sam: 9:13

you can't get like knockoff, feeders.

Chris: 9:15

Nope. Not anymore. You used to be able

Sam: 9:18

the little R F I D tags? Like in the keurig cups

Chris: 9:21

not an R F I D they're a straight up computer. There's a little computer board inside each feeder.

Sam: 9:26

in the feeder get out.

Chris: 9:28

the, yeah, cuz the feeder is, is a machine in and of itself. If you look, it looks like a Swiss watch when you open these things, they're unbelievably complicated. Yeah. And they're they have splice detection.

Sam: 9:42

the, out, on the outside, it just looks like a dumb, like hunk of sheet metal. the inside the inside's a Swiss watch.

Chris: 9:49

20 years ago,

Sam: 9:51

I'm get, I'm gonna Google

Chris: 9:52

still Swiss watches. Yeah. TW 20 years ago they were still Swiss watches, but they were entirely mechanical and you had a pneumatic cylinder that would push a, an arm on the feeder to index the feeder. And so you could make a knockoff. And there was, there was a thriving knockoff market 20 years ago, but then the demand for more intelligent feeders to do more automated things became a market. And so in the early two thousands, most, every manufacturer switched over to intelligent feeders with little computers inside

Sam: 10:23

They

Chris: 10:23

communicate with the machine

Sam: 10:25

I'm sure they were also like, and also guys, we can control

Chris: 10:29

Yes, of course there's a big, there's a big advantage there, but then they also do things like they self monitor, they can detect, you know, when they need maintenance. There's all kinds of yeah, but so, so you, you have a pick and place machine that holds 135 unique, eight millimeter feeders. You're looking at$135,000 worth of feeders. If you wanted to hold the common oh 6 0 3 0 8 0 5, yada yada yada. There absolutely are contract manufacturers that do exactly what you're talking about. This is a thing that they do.

Sam: 11:01

I assume they're bigger.

Chris: 11:04

Not always. Yeah. They're gonna be bigger than us. Right. So we're,

Sam: 11:07

Or like the mix of what they, the mix of what they handle makes it. There's always a trade, like

Chris: 11:13

so what they do, they typically handle a much smaller mix than we do. They're not taking orders on the internet, like CircuitHub right. They probably have 15 customers

Sam: 11:23

Oh, and

Chris: 11:24

they've gone to all 15

Sam: 11:25

common parts across them.

Chris: 11:27

can you all just agree on these 135 unique part numbers for all this stuff? And then they say yes, and then they go great.

Sam: 11:35

Do they handle sourcing as

Chris: 11:36

their assembly process this way. Oh yeah, of course they do. Yeah.

Sam: 11:39

Yeah. Cause yeah, no, I get that. That lets them leverage

Chris: 11:42

their own sourcing.

Sam: 11:44

that lets them leverage a lot more. Huh?

Chris: 11:46

truth is a cm is an expert at sourcing. Engineers are not expert at sourcing they're experts, just not at sourcing.

Sam: 11:53

is very true. That's that's that's a good, that's a good, do you wanna use that as a segue? We could segue into the supply chain story.

Chris: 12:00

Yeah, but I, I want you to know Sam. I want you to know your idea is something I absolutely want to do. It's something we want to do. We just have not been able to

Sam: 12:10

I mean the alternate, cuz I know you guys are good at like tracking costs and tracking your process and optimizing like I guess the next question would be like, what is the change overtake and how do you make the change over go

Chris: 12:24

Yep, yep,

Sam: 12:25

next question. And then.

Chris: 12:28

we talk about that every day.

Sam: 12:30

Oh, yeah. Making, making changeovers go faster. Yeah. I'm sure you do. I don't know if there's,

Chris: 12:35

of tiny decisions.

Sam: 12:37

I dunno if there's something like I'll get, I'll get wacky. Like, I dunno if you can have this like super reel that has like mixed components on the reel

Chris: 12:50

Oh man. So you are referring to man, Sam, I could blow your mind

Sam: 12:56

All right.

Chris: 12:56

you back 30 years ago and show you how electronics manufacturing used to be done.

Sam: 13:01

Okay.

Chris: 13:02

so, so used to have something called a sequencer. And what this machine did is you would load up all of your reels of through whole components. They were all through whole components, axial through whole components, and you had a sequencer that could be anywhere from, they typically were, the smallest ones were like 75 to a hundred feeders, but the bigger ones giggle 5, 6, 700 feeders. And what they would do is they would, they would literally eject one through whole component into a train. And then another feeder had, you know, ejected this and on and on and on and so forth. And, and then at the very end of this train of, of this sequencer was a reel that was just reeling, all these things in a sequence. And then you loaded that up into a a through hole insertion machine. And it just inserted all those components. They're all completely different components,

Sam: 13:55

so could go, like in order like the actual, oh man, I would've loved to have seen that machine. That sounds awesome.

Chris: 14:03

they still exist. They're just hard to come by anymore. There's not a lot of shops running those

Sam: 14:08

do you like go on the eBay? What do you do?

Chris: 14:09

Well, just nobody's designing anything

Sam: 14:11

No. Huh?

Chris: 14:12

nobody has 'em. There is one shop I know of that still is rocking this machine. And the reason I know they are is because I used to work for them. They're down in south Jersey and yeah, there's still a run in that.

Sam: 14:23

All right. All right. Should we, should we segue to supply chain stuff?

Chris: 14:27

let's do it. Yeah. Let's talk about supply chain.

Sam: 14:29

this is my one supply chain story and I'm like, I'm very, I don't know. I'm excited to tell it to someone. Who'd appreciate it.

Chris: 14:38

Yes. Perfect. That's what we're here for Sam.

Sam: 14:41

all right. So I was working, I was working at Amazon on this program called the dash cart, which is this like machine vision, cloud connected, super fancy shopping cart. And we were in a prototyping phase and also Amazon had like effectively infinite money. That's also relevant to this story. So.

Chris: 15:02

Did have, or does have,

Sam: 15:03

I mean, they still do, but like, like our, our, our program was well funded and we had, like, we had an insane schedule and people were just like, make it go faster by spending more money on it.

Chris: 15:17

Yeah. Cause that always works.

Sam: 15:21

yeah. Yeah.

Chris: 15:22

no, it does not. It does not always work.

Sam: 15:24

we would, so we would,

Chris: 15:25

the analogy I've heard for that is you know, if you want the baby to come faster, just throw more women at it.

Sam: 15:30

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. In, in Russia, in, in Russia, it takes nine women one month to make a baby.

Chris: 15:37

that's right.

Sam: 15:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, oh man. So just some of the things we would do, so like we would have, we would order all our PCBs, like turnkey assembled on like the fast, fastest turn possible, like. Like four and five day turns. We would have couriers waiting at the fab house to like pick stuff up so that we wouldn't have to like, wait for shipping, like, like. Like waiting a day for FedEx was a day that we didn't have to spend, but we were, so we were early in a prototyping phase and we needed like one particular component and we had completely exhausted, like DigiKey and Mouser. And so we called the vendor and we were like, Hey, we need, we need a couple reels of this, like one particular component. And they were like, that's nice. The, the lead time is seven weeks. This is, this is pre, this is pre

Chris: 16:42

I was gonna say that's pretty good.

Sam: 16:44

Yeah. This is pre, this is pre COVID when lead times were like seven weeks. And we are like, we are like, our schedule says like our deliverables in like three weeks, like, what are we gonna do? And so one of our guys he reached out to like some gray market. Like supplier in Hong Kong and like Amazon has procurement process. So we needed to like, get them established as a vendor and like all that stuff. So, so what, what this manager did, this is an engineering manager. He wasn't the purchasing manager. So he created like a personal bank account. And like, wired it to dude in Hong Kong, like couple thousand dollars and the guy in Hong Kong was like, thank you for your money.

Chris: 17:29

yes.

Sam: 17:29

was, that was the last we ever heard from him. So, so

Chris: 17:36

Yes. This is the engineering manager. You say not the purchasing manager. I'm shocked.

Sam: 17:40

yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the, the, the purchasing manager starts like a couple days later and I'm like, Hey, we have this thing where we're trying to get these components. And we had this issue with this like gray market vendor. And he was like, Sam, I already solved this. He's like, I jumped on that grenade and I was like, what, what did you do? And he was like, well, I, I called DigiKey and I called Mouser and I made a couple more phone calls. And he's like, it turns out that DigiKey and Mouser get a reel of components that component delivered every month. So like when, when we exhausted their stock, it, like, I dunno if it was already scheduled or if it triggered a resupply or, or whatever happened. And so he was like, they're already in line at the manufacturer. Like they're already several weeks into that seven week, like lead time. He's like, he's like, I already bought those components. He's like, before they leave the factory, like they're already ours. I already bought them from Mouser and digit key. And he had the components directed straight to us. And that's when I knew I was like playing a different game. I

Chris: 18:49

Yes.

Sam: 18:51

I was like, I.

Chris: 18:51

say, this is all totally normal, which you're telling me, but yeah, it it'll blow an engineer's mind.

Sam: 18:56

I was like, I didn't know. You could do that. I was like, that's incredible.

Chris: 19:01

I'll give you, I'll give you

Sam: 19:02

that's my, that's my, oh, alright. Bring it.

Chris: 19:05

not, not one better necessarily, but like one more thing to kind of be aware of when it comes to that kind of stuff. They almost certainly have that part still on their shelf,

Sam: 19:16

Ah,

Chris: 19:17

but they have a contract

Sam: 19:18

oh, to deliver it to someone else. Yeah,

Chris: 19:21

that says you can't sell that part.

Sam: 19:23

that's right.

Chris: 19:24

So which you can sometimes do. It takes some negotiating, but if it's super critical, you can sometimes say, can you talk to whoever has that part, you know, on contract and see if they're willing to give up some of it for us, cuz we need it desperately, you know? And so you can kind of have those conversations as well.

Sam: 19:42

See, I didn't know you could do that. They're just like the lead times, the lead time, I was like, all right. And then, and then like he solved other problems just like with money. Like that was, that was the thing that we did. So

Chris: 19:55

amazing how many problems can be solved with money

Sam: 19:57

yeah. So we, we needed, we needed like some custom custom cables made. I don't know if they were like custom length USB cables. I can't, I can't remember exactly what they were, but like the quoted quoted lead time on prototypes was like three weeks.

Chris: 20:13

Sure. That's standard. Yep.

Sam: 20:15

And we wanted them in like five days. And I was, and I was like, Dave, I was like, what, what did you do? Like, how did you make this happen? And he's like, well, I, I maintain trusting relationships with all my vendors. He's like, sometimes I take them out to dinner. I know their families. He's like, like I work professionally. He's like, he's like, I work professionally with all these people. And then he's like, and then I cut him a blanket purchase order for $200,000. And he said he could get us the cables in five days. And I was like, I

Chris: 20:50

in two days or $200,000,

Sam: 20:53

was like, okay then. So

Chris: 20:56

different game.

Sam: 20:57

that was also when I realized I was playing a different game.

Chris: 21:00

That's right. The, the

Sam: 21:02

are my, those are my supply chain stories.

Chris: 21:05

knowing that DigiKey can do custom custom cables and wiring and harnesses and stuff like that.

Sam: 21:12

Really? I thought it's pretty limited. Like they have like I'll I know they'll

Chris: 21:16

It is pretty limited, but

Sam: 21:17

put like an ID, like an IDC connector on a ribbon and stuff like that.

Chris: 21:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. They'll terminate the ends of cables and stuff like that. I don't think that they're gonna not, I, it depends on the complexity of the harness. I don't think they're gonna they're, you know, they're not gonna make an F-150 harness. Let's put it that way, but

Sam: 21:35

make a cable for sure.

Chris: 21:37

Yeah.

Sam: 21:37

But I thought it's like a, just, maybe just a limited set of like cables they have available.

Chris: 21:42

Yeah, probably.

Sam: 21:43

Yeah. Huh. Interesting.

Chris: 21:45

There's there's a whole, like the way that there's a PCBA supply chain, there's a whole cable harness. Like there's shops, just like us that just do

Sam: 21:54

that just do cables. Yeah.

Chris: 21:57

We're gonna start the new pick place, cable harness podcast.

Sam: 22:00

Oh, the cable. Oh. man.

Chris: 22:02

can you imagine you think this show is nerdy

Sam: 22:05

Like we had, we had cables are surprisingly complicated. Like I I've described it to people as an advanced game of connect the dots, like, cuz you're just going from like one end to the other, but then you get like, the other thing that happens with cables is like, like ROHS certifications.

Chris: 22:26

yeah.

Sam: 22:27

So

Chris: 22:28

because you have all the plastics that can't necessarily be in there.

Sam: 22:31

Like, if you need, if you need traceability on like your entire assembly. So it means like all your, like the full like box build or like the mechanical build, whatever it is. So like the, the plastic housings, the PCBs, the individual components, and then you start looking at like your cables and now you have like the wire inside the cables, the insulation on top of the cables, like the jacket around all of that. Like any shielding, all the crimps, like the term. And then you look at it at like a detailed level and like your cable that goes from like point a to point B has like 17 items on the BOM like, what happens? Like it's a cable.

Chris: 23:14

so if listeners aren't familiar with traceability, this is a requirement that you'll often find absolutely. An automotive automotive automotive is like the king of traceability. But you'll also find it in, in defense and medical, where basically. They need to know exactly where all these parts came from. So if an F-150 has a recall, they know exactly where it came from and why there was a recall that 10 K resistor supplier had a, had an issue and you know, that kind of thing. It's crazy how detailed they get on this stuff.

Sam: 23:48

Yeah, no, there's, there's definitely like talk about regulatory burden. Like there's a real, there's a real burden associated to it. And usually, I don't know if lower, like, I don't wanna say lower, but like smaller companies. I don't know if they sweep it under the rug a little more, but like bigger companies definitely become targets for like California prop.

Chris: 24:09

Sure.

Sam: 24:10

I'm gonna get the number wrong. Is it prop 60, 65? Yeah. About like, like hazardous and like potentially cancer causing materials. And it's like, I don't know. I think it's unfortunate cuz it was well intended. Like they wanted comp they wanted companies to who used like bad things to be like, Hey, there's bad stuff to put pressure on them to not use like bad stuff in their product. And what happened was you get these like trace minute amounts of things where there's, there's no known science about like, whether it affects anybody, whether it crosses through skin, whether it crosses through like ingestion, because like, I, I hope you're not like chewing on like the crimps on the ends of your cables. But it, it opens you up to like some liability where if it contains it, if it contains it, but you don't issue notice, then you can be sued. And there was like a cottage and there was a cottage industry around just suing people for this

Chris: 25:12

Right. That makes sense.

Sam: 25:13

but if you disclosed it, then that was okay. Like you were not subject to prosecution.

Chris: 25:20

Fascinating.

Sam: 25:21

And so it created this incentive to be like any trace amount of anything, regardless of what it was, were just gonna say it contained substances known to the state of California to cause potentially mitogenic or like cancer causing

Chris: 25:35

Cancer causing.

Sam: 25:36

like compounds. And so

Chris: 25:38

Like almost everything I buy on Amazon has that disclaimer.

Sam: 25:41

and so now you, now you put it on everything and now it becomes meaningless.

Melissa: 25:45

yeah, it's literally everywhere.

Sam: 25:46

for the companies that really have like bad stuff, well, everyone else has bad stuff. So it

Chris: 25:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Sam: 25:53

I don't know, it's like an example of like a well-intentioned thing,

Melissa: 25:56

Mm.

Sam: 25:57

like the road, the road, the road to health, yada yada, yada.

Chris: 26:01

Paved with well intent. Yeah. Good intentions. So, you know, it's, I, I know very, very little about the actual like history of prop 65 and, and what the goals were and everything like that. But. Like, it's interesting from like an analogy to, that might be the ROHS initiative in our industry because the ROHS initiative,

Sam: 26:23

Yeah, but, but led.

Chris: 26:25

was

Sam: 26:25

Lead was everywhere. It's

Chris: 26:27

yes, yes, exactly. The, but

Sam: 26:30

and lead is lead is like really bad.

Chris: 26:33

that is really

Sam: 26:34

it's not like, it's not like this might be bad, but we're not sure this is like a known, a known bad thing.

Chris: 26:40

for sure. But I, I, I think of it more from the cuz you were talking about the fact that there was a confusion and misunderstanding about it and, and it's become sort of this like, we don't really know kind of a thing with the, with the with the ROHS initiative. Every yes. Lead is bad. No, no doubt about it, but like there, there were critics of it early on, right. There were huge critics of it. Most of the critics were people like me, not me specifically. Thought it was a great idea. I gotta get rid of lead, but you know, there were people like me that were trying to build circuit boards that had technology built around the fact that they were using a lead alloy. But then they're being told no, I can't, you know, I can't accept a board anymore that has lead in it. You have to build it without lead. And there was not enough.

Sam: 27:25

Oh,

Chris: 27:25

you know, when

Sam: 27:26

or technology for non led things. Yeah.

Chris: 27:28

exactly. So everybody's struggling with it. I hate this. Why are they doing this? So you get this knee jerk reaction that this is a bad decision and you, you end up you know, I don't want to get too political, but you end up in this sort of a climate climate denier kind of a situation where people.

Sam: 27:46

change is painful, but I feel like the world's a better place for it now.

Chris: 27:49

right. Exactly. So, so that was, and there used to be jokes, you know, I would talk to guys and they would be like, oh, what are you? You know, my child chewing on a keyboard made with lead. And it's like, well, that's not exactly., that's not what we're not anticipating children chewing on lead filled keyboards. We're anticipating landfills and water runoff and contamination. And like, it's not exactly, you know, but you got this mindset of a misunderstanding of, of why it was beneficial to, to push lead out of products. And now 20 years on, it's just been more than 20 years since the ROHS initiative was initiated. But really it, it, it really hit hit the pavement about 20 years ago. And 20 years later, Technology's great. Like all these machines are so much better. All these chem chemistries are amazing and it works and there is some reliability. Like there it's, it's still not quite as reliable as lead. But we figured it out, right? We got there and whatever, like the prop 65 things, obviously the point you were making is a little bit different than the point I'm about to make. But the prop 65 thing, it's, it's it's well intentioned. It's a good first step. Hopefully it does result in a, Hey look, if we remove this material and we put this different kind of material in that's, that's safe and biodegradable or blah, blah, blah. All of a sudden we have a better product that can happen. That can happen. It just takes decades sometimes for those things to happen.

Sam: 29:19

yeah, yeah. Now I hear you.

Chris: 29:22

Anyway, go, go ROHS I'm all

Sam: 29:24

Okay. All right. No, no, no. Now just

Chris: 29:26

we, we basical.

Sam: 29:27

rail.

Chris: 29:28

Yeah, we switched over like, there's it. If we ever have to build anything with lead anymore, it's like a very rare, super, super rare case. Oh yeah. It's it's

Sam: 29:39

See, I did, I did space flight. This was now, now that I'm old, like I can say it was a decade ago. And so like a decade ago in space flight, we were still doing lead stuff

Chris: 29:50

oh, you still are today.

Sam: 29:51

still are today. Yeah. I wouldn't

Chris: 29:53

yeah. So we do some, we do some space stuff and it's led.

Sam: 29:56

So, so like, I mean, I think RedR of death was called by like a ball grid array that was being Thermo, Thermo cycled and like led to like cracks and the solder joints. So one of the space flight things that I was working on.

Chris: 30:09

I know the, I know the scientist that discovered that too. Cuz when I was, it was like, when I was working for them is when they discovered all the problems and it was their, you know, they had, they had all these presentations and they weren't allowed to like put the names on of what they discovered, but they showed like all the cross sections and everything and how they found the problem.

Sam: 30:27

So we were, I was working on a space flight application and I don't think it was a ball grid array, but maybe, maybe they had a choice and we opted for a column grid array.

Chris: 30:38

Mm-hmm mm-hmm

Sam: 30:40

And it was for maybe as an F, like an F PGA. And

Chris: 30:46

yeah. This is an expensive product you're talking about. Here you go. Column grid, array FBGA

Sam: 30:51

this, I mean, there's a space satellite, like, I don't know, like

Chris: 30:55

There's a lot of money.

Sam: 30:56

there, there was a couple zeros on the bill, several, several zeros on the bill and yeah. And so they were like, they were worried, I think like, rightfully so about like thermal cycling and fatigue on this FBGA and like reliability issues, I don't know is 1600 pins. Does that sound like a reasonable number for an FBGA is that

Chris: 31:22

Yes,

Sam: 31:22

Okay. Yeah, so it was 1600 pins and they had never soldered. So this was when I was working at Lincoln laboratory. And so they, they had an internal

Chris: 31:34

at Lincoln labs.

Sam: 31:35

yeah, yeah, yeah. Back in the day. So they had an internal, like they had a fab shop, like internal at Lincoln. And so

Chris: 31:42

familiar with it.

Sam: 31:43

they were doing their

Chris: 31:43

there many times.

Sam: 31:44

They were doing their own process development, figuring out how to like solder this thing. And it wasn't just like solder at once. They wanted to like prove that they had a reliable process, that they, they could solder this thing and then send the circuit board into space. And so there was, there's a bunch of like finite element analysis, looking. Like I think, is it a coffin Manson coefficients? Does that sound right? Our coffin coffin Manson model? I, I think, I think it's a model for like fatigue and Soder joints. So you, you like exercise, you'd look at this thermal model. And so you would make the model hot, make the model cold. This is all in like computer land F finite element analysis stuff. And then depending on the stresses induced, you'd plug that into like your coffin min and equation. And then you could get like a prediction for the number of cycles that it could survive. So that was, that was like the math portion of it. But then we also did like physical builds where they would like thermal cycle it. And then there's a bunch of like x-ray inspection as well to like, make sure that.

Chris: 32:51

a sweet x-ray at

Sam: 32:53

Yeah. Yeah,

Chris: 32:54

Sweet. X-ray.

Sam: 32:56

So make sure like all the column grids had like appropriate. I don't know if, I dunno if you could get like voids or like bad things in the solder, but they would, they would inspect for that. And then

Chris: 33:08

That's why now they do vacuum reflow yeah.

Sam: 33:13

And then

Chris: 33:13

pull a vacuum before they reflow it. So you basically have

Sam: 33:15

I'll get all the bubbles out.

Chris: 33:17

Oh yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy stuff.

Sam: 33:19

I think, I remember they developed, they developed some sort of like test rig. I don't think it used the actual FBGA itself, but maybe they had worked something out with the, the vendor. And so basically it was just this like short circuit in a way. And so they, they had a special board made and it was basically, it was just a loop and basically they just, they would monitor this loop for, for like microsecond opens.

Chris: 33:50

Okay. Yep. Yep.

Sam: 33:51

And so they, they would just monitor the circuit for opens and then they put it in a, like a test chamber and just make it hot, make it cold, make it hot, make it cold for like thousands of cycles and that's, and that's how they decided that they had like appropriately qualified their process for putting this thing into space.

Melissa: 34:10

Hmm.

Chris: 34:10

suppose you

Sam: 34:11

None of this sound like, like, like hearing myself talk about this as like, none of this sounds cheap, like in retrospect.

Chris: 34:18

it's crazy expensive, but like you say, it's going to space so they can kind of afford to do it. And especially if it's anything involved with the international space station, that's the kind of time where they do that crazy kind of,

Sam: 34:32

it wasn't life. This wasn't, I mean, this was a space. Satellite is no one, no, nobody was on it,

Chris: 34:38

But the stuff, the stuff involved in any time, there's life out in space,

Sam: 34:43

life critical

Chris: 34:44

that's involved it's years of testing, years and years and years of testing. It's crazy. Because that would not look good if you lose a space, man. I'm just saying,

Sam: 34:55

That, no, that's true. That that usually makes international news.

Chris: 34:59

Yes. So, that now what I was gonna say, though about the the coffin oh gosh. What'd you call it again?

Sam: 35:07

coffin

Chris: 35:08

test proceed. Yeah. Coffin Manson. So that process is gonna be used by your Xylinks of the world, the Texas instruments, the, the microchip, you know, NXP they're, they're probably intimately familiar with it. And then the end product. You know, that's the method. And then the, the product that comes out of it is one or two the cycles. And that's what we get

Sam: 35:32

Yeah, yeah,

Chris: 35:33

do all that crazy math and analysis and science. And then we get a data sheet that says no more than two thermal cycles.

Sam: 35:39

I mean, that's so now, like that's, you're, you're in the realm of like the designers, like that's the designers' problem. It's not the manufacturer's problem.

Chris: 35:47

Well, it's the chip, the chip manufacturer's problem. They're the ones who are gonna tell us. You can only cycle this two times, you know, and usually what they're aiming for is they're, most of them are aiming for a, a minimum of two thermal cycles. There are some components that they, they might have special materials. They can only go one thermal cycle. Those are kind of rare, not, not crazy rare, but there, you know, maybe 1% of parts are like that, is still not crazy rare when you think about it. But a lot of components are three or four cycles because you think you have

Sam: 36:20

but like,

Chris: 36:20

double sided SMT.

Sam: 36:21

I mean, you're talking about cycles, like you're, you're like looking at, solder reflow cycles that. That's a lot hotter than normal use. Like if,

Chris: 36:30

Right. So you're

Sam: 36:31

if normal, if normal use is like, reflowing your board, you've got problems.

Chris: 36:36

that's right, right. So you're talking about you're talking about end end use the end use thermal cycles. Okay. So that's different.

Sam: 36:43

a fancy, like self-healing oh, we got, we got the red ring of death. Let's turn the toaster on and like fix yourself. No, that, that sounds, that sounds, that sounds bad.

Chris: 36:54

You, you, I wanted to just finish my point about process cycles for, for manufacturing. A lot of components are, are capable of four thermal cycles because you have double sided. Reflow, you know, you have a surface amount on one side, you flip it over, you run your surface Mount on the second side, there's two cycles that, anything that was on the. First side has seen, and then you may have a wave solder or selective soldering thermal cycle. And, and if it's double sided again, you might have two. So a lot of these components are capable of, of, you know, three, four or more thermal cycles in a manufacturing process. But then you're talking about the end use

Sam: 37:30

yeah. Yeah. That's a, I, I haven't thought about that though. Like, that's a heck of a design note. Just be like this, this can only be cycled so many times. So now I gotta think about like, which side of the board it's gonna go on so that when they build it, like goes on in the right order.

Chris: 37:47

yeah. It's it's, you know, at the end of the day, like something that can only see one thermal cycle, even if you put it through two or three thermal cycles, it'll probably still work, but that manufacturer is not gonna G yeah. They're not gonna guarantee that it it's gonna live up to all of the expectations that the manufacturer told you it should live up to. Yeah, exactly.

Sam: 38:06

yeah. Cool. All right.

Chris: 38:10

this is, this is the nerdiest show. I think we've

Sam: 38:12

This, no, this hit really I'm. I'm proud. I'm proud. Can I, can I give, can I give a, a, like a plug for myself towards the end to talk about, talk about some nerdy stuff? So my, my like self plug is that I'm now, I'm now consulting on team proc team process development. So like typically like small growing hardware, software teams at a bunch of people to the team start to run around like their hairs on fire. So I help, I help build out like reporting structures, do like some agile coaching both like front end, back end software development hardware. It's hard to follow like a true agile cycle, but they're different like planning estimation techniques for that. So like the very, the very nerdy, like process development stuff for people. That's, that's what I do. That's what I do now.

Chris: 39:02

you got the personality for it. I don't think I could handle all that fancy stuff.

Sam: 39:05

Yeah. Oh, I don't, I don't know. I think you're good, Chris. I I've heard you. I've heard you talk about your shop and how you've run stuff there. I think you do good stuff.

Chris: 39:15

It's funny because usually people have strengths in certain areas. And if you look at most human beings, the, you know, the ones that have a lot of technical strengths don't necessarily have a lot of social strengths and the ones that have a lot of social strengths, don't always have a lot of technical strengths. But when those two things come together, you get yourself a Sam feller

Sam: 39:33

Maybe, maybe I am. I am. I am the, the awkward engineer, so yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I like, I like, I like people.

Chris: 39:44

Yes.

Sam: 39:45

No, I, I like people and I like making stuff and like teaching people how to, like, when you make bigger things or you make like bigger things with more people, you need to be better at like the people aspect. So you can get back to like making stuff., I truly believe that like good process and good approach to how you make things just like elevates people's game. That, that when you make things with like good practice, it leads to like better collaboration, better design, less stress, like better outcomes, better results, and you end up making better stuff. And I love, I love making better stuff. And so I had to learn about making other things to be able to make better stuff.

Chris: 40:26

I'm gonna piggyback on that.

Sam: 40:27

and I'm happy to, and I'm happy to share that with people. In fact, I, I would love to share that with people, which is why I consult. So go ahead. Piggyback, bring, bring it.

Chris: 40:37

I talk about all the time with our team, that if we want to keep machines running all day, we don't need to run around and rush and pull our hair out to keep those machines running. That's not what it takes to keep a machine running. What it takes to keep a machine running is all of these other things around the machine, such that the end product is the machines just keep running because we're doing all these other things. And I always point to formula one pit stop team. I mean, everybody does a lot of people use the same analogy because it is such a perfect visual indicator of what it takes to get a race car back on the track. You, you have the formula one car come in, and if you've ever seen a video you know, just we can include, there's a great video by the red bull racing team. It's like 45 seconds long it's on YouTube. So it's publicly available and they show a pit stop that takes 1.8, nine seconds or 1.8, four seconds to change four tires crazy fast. But if you look at the team. Nobody's rushing, nobody's rushing they're and they're relaxed as they're doing it, they just do it so quickly and efficiently. And you see like some fist pumps and you see, like after the car pulls away, everybody's like, yeah, we did a great job. You know, like everybody's excited and comfortable with the end result. When you have an environment where people are pulling their hairs out and they're stressed out and they're mad at their boss because their Mo boss says, why isn't this machine running?

Sam: 42:06

Yep.

Chris: 42:07

It's missing the point. It's not that the boss wants the machine to keep running. It's that the boss is saying, what are we not doing such that the end result is the machine is not running, you know? And, and how do we set up systems and processes so that when the car comes in 1.8, nine seconds later, the car goes out and it. That like what you're talking about when you're explaining, having these systems and processes in place that elevates everybody's game. When, when we have effectively implemented techniques to make the end product, the machines just keep running.

Sam: 42:44

Like your

Chris: 42:45

Everybody's more relaxed.

Sam: 42:46

change over time.

Chris: 42:47

Yeah. Feeder, changeover, all that stuff. It literally is what we it's, that's what we're trying to do is faster feeder changeovers. Everybody's more relaxed. There's more smiling, there's more laughing and the machines are running up more often and nobody's scrambling. And, and it's because we've developed these tools. We've developed these process. We've developed these systems that the end result is we change over a machine in 30 seconds rather than 30 minutes.

Sam: 43:12

That's right. Do you guys do the 32nd changeover? You got me all excited.

Chris: 43:17

no, we're, we're aiming for a 32nd. That's my, that's my BHAG. Yeah. Do you,

Sam: 43:22

Oh, your big, your big, hairy, audacious goal. Yeah, no for sure. No, no, you're, you're, you're a process nerd. I've heard you talk about like how you run your line. I think, I think it's awesome. I, if there's, if there's anything I learned in my time at Amazon, like Amazon is a process company to the core. And like, there's, there's a saying that's pretty, there's a saying at Amazon, that's pretty common. Like the difference between good intentions and getting something done is a mechanism. And so. Like having, having like a process and a system and like a way of doing things to like, make sure that it's gonna happen, then that's what actually leads to results. Instead of saying like, I wish we were more organized or I wish we estimated better or like, I wish we like had changeovers faster. It's like, it's about like analyzing what's actually happening and then designing a system in place to like, make sure it continues to happen. And then I think, I mean, I, I love design, like with a capital. Like, like in intentionally making choices to make things happen. And like there's design for circuit boards. There's designed for manufacturers there's designed for like mechanical stuff, but you can also like design for people and just take a look at like, what are people's like daily habits, daily cycles. What are people already doing in their normal like day to day routines? Like what is already here, that's already happening that we can piggyback off of and design a system for like people to make this happen.

Chris: 44:54

yeah. Yeah.

Sam: 44:56

that's my, that's my, I, I, I can nerd out about this for a while,

Chris: 45:00

That's super cool. Yeah. I, I would love to have we only have you for another 30 minutes and I would love to have longer discussions about this. Maybe we can have you come back, but you had included.

Sam: 45:09

we can do, we can do a return and we, we could schedule something a couple months out. I want

Chris: 45:15

I would love to talk about process a little bit more.

Sam: 45:18

I want to do, we could do something just about like, process.

Chris: 45:22

Mm-hmm

Sam: 45:23

I there they're we I'll, I'll try, I'll try and tone it down. I'll give you, I'll give you a couple like tidbits. So like, like I, I think I, atomic habits is a good book. Hooked is about like addiction and phone apps.

Chris: 45:39

heard of hooked.

Sam: 45:40

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's about like how, like Silicon valley is like destroying your mind. And like sometimes, sometimes intent. I don't wanna say intentionally, so their intent wasn't to destroy your mind, their

Chris: 45:51

Of course

Sam: 45:51

get you hooked on the app, but it like the they're all like complimentary. So those are excellent books. And then at Amazon, I, I think it was like a nine page document about like, they called it mechanism development and it was about how you like. Look at inputs, look at outputs, like use tools. There were like different levers that you could pull. Like you could use like managerial levers to like, get things going. You could look at I don't know, different like team habits and cadences. Like there were, it was a nine page document about like developing process

Chris: 46:30

I assume this is a confidential document that cannot be shared publicly.

Sam: 46:34

I don't know if they're like copies freely floating around on the internet. Like, I can't remember the detail. Like I remember the important pieces. Like I remember the, the ideas from it. Like that's just it's I don't know. It's training and knowledge. Like you can't take that away from me. Like I have it now, so yeah.

Chris: 46:52

Oh, of course not. No, but I'm I'm I wanna read it. So

Sam: 46:55

yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't maybe, I don't know if it's like floating out there on the internet and do some, some Googling. I I'm pretty sure you can find some like Jeff Bezos, like. Speeches or seminars. I'm not sure where he talks about it. So we'll, we'll save, we'll talk about process development for another time,

Chris: 47:14

Yeah. Well, cuz you had some you had some other notes that you had shared with us that discussion points that you wanted to go over and I'm looking at 'em and I'm going, I really wanna talk about these things with

Sam: 47:23

do you, what, what do you wanna, what do you wanna hit on?

Chris: 47:26

so you had the, the auction for the volt meter

Sam: 47:29

So I swear I'm writing that this weekend.

Chris: 47:33

Okay.

Melissa: 47:34

Hmm.

Sam: 47:35

I, this has been, this has been on my plate for a while and I've just been like waiting for, I dunno if it's the right time. So like we talked about earlier in the show doing like small batch, like manufacturing. And so I want to know if I can get my batch size down to like 10. And so what I'm interested in doing is running something like, I, I still have some other components in stock. And so really it's about like getting a circuit board, like run done for cheap. And I know you have your initial setup costs, which is why I was like asking about like common stocks and feeders and why we can't get set, why we can't get set up costs lower. And so the thing that I'm interested in is running an auction, it's called a Vic Ray auction. And so like, there are a couple people who would willingly pay like four or$500 for a vol meter clock. Like. like, yes. Like they, they just, for whatever reason, they love it and it's that important to them. And so that the idea is like, this auction lets you to like maximize the returns and like pair the clocks to people who are most interested in them. So like, I think the economic term is called like a sealed bid, second price auction or something like that. They're they're economists who like nerd out about finding like optimal auction strategies. So basically the way it works is like everyone puts in their bids and then I'm, if I'm gonna make 10 boards or like 10 clocks, I'm gonna take a look at the top 10 bids and then you don't pay what you bid, you pay the price after that. So I ideally like it encourages high bidding because you're guaranteed to pay less than what you bid, if you, if you win.

Chris: 49:23

oh, interesting.

Sam: 49:25

Which seems kind of like a win-win for everybody, like. Like it, it matches clocks to people who are willing to pay the most for them. It lets me sort of like run a smaller batch, like at, at like lower, I mean, running a larger batch and like the logistics of order fulfillment and like all that stuff and like getting the things built and assembled, like it's a hassle, like it's it's work. And like, I really wanna make the clocks. Like people still ask me about them. Like, it makes, it makes me happy to send the clocks to other people. And, and so I wanna run this auction to see if there's enough demand to like, justify like a small board run and then I'll do a small board run and then I'll put together like 10 clocks and send 'em to people.

Chris: 50:10

Super cool. Well, keep us posted on how all that

Sam: 50:12

Yeah.

Chris: 50:12

I mean, assuming it'll be in your newsletter, which by the way, plug your newsletter. It's a great newsletter. I read it every time

Sam: 50:18

Yeah. So you should tell people to look at awkwardengineer.com that's it's not awkward engineering as discussed. It is the awkward engineer, so awkward engineer.com.

Chris: 50:29

I wanna know why it's not the awkward engineer.com.

Sam: 50:32

I guess maybe I didn't buy the URL. Maybe I should go. Maybe maybe I should go do that. But yeah, I like, I don't know. I write, I write about. Random thing. So I, I, I wrote about a better way to pop popcorn in a wok. I, I figured out that if you, if you tip the wok up at an angle, this is a flat bottom wok, which I think is relevant than a round bottom wok you get this like corner and like all the oil flows to that corner. And then the, the kernels roll down into the oil. And then when the kernels pop, they like Jostle everything out. And then the walk set an angle. So they tend to like hop out of the oil. And if they don't hop out of the oil, then like the next kernel that bursts will, will do it. And no, no joke. The other day I got 100% pop. I was, I was very proud. I was, I was very

Chris: 51:25

and I was like, this is brilliant. I'm like, it is such a simple solution, but it is so effective, you know, I loved it.

Sam: 51:33

It, it, it worked

Chris: 51:34

if you, if you wanna hear more stuff like that, you sign up@awkwardengineer.com for

Sam: 51:39

Yeah. Yeah. Awkward engineer.com. You'll find the blog. And so, yeah, there are a bunch of like, like summaries of like books that I've read. Like sometimes I put up like art projects, like I'm, I'm looking, do you, do you see, do you watch Ted lasso on,

Chris: 51:56

of course.

Sam: 51:56

apple TV? So, so you know how he has like that big believed sign, like it's kind of, kind of a click key, like plot

Chris: 52:02

exactly what you're talking about too.

Sam: 52:04

And so I, I like prior to consulting, I was working at a place called tulip and I would walk like through Somerville and I'd go under I 93 every day. And the place was just like littered with garbage. Like it's a highway, it's like a highway underpass.

Chris: 52:22

yes.

Sam: 52:23

so there's just like rampant opportunity to put up a giant sign that says believe. And so I, I actually, I, I borrowed a ladder, so I dunno, there's something about like contractors who are just like notorious for leaving tools behind. And so some contractor left, they left like a 16 foot ladder at our office. And I was like, well, this is gonna help. So I, I took the,

Chris: 52:49

the journeyman

Sam: 52:50

yeah, I don't know. I took the ladder. I walked across the street. I had my big poster and I taped it up to the side of I 93 and now, and now there's a sign on I, 93 in like bright yellow that says believe. And I

Chris: 53:05

I've been wanting to ask if it's still there

Sam: 53:06

oh, it's still there. No, it's still there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Although it, I, I used gaffers tape cuz I thought gaffers tape was good stuff. I don't know.

Chris: 53:16

it is good stuff. It's amazing stuff.

Sam: 53:18

Two, two pieces of the tape on the bottom have like peeled off, but the, the two pieces of tape on top are still there and like hanging on. And so I'm, I'm wondering if I'm gonna have to like go and steal the ladder again and like jump back up there.

Chris: 53:32

you gotta bring some isopropyl, alcohol and

Sam: 53:35

Oh, and clean. Oh, I can't, I can't like, there's like, it's an I beam. So there I'm, I'm on the side of the I beam. And so there's a lip there and I'm, I'm like pretty sure that if I jump, I could like hang onto that lip and like

Chris: 53:54

please. Don't

Sam: 53:54

do a pull up and all I can, all I can think about is like the, the bird poo that

Chris: 54:02

oh my gosh. I can imagine

Sam: 54:04

I'm like, I think I could just like Acrobat this, but it's, it's a bad idea. And then I thought about

Chris: 54:09

do that, Sam.

Sam: 54:10

like rust chips cutting up my hands. Does, does rust cut you? I don't know, but like,

Chris: 54:14

Got your tetanus shot lately.

Sam: 54:16

Yeah. Yeah. So maybe, yeah. I, I think the ladder is the way to go.

Chris: 54:21

All right. Well, I wanna, I want to hear about the amazing soldering technician that you worked with.

Sam: 54:26

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So this was, this was soldering tech at Amazon. I think he was formally from Bose and the guy was just good. So like I would solder things and I'd be like ROSN core solder, like go everywhere. I'd use like fat solder. And I like, I would just make a mess of stuff. Like I wasn't necessarily good at it. And so this guy was just like, The most precise, he showed me like little tricks, like things, things that he did. So like, he would take like some surface Mount protoboard and he was just like good with his hands. So he'd like tack a corner down and then he'd get the other corner. But then he'd take, he'd take like copper tape and he'd run these like beautiful traces around the board. And he'd like, lay it down with tweezers. And like, everything would just be like neat angles. And I remember I had my copper tape on like a nice little reel and I would peel it and then like the thing would happen where it'd have this like big spool and then it would start to like unspool on me. And instead of like, it would like slide apart from itself and just like make a mess. And he is. Sam, this is what you do. And he took a piece of cardboard and he like put some double stick tape on it. And then he just put the copper tape onto that and had no more tape on spooling. And I was like, oh, I was like, well, I was like, well, you've been doing this longer than I have. And then the, the other things that I learned from it was him and one other EE and like the, the EE did a lot of system on chip stuff in a previous life. And so he was doing, he had done a lot of rework on like really fine pitch components, like, oh 2 0 1 S. And so he said, when he was doing oh, 2 0 1 S he would, he would like not drink coffee that morning and just like,

Chris: 56:21

no, it's true.

Sam: 56:22

He would take like some deep breaths, tell people not to talk to him. He'd be like, like a, like a pitcher throwing a no hitter. He's just like, no one, no one talked to me. And so they did two things that I, I learned and I was like, this is incredible. So they would use 30 gauge wire. And I didn't realize this, but for whatever reason I would try and like strip the wire. And they were like, no, you can just burn like the insulation off with the solder. And I was like, well, that would've been good to know like 10 years ago in my life. And

Chris: 56:54

IPC would frown upon that, but yes, you can do that.

Sam: 56:56

yeah, so they would, they would take these like beautiful little blue wires, like super neat, like super tight traces. And they'd just burn the ends off it, which made rework way easier. They'd like, hold it with a pair of tweezers. And I was like, well, that's

Chris: 57:10

we have specially designed Strippers for

Sam: 57:14

Oh for that. Oh, cuz cuz you do stuff to IPC

Chris: 57:18

Yes. The only thing this thing

Sam: 57:20

Cause you do things right.

Chris: 57:21

And it's like a, it's like $150 tool.

Sam: 57:24

oh yeah, yeah. And then

Chris: 57:27

there's no, Maring there's no, there's no, like you don't do any, it leaves nothing on the insulation. You don't see any burs on the copper. It is so perfect. It is so incredibly perfect, but it's like $150

Sam: 57:40

Or you could just burn it off, which is what they did.

Chris: 57:42

or you could just burn it

Sam: 57:43

And the, the other thing they did was they'd use a, a flux syringe. So. He would be there with like, like a needle and a syringe. And he would like, instead of me with my, like, rosin core solder leaving goo all over the board, he would just put like the tiniest little drop of flux right. Where he needed it. And that was it. Didn't need to clean anything. There was nothing there. Like,

Chris: 58:08

There's nothing there. Yeah.

Sam: 58:09

and so

Chris: 58:10

it's it, there's nothing better than watching a professional, do their work.

Sam: 58:14

like the stuff he made was just like beautiful. Like, it was just pristine. Like the stuff I make had like wrinkles and lumps and go and like hacked together stuff. The stuff he made was just so like neat, like,

Chris: 58:28

look at some of the stuff that our people do by hand,

Sam: 58:31

yeah.

Chris: 58:32

it's like the, the, the level of repeatability is just off the charts. Like, so we, sometimes we have to hand sold like edge connectors, connectors that kind of hang over the edge of the board. They might be USB connectors. They might be coaxial connectors. The, the volume of solder and the slope and wettability and everything. You swear it was an automated process because the they're just so

Sam: 58:58

good at it and consistent. Yeah.

Chris: 59:00

Yeah, it's crazy. I, I, I, I, I feel like I'm, what do people say? They I'm not a real engineer. I just play one on TV or so I'm not a real solder. I

Sam: 59:09

Oh, no, no. Yeah.

Chris: 59:11

these people do.

Sam: 59:12

I mean, so I remember watching this guy work and he had, he had like a level of Zen patience to him. Like, like he would make custom cables for us. Like when the need arise, like for one or two, he would do it. And if we needed to make 10, we'd like go to the, the proto house. But like, he would sit there with a pair of crimps and it'd be like this 30, 30 wire. Like cable assembly, which means like they're crimps on both ends. And so that's, that's 60 crimps. And he would just like, sit there with some headphones and like go to like a happy Zen place. And just like, and he was just like, like patient disciplined, consistent, neat, tidy, like all those, like all those like skills, cuz they really are

Chris: 1:00:01

you need to do that kind of a

Sam: 1:00:03

And I was just like, I could as like I I'm done. And it just, and like, he was also better about like knowing how to use the tools properly, like insisting on using the right crimp tool for the current. And like, I feel like that's like, like basics. It's like one, oh it's like 1 0 1, 1 0 1 right there.

Chris: 1:00:22

Yeah, it truly is just

Sam: 1:00:24

I have, I have, I have, I have a, I have a pet peeve.

Chris: 1:00:28

That's great because I was just gonna say, we've got a few more minutes with you and I wanna branch into the pet peeve before we lose you. I'm so excited. You have a pet peeve. This is Sam in case you're not aware people fast forward through all this nonsense. They

Sam: 1:00:41

Oh, just to get to the pet peeve.

Chris: 1:00:43

Yeah. Yeah. This is why people listen. So, so we're, we've queued up. Let's have it Sam,

Sam: 1:00:48

Okay. Pliers are not crimps. That is my That is my, that is my pet peeve.

Chris: 1:00:59

so

Sam: 1:00:59

And, and then I'm a, I'm a terrible person and I will, I will, I've done it. I've used pliers as crimps. And when I do, I like have to take a moment and like look up at the sky and be like, like, dear Lord, I'm sorry for what I'm about to do. I'm going to use a pair of pliers as a pair of crimps as

Chris: 1:01:22

Forgive me, Lord.

Sam: 1:01:23

I know, I know this is wrong, but I'm gonna pinch and there is no other way right now. and that's.

Chris: 1:01:28

That's right

Sam: 1:01:29

Yeah.

Chris: 1:01:29

now, have you ever seen te connectivity? Has they make tons and tons of crimps? Tons of different kinds of crimps and they they offer posters of like crimping guidelines and what's good. And what's all, they're super cool. They're so well illustrated. They're drawn, you know, they're not photos. They're drawings. Yeah. Oh, they're awesome.

Sam: 1:01:50

I will check these out.

Chris: 1:01:51

'em in the show notes. Yeah. And so we have, cuz we do, you know, we do some box build not much, but like we, you know, we have customers that give us a million dollar contract and so Hey, yeah, we'll do a box build for you. And so we do a fair bit of crimping and, and it, there is nothing, it is incredibly satisfying to use

Sam: 1:02:12

the right crim tool.

Chris: 1:02:13

crimp with the te crimp tool and like, and it just works.

Sam: 1:02:18

it, well, the, like the crimp tool is sized for the crimp, so it like holds it gently. So when you're trying to like feed the wire in the crimp, doesn't fall out, like, yes, so many. And then, and then like the crimp is right. And if it's crimp this, we're this the extent of my knowledge, but like, I'm pretty sure the crimp is supposed to grab the insulation as well. So also you have, you have the appropriate wire, stripper that strips the right amount for the crimp. So the crimp grabs the metal and it grabs the insulation like, and everything works. Yeah.

Chris: 1:02:48

Professional tools are so great

Sam: 1:02:51

Yes, yes.

Chris: 1:02:52

design, purpose, designed, and purpose built are just so nice to work with every time I'm trying to like work on my car, like

Sam: 1:02:59

oh yeah, yeah,

Chris: 1:03:00

when you talk about crimping with pliers, I think, oh yeah. You mean the time I wired in the backup camera? My wife's Jeep. Yeah. That's exactly what I did,

Sam: 1:03:08

man. So I saw, I, I can't remember what I was looking for, but I found these

Chris: 1:03:13

which failed by the way

Sam: 1:03:14

Oh, was it the crimp? Was it the crimp?

Chris: 1:03:18

was not the crimp, but you know, I kind of wish it was right now.

Sam: 1:03:21

So I found these, like these like insulated they're IDC, crimps, they were

Chris: 1:03:27

yeah. Yep.

Sam: 1:03:29

And they were made for like tapping onto an existing wire, which I thought was kind of, kind of slick. Like, if you need to like, yeah. If you need to like hack into something. So there's like an existing wire there

Chris: 1:03:41

Oh, if you're trying to pull off 12 volts or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sam: 1:03:45

And, and in, in like the manufacturer's website, they showed someone crimping with a pair of pliers. And I was like, I was like, no, I was like, be still my heart. Like, this is wrong.

Chris: 1:03:59

are super cool. And that's actually, those are the I, I didn't know they were made by IDC, but those are the

Sam: 1:04:05

oh, is IDC a brand name? I thought that was a, the, I thought like, is it a brand name? I thought it was like a

Chris: 1:04:11

I don't know. It could be just a generic term. I

Sam: 1:04:14

It was an insulating displacing connector.

Chris: 1:04:17

Yep. But I know the ones you're talking about cuz you can, you can basically kinda slide it over you know, say a 18 gauge wire or something like that, that you find in your car and then you're your wire that you're putting it to. You butt up against the end of it. You fold the little thing over and you squeeze it with the PLIs and you got a nice crimp. Yep. Yep. I've used them many, many times. Yeah. Cuz my wife, so we bought a, we bought a 20, 15 Jeep and it didn't have apple CarPlay. And my wife's like, I really want apple CarPlay and I'm like, well I know what I'm doing for the next eight hours

Sam: 1:04:48

there, there you go.

Chris: 1:04:50

was to take apart the entire dash and oh my gosh, that was a project. But it worked and the backup camera failed because on a Jeep, you know how the door swings to the left and right. Doesn't go up and down on the back of a Jeep.

Sam: 1:05:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris: 1:05:04

tire back there. Well, I didn't put a nice no, the radius was okay. It, I didn't put a, I didn't put any a sleeve over the actual

Sam: 1:05:13

and it like

Chris: 1:05:13

so it just fatigued. Yeah. It shaved and fatigued. And then, so I had to take everything apart again. I had to, but connect the wires where they had broken and then I put a nice sleeve over them to make sure they wouldn't, you know, it'll destroy the sleeve before it destroys the wires

Sam: 1:05:29

Lesson learned.

Chris: 1:05:31

Yeah.

Sam: 1:05:31

All right. What's

Chris: 1:05:32

But yeah, I well does Melissa, do you wanna share your pet peeve? Are you prepared to share your pet peeve?

Melissa: 1:05:38

yeah, I can share mine. Mine is, I usually have way too many browser tabs on.

Chris: 1:05:44

Oh, who doesn't.

Melissa: 1:05:46

Like way too many to the point that you can only see the little icon. So my pet peeve is when websites forget to add a favicon and so then you're trying to find, yeah. And you're trying to find, you're trying to find the tab and you're like, I, now I don't know which one it is.

Sam: 1:06:01

all right. Are you, are you ready? Are you ready for a pro tip? Because I might, I might change your world.

Melissa: 1:06:05

Okay. I'm

Chris: 1:06:06

do it.

Sam: 1:06:07

I mean, I'm on a, I'm on a windows machine. I don't know what you're on, but if you, if you press control shift a, then it lets you search your open tabs.

Chris: 1:06:18

what? So that'd be command shift a for Melissa, probably. That's awesome. Some

Sam: 1:06:24

Yeah.

Melissa: 1:06:26

Ah,

Chris: 1:06:26

that is super cool that thank you for that pro tip

Sam: 1:06:29

This, this only encourages you to continue having a

Melissa: 1:06:33

yeah. Right.

Chris: 1:06:34

here's here's the trouble though. Here's the trouble. So I have I, I currently have at least 30 tabs open in Chrome. Okay. But then I also have Firefox running. Which Firefox I use as sort of like my personal stuff. So like Chrome I use for all my business and work stuff Firefox. I use for all my personal, just whatever, you know, personal Gmail and, and, you know, paying bills and things like that. And then I have Microsoft edge running for all of my little giant podcast stuff. So it's everything dedicated to my other podcast about the New York giants so I have three browsers and each one probably has 30 plus tabs open. My poor computer is just like, what are you doing to me?

Sam: 1:07:16

yeah.

Chris: 1:07:19

so that's I, I agree, cuz Melissa, I'm looking at my tabs right now. I have three of them that have no favicon so I have no idea what they're for,

Sam: 1:07:30

Do you ever,

Chris: 1:07:31

I'm looking at all the other ones and I know exactly. I have an IPC one. I know that's for IPC. I see my Gmail one. I see my Google sheets one. I see my Zencaster one.

Sam: 1:07:40

you ever talk, do you ever talk to like young kids and be like, I'm so old? I remember when there were no browser tabs, you could only

Chris: 1:07:47

Yes.

Sam: 1:07:48

open. You're like I had to use the back button.

Chris: 1:07:52

yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Sam: 1:07:53

You're like I would click on something and forget where I was and then have to go back.

Chris: 1:07:58

I had that experience recently. Somebody was sharing with me. They're like they, they said we have an internal IPC trainer and he was saying how he was conducting the IPC class. And he was trying to use an analogy for, for the class about a Shrinky dink. And he goes, you know, the Shrinky dink. And I'm like,

Sam: 1:08:17

they didn't know what it was.

Chris: 1:08:18

dude, I'm too young to know what a Shrinky dink is. I've never heard of a Shrinky dink.

Sam: 1:08:23

must have been like a brand name, toy. You'd like put 'em in the toaster oven and they'd

Chris: 1:08:27

yes. yes.

Sam: 1:08:29

You, you would like

Chris: 1:08:30

had no idea what this

Sam: 1:08:31

decorate them. And they'd shrink. Which, which like

Chris: 1:08:34

with me

Sam: 1:08:35

says something about the marketing. Yeah.

Chris: 1:08:37

Yeah, right? Yeah. He was trying to commiserate with me and tell me like, oh, the young kids in the IPC class didn't know what a Shrinky dink was. And I was like, dude, I don't even

Sam: 1:08:45

You're like, I don't

Chris: 1:08:46

I don't even know what a Shrinky dink is. Like you're, you're even beyond me at this point.

Sam: 1:08:51

yeah,

Chris: 1:08:53

kids these days. We do have a lot of young people working for us. We've got a number, a number of young guys turning 21 in the past year. And yeah, all I said is, well, make sure you, you have your night on Friday night, not on Sunday night, cuz we're gonna see you.

8: 1:09:08

00 AM Monday morning, young man.

Sam: 1:09:11

Yep. Yep.

Chris: 1:09:14

yeah. Young people are great though. I've really, really, we've had, we've headed out of the park with some young people lately. Just fantastic. Absolutely

Sam: 1:09:22

it's cuz it's cuz you run a good shop.

Chris: 1:09:25

I'll tell you what. We, we have a great team. We have a great team and we have great. We have a great system for hiring great people.

Sam: 1:09:34

Systems again. There you

Chris: 1:09:36

oh man, we'll have to have you back Sam, because we can talk about, I could, I could probably, maybe I'm more nerdy about people than I realize this. This might be true. This might be

Sam: 1:09:47

No, you're you're a good person at heart that like helps. You've got, you've got, you've got good energy. That's why I love this podcast. Like nerd nerdy and good energy.

Chris: 1:09:56

I, I will say this has been a really, really enjoyable show. I hope the listeners have enjoyed it. I'm sure they have. If, if people wanna get in touch with you obviously go to awkward engineer.com and sign up for the newsletter. But if you wanna share your Twitter or anything

Sam: 1:10:09

questions@awkwardengineer.com. Good way to reach me.

Chris: 1:10:12

Questions@awkwardengineer.com.

Sam: 1:10:14

Yep.

Chris: 1:10:15

And for us as always, you can you can email us at contact. At pick place, podcast.com, not question questions. We'll get you nowhere contact at pick place, podcast.com. You can always tweet at us at CircuitHub or at w assembly, as I like to say at the conclusion of, of most episodes, if you've enjoyed this and you know, somebody else who's super nerdy and enjoy the nerdiest podcast on the internet officially TMTM TM. Please recommend pick place podcast to them. We would love to have them. Listen.

Melissa: 1:10:44

Thanks for listening to the pick place podcast. If you like, what you heard consider following us in your favorite podcast app, and please leave us a review on apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast from. Thanks again, Sam.