For Gunrunnerjohn and Stan2004 (and others interested in electronic projects)

I took a look at the first video that came up; what he called 'Christmas Fairy Lights'.  Wow, he was right, I never heard of it before, but it did trigger 'photosensitive epilepsy', as he put it!  Looks like he goes into a lot of projects that may be of interest.  You are right, he even does some review of Electronics 101 which I took back in Fall 1974!!  Was it that long ago??  Ouch!!  Thanks for the link, RTR12!!

Some fun stuff there..

Looks like some interesting projects, but watching these videos for me is akin to watching paint dry, too drawn out.   I'm a written document kind of guy.

I mostly just watch the new product openings, those are my favorite ones. He also gets the data sheets on some of that stuff and kind of explains some of the specs on the different components. The new items is what I thought you and Stan might like the most as you probably already know the components and other stuff.

I do agree with you about some of the projects being drawn out, but I think he is doing that for the less knowledgeable folks to try and explain as he goes along. I sometimes skip ahead on some of them, but I have learned a thing or two from the projects as well. Others like me might be more interested in that sort of thing.

Mark and Willygee, thanks for the comments I hope you are able to get something from the videos and info in them. If nothing else it's fun to see the new devices he gets in the mail bag openings. 

I'm sure a lot of folks find them useful, don't take my comment the wrong way.  I was just expressing my personal preference for reading it and not having someone spoon-feed me from a video. 

There are very useful videos I've seen, typically they are for some technique that is hard to write down, but easy to illustrate in a video.  For something like this, I'd personally prefer to see a written explanation.

I didn't take it wrong. Before posting the link, I figured that you and Stan and some of the others around here were most likely much more knowledgeable than the guy doing the videos. It was just the new product intros I thought you two might be interested in. More for the 'gadget' minded of us so to speak. Although you and Stan do a pretty good job of staying on top of those too. I can't resist a nifty new gadget, even if I don't know how to use it. I have a pretty good pile of them with absolutely no projects in mind for most of them!  The how-to's, data sheet info, etc. were more for the rest of us that are still struggling, like me!  I have watched a few of those, and he also has some 'interesting' ideas for his projects.

As always, I do appreciate you(r) and Stan's comments, as well as everyone else's too.

This may be a good guy to keep in the back of our minds. We can contact him if someday we all get stumped on a way to accomplish a project. He seams to be the type of guy who is up on all the latest project boards coming out.

Interview with OSH Park owner/founder.

Just watched an interesting video from AdaFruit where they interviewed the owner of OSH Park. Might be of interest to anyone thinking of getting some PCB's made there?

Interesting the size of the company.  I couldn't afford to spend 45 minutes, but I skipped around and got the flavor of the interview.  I get most of my prototype and small run orders done at OSH Park, I like the fact that I can get the .8mm boards with 2oz copper for no extra charge, you can't do that with most other prototype houses.

I thought you might like that one.  Not sure how much you caught, but he was also talking about some new things they are trying to get going. Some were about the boards, like 4 or 8 layers or something and some different thicknesses and things. There were some other board related things that I did not know the meaning of? He also mentioned trying to get boards in more different colors, like maybe 20 or so, not that color matters, but I guess some folks like that for different things and different revisions and stuff like that? Sounds like they plan to continue expanding and offering more things though. He mentioned quite a bit that he still wanted to add to the company and he wan'ts to do it all here in the USA like he is now.

I thought it was pretty interesting about how he got started by himself and then worked into doing it full time. After that he had to hire some employees and is now up to 5 (counting himself) I think he said. Nice success story, so far anyway. Hope he makes it big and still continues to offer the things like they have now.

The success of AdaFruit is another good story. I believe they have over 100 employees now and they also try to do everything here in the USA. LadyAda from the interview is the founder and owner of the company. There is some pretty impressive young talent out there!

I didn't catch anything new about 4-layer boards, they offer them now at $10/inch, obviously 8-layer would be new.  I was impressed with the all USA manufacturing. 

I was kinda' bummed that my assembly house in the US went out of business and I couldn't find anyone even close to his prices in the US, so it was off to China.  If a US option ever surfaces at competitive prices, I'd be back in a flash, dealing with manufacturing half a world away in a different language is challenging.  Sadly, the next cheapest US option would have had me raising my prices 20-30% to even maintain the same profit margin.

I am thinking he did say something about offering (or trying to offer) an assembly service, or he had a place that would do that or something? Pretty sure there was something said about assembly though. I believe he said some of his customers have asked about it. He seemed like a really nice young man too. And for USA made, he even found a source here for their purple envelopes they use for shipping their boards.

I'll try to watch the video again to see if I can understand some of the stuff I wasn't sure about. Some of it I probably missed while thinking about what was said and trying to figure out what they were talking about... I am really green on the board making. As Foghorn Leghorn says to Henery the chicken hawk, "That boy is built too low, the stuff just goes right over his head".  

When I find it again, I'll give you the time reference where the info starts so you don't have to watch the whole thing.

If he's actually going to do assembly, it could be a US source.  I don't mind if it's slightly more expensive than China, but when it's 2X the price of China, then it tips the scales too far.

Ok, here are some things you might like, times are approx, but pretty close.

24:40 he talks about fabs

25:40 board limits and sizes where it is better to go directly to have your own done at the fab places.

27:50 min board size 1/4" x 1/4", PCBs in bulk & medium size runs 

28:55 adding 8 layer service

30:45 something about Eagle DCR files 2 & 4 layer, you may not be interested in this one?

31:30 flex PCBs, he doesn't think he can do those?

32:00 next priorities for OSH Park

34:15 more future stuff incl. assembly service and offering a 'kit' service.

35:45 small batch assembly and more about folks making this stuff, Small Batch Assembly is a company that specializes in quantities of 50 -200 PCBs. 

40:00 problems they have with the gerber files and this leads to the end of the video.

Some of these continue on after the previously listed ones. Hope there is something interesting in there for you.

Thanks, that did help.   They did mention an assembly house, but at 25 cents an SMT resistor, they're on another planet from the places I use!

You're welcome. The OSH Park guy seems pretty sharp, at least with what he has done so far. Maybe he will come up with something better for assembly and make it happen for a much lower cost like he did with the PCBs? Might something to keep watching them for.

Well, I'll keep using them for prototypes and small runs when I just need a board.  If there is news, I'll be all over it.