The Drop Ship Shuffle

Welcome to the macro fab engineering podcast, a weekly show about all things engineering, DIY projects, manufacturing, industry news and smartphone batteries. Were your host, electrical engineers, Steven Craig,

and Parker, Dolman. This is episode 320. So last week, we talked about how I am going to be testing ratchet wrenches. Yeah, because I have 20 of these ratchet wrenches that need to basically do torque testing on and how they feel in the hand. I got some suggestions from our Slack channel, which is macro.com/slack Go join and talk. But everyone else. One was like, what, like how much can a human put into it before like hurts your hand? Which is kind of a interesting, like metric because it's very subjective. Right? It's

also it's also like, in some ways, perhaps it would be good if it started to become uncomfortable after a while. So you don't apply too much torque, right?

Yeah. But I was thinking about it. And like, what if there was a way to? Like, this is good, this is weird. We're gonna scope creep this this episode, maybe? Love it. But because thinking about that, it's like, how do you measure that? Well, it's pressure points, right? So how do you measure so we'd have to have figured out a way to know measure the force over an area and then apply that area to the wrench, and then apply the same amount, basically, downward force, and see which one which wrenches had the highest spikes? On the map, basically, I'm thinking of like a 3d map of like, cars. Yeah, like

almost almost, there was like a mesh of pressure sensors that could, you know, apply to it. And, and, you know, we were talking last week about something that is perhaps a positive on these wrenches, this is how thin they are. So you can get into tighter areas, but that might also be negatively affect how comfortable they are.

Exactly. That's one thing to think about is like, is there a way to do that, because I know like you can get you can go to like, shoe insert stores, and like they have you like stand on like this like plate and really like measure your feet with pressure, like pressure sensors. And they show like a map of like, where the pressure points in your feet are. So we need something like that. But for like your hand,

man. Okay, so I'm, I'm just thinking out loud. This is probably a dumb idea. But but something that's going through my mind right now is if there was a material, like, like a foam or something like that, that is that has a known like compression rate. But it permanently deforms if you could have one of those for each wrench, and you press down on that and then you have the the deformation. Like negative, you can see how how much force is applied in what areas based off of that foam. I don't know. Like, it's sort of the opposite of what you were just saying with like, yeah, stamping on the little Dr. Scholes pad.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess you can get the foam and then apply the same force to each wrench. And then the

I guess deeper would go would be more pressure. Maybe? Yeah, I don't know that. But that that doesn't necessarily. It's almost more like how sharp transitions are in the foam. I don't I don't know.

So I'm probably like, our Twitch chat. Because we're live streaming this twitch. TV slash macro fab says variable resistive pads out of conductive fabric. That's something I can just like buy though. I don't want to. I'm trying to reduce like how much does I know I need to make like a custom fixture to hold all the testing stuff. But like I think man like making a sensor. To do this is probably not the right way to do it. For repeatability reasons. Could you

Could Is there a way that you could map or sense where the majority of the force is actually being applied, and then show how sharp that is like if you're applying the total amount of force over a larger area, I think that would equate to more comfort. Whereas if there was like a sharp point in the in the rent from where, where most of the force goes, that's probably the least comfortable. How do you sense that? What would be the best way of doing that? I'm not sure.

No, no. It's something I thought about, just like on the podcast, so I don't really know. Because I know you can get like, pads, pressure sensor pads, but you only get like, one read from it. Right? Yeah, that doesn't tell you like it just tells roars. Yeah, ah, pressure sensor. Pressure map sensors apparently might be the term.

They do look like they exist. They're not terribly expensive. Well, what kind of forces would you have to apply to them? Are they even in the range of what you

don't know? This one just got like. It's called it's by sensing texts.com. And what are they called? Pressure MAP sensor? Yeah, pressure mat sensors. Oh, Matt. Not map. Yeah, Matt. Also, how Oh, they're actually fairly large. Yeah, the ones that you stand on are which would be awesome. To basically just feel that I wonder if that's if this is the right way to go for it. Or something more. Oh, let's see what that one is. Oh, okay. So the ones I'm looking at here don't give you like an x, y. And pressure.

Data, it just gives you Oh, there's pressure somewhere on this map. Yeah, still single reading and that's not what you're looking for. You want to know the location and amplitude?

amplitude? Yep. I need the vectors. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's almost like x y z, where z is pressure right?

Yes. No, that's exactly what it is. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what would be the best way to do that.

Hey, can we just forward the thing is just be would be like taking a 3d scan of it though.

I'm hearing a lot of background noise. I don't know if that's on my side or your side. It might be on your side now I'm sorry not a lot of background noise but I'm hearing it

it might be on my side. It sounds electrical actually

you guys on Twitch Are you guys hearing any background noise I turned everything off in this room think it's on my side? So okay, no worries when it hits is fine mine mine has like a period to it's like don't do that. But it's like it's low down but somebody might get annoyed by it. I think I think the these headphones are going garbage.

The sound like a oscillating fan. By clicking noise. It sounds more like like a beating noise than a clicking sound. Let's try one more thing now it's still there. I think it's okay. Okay. That was my ceiling fan I turned off so there's no I think I think this is good if people on Twitch aren't hearing it then we're fine.

Okay

okay, sorry about that yeah, I don't know. Maybe we just don't do this. Yeah, I think I think that's adding a lot that probably isn't Yeah, I think just worth it. Just using it and be like just make it subjective. It's fine if some stuff is subjective, right. Because like, part of it is like look and feel, which is subjective. Yeah. And then I think last So I talked about using like, load cells to build like a sandwich plate, that basically the torque will collapse the sandwich plate basically measure the clamping load, right? Well, I did some more research over the past week. And I actually found digital torque wrenches or torque wrench adapters, I should say that they use load cells but in a rotational manner. So you can measure the torque directly. That's applied to basically the socket adapter. And I did find stuff that was in the range I needed. Because that was the big thing is I needed something within the range that the wrenches will break it. Yeah. So I got those on order. Now, they don't have an output to him. Like I don't have like a zero to five volt output or a four to 20 milliamp output. It's a screen, but I know it's got a Wheatstone in there, and it's going to have to have a amplifier front end. I'm hoping it's not like laptop style in there. We're like, it just all goes into a black box. I'm hoping there's like a separate amplifier. If not, then I'm just gonna put my own Wheatstone amplifier on it, and then like calibrated with my torque wrench.

Yeah, good. Yeah, sure. Because you don't need like, incredible accuracy for this test.

No, I need relative accuracy, like, right, between each test, am I getting the same number? And that way I can dictate or see which ones are which wrenches are better than other wrenches is always what we're looking at. And then the other thing is, I need to I found a linear actuator that can output plenty of force to make this work. So what is it? What is it like? It is just a beefy power supply that connects to it. linear actuator. Yeah. It's just a super geared down motor. Oh, okay. I gotcha. I gotcha. Okay. And so when I get all those things in, I will finish up the design, basically, because I need like, measure everything, because none of this stuff has like dimensional drawings or anything. So I'm trying to get it in and measure it. Yeah. And then yeah, throw it into Autodesk fusion. And then I'll probably just get everything made from like sent cuts and you know, everything lasered out, then weld it all together. And make a decent chunk, you know, and I gotta make a circuit board, of course, because I need to be able to, because I want to read in the torque wrench adapter reading. And then I also want to control the linear actuator. And I want to get amperage back. So I want to get like a current reading from the actuator because we should see, like, us basically a spike when the torque, we're or when the ratchet wrenches break, we should see a little sharp peak. Well, and then yeah, like, and then a massive Valley, right? Yes. Should some cliff? Yes, yeah. So that'd be a nice way to like, wind up the the data basically is like see where peak torque at failure actually was, is we will see basically a drop off in the amperage that goes through linear actuator. Yeah, maybe in a couple of weeks, I'll have the design done. And then we can talk on order. The parts are in order. So in a couple of weeks, we'll have I'll have the parts in and I'll do the design, we can talk about the design then. And then probably another couple of weeks after that to build it. And you already have all the wrenches, too, right. I already have all the wrenches already did. That's the easy part.

was buying wrenches. Yeah. And I can't remember you're videoing all this right? I'm gonna video at all and it's gonna be up on my blog.

So nice. I'm really looking forward to it. This is I I've watched a handful of YouTube videos that are similar in nature to this. And it's these kinds of tests are really fun, where they're like scientific, but they're not like surgical lab grade. They're garage science. And that's really fun.

This is garage science. So yeah. Yeah, I can't wait to get get this project rolling. I guess technically is rolling because I've spent all the money up front already.

It's like, I like how dollars and wrenches. This This involves. This involves like mechanics. This involves you're gonna you're gonna have to weld up the whole thing. You're you're making a circuit board for it. You're hacking other people's equipment, like you're going all out on this. You're doing that

Every, like, every discipline, I know, I'm using it. Right? There's one more thing about this is, this is it, this is we're going to start crossing into engineering ethics on this project. Oh, okay. So because the goal is to break the wrenches, like, the goal is to break them all, all 20 of them, we'll see if we can or can't, like, I want to basically I'm basically designing everything to handle like 250 foot pounds of torque. If it goes over that, no guarantees anything's gonna survive, right? So maybe some wrenches will fail or, or actually exceed that which we kind of insane. But well, and you want your fixture to last at least the number of ratchets you have, yes, at least that many. Now, the ethics side is another thing that's kind of important for tools is the warranty. Do I break the wrenches and then try to get new ones? Oh, cuz, most of cuz that's the gray area. Like because most warranties are from accidental breaking, like you're not on purposely trying to break the wrench. Right? I am trying to break the wrench. Okay. Now, it would be nice to know what companies for white actually follow the warranty or not? Right? Like that's the whole point of buying snap on is it has a lifetime warranty. So if you break the wrench, you get a new one.

But if you break the red, if the wrench breaks in, in normal use, this is very normal use. Yes, I guess Okay, so it depends on a lot of things. But like if you're doing it for the greater good if you're figuring out these kinds of things such that you can report it for other people, then maybe that's what it is for. Maybe that it sounds like an ethical gray area.

Yeah, it definitely is. Because, of course when it's half entrench, like, basically, whoever wins, wins in quotes out of the chute out, I'm gonna buy like an entire set. So it's like, I would I would want to know what warranties the best worn like, which one actually replaces the wrenches. So that I, because that's, that's a big, that's important, right? Like, in Yeah, five years. If I break a wrench, can I get it replaced?

Well, you know, perhaps there is an alternative. You can initiate the warranty process, but then maybe not accept it? Or oh, yeah, at the end. And just like report how they did how the company? Yeah, that's actually that's actually a good idea. And then I think, yeah, like, you kind of dodged the ethical side of it. Yeah.

Because you don't actually take advantage of it. Right. Right. I like that. We'll do that. Yeah. That's let us know, in Slack, what I should do about that, but I like Stephens idea. Because that does dodge ethical problem with it. So because I know I know the ones I've on Amazon, Amazon will probably be like, yep, just return it. I remember I only do that up to like 30 or 60 days or something.

To replace tools to school. It's a good idea to Thank you, Chris. Chat. It's a good idea. Well, perhaps, but I think there's still some ethical problems with that as well.

Yeah, it's not still not, it's better. on a sliding scale of a slider is better, because you're still not benefiting.

Or you're taking advantage of the company. You are taking advantage of the company though. So even even if taking advantage results in something that is arguably good. i The like, taking bad and turning it into something good still means that the bad thing happened. Yeah, yeah. I back in back in high school. A friend of mine took advantage of a situation like that just to see if they would they would do it. I can't remember the brand of cable but it was a quarter inch cable that you could purchase from a music store. They had a they had a replacement policy. If it breaks, we'll replace it. He bought one took it out to the parking lot and cut it with scissors and then walked it back in and they replaced it they just ego. And so they honored it. But yeah, that's also kind of nasty. I'm not I'm not into purposefully destroying items, unless there's a reason to do it. And I think your reason right now is is good. If you were just like just Throwing it because it would be fun to destroy. Yeah, I'm not into that. But yeah, you're you're literally finding out which one is best.

I like I think I think I'm going to do your idea of Steven of start through RMA process. And then basically like, when they give me like, shipper back, we'll mail you a new one or whatever and just be like, Oh, I changed my mind.

Yeah, just cancel just canceled and record like, you know, how pleasant was the RMA process? And how fast were they that

some of them are gonna be interesting because I couldn't buy some of them. You can't buy directly from the manufacturer, you have to go through third parties. Some cases like I couldn't find them in stock anywhere. So I had to buy him from like some random reseller on eBay. The brand new wrenches just everyone was out of stock, which is a perfect segue into our next topic. Oh, nice, which is finding parts Regardless of industry and hobby in the current supply chain.

meltdown, meltdown. I like that. So what made you think of this, what's okay, grinding your gears?

So currently, I'm I, my red Jeep is done in like quotes, right? Done in quotes, like, I kind of feel like we should celebrate this. Like, we shouldn't be like champagne popping and things like, you know, the bumper is thick enough, I could probably break a champagne bottle christen it so it's done. And I'm actually been driving it around. I love it. It's a lot fun. So now it's back on the grand wagoneer. The other Jeep, white dragon, the other the other Jeep, Don't test me I look at Jeeps like almost every other day on Craigslist. And oh, we all know Parker. So it's back on that. And now I need to the last time I like really worked on it was a couple years ago, when I bought it. I worked on it for like half a year. Hopefully not spend another half a year on it. Which is what gets into this supply chain problem right now. But basically, I want to like make sure it doesn't leak water into the cabinet anymore, because I've never replaced seal so like replace all the rubber seals and like, make it quiet because it has an external fuel pump. Anyways, that's beyond this podcast right now. But I needed to buy an intake manifold for my Jeep Grand wagoneer because I'm going to EFI and I need a different footprint where the carburetor would go well, in this case is a throttle body injection thing, but needs a different pattern, basically a different bolt pattern, different size holes and that kind of stuff. And they make them for the for this engine that's in the wagoneer not a big problem, normally. And usually when I go shopping for parts, like like aftermarket parts for cars, I tried to go to like the manufacturer first and see, like, do they sell direct? If they do, are they in stock, that kind of stuff. So I want to elder brawl, excuse me, elder Brock or elder Brock, something like that. And that was that was the manifold I wanted. They're out of stock. So I'm like, okay, they're out of stock. Everyone that does like car. That's those car parts, sells the stuff to their resellers. And so I went to like Summit Racing, which is like one of the big distributors. And then because I like I like Summit Racing a lot, because they will tell you, if they dropship or not like they will tell you they have it on their shelf, or they dropship which is a good indicator of knowing if other companies are lying to you about their stock, which is what we're going to well I'm going to call the dropship shuffle. And you see it all the time in the automotive industry. And you see it you start seeing a lot of places where basically resellers are drop shipping items directly from manufacturers instead of actually carrying it on their shelves, which is great for their their inventory, right? Because they might be selling their own stuff. But then they expand their catalog. They're, they're carrying other manufacturers, right? Right. And they don't want to carry that inventory on their on their shelves and they don't have to pay the taxes on the inventory, that kind of stuff. So they just dropship

well and it allows it allows smaller companies or even large companies that have you like very specific styles of stores to be able to dock the daily stuff in their stores, but then like the big crazy items or something comes from a warehouse, like, exactly.

But that, but that's why I always go to the manufacturer first and see if they sell it. And if it's in stock or not, because there was out of stock and I'm like, I wonder if they dropship? Yes, they do. And so, and then, so one of the there's a couple of like, resellers that just do wagon grand wagon news for Jeeps, like that's all they do are these cars. And they said, Oh, we have that in stock on their website. So I called them up and I'm like, this is dropship, isn't it? And they're like, yeah, it is I'm like, you don't have in stock? And they're like, No, it'd be, it'd be made before they can get one. I'm like. So what do you do about the dropship? Shuffle? go to eBay? So well isn't isn't eBay, just dropship singular items from individuals? Yes, but they have it on usually take a picture. Yeah, the thing about eBay tos, there's a lot of dropship items that come from like, elder Brock, or like JEGS, or Summit Racing on there, too. Yeah, they're just like disguised a little bit. But if you search enough, and you look at, basically don't buy something that's got the same stock photo as everything else, you want to find the one that's got an actual photo that someone took of the thing on this case,

yeah. When you go to eBay, and you search for something, and there's a bazillion like crystal clean, pure photos on there, like I dodge those, I'll go right to the one where it's some guy has it on the floor in his garage and be like exactly

like you. So there's a couple of people that actually have unopened of the unopened boxes of these of these intake manifolds that have actual pictures of them. Because like, they're all different pictures in different lighting and alike. So you know, they're like, the person actually has this manifold. So the first one finishes up auction in like three days. So I want to, it's like $150, under MSRP. So I'm gonna try to get that one. Yeah. If not, there's a couple other ones out there. So I want to like if it goes over MSRP, I'd be like, check out the next one.

So, you know, I saw a video the other day of some some interesting business practices. This, this person was saying, here's here's a, you know, an interesting way of making money. They went to some store, it was like TJ Maxx or something like that. They said they found an item that had a ton on the shelf. And they just took pictures of it, and then made an Etsy account and put pictures of something that they didn't even own. It was on the store on the shelf and another store, and they upmarket, like three 4x. And then people will buy it on Etsy, they will just drive to the store, pick it up, and then ship it and make a ton of money doing that. So like you don't have any inventory. You don't

have any talking about what we're talking about engineering ethics early. That's kind of messed up. But it's really it's well, and the thing is, if you can't find it, you just write a note saying either backordered or sorry, this is out of stock. Yeah.

There's no loss to it on the on the store on our side, no and really on for the person who's doing that. I mean, it's, it's shady. It's kind of it's kind of messed up. But you know, you make money instantaneously, almost like, you don't have the risk.

Especially if you can just mark it as backorder or like cancel the order if you can't actually get it. There's zero risk. Yeah, the only risk is you drove over there and there wasn't an item to buy. Yep, yeah. That's even we're in the wrong industry. You care about ethics is what you would like the fact that I thought about like, feeling bad about trying to return a wrench. Like those people would just return them. Yeah. So craft lab in chat says another sign is the price and the price is the same as the store, but 10 to $20 more expensive than is normally offered. It's been dropship. Usually with automotive parts, it's usually the same price. That's the like, Oh, this is drop shipped. So like the EFI thing. There's a website out there. I can't remember the name. It's a Holley EFI system. Hollies and manufacturer. There's a website out there that says That resells them. And they provide better support than Holly does. But they're a drop shipper to for these items because like the price is like the same, including like the sale price like Holly's like it's 10% off right now, this other websites, it's 10% off right now. Totally, they're just, you know, using the same API endpoint. But that's the thing is, is a lot of these resellers don't have active API endpoints to know this their stock or not, like your example, with the person selling it on Etsy. They don't have an API to automatically just query TJ Maxx floor to see if there's that thing still there.

Is that kind of practice, though? Like, it relies entirely on the buyer being ignorant to what you're selling? Like just not knowing that it's available somewhere else?

Yeah. You see that a lot on Etsy. And you see that a lot on tindy as well, which is, when you see people reselling basically stuff that you can just go on Aliexpress or Alibaba, or eBay for that matter. Yeah, they buy it, they mark it up, and then just toss it on there. Or they're doing the same thing. Or Yeah, right. You're just purchase it and have it dropship. To you. Yeah. Which is one thing I will say about our fruits is they do, I'm not ever going to say the same thing. Because they don't. Because they actually carry whatever they're, they're buying. Because like you can go and go to AliExpress and Alibaba, and buy like the same status, not all the time, but same kind of items on on, added fruit. But the thing about out of fruit is they have all the documentation, and they write all this code to make this stuff work. And that's worth supporting. In that case. Whereas if you I'm just saying, like a LED matrix grid, right? You can go to AliExpress and buy the same one. But add fruits on all this legwork to make it so that just works with your Arduino. So yeah, they wrote all the libraries and heavy libraries, they wrote all the documentation to show you how it works, that kind of stuff. So it's worth

it's worth supporting work. Yeah, the original creator, even if it's open source, you know,

yeah. I know some people that want to save a buck, and that's fine. It's just thinking about the engineering ethics behind it.

I was not expecting this episode to go this way. Not about ethics. I guess. Actually. Yeah. Some of the future stuff might even touch in on that.

Yeah. Because our next topic is already is the EU Parliament adopts new draft legislation. So this is not passed yet. This is like, they're putting together all the documentation. And like the old the legal jargon, that makes engineers roll their eyes back. Like a great white shark drives new legislation about batteries and phones. And so this is everyone's favorite word on this podcast dictate. They're going to dictate manufacturers of smartphones, that batteries must be designed so that customers and independent operators can easily and safely remove them themselves. By 2024. I don't know what that means yet. Like, is that mean? It has to have like a battery cover. So you can just snap it off, or is it like, oh, you can just unscrew it? Or because right now they're like glue phones are glued together? Which is awesome and awful at the same time. It's awesome. Because phones are now waterproof. Remember when phones weren't and like you'd get a little bit of water on them. And they would just stop working because like the water go into the keys. Yeah. And he was talking. They're waterproof because they're glued together. Right? Yeah. Yeah. awful thing is you have to heat that glue up to separate it and then replace the glue when you put it all back together. So it's the work and like usually when you get like pry the screen off with like a big disk usually cracked the screen, too. So most time when you do work on a phone by another screen. And honestly, that's that's one of the reasons why any work done on phones is typically expensive. Yes, because that is the actual labor is pretty rough. So I don't know what the documentation is. didn't really say much more than what we just said about it. Cuz it's a draft so far, and they probably haven't released the draft or anything like that this is like an

article about it, I guess. Well, and the article from the European Parliament, news was, was that they, they have some bullet points on there and one of them is being more ambitious in terms of waste management. And so I think that this is a bit more about instead of just throwing your phone away, maybe you treat the battery separately. Yeah, two things at the same time. As as batteries start to degrade over the lifespan of the phone. Instead of treating that as in, oh, the phone needs to be replaced. Maybe the idea is you replace the battery service gives you much more life of over something that works just fine.

Yeah, I mean, I still run a pixel two. And I actually had it. Funnily enough, I had it serviced, basically, as I had a shop taken apart and put a new battery in it and put a new USB connector on it. Yeah. And I'm like, it's like a frickin brand new phone now. It's like, Yep, there's, I can probably get, basically I saw the pixel six with like, the band on the back. And I'm like, Hell, no, I don't want that. So I just 450 bucks, I got my phone service. And it's like a brand new phone, besides the fact that it's, you know, a pixel two. All Yes. Graphical GraphLab. From chat, again, is correct on this is a lot of times the batteries are glued in. So even if you get it apart successfully, that gel cell lithium battery is a little difficult to get out without it bending and breaking the packaging for it. Yeah. So it's gonna be interesting what this what happens here, because like, honestly, I don't think we need like battery life is so well thought out on phones now. Like, you can easily go a day and a half, usually on a phone charge. So you don't need like back in the day, your cell phone might get like six to seven hours. And so having a battery you can just swap in and out was really convenient when you're traveling and that kind of stuff. But if it was something of like, how do you keep the waterproof aspects? Yeah, it's gonna need a seal. You need to seal you need a gasketed phone? Yeah, you need a gasket. So that adds thickness and bulk for gasket. And so I'm thinking like, if it was just a screw down panel, you can probably make that smaller. So like the back panel was just screwed together on the back. We'll probably make that smaller. You still need a little more thickness for the gasket, of course, but it's not as bad as like a hatch. Because then you need like all the the knee all the plastic pieces. The What's that called? When the when you you have a plastic hinge that's designed to move. Like, oh, the Lord, would they call like live hinge or something like that. Yeah. live hinge. Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

But that's usually I'm like really cheap. Not on like, your $1,000. Smartphone. That's true. That's true. Yeah, well, so also this, this, this legislation is they're trying to put this into effect in 2024. That's pretty soon. So they quit. Like I noticed some, some comments. I think it was on Reddit about this, with people saying, Okay, so now does the world. And I'm not trying to be myopic here but the world meaning US and Europe here, does it? Is there two separate phones that are made one that is replaceable battery that goes to the European market, and one for virtually everyone else? No, like, like, no one's going to go through the design work to do both of those. So what it means is the Europeans would or the European Union would dictate what we all get in that situation. And then do do phone companies start to take advantage of that situation. And now like, you buy the phone and the battery separately, and then you get options on the battery and you get like you you get like your starter battery, and it's garbage. And then they upped charging for better batteries like maybe right, talking about engineering

that that seems like too much waste, basically because the only way to get more charge is to make a bigger battery. So or just to make a worse battery in the same form factor, I guess but that seems like that seems like it would take more money to do it that way. Then just made one battery.

No, yeah, agreed. I'm just saying like if you're a slimy sales guy, and you can get more money out of somebody by making a worse battery, and then even more money by making like an adequate battery and then charging extra for that, then you never know that's they might pull something like that off.

Maybe I because we know that basically the EU did the whole, like, standardized connectors for phones. Right. Which was interesting, because they just said you have to standardize on a connector. They didn't say what it was, or did they say it was? I think they were saying USBC? What was micro at first? Was it I swear it was USBC. Basically, it was it was basically clubbing apple into using USBC. But they still haven't used it. They use lightning still. I don't know if it's gone into effect yet. I don't remember what the year. It was supposed to happen yet. Oh, I'm talking about older legislation. Like there was talked about that like a year ago. So yeah, there's other there was a USB micro one. Oh, how long ago was that? That was? Yeah, yeah. It's September of 2020. Ones that was actually not that long ago. The easiest one for us. USBC on all phones. Yes, there's that one. But before that, that basically said, I think it was just the EU said. phone manufacturers standardize on one or else is basically what said, Oh, that's what it was. And then they didn't. So they're like, well, here you go. No, they did. They did they all standardize on mini first, and then it was micro. And then they went to type C. And the only one that didn't do it is apple. So they wrote I think the whole idea was they wrote this that last September one to basically say you got to use this now or else. Well, wait, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think Apple ever used mini or micro. Did they know because that's how it was? If I recall, this is just me. Remembering from like, seven years ago or eight years, is it was written like, Y'all need to standardize or else. No, they're just they need to use this. Got it. And so apples like, well, lightning is a standard. Who was use that? I like that. Yeah. This is this works. Right? Everyone likes this. Yeah. Everyone likes that. Even though like the cables break like crazy. That's funny. Yeah, I don't know. This is one of these. I don't want we've had this talk before with right to repair that kind of stuff. And Steve and I are not really big fans of dictating what manufacturers should do. Forcing, I don't actually I want to say manufacturers, this is me dictating designers of smartphones, not manufacturers of smartphones. But it it's one of those ethic things I guess. And the outcome is better. It's one of those rare things where the outcome could be better, I think could be is could be because the problem with the legislation from last September, which is saying use type C? And that's it. Right? Well, what happens if something What if type D comes out? Right? Now, type, but we can't use type D on phones because the law says type C. Now, that might be a straw man argument, basically, because those

might be I mean, regular regulation does tend to stagnate things because it moves slower than what individuals or designers or even large companies can do. That's not as nimble. But I mean, there's there's good reasons for and against it at you know, at the same time, like the I'm not a huge fan of telling companies you need to be better. And I get to define what better is. And then if you're not, I get to force you. That's it fits a little bit into that kind of category. So it's sticky for me.

Yeah. And this is one of the things is I haven't looked, but is there a manufacturer or designer that sells a smartphone with a battery that is easy to replace? And yet, I think they're small. If that answer is you Yes, I'm thinking like a smartphone, like, you know, a screen with a camera on it is what? The designs are. Right. Right. If that exists, and that is something you care about, why don't you own one? It could be it doesn't exist, because that totally is, then you can't? Well, I think their niche, I think, I think something what those kinds of applications are, you'd have to seek it out. And you would have to care about seeking it out. Yeah. So is this really something like, I agree with making it easier to replace when they last longer? Yes. Okay. I don't think that might be something that a consumer themselves, like, what it says consumers there. That's like, average Joe, right.

Yeah, buying a battery off of Amazon and slapping it. Yeah, go doing it yourself.

Do it yourself, ad but anyone can do it yourself? Well, I don't think that

example, like you brought your phone to a place and they did that for you. So it's not impossible. It can be done. If it's something somebody cares about, they can make it happen. Right?

Correct. So that's what I'm getting at is, okay, it's something that your phone is going to go through once, maybe twice in its lifespan, okay. For like, because we're talking about now that we're, we want longer battery life, or we want to change the battery. So our phone lasts longer? No more than three years, basically. So do you actually need a removable panel? Could you just make it so that it gets glued together easier or comes apart easier? Or something like that? Or use like a different kind of glue? Or, you know, this is what I'm thinking? Like? Does it have to be consumers to replace it? Can you just take it to a shop and pay 50 bucks to get it replaced instead of 150? Or whatever? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I yeah, I see what you're getting out there. Does Now I like to the owner themselves. Yeah. I like to do my own stuff like everything. Right. But that was something that I actually paid something else someone else to do, because I knew that it required. I basically looked on how to do it myself. I'm like, I don't have those tools. And I'm only going to be using those tools once in my life for sure. Yeah. On this case, so I'm going to pay someone who has the tools already.

Well, okay. So I think perhaps the situation is this. Maybe they're drafting this legislation, with the hope that if we make it as easy as possible for people to replace their own batteries, then E waste and properly disposal disposing of batteries. Like that that's promoted that? Well, yeah. In other words, like the the the best situation could happen if you make it such that the individual owner can make that choice?

Sure, sure. I think that's a weak argument is what I'm saying. Yeah, that's a really weak argument, I would say, yeah. Because just making it easier so that at the end of its lifespan, it can come apart, easier to recycle the battery separately. totally valid, right. But at that point, you don't care if the phone goes back together. So you can just destroy it taking it apart. It's not a big deal. The consumer doesn't need to do that. Right. That's the recycling plant, where you have your phone at. So I don't know about this. I do agree. I like like, my phone is on the second battery now. And it would have been nice if I was able to do it myself with the tools I have. Right, like a hot air gun and or maybe a small screwdriver. But then is that something that every user like has to be able to do? That's That's my question. Does average Joe, or average Joe or average Joe wet? Can't be sexist, right. To replace the battery, like, I don't know about that. That's just interesting to think about.

Yeah, I guess I'm just not entirely sure what the end goal is like, why is this necessary?

Yeah, it's the same thing with it. Same thing with well, my problem with a Type C mandate is stagnation. Which might not be a problem the EU sends to get stuff done faster. The EU parliament over there tends to get stuff done faster than US citizens are used to politics move or policies moving towards

well, and not to get too political with it, but I think it's because they're perhaps a little more eager to do things that have the words mandate and force and require and dictate in them, whereas we're a lot more allergic to those terms on the side of the pond. Could be, that could be true. So, you know, getting stuff done. I'm using scare quotes here doesn't necessarily mean something is bad or, like, yeah, sure, like something.

No, that's an anti argument or not anti argument. It's a stupid term. It's an argument against stagnation, in terms of mandating USB type C, because then oh, there'll be like, Oh, USB Type D is now out, we'll just make that the new thing.

Yeah, you know, and the thing is, like, if you're worried about like, consistent e waste, and you're worried about, you know, excessive consumerism and things, and you don't have problems with, you know, telling people what to do, then why not penalize people who purchase phones on the very regular, you know, that's probably you'd probably do more good for the environment, preventing someone from getting a new phone every three months, as opposed to somebody, you know, trying to just promote somebody who runs one who wants to replace their battery. Right? But like, there's some serious problems with what I'm saying there. So

you mean phones can be recharged? One time buys? Yeah, I don't know about this. I like the idea of making it easy to replace, are easy to remove, so you can easily recycle them, which is good. I just don't know about consumers themselves mandated consumers themselves being able to do it. Because then I'm just talking about the design aspect of like, the benefits of the current design. I think people don't realize come from the fact that is not as serviceable as it is. It's like a lot of devices, industrial devices are potted, which are like you can't do Oh, yeah. Hard urethane canister. Yeah, hard your thing. stuff. It's like, that's because without that, it would be almost impossible to seal that device correctly. Yeah, it sticks because it is potted. Yeah, it would last like it was last last. Its lifespan, it would be lower if it was not potted, usually significantly, right. So it's interesting, I think people aren't seeing that side of the story. It's like when we talked about right to repair, we brought up a lot of other things about it and gave people to, you know, gave people something new about. Me interesting, we'll see what people say about this draft legislation. Now since we put our thoughts out into the world now. The recycling stuff is important, though. Because right now, it's really hard to recycle phones. Because you do have to have specialized equipment to pull them apart to get the battery out. So that could be actually one of the things is like making it easier to pop it apart. So that you can get the battery out and then separate the electronics out of it and separate the screen out now all the plastic bits.

Yeah, I almost like the idea of being able to opt into a program when you purchase your phone, maybe you pay some amount when you purchase it. That goes towards its recycling when you go to replace it. And so you've returned it to the exact same place. And there's a program where they take it and they handle it properly. Like

a deposit on a can. Yeah, effectively. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And and so then then, you know, it's not based purely on the the consumer, the customer at the end, having to know what to do other than it's time to replace this. I give it to the people who are the experts in this.

Yeah, I could see if they I got an idea. What have you used in the heat of because I know that using heat that yet the heat up and melt comes apart, but you got to still like pry it apart? Like it's pretty forceful. What did they use a glue that put springs in it. And so when the glue hits that temperature, it just all springs apart. And then all the parts are separate and you just put them in the right bins for recycling.

Yeah. I like that. You just throw the phones into like a very special kiln and they explode and there's parts just flowers

going everywhere and you just have to sort out the parts and then you're done. I Parker with the ideas we have I'm amazed that we're not richer than we are that that right there was an idea tank. Now that was an idea. concept. I think that the problem with that is the springs are also one of those like one time use only things. Oh, yeah. Like it's something in the phone that's only being gonna be used once in its lifespan.

Right, right. You don't want it like during its regular lifespan. You never want that to actually.

Yeah, yeah. I like the idea of someone like walking down the street and then their pants pocket just explodes floats. That's your string Martin. Yeah, and I think this needs a little bit more thought a little bit more. Now. Yeah. Also, it's new legislation. Oh, he's talking about exploding phones. But yeah. Oh yeah, I want to see when that finally comes out of their debate cycle. And so we can read it and actually see what it's going to be about.

Yeah, it'll be it'll be interesting to see how phones will have to adapt for it.

Yeah. That's, that's actually the big thing is like how because people are not going to go away from like, how waterproof their phones are, like, that's way too convenient now. Of a feature basically. So it's one of those Okay, now what how do you make a how do you keep the thickness and size? And also, now you have to be able to replace the battery?

I honestly, I think most of engineering design is making educated compromises. And if you're forced, like, if you don't have an option, you have to do this ad you can't or makes it incredibly difficult for it to be waterproof. Well, our phones go back to not being waterproof.

Yeah. Well, then they'll just mandate them be waterproof again. Okay, well, then everything just gets really expensive. Or just larger. Yeah, true. Which they have. Everything is compromises, right? Yeah, phones are just way too big to now. Like, my I saw what the pixel six sizes are and I'm like, oh, that's like the big like XL and my friends like No, that's a normal size. I'm like, holy crap. It's as big as just Catholics. No Excel. Like, like the big ones like a tablet. Yeah. Yeah. Like the old notes. Yeah, like an old note. Yeah.

I think we'll say the next topic for later right. Wait and 50 Yeah, we're right about an hour now. So yeah.

So that was the macro engineering ethics podcast. We are your hosts Parker Dolman and Steven Gregg later everyone take it easy thank you yes, you our listener for downloading our podcast if you have a cool idea, project or topic or idea of how to make phones better. Let Steven I know Tweet us at Mac fab at Longhorn engineer or at analog EMG or emails at podcasts at macro rev.com. Also check out our Slack channel. You can find it at macro rev.com/slack and also our Twitch livestream which is twitch.tv/macro and that starts six o'clock every Tuesday, six Central