LutetiumHey @Taiwo
Hey everyone, looks like it's time to get started. Let's welcome Brian Lough to the Hack Chat!
Brian, it looks like you're pretty well-known to the regulars, but maybe you can give everyone a little about your background.
Just in time...
Thanks @Dan Maloney
Hey everyone, I'm Brian and I'm a software developer from Ireland. I live with my Wife , our daughter (with company arriving shortly) and our two dogs
hehe, the expecting maker
The ultimate hack
🥁
From a maker point of view, I mainly play around with the ESP8266, I've written quite a few libraries for it wrapping various APIs
I document these and other things mostly on my YouTube channel
And around July of last year I started getting into making PCBs
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCezJOfu7OtqGzd5xrP3q6WA
Brian Lough
Hello! On my channel I make videos mainly on Arduino Projects and libraries. I do a lot of work with the ESP8266
I think it's safe to say I have the PCB bug now
Was that your first foray into PCBs?
The first PCB I ever ordered was actually V1 of my Power Blough-R, so not off to a bad start
I purposely picked that because of how simple it was
and still spent way too much time on it!
I had designed a board around this time last year that I never ordered. it was just an ISP header to DIP 8 adapter for programming attiny85s
Do you use mostly 2- or 4-layer pcbs now?
I'll bet - I haven't taken the plunge on PCB design yet, but given how much time I spend tweaking 3D-print designs in Fusion 360, I can see the PCB thing being a black hole for me.
Only 2 layers. My boards are normally pretty basic to be honest. Most of the boards are almost like replacements for perfboards @Kris Winer . If i keep doing things more than once I want to make it into a PCB. Then I list them on Tindie, because if I am tired of doing the same thing out on perfboard than im sure others are too!
I think spending too much time on a "simple" project is the Hacker Way -- I was planning a simple stationary bike generator for a friend and am now three weeks into a multi-level permanent magnet rotor redesign
Hey Brian. I almost didn't recognise you from your hackaday.io icon / image. :)
The exception to this would probably be the PCB3 project which was my first attempt at a "stylish" PCB. It was a Christmas tree shaped PCB with reverse mount leds shinning through baubles
ah, that was yours
It was still a relatively simple board though
but very nice
What CAD tool do you use, pcb fab house?
@Jakob Wulfkind - I agree. If I'm learning, I feel justified in spending the time. Of course I "learn" a lot from endless YouTube videos...
I am the worlds worst at estimating @Jakob Wulfkind !
Hey @Digicool Things , I scrub up pretty well eh? :P
second worst -- I'm currently six years into a one-year project
The Power BloughRs are designed using Eagle, but everything I have done since I have used EasyEDA
A subject matter expert is someone who has already made every mistake possible in his/hers subject area!
the first board I designed (the ISP to Dip) was done using KiCad
I know people will not be overly impressed with the choice of EasyEDA, but i do like it. I found it the easiest to use of the 3
@Brian Lough How many hours did you spend in Eagle and how many have you spent in EasyEDA. You've worked with KiCad too so you've kind of touched on all the freely available things. Can you give a sentence on why you are currently sticking with EasyEDA, what you like about it?
I also really like that the have footprints for most parts on LCSC (where I buy most of my parts)
@Brian Lough have you tried Fritzing? ;)
Fritzing - not even once ;-)
haha
@deshipu tragically it appears to be a dead project
as for fab house @Kris Winer , I mainly use JLCPCB. I have also used oshpark a few times too. For the PCB3 I ended up using Elecrow because JLC have a water mark on the Fr-4 material what is fine for regular PCBs, but kind of ruined the look of the tree
@Jakob Wulfkind it's just resting
If you're not using an Arduino and a Breadboard, what is the point in Fritzing? Haha. :P
@Jakob Wulfkind lovely plummage, though
There was a talk at FOSDEM about Fritzing. Actually it was about the state of the project and the lack of recent development by the maintainers.
Hey Brian! Maybe that's a question for later in the chat, I wouldn't want to interrupt the natural flow. From your experience, are there any particular things to be aware of, or pay attention to when selling on Tindie? And also coming from a software background, how did it feel to have all those extra steps to put your creations into the hands of people? Mmh, that was two questions, I guess.
@Leon Anavi I was there :)
@Josh Lloyd thats a good point, EasyEDA was the last of the 3 I tried so I'm sure I learned stuff from using KiCad and Eagle first. Now I've defeintely used EasyEDA more, but even straight awat I found it easier.
@Brian Lough I'm not familiar with your latest projects, but do you've plans to work on a bigger PCB in the near future. Something ESP8266-esque ?
I use fritzing for my videos @ꝺeshipu , I think its very useful for wiring diagrams
I've never used it for anything else
Ever use the ESP8285? I use this almst exclusively now for my ESP82XX projects.
The slightly more memory ESP8266, right?
@deshipu me too :0
:)
Embedded 1 MByte flash. Two extra GPIOs. $1 per IC last time I bought some.
Hey @Nicolas Schurando . I think the most important thing to consider for selling on Tindie (or anywhere) is what you want to get out of it. For me I dont think it is the easiest way of making money for example, but I really enjoy it. It defeintly gives me the warm fuzzies sending my stuff all over the world
"sending my stuff all over the world"
Yes, never get old!
gets
I would also recommend charging enough! It's easy to compare your prices to China and wonder how you are going to compete, but you have to make it worth your while too. At the very least make sure you are not losing money!
Minimum 2.3 x BOM cost
@Brian Lough Since we're touching on Tindie for a moment, how was it when you were a newcomer, and how does Tindie help you deliver your stuff around the world, do they provide any assistance there or is it that you get an order in with an address and you need to make the dispatch?
I've spoken to a couple people about independent hobbies, and the consensus was: If a new order doesn't make you want to get out of bed in the morning, its either the wrong field, or you aren't charging enough.
@Brian Lough I see you have some Twitter presence, any advice you could give with regards to that? i.e. showing off your projects, interacting with people, anything you think you could teach
@Josh Lloyd most of products at the moment are shields for the Wemos D1 mini ESP8266 board, which i love. I have made one design using a ESP-12 module. It is basically a Adafruit 7 segment backpack with an ESP8266 integrated. It actually works quite well (it's displaying my youtube sub count beside me here)
For some reason I'm a little scared to list it though. I guess it's just a little more out of my comfort zone in terms of design. I really should though
@Brian Lough You could always get some people on Hackaday to look at it, give you some confidence in the design.
@Josh Lloyd I got really good help from my YouTube buddies Unexpected Maker (who literally just joined as I'm typing this @SeonR !) and @davedarko
An Unexpected visitor.
Hey folks! What did I miss? ;)
@Josh Lloyd short answer - yes, you need to ship things yourself - get a box, pack the things, put a label on the box and then go to the post office.
Do you get the PCBs made in China/...? And do you do the assembly yourself out of interest?
Thanks for clarifying @Arsenijs
@SeonR Topics so far have been introduction to PCB design, YouTube channel, and now talking about Tindie.
Tindie don't provide any assistance in a fulfilment sense as @Arsenijs says but they provide an easy to use platform and look after some of the more complicated stuff for you (Payments and trust)
very few people are going to buy off my website, but people trust a platform like tindie so it allows me to actually sell some stuff!
@Brian Lough Do they act as a middleman or is the payment instant and then you need to deliver the product for a good rating?
Yeah, Tindie also do payment validation and some basic fraud detection/prevention... so they def take the pressure away from worrying about payment gateways, and their free is very reasonable.
Their *fee ?
woops ;) fee* haha
I am for around 2.5 BOM as @Kris Winer says, but also please consider time. Even how long it takes to go to the post office. If a package goes missing, you have to replace it so consider that too!
Sounds encouraging! It would be so cool to ship things I make. @Brian Lough I find that time is always hard to charge for, because more often than not, one does not value themselves enough. As you said, it gets harder when you compare your own prices to those of a fabhouse in china pumping out 100,000 units
@Brian Lough - On that front, did you find that your recent test jig for the Power BloughR helped reduce shipping bad units?
btw. tindie also tweets when you restock your products. The tindie dashboard tells me that I got most shop traffic from twitter - I see a correlation
that brings up another important point -- how is Tindie at handling problem communications like missed/damaged shipments, payment issues, and things like that?
And don't forget to factor in all your costs. Packaging, tape, labels etc. I forgot to allow for the petrol each time I drive to the post office to ship one. LOL
@Josh Lloyd you can always check how much similar things already listed cost
@Arsenijs I just post on twitter a lot, it's easy to use on my phone so I try share anything that I think might be useful to people. I've gotten really good help from sites such as Hackaday, Hackaday.io, Hackster etc who share projects and things I've worked on. Tindie also are always good for a retweet (sorry for badgering whoever runs that!)
https://hackaday.com/2019/02/02/custom-jig-makes-short-work-of-product-testing/
Custom Jig Makes Short Work of Product Testing
When you build one-off projects for yourself, if it doesn't work right the first time, it's a nuisance. You go back to the bench, rework it, and move on with life. The equation changes considerably when you're building things to sell to someone.
@Josh Lloyd a good rule of thumb is 3x the cost of making it
@Josh Lloyd I would prefer to have stock not selling than to under value my time. Time is my most valuable asset and is very precious to me!
@ꝺeshipu From 2.3, to 2.5, to 3.0 haha.
@deshipu That's a beautiful dream, but at higher cost BOM items, very hard to justify :(
Pricing depends on volume...
@Brian Lough I think I'm in agreement there. Time gets split thin once you've a family too.
I cant believe you are following your own rule @ꝺeshipu !
don't have to tell that deshipu though - he probably takes 1.2
@SeonR that's how much it usually cost to make a product from a
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