Lutetium
@Josh Lloyd Of course...
@Kris Winer I'm starting a new low power ESP32 project, I'll keep your power requirements in mind. How often do you need to capture a sensor reading?
@Brian Lough I liked the twitch stream, did you stop?
@Josh Lloyd Once a minute is fine, please let me know your progress on this...
I really enjoyed doing the live streams, I would like to do more. But it came down to a time prioritization thing. When tindie started taking off I really struggled to juggle everything (I was struggling up to that point too)
Might be tough with a new one arriving soon, too
@Kris Winer Sounds like a good target. I'll keep you updated when I've something more formalized.
My daughter has turned into a "Daddys girl" and insists I do bedtime now, so it made Mondays stream hard to do. And I used to stream before she got up on a Saturday, but she started getting up earlier
@Brian Lough Do you assemble your own products or have the fab do this? I've found that Chinese fabs have costs just above the BOM cost that include assembly and testing. Pretty sweet...
I did my first livestream of 2019 last Friday on playing around with the Attiny841, It was great to do it again
@Brian Lough Glad you have your priorities straight. :)
@Kris Winer Who is assembling so cheap?
So I'll probably stream every now and again when it suits, but as @Dan Maloney says, those opportunities might be limited!
Ha - I used to leave for work at 4:00AM to avoid getting snagged by my toddler daughter for "sunrise playtime"
I use Schotry International in Beijing.
I do the main assembling @Kris Winer , but most products I'm trying to offer as kits more than assembled
For the power BloughR I do the soldering and my wife does the heat shrink and testing
Do the kits work, I mean most of my customers seem to be pretty much plug and play types...
She also helps with the tindie fulfilment, which is a huge help
A cottage industry...
@Kris Winer Was that schotry.com ?
Yes.
@Brian Lough Sounds like a cute business you've got going there!
I reckon my wife would be interested in having more to do with her time, perhaps its Tindie time.
I try to make the kits I sell be easy to assemble. I'm sure I would sell more if I offered them as assembled too, but it comes back to time is a precious asset thing.
If it takes me 30 mins to assemble a board, the amount of money I would have to charge to make that worth my while is just not what anyone would be willing to spend!
I'm not exactly super well off or anything, but I get by with my day job
So I would prefer to have more free time than a small amount of extra money (if that makes sense)
I have paid my daughter to tests boards for, she claims to enjoy the work!
Thanks @Josh Lloyd
It's nice to have more than one source of income, though, even if one is modest.
Whats nice about my wife helping out with the Power BloughR is its something we can do together. Even if its not a fun activity, its better both of us doing it together for 4 hours than me being locked away for 8 houts
I always assumed that something like Tindie was mostly for the enjoyment and not for the profit. The profit was like pocket money in comparison
@Brian Lough I agree. Better to be working on something and bonding, than being shut away
tindie covers most of the spending on electronics at the moment
So its not a profit financially nor time-wise ?
But it is something you enjoy ?
I dont spend a huge amount on them anyways, but its really nice to be able to order boards without having to worry about it coming from the general house hold budget
I've made some money from Tindie and the whole sale of goods
more than I've ever made from Youtube for example!
I mainly like it @Josh Lloyd , but I bought my wife's Phone for Christmas using tindie money
I don't think YouTube is a viable option for income for almost anyone now.
so it was nice to get something tangible from it too
YouTube has been suffocating content creators for a couple years now.
I dont think so either @Dan Maloney
I've found Tindie sales can lead to custom work requests, which can pay well...
I had my best ever month on Youtube in January and it didn't even come close to Tindie money in January
Thats interesting @Kris Winer !
@Brian Lough Do you've any projects in mind that you've dreamed about but haven't considered making yet? Be it too difficult or whatever reason? Why have you not started, and what are they?
I've had some offers locally but I just didnt have the time
For sale or just to make?
@Kris Winer The assembly you sourced from Schotry, was it surface mount parts? Are they able to fab small components?
https://trello.com/b/wc1TQEK4/brian-lough-projects-videos
Trello
Organize anything, together. Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, know what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.
not sure custom design work is worth the bother, I still get nightmares about an email that says "I know you said not to touch the design but the fab house says we could save money if..."
@Brian Lough Either. Since it sounds like you mostly make things for your interest and then sometimes sell them.
Here are some of my back log ideas
I think ideas are cheap :)
The do WLCSP, 4-layer boards, both sides, etc. Anything you can have made at OSH Park they can too and assemble and test.
@Jakob Wulfkind Please don't swear like that :P
https://trello.com/b/wc1TQEK4/brian-lough-projects-videos
Trello
Organize anything, together. Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, know what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.
So we're coming up on an hour, which is the "official" end of the chat. Don't let that stop everyone from continuing the chat, though, as long as Brian wants to hang on.
Did this get deleted or did I forget to post, apologies if its against any rules!
I can stay for another bit anyways
I see it twice, I think the conversation here is just moving fast.
But bed time is soon :)
I want to thank Brian for his time, and the great chat - lots of good stuff about Tindie!
haha, maybe bed time for me is needed too!
Thanks @Dan Maloney
Firstly, in case I don't catch you at the end, thanks for coming to the chat @Brian Lough it has been enjoyable and informative
Thank you @Brian Lough
Your welcome @Josh Lloyd
Thanks @Brian Lough & @Dan Maloney !
I would just like to recommend the ESP32 PICO D4 as worthy of your attention...easy to design with.
And just a plug for next week's chat - Greg Zumwalt will be here to discuss his cool 3D-printed automata
and Lastly, that Trello board looks exciting. I'll have to sub on Youtube
Thanks Brian!
And if anyone has a desire to host a Hack Chat, please ping me. We're booking chats into April now.
Have watching @SeonR suffer through getting PSRAM to work and reading through a 13 page thread on the Espressif forums. I am ready to dive in and do the same with a PICO D4.
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