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In this episode of Circuit Break, Parker Dillmann and Stephen Kraig are joined by Matt Brown, an inventive engineer and YouTube content creator renowned for his electrifying DIY projects and creative automotive builds. The trio delves into the concept of "good enough engineering," where Matt shares insights from his career, including his experiences working at Tesla and on various personal projects like the land speed car and the off-road Viper. The discussion also covers the challenges of engineering in unpredictable environments, the balance between planning and improvisation, and the joy of creating new things.
Key Discussion Points:
- Introduction of Matt Brown and his YouTube channel SuperfastMatt
- The concept of "good enough engineering" and its application
- Matt's background in engineering and his career journey
- Examples of "good enough engineering" in Matt's projects
- The importance of intuition and experience in engineering decisions
- The challenges of off-road vehicle engineering compared to aerospace
- Balancing multiple large projects and knowing when a project is "done"
- The appeal of starting new projects versus finishing existing ones
- Matt's thoughts on building an airplane and the associated challenges
- Discussion on CNC machines and 3D printers in DIY projects
- The difference between real engineering and good enough engineering
- The importance of planning and iterative testing in engineering
- The role of community and feedback in the engineering process
Relevant Links:
Community Questions:
- What are your thoughts on the concept of "good enough engineering"?
- How do you balance planning and improvisation in your projects?
- Have you ever started a project and found it challenging to finish? How did you handle it?
MacroFab:
This show is brought to you by MacroFab, which provides a platform for electronics manufacturing services (EMS), hardware development, designing and prototyping for individuals, startups, and businesses. Key MacroFab services include PCB (Printed Circuit Board) fabrication, assembly, and testing. Customers can use MacroFab's platform to upload their PCB designs, select components, and specify manufacturing requirements.
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Subscribe to Circuit Break wherever you get your podcasts! And join our online discussion hub at forum.macrofab.com to keep the conversation going with electrical engineering experts and experimenters! You can also email us at podcast@macrofab.com.
Creators & Guests
Producer
Chris Martin
Guest
Matt Brown
and creative automotive builds. His youtube channel, known as SuperFastMatt, is filled with transforming everyday vehicles into extraordinary machines. Matt's channel offers a thrilling blend of engineering expertise and humorous sandwich based entertainment, inspiring viewers to embrace their inner gearhead.
What is Circuit Break - A MacroFab Podcast?
Dive into the electrifying world of electrical engineering with Circuit Break, a MacroFab podcast hosted by Parker Dillmann and Stephen Kraig. This dynamic duo, armed with practical experience and a palpable passion for tech, explores the latest innovations, industry news, and practical challenges in the field. From DIY project hurdles to deep dives with industry experts, Parker and Stephen's real-world insights provide an engaging learning experience that bridges theory and practice for engineers at any stage of their career.
Whether you're a student eager to grasp what the job market seeks, or an engineer keen to stay ahead in the fast-paced tech world, Circuit Break is your go-to. The hosts, alongside a vibrant community of engineers, makers, and leaders, dissect product evolutions, demystify the journey of tech from lab to market, and reverse engineer the processes behind groundbreaking advancements. Their candid discussions not only enlighten but also inspire listeners to explore the limitless possibilities within electrical engineering.
Presented by MacroFab, a leader in electronics manufacturing services, Circuit Break connects listeners directly to the forefront of PCB design, assembly, and innovation. MacroFab's platform exemplifies the seamless integration of design and manufacturing, catering to a broad audience from hobbyists to professionals.
About the hosts: Parker, an expert in Embedded System Design and DSP, and Stephen, an aficionado of audio electronics and brewing tech, bring a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective to the show. Their backgrounds in engineering and hands-on projects make each episode a blend of expertise, enthusiasm, and practical advice.
Join the conversation and community at our online engineering forum, where we delve deeper into each episode's content, gather your feedback, and explore the topics you're curious about. Subscribe to Circuit Break on your favorite podcast platform and become part of our journey through the fascinating world of electrical engineering.
Welcome to circuit break from macro fab a weekly show about all things engineering, DIY projects, manufacturing, industry news, and good enough engineering. We're your hosts electrical engineers Parker Dillmann
and Stephen Kraig.
This is episode 442, and this week, our guest is Matt Brown.
Matt, an inventive engineer and YouTube content creator, is renowned for his electrifying DIY projects and creative automotive builds. His YouTube channel known as SuperfastMatt is filled with transforming everyday vehicles into extraordinary machines. Matt's channel offers a thrilling brand of blend of engineering expertise and humorous sandwich braid based entertainment, inspiring viewers to embrace their inner gear head.
Welcome to the show Matt
hey how you guys doing
doing great how's your weekend
Busy. I'm frantically trying to get this land speed car ready for, for the, I'm trying to get to world finals in late September.
That's the is that the 3rd time with a sandwich?
The 3rd time. What do you mean the 3rd time with a sandwich?
Oh, I've been watching your videos for a while and somehow sandwiches just end up in builds or being part of builds this is more a part of the build like physically part of
I guess the first time was I I came up with, 16 different ideas then I had my, followers vote on what my next project should be but knowing full well what it was going to be before they voted on it. But I could only come up with 15 ideas, so I just kinda threw ham sandwich in there. And, that was the one that won the, the vote. So I just made a video as a joke making a ham sandwich in my garage. And then, yeah, I guess the, the latest iteration of it was the vertical stabilizer in the land speed car.
I was doing some forged carbon fiber and we we shoved a ham sandwich in the wing and, that that got a lot of, that got a lot of traction. That's, people enjoyed that one. Some people didn't. It was kinda interesting. The first first few comment, you know, you read the first comments when the video first goes up, those are your hardcore, fans There was a fair number of those that were like I don't really like this type of video, but you know because it was a lot more I was it didn't really get technical it was just sort of like goofy and went off the rails, but I had fun making it.
Actually, because I've I've seen that video and like do you just think it was gonna be funny stuffing this ham sandwich in there or did you just like accidentally drop it and you're like well it's in there now let's just go for it.
It's a forever I mean, we're kinda making fun of forged carbon fiber because it's, like, it's advertised as this thing that's supposed
it's kind of like, you know expensive fancy thing But it's really just the cheap one of the cheapest ways to make carbon fiber You know you just it's it's sort of like the way they make boats with fiberglass. They just sort of chop strand a bunch of fiber and then mash it together. It's kind of the same thing. So we thought, well, let's stuff stick some stuff in there that would be, like, doesn't need to be in there. That would just be kind of funny, and we just kind of came up with a list of stuff.
And ham sandwich came up, and so we're, like, oh, that you know, because it's like a callback to a previous episode. So so we went and bought 1 and with the intention of shoving it in there. And it turned out not to be the best idea because I ended up having to dig most of it out. But, it was funny.
about to ask is it still in there
and some of it is
It didn't deserve well
No, it's funny. Part of it is still like kind of on the surface And you can see it and if you set the the vertical stabilizer outside in the sun it sort of weeps ham juice there's a little hole that ham juice will come out
what's gonna happen to the inside in 5 years or whatever but yeah, it's not well preserved.
So yeah this week we're gonna talk about good enough engineering so that's kind of like a theme, I guess, of your YouTube videos, where
people will ask you like well how did you design it or how did you engineer because you have an engineering background? Actually what is your engineering background?
I got my undergraduate degree, from Oklahoma, and then I got my master's from UCLA, then probably almost 15 years of experience working at different companies, NASCAR, team, Apple, Tesla. So it's I I have a decent mechanical engineering background.
So the, so so what would be when you say good enough engineering, what do you actually mean there?
Yeah. So the good enough thing is kind of funny because I remember, I'm blanking on his name. Seth MacFarlane in an interview once said that you you don't come up with the the catchphrases your fans do. And I I was like I've I've sort of noticed that because there'll be certain things that I say that people who watch my videos will will latch on to and sort of repeat in the comments and I I never really wanted the whole good enough engineering to be like my brand But I do suppose I do I kind of do it a lot and I've kind of leaned into it since people sort of, repeat it a lot in the comments and talk about it a lot, but it really I've I've kind of thought about it in recently and I I do seem to like shoot from the hip a lot. I seem to, like, I'll make something and I'll be like, yes, probably good enough, you know, without actually doing any math on it.
But a lot of that is sort of like leaning on 15 years of intuition and you know 2 degrees of engineering like I I kind of know it a lot of stuff well enough to sort of guess and be right enough. Whereas if you maybe are not you don't quite have that engineering experience, it's probably not a good idea to do that. I don't think I've been explicit enough about that. But, yeah, a lot of it is just sort of like leaning on that intuition and just being like, alright, I've made stuff like this before. I know it should look like this.
I'll make it and just move on to the next thing and it's probably good enough.
From from your videos what I've seen is you don't seem to shy away from correcting or fixing something. And that's not to say, like, get it right the second time, but you don't seem to be that afraid of, shall we say, breaking something. I actually so
maybe maybe I pick this up. This is a big thing from, like, you know, Tesla and and SpaceX. I worked at Tesla for a while, but they they sort of like like to to move you know, it's I guess the the Silicon Valley way of move fast and break things. You wanna, like, take your best guess and build something and then put it into testing and break it And then you'll learn way more doing that than you will, but, like, sitting behind a computer for a year thinking of every possible thing. It's also way more fun to do that.
So I kind of sometimes actually, I've I've noticed I do this with my 3 d printer a lot. Whenever I need to print something, I will usually print it I'll usually just make it without even putting knowingly not putting enough effort in to make that first print the final print and, so I'm just like I just throw something in the computer I print it out I go put it on the car and then I'm like oh I actually need this that and this because it's like I know that even if I spend a bunch of time trying to make it right I'm probably still gonna wanna add 1 or 2 things by the time I get to so there is I think there's a lot of value, especially in something like 3 d printing or like quick and dirty fabrication where it doesn't cost a lot in terms of time and money. There's a lot of value in just making it wrong the first time.
Just, also just like seeing the objects put together, you can see more issues with, like, how stuff if it's to get packaging problems, so to speak.
Yeah. And there's just something about having something in real life, you know, that CAD is like a first step of, know, you look at it and you're like, oh, okay. That I I maybe I'd want this a little bit bigger, that a little bit bigger. But so often, you end up actually making the thing and you're like, oh, that looks, you know, the just the feeling of having it in real life gives you a lot of ideas and a lot of, you know, makes you it's just it's really nice having it physically there to let you know what you don't like about it.
So back to, good enough engineering, so how do you know when it is good enough? You talked about your intuition. I guess a good counterpoint to this is the, your front suspension on your your so Matt is building a, off road viper. I guess it's almost done. How close is it done now?
I need the side exhaust covers and the rear bumper and a few other things, but it's I mean, it's running and driving. I've been driving it all the time. So I don't know if done is a I have a a weird relationship with the word finished or done because nothing is ever finished. I'm always kinda just working on stuff and but it it's done enough to drive
around. The, well, I was gonna bring up is the front suspension where you're the, your you bent some steering brackets and, I guess I'll be one point where, like, if you actually sat down behind the computer and spent a whole year, you might have not bent those, but you wouldn't be driving the Viper then.
So yeah. Well, that's a that's an interesting, because off road off road is a really weird environment. If you like I think it's actually easier to engineer a rocket than it is to engineer an offer a vehicle. If you're, if you're talking about like engineering it to like the limit because like the more known an environment is, the easier it is to engineer something to. Right.
Space is an extreme environment, but it's kind of known. Off roading is one of those things where I, maybe it's a crazy example to say that engineering off roading is, is harder than space, but, but like just as a, a sort of thought experiment, like just if you know the environment, it's just way more easy to engineer and like, I don't really know what loads are going to go into the upright. I don't know what loads are gonna go into the steering arms you know I could probably have spent some time getting a better guess but it like I said, it's just easier to to build the steering arms to be take your best educated guess and then go trash it in the desert. And I've we brought the Viper out there on a trailer like sort of fully expecting to break something. Obviously, on something like that, I'd be a little less inclined, you know, with the like with the 3 d printing, I'll just make it knowing that I won't need to remake it.
With the suspension on a a vehicle that I'm gonna drive, obviously, I'm gonna try to get it close, try to get it pretty good first, because it's a obviously a safety issue. But, off roading in particular is really hard. If you look at a lot of aftermarket off road stuff, it's just way, way heavy. It's like they just add tons of steel to everything.
Oh, make it out a quarter inch plate and then you go you're just good to go.
Yeah. Because the environment is totally on it's basically anything could happen, you know, you're just sort of like you're you're never gonna make it survive anything. So just make it survive as much as you can by just adding tons of mass to it. And I didn't really want to do that with the Viper because it's still like a fun little sports car because it's kinda lightweight. So I don't wanna add a ton of weight.
Yeah. I think my Jeep has gained like a £1,000 so
Yeah. My 4 runners it's way heavier.
I also think that with the off roading, the the environment is quite variable. You know, you're mentioning space. Space is variable in a lot of different ways too with, like, temperature swings and things of that sort. But like you're saying it's known but, you can swing the entire gamut doing off roading, including temperature. Right?
So that makes it even more difficult because there's a lot less consistency.
Yeah. Exactly.
think of, like, how would you calculate, like, your your how much force is going to, let's say, your tie rod? Like, down the road, you might be able to simulate that in, like, fusion, but if you're you know, you don't know if you're gonna have that tire slip off like a 3 foot ledge. Right? And then what's that dynamic force on that tire rod?
Yeah. Yeah. So we took the car, the the viper. I I crawled it up a hill with a bunch of rocks, and then we were doing some jumps, and then we were banging through some, like, whoops. So basically just driving really fast through bumps in the desert is what did it.
The jumping didn't do it. The climbing uphills didn't do it. So it was, like, just the tire, you know, the suspect as the suspension compresses the track width increases because of the swing of the suspension. So it's like, okay, if you you slam into a, you know, you're going through the whoops and you slam into a 3 foot tall, barrier of sand, you're gonna go through it. But there's gonna be some weird load where as the suspension compresses, it's trying to not swing outward.
And that sort of thing is like I don't know. Like, how hard do you hit it? What's the friction or the, like, pressure of the sand pushing back? It's just just, like, so random and yeah. I don't know.
Actually, this would be a really interesting conversation who's with somebody who does engineering on, like, a like, a Raptor Bronco or something like that. Do they do they kinda do the same thing? Are they just sort of, like, designing taking a guess and and then just thrashing in the desert? Or if there there might be actual, actual testing loads for this, but I've never done it before so I'll do it the easy way.
Well, and didn't you also take a raptor out when you took the viper?
Yeah. Yeah. We towed it out. We towed the viper out with a raptor. My buddy's got a raptor.
Right. Which actually, My friend, Chris was in the car with the viper with me and we were driving He's like this is kind of bumpy and then he got in the raptor and then he back in the Viper and he's like oh your car is actually smoother than the Raptor. I said well That's I'd better this shocks cost twice as much as what the Raptor shocks cost but, Yeah, so it's a pretty capable off road vehicle.
So this came up on, a couple podcast episodes ago, the concept of real engineering and what does real engineering mean to you? So I want to kind of compare contrast what good enough engineering and then real engineering.
What do you if someone was like what do you what is engineering to you, Matt? Like, what
I think one of the most important aspects of engineering is knowing when you don't have to engineer. So I take the land speed car for existence. The land speed race car is great because, if you're building a land speed race car, you would need to either three things that are very important horsepower, frontal area, and drag coefficient. So basically just power and drag and maximize power, minimize drag. So much else just doesn't matter.
You, it doesn't matter if the car's lightweight. A lot of times the, you know, at Bonneville teams will add a bunch of weight to try to get traction. It doesn't matter if it's, you know, you have an efficient electrical system. It doesn't matter. You know, all the stuff that you would focus on on a, on a, like a formula car or something like that.
So I've put a lot of effort into packaging the land speed car to make frontal area as small as possible. I put a lot of effort into, doing a lot of analysis, using AirShaper to get the shape of the car, to get the drag coefficient as low as possible. And, you know, I've done a decent amount with the engine to get the, a decent amount of power out of it. That's real engineering. I mean, honestly, the engine BMW did the real engineering for me, but with the aerodynamics, I feel like I did real engineering there because that's important.
That's where it matters. A lot of the other stuff. Yeah. I'll wing it. It's good enough.
That's what good enough engineering is. It's like, does this actually matter? And if you're building a rocket, probably every part matters, Probably every part needs to be as light as possible. And, you know, you don't need to have extra weight or extra cost in it, but there's so many things that you can design good enough and so many things that you can design. Most of it, you can design good enough.
Engineer, I should I should say engineer good enough.
That's an interesting, point on knowing when you actually have to do the design work of being that that's what real engineering is. I think, see Steven, what do what did you say? Like, you actually have to get paper out and start running some calculations.
Well, I've said before that you have to do math. For it to be real engineering, there has to be math involved. You don't have to do it. You can have the computer do it, but somewhere along there, there has to be math done.
Math is involved in one way. You know, they you you even mentioned it. You sort of had the sentiment there where you mentioned, I I I think it was BMW. They they did the real engineering on the engine. Something I I find interesting is is throughout my career, every place I've worked, there's always been this thought that there's someone else out there that has their their crap together or they they their engineering team has all their processes down or the the the this other team out there knows this math really well and they're doing the real engineering.
And what I found is that's just not true anywhere. The sentiment exists that we think that someone else has that. But everywhere I've gone, it's everyone has issues that they they deal with. And, and we all have to have to, deal with those. But but this idea that that the other guy is doing the real engineering.
I I don't actually think that that's that's really true, at least in my experience.
I think a necessary aspect of engineering for most things is having multiple people look at it, you know, because everybody's gonna miss something or other. Like, I'm I I like to highlight my failures and my mistakes because I think it first of all, I think it's funny. I think it makes for a better video. But I think it also sort of, like, shows people I really hate that we live in a world where, people sort of pretend like they don't make mistakes. We make mistakes all the time.
Everybody does. It's fine. It's a good thing. In terms of, like, a larger company, it's like, oh, yeah. The the better I think the better engineering companies, maybe maybe they have better, systems for engineering, but they definitely have good systems for, like, checking and sort of having levels of, like, oh, I I did this, and I'll hand it off to somebody else, and they'll double check it and do the you know?
So yeah.
Because they can actually afford that, and they also have per perhaps the heritage of building those processes. And in many cases, my experience with that is that they just have the ability to prevent issues even though that usually has cost and time involved in it. And and and that really sets it. In fact, that might even be, in my mind, the definition of more real engineering is just the ability to, effectively, like you said, check it or make sure it's right.
Yeah. I think that's a necessary I I've kind of thought for a while about doing a a video on the engineering process, you know, because we have the scientific method, which is, like, sort of pretty well laid out. But that it's I I went through 2 engineering degrees and and never really was taught, like, the the process of engineering. And it's, I think a a necessary part is, like, well, you obviously have something you wanna design. You have some sort of goal, and then you sort of do your your brainstorming and your hand calculations and your analysis and your physical testing, and you're sort of iterating back on each one of those.
But there has to be there has to be a feedback from one step from the next step back to the previous step to, like, make sure that you did the previous step. Right? Yeah, I think that's part of the overall engineering process. I really need to do this video I need to actually talk to some people and sit down and and figure this out because I think it would be very valuable
actually, it's a good question for you guys. Yeah. Parker and Steven, what do you think of the what would you call the engineering process from the double e perspective?
Very very similar, it's it's Let's say if you doing like a project like I guess everything is a project in engineering. Maybe that's why we keep we do projects in our free time too. And it's it's you have that end goal in mind, and it's it's all part of research and development, reiterating, finding new solutions, and implementing it. It and also though I I think a good point of in of this whole engineering cycle is knowing when it's finally done in quotes when when is it acceptable Actually, done is not the right word. When is it acceptable that what whatever you're working on, it that you can hand off?
And then Yeah. May maybe it's back to what you and, Matt and, Steven, you all were talking about where when you hand it off someone else looks at it and goes, oh yeah someone engineered that that's when you know it's good enough right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I I yeah. I think I I think I would agree with that with with the caveat of planning, is is typically necessary for all of that. Because if you just go in blindly well, I I I think I think you can you can absolutely come out with something that, you're really interested in. But in in my opinion, a lot of times, it ends up being more artwork than, engineering when I go in with no, like, explicit plan.
And and as I get older, I think the plan dictates the engineering a lot more than, you know, previous projects I did where I've just more like tinkering.
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. I was just talking with a friend yesterday about, the land speed car I put. If you, like, start at the front of the car, it's got the front tires, and then immediately behind that is this big water tank.
It's, like, 6 or 7 gallon water tank and then the the cockpit for the driver. And, I put that water tank up front because you want your center of mass to be as far forward as possible because it's more aerodynamically stable that way. And I was looking at it the other day and I was like, I bet just because if I put that air if I put that water tank behind the driver I could shift to the front axle back like 2 feet. Well, it may not quite 2 feet 20 inches or something. I was like I bet doing that would actually put more weight relative to the front, you know, the the wheelbase.
It would actually end up with more weight on the front tires. And, a friend of mine did the just like a quick and dirty analysis on paper and he's like yeah you would have had it would have been better to put the water behind the driver and I was like that that would have been a good thing to plan that would have been a good thing to like have have as part of the plan is like, do a, you know, a weight distribution or whatever. Instead of just being, like, yeah, it'll probably work and, like, throwing it up there and and because now it's all welded in there and now it's it's never coming out so it's like alright I went into that with shooting from the hip a little too much without planning and it it ended up in a place that that is a thing that is a much more difficult to redo to do twice, you know the main structure of the vehicle is sort of pretty well set. So, yeah, planning is important.
Sounds like you need a 3 d printer big enough to print the land speed car then.
Yeah, dude. If I had a had a 3 d printer that could print metal reliably and quickly I'd be, I'd just be the best.
I'm curious with the projects you do in your channel. Do you come up with requirements for those? Do you say this is what I'm shooting for, or is it more a grandiose idea in your mind and you just work towards something?
So I, the YouTube channel I took a pay cut to do the YouTube channel even as it's doing pretty pretty well now, but I still make almost half as much as I made engineering. So it's like a it's always on my mind to have fun. It's like I'm I'm paying for it or I'm whatever I'm not getting paid for it. I'm like, it's it's a trade off I made so I'm like I'm not gonna turn it into a boring job I'm just gonna always have fun so most of the time when I do a project. I I just kind of I just kind of go out there and like oh let's do this now let's do that well I just totally wing it and I just do whatever the fun part is and do it whatever the fun way is so I don't know I usually have vague ideas I guess with the you know with the with the land speed car it was specifically I want to go with this class meet this set of rules and and and when they're you know get the record, with the the viper it was like let's just do an off road viper and I kind of just like that I don't know the the sort of like lying awake in bed at night staring at the ceiling going like, okay.
Well, if I if I ditch the the independent rear and I go with a solid rear axle that sort of makes this easier, but it makes this harder, you know like That's fun. I like that more than designing a Ford of it like a FEA analysis in a computer to like make sure that my trailing arms or my steering arms are strong enough so I don't know I I don't have to engineer. I will say that my next I'm considering my next project might be an airplane. And that's gonna if I do that, I will definitely have to change the way I approach it. And I kind of actually part of the reason I'm thinking about doing an airplane is because I've I've sort of been doing this for 5 years where I just kind of like Go out in the garage and grab a piece of metal and start grinding not don't really think about it night It would be kind of a nice challenge to sort of change up the way that I do things
So I guess that brings up, my my next question is juggling multiple large projects. On on this podcast, Steve and I, we have way too many projects to even, like, probably ever complete in our lifetime. Matt, I'm sure you're the same way. But I did, notice on one of your your more recent YouTube videos where you were going to you were thinking about getting rid of your Jag.
So yeah,
so that can you explain what the Jag is and is it because it's not fun anymore?
That it's actually a big part of it. So the Jag is I I bought a 1950 Jaguar and, it wasn't running and I pulled out the boat anchor of an engine and I put in a Tesla entire Tesla power train, a Tesla model 3. Actually, the entire rear subframe. So it has the motor and the inverter and all the suspension in the rear. And then then I got the battery in there too.
It's fun. The thing is, like, the idea of having, like, 7 cool cars sounds great until you have 7 cool cars, and then you're, like, I I really kinda want 3 cool cars. It's I I I just never drive the Jag. I'm actually also thinking about selling my Honda s 600. I have a motorcycle powered.
Honda's first production car, the s 600. I dropped a s 1000rr in it and I I never thought I would sell that car because it's just so fun and little and cool but I'm like I've driven it twice in a year and a half. I and it's it's just it's a lot. It's it's kinda loud and abrasive. It's a perfect car for somebody who's like, let's chill than I am.
Younger than I am, maybe? I don't know. But, yeah, it's I think I'd rather have fewer large projects. I don't I kinda wanna pull the there's a handful of things I wanna do on the Jag. I kinda wanna pull it out early next year and do maybe 2 videos on a on a few different things and then I might, you know, I might sell it because I'd rather well, I guess one thing is like it's yeah, the the new shiny thing the next part the next project.
I haven't started yet is always cooler than the project already have, you know
That's how it always is
Yeah, but then that of course you end up doing that too much and you end up with 12 unfinished projects. I I don't know people kind of people kind of give me shit commenters sometimes give me shit for not having a For like not finishing projects, but all of my cars run I own 7 cars, and they all drive and 2 motorcycles like they're they're all done enough to to drive and to you know so it's like I do reach some some level with them but yeah I'm kind of I pulled out this is funny you brought up the Jag because I haven't driven that in a long time. And I pulled it out about a week ago. And, I've driven it, I don't know, maybe 10 times in the past week. And it's it's so fun because I'll park it out in in front of my House and people will stop by all the time and talk to me about it and people like look and point but it's like I don't know it's It's definitely like having driven it has made me more interested in it again, so I don't know what I'm gonna do with it, but Probably I'll stop driving it pretty soon, and it'll get forgotten, and then I'll want to sell it again
Yeah, that's how I keep tabs on all all my car projects is is I just make sure I do drive them, because then that makes it it may it reminds you why you built it in the 1st place or why you're working on it. I I've I said this before on the podcast before, but the for car projects is when when it becomes in it when it transforms into just like maintenance mode that's when I call it done in quotes and there's always, like, little bits and bobs you always can, like, tweak or make better. But if you can daily drive it and you can go across the state and all that stuff in it, it's like I mean, it's a it it does the car thing. Right? It does what it's supposed to do.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that I I kinda wanted I I started the Jag because I wanted to do an electric swap. I worked for Tesla for 5 years, but I always worked on the on the vehicle side. I never worked on the powertrain side.
So I was like, I wanna do I wanna dive into the powertrain side a little bit. I wanna do a Tesla swap. Jack was a perfect thing to do that with because it the the engine was garbage. The one I bought, the engine didn't work but, like, even a running, it's like a it's a stupid heavy engine that made 89 horsepower and just wasn't very inspiring and the car is sort of like this. It looks like something that should be, like, quiet and luxurious.
So it's like I was a perfect candidate for it. But all you know, the projects like it's not about driving the car. It's not about how it even having a driving car. It's about just building something, creating something, you know, grabbing crap out of a junkyard and and mashing 4 or 5 things together and and making something totally new. That's the part that interests me.
So it's like, yeah, when the car is done or done ish, yeah, I'm I'm gonna lose interest in it. I don't want to own a bunch of you know, there's a lot of people, like, that wanna buy a cool project somebody else has built so they can be the guy that owns the cool car, but I'm not that guy. I'm the guy that wants to build the cool
car. Yeah. It sounds very much like you enjoy the journey not the end result. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So So the, perhaps an airplane in the future? Can you talk more about that?
Yeah. I don't actually know what direction I'm going with it. There's a couple I guess there's, like, 3 different tiers of of, like, money and effort that I've that I'm kinda looking at. I've never built an airplane before. I do I do have some knowledge of engineering, so I could probably take something.
I don't know. The the the airplane world is interesting because there's for certified aircraft.
a Cessna 172 and it's certified and you wanna, you know, your headlight or whatever your whatever your landing light burns out you want to buy a new one you got to get the one that is certified that is specifically made for that aircraft. It's $700 or something ridiculous like that. It's an old halogen bulb that was engineered 80 years ago But if you do it at home build and you stick the sticker on the side that says experimental, it all opens wide up. You can do basically anything. Not, not literally anything, but you could do so much.
And so there are the history of it's been kind of interesting because in the seventies, there was like in the sixties seventies, there was a lot of these kit companies that showed up. Some of them were just, plans. Like you'd buy the plans for, you know Burt rattan sold plans for the, long easy airplane and you'd have to go make it yourself
I'm imagining poplar mechanics magazine and you
Yeah. Yeah. The advertisements in the back. Yeah. Yeah.
For 7.99 you can buy your own airplane plan. Yeah. And you can build it for only $800 and die immediately. But there's like, yeah. You know, but there's companies like, vans, or Sonix, or there's like a like, a newer one called, Dark Aero.
I think they're trying to do a kit that's a carbon fiber airplane that's pretty cool. But you buy a whole kit from them that usually doesn't have the avionics or the engine and you sort of build it the exact way that they that they, you know, tell you to build it. I'm It's it's interesting to me because it's new it's It's not super interesting to me because I like to do things a little differently I like to and I don't like to read the plans I want to want to buy the Lego set and throw the instructions away and make whatever I want to make but with an airplane It's like you got to be real careful with that. You really have know what the change you're making, how it affects the airplane in every situation it's going to be in. So I don't know.
I, I think there's probably plenty of interesting things to do, not on the basic airframe and controls. That could be a little bit different and interesting, but, I don't know. I haven't I haven't spent too much time looking at it. I think my plan for, you know, I've got the land speed car I'm trying to finish up towards the end of this year. And I think early next year, I'm actually gonna get my pilot's license, my private pilot's license.
And then once I'm done with that, I can kind of decide if I'm actually gonna build an airplane because then I'll know if I want to actually continue with it. And then actually I, I have this problem that is sort of a benefit in some ways where I look at a project and I say that'll probably take 3 months and then two and a half years later I'm like alright I'm almost finished with it and I always it's like it's so bad that if I if I I had an example of this the other day or a few weeks ago where I I did something. I thought it was gonna take me 4 hours. It took me, like, 5 days. And after I finished it, I was talking to one of my friends about it.
And I'm like, yeah. But if I did it again, it'd probably only take 4 hours. I just did it, and I know for a fact it will take me more than 4 hours, but I just there's something in my brain that's like, nah. It's this will be done in no time. So it's like when I think about building an airplane and I look at the 10,000 or whatever the 1000 hours it takes to build it, I'm like, yeah, I can, I can do that?
And I'll have that done in a few months. No. But there's no way. It's a, it's a massive project. It will take up all of my garage and a huge amount of my time for at least a year probably too.
So I might actually think about this one a little more carefully going into it.
I I was going to ask and you you you said though, you're going to get your pilot's license. I didn't know if you had one yet or not.
No. I I looked into it. I've, been up on a few flights with a friend of mine, who's got a his his he owns his own plane, and I did the written test. So I've kinda gone through
When it comes to I I guess I know very little about aviation or building your own things. When when it comes to your own custom build, what what do you have to have qualified? Do you does someone have to do an inspection of it? Or do they just say, yeah. We trust them.
Send them down the
I
Just send them.
I actually don't know. I do think there's a flight worthiness inspection, and I think there's, like I think you actually have to hire a test pilot to do some flight thing before it's certified or something like that. I'm not actually I haven't looked into it enough, but there is some there's some you can't just stick wings on a shopping carton with a, you know, a motorcycle engine on the front. But it's, it's pretty minimal compared to the certified aircraft is, is sort of bananas. It's like the certified aircraft has gone like way to risk averse But that's another story
I'm I'm just imagining I wonder if the the the test pilots, I wonder how dangerous that profession is of like people building stuff in their garage, and they have to go test fly this thing
Yeah, I mean, I guess there's a filter there because if you do you know if you Can't find a test pilot willing to fly your thing. It's probably not a safe thing I'm sure it test pilots have they know what to look for and, you know, I certainly wouldn't test fly somebody's thing if I wasn't absolutely sure it was gonna be well built and safe.
Well and and at the same time, you know, the the airport has to look out for their investment which includes the runway and things like that. And they don't they don't want just anything on there that could damage the runway if it goes wayward. Right? So I would I would think I would think that they're not willing to just let anyone go out there with whatever they come up with. In other words, there's gotta be some kind of checklist of, like, okay.
You meet these qualifications. We'll actually let you use our our runway.
Yeah. I don't know what the airport's, rules are, but I know the FAA has a lot of, sort of authority over aircraft that, you know, like I live near the Torrance airport in California and they, they're trying to like limit the number of flight schools and and limit the number of flights and the the FAA was like no we we get to decide that you you want to open an airport you get to follow all our rules, so Yeah, I think once you get a flight number or flight certificate or whatever from f the FAA, I think it's like you can land anywhere. But I it's interesting going out to El Mirage with the land speed racing because you'll I by the way, if you're ever in Southern California in and there's a El Mirage race going on and you're into cars, you should go check it out. I always tell people this. It's like, it's bizarre.
It's a dry lake bed about 2 hours outside of Southern California. They do races 6 months out of the year in the summer, spring in the summer, and there it's like people will take old top fuel dragsters and like stretch them out put 2 engines in them or they'll like streamline an old Honda n600 to make it 30 feet long and it's just crazy weird stuff but then every once in a while, like, the Hells Angels will show up and you'll get these ultralight aircraft just, like, randomly landing on the lake bed in different places
and a lot of those like a lot of times I'll
be out there and I'll see some guy flying a thing that is essentially a, a lawn chair with a lawnmower engine attached to it and a like a parasailing kite whatever wing thing and I'm like I there I you there's no I wouldn't fly 5 feet off the ground with that thing you're insane It's so sketchy. I don't know I've seen so many sketchy Aircraft out there that I there there must be some way I guess maybe there's different certifications for like lighter light sport aircraft or whatever but there's definitely not there can't be that many barriers to entry for some of that stuff.
Yeah. I I think the ultralight has very few rules to it. Yeah. I could be wrong on that but but I believe I've heard that before. Yeah.
And and maybe that's evidence that a lawn chair is is is acceptable.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yep. Yep. I I know a couple of people that paraglide, and, it's just just as sketchy as when they explained it to me. Yeah.
Yeah. I did paragliding once. I did it like a weekend thing and it's Once you're up there it it seemed kind of like reason. We do your your friends do powered paragliding or just regular power power Yeah, the powered stuff seems that seems kind of real Real sketchy. I've never done that, but that seems like a another level
Yeah, what is it the, the Icarus race? I know a couple of people that do the Icarus race It's like a cross country powered paragliding race. So Well I can't imagine.
Engineers at work, did that used to do it, and, he had a crash and his, his his propeller was made of wood and one of the wings or one of the arms of the propeller is just shredded. And he brought it into work and that just hangs on his desk.
It Wow.
And, it's just a reminder of a day to him, I guess. And and and he's he's so nonchalant about it too. He's like, yeah, oh, yeah, that happened. Thank god. That's not something that you just gotta
brush off. Yeah. So anyway, I'm thinking about building an airplane and
I guess it's
Could be.
Better than a submarine.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know.
Is that something hobbyists do? Are there hobbyists submarines out there? I there's there's gotta be.
Yeah. There's probably.
Oh, yeah. That one. Why was that? It was a year ago at this point? The Titanic 1?
Yeah. Yeah. It seems like about a year ago.
I'm gonna switch gears a little bit. So I was, late last night I was operating a pick and place machine, building some PCBs. It's been a long time since, I've actually sat in front of in front of one of those machines and actually built boards, and it reminded me of of you, Steven, where, like, you built your own CNC machine, and then, this so I'm bringing this up to Matt is, because, Matt, you have a CNC machine, that's, I think, custom built as well. Do you like operating CNC machines is that something like you enjoy
my CNC is I bought mine it's a 1finity I don't do I like operating CNC machines? Not particularly I like I like that they can make I mean I guess like okay my CNC router is whatever is 2 feet by 4 or it's 3 feet by 4 feet by, you know, 6 and a half inches. So, was milling out a bunch of blocks of foam for the body of the land speed car for the mold of the you know, to to lay up the fiberglass on. I guess if I could just click print on a 3 d printer and have that print out the same thing for roughly the same cost and size I would definitely lean I'd rather do the printer. What do you ask?
d printers on the it is a tool right? It I want it to always work. Yeah. And, I don't own a CNC machine, but, it was it was kind of nice long, long time ago, like, the picking places that we we had at our company, like, they were always down for maintenance, and you always had to fix them, and you'd be inside of them fixing them. That was kind of fun, but then, like, last night, I was running the machine and, like, it just worked.
And it was kinda like I was so worried that I was gonna have to be, like, fighting this machine, and then it just worked. And I'm like, oh, this is quite nice. I just have to, like I get to operate it, not work on it.
Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you bring up, 3 d printers because forever, I I put off getting a 3 d printer for years years because I use them 10 or 15 years ago, 1015 years ago. And they were garbage. It was like you'd get spaghetti failures.
Layer adhesion was terrible. The, you print 5 parts and maybe get one good one. But I was convinced by a friend that they're they're decent now. And I bought one and they are they've come a long way but the thing that the thing that I think is the the change for that is specifically Bamboo, the company Bamboo has made printers that just kind of work and I think if you look at a lot of the other competitors especially like 4 or 5 years ago it seemed like they were focused to the 3 d printing hobbyists that's where that's where they were selling printers to And it's like a lot of people make 3 d printing their hobby. They modify the 3 d printer.
They sort of like add extra print heads and do whatever. And, that is absolutely a thing I have no interest in. I do not want another hobby. I want a thing that makes things and I guess I kind of think of the CNC is the same like I want my CNC just to work and I don't want to like I don't want to know more about CNC milling
just want to be able to CNC mill
Yeah. I could I could jump on board with that. I I really enjoy the whole process of CNC myself, far more than the than 3 d printing. I think I I fit more in the category of how you're you're speaking about c and c there with the 3 d printer. I want to be able to design my thing in CAD, press go, and then it pops out.
And I wanna spend the least amount of time calibrating that 3 d printer. I if it goes out of cal, I I'm like, it's useless.
don't wanna I don't wanna spend a bunch of time on it. In fact, I know the one that's sitting just to my left right here has some issues and I've just sort of accepted them as opposed to thinking about going and fixing them. Like, I almost design around the fact that I know that it has issues. But but it's it's exactly the opposite with my c and c. I've got a 5 foot by 5 foot c and c, and and I want that thing to be bang on.
And, yeah, I don't know. A few months ago, I rebuilt the entire gantry top to bottom because I wasn't pleased with, you know, 4 thou tolerance or whatever I was getting at the time. And and I and maybe I could squeeze another thou out or whatever if I if I completely rebuilt it. So I don't know. It's just that it I guess it just depends on what the outcome you're looking for is.
Yeah. I mean, I did just buy
an upgrade kit for my CNC, and there are things about it that I enjoy sort of, like, improving. Like I the one I bought, you're supposed to use a like, a Makita router with it, but you can sort of buy a spindle. I bought the spindle, and then, you know, everybody's got their own way of doing it. But I, had originally got I bought a water cooled spindle and then I had like a a 2 and a half gallon bucket of water but I found out after a while that actually takes a while to heat up 2 and a half gallons of water but once it's hot, you know, it doesn't dissipate that that heat very quickly. So I ended up buying like a radiator and a pump, for, like cooling for a computer and actually mounted it to the spindle head and So you can run it indefinitely and it keeps it cool, but I do kind of like I don't know.
I like solving problems like that. So with the actual act of CNC milling, I don't know. There's it's it's interesting. Sometimes Sometimes I'll be interested in it and other times I just want it to work usually when it's not working as is when I would just want it to work, But It's like I don't know like we're all just creating stuff, right? We're just like thinking of a thing and making you know, it's like so I think about it the you know being the I would say there's 2 types of engineers.
There's the type of engineers that they just wanna, like, do things the way they've always been done. And that's I think that is most engineers. I think they they wanna open a book and see how the bridge was built a 100 times and then just build the bridge that same way. And then there's like a small segment of engineers that want to create new things that want to be a wizard and I want to be a wizard that's the thing I love about engineering is you can be an actual wizard you can make things that have never been made before but it's interesting that like sometimes sometimes that extends to the tools that you're using to make the thing, and sometimes it doesn't and I think I think it just depends on my mood.
I Think it's if you're pressed for time right? Is it yeah, if you're pressed for time you just want it to work
Yeah. Well, that's cool thing about the YouTube is that I make my own schedules and also if something if something breaks on my CNC and I have to like spend a week fixing it making new stuff I could just make a video about fixing my CNC, you know it's like that becomes the job then so that's kind of that's kind of nice there How did you make your CNC Steven? What is it? What's the the basic? Is like 80 20 or what's the
Yeah. Years years ago, I found a parametric model of a CNC on GrabCAD, I think it was, something like that. And I always really enjoyed the way that the CNC the the the model was in in 3 d space and I never really thought about actually building that And then, I got a little bit more serious about wanting to upgrade an old CNC that I had that was just it was a turd. But it was fun and it and it did a lot of work for me in the in the however long I had it. But I was like, you know what?
I want a big boy CNC and I went back to that model and I was like, this is actually doable this model And it was all 80 20, but it did have a a bunch of bracketry that needed to be machined. And and at the time, I was working at a place where I was running the machine shop in that place, and I talked to the owner. I was, like, hey, on can I come in on weekends and machine all the brat that bracketry for this? And he said, yeah. Absolutely.
So I was able to get all of the more, shall we say, difficult parts done by, machining them on a really nice machine at work. And then it just all bolts together with 80 20. And so it was a really fun project that oh, gosh. What? It's almost a year old now.
Something of that of that sort. But, yeah. Yeah. Mostly 80 20 and, 3 quarter inch aluminum plate.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Cool. What are you using for a spindle?
I have a I have a, water cooled spindle. Oh, cool. And I don't have a 2 gallon bucket. I have a 5 gallon bucket that, I have I have learned that if I'm running that thing at 18,000 RPM and I'm I predominantly cut wood on it, but it but if if I'm cutting wood, it can run for about 3 hours before the the cooling capability really starts to degrade. And the funny thing is I have exactly what you what you got.
I got a little computer fan radiator that just sits on top of my my cooling reservoir and it can basically run indefinitely.
Yeah. I was pretty surprised at that. I got the radiator. It's probably like, 4 inches by 10 inches with 2. I think 80 millimeter fans and, it just it's literally bolted to my spindle or whatever to a bracket on the back of the spindle and then the that's the whole water loop.
There's, like, 8 ounces of water in the whole system, but it's like that fan those 2 fans and that radiator is enough
water did, so, lot better than 2 and a half gallons
was pretty impressed with that. But my my biggest thing was making it all automated.
I didn't wanna have to have switches and all kinds of stuff to start the spindle or or start the water cooling. So my my software does it all. I just I I hop on my computer on diffusion and just set it for, you know, mist cooling or whatever and it just interprets that and automatically runs. And that that's honestly I spent I spent a ton of time building the CNC, and the most fun part was getting all the automation, getting all of that that working. There I don't know.
There was something really therapeutic about going through and making that all just right. Like, there there was, like, this idea of good enough with my CNC previously, but this new one, the good enough bar was set considerably higher than that.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice to so I bought mine and it it does what it does pretty well. And I've made a few upgrades, but it's like I I I just recently bought a big upgrade kit for it that I think was more expensive than the original CNC or about the same price, but I think it's for me, it's like nice to fine tune those details on a thing that works already.
to fine tune the details. I want it to work and I this is like with cars, you know, I I hate fixing cars. You're talking about maintenance, Parker. It's like once I I hate I don't wanna change my brakes. I will I will build an entire car, but take my car to Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed because I don't wanna do that.
So I don't know. Yeah. It's always more fun to, like, make things better than it is to fix broken things.
Yeah. Once the platform is there it, it makes it it makes it I I totally agree. The maintenance is is is difficult. Like, with, you know, the maintenance on the c and c that that I'm I play around with. Like I said, I I in the in the just
thing apart and and rebuild it.
Yeah. I mean, even because I have a bamboo, and, it will let you know when the maintenance when, like, the grease stuff. And I'm like, nah. I'll do that next time. I think I press that next time button over a 100 times by now.
Every time?
Yeah. Every single every single time. It's the works
yeah, I mean I'm actually pretty good with the bamboo and whenever it's greasing because I like that thing to work, but yeah, I have a It I think that's I do that because it's super easy. I have my oil sitting there right next to the machine It's just like you. I like that bamboo It's like it tells you when it needs to be done and it takes you to a maintenance screen And it tells you exactly what to do. It's like alright add grease to your nail that'll like run it up and down
Yeah, I mean it's in the drawer right next to the printer, and I still I'm like, no. I want my part. I want my part in 2 hours. Go now. Yeah.
You see the problem is you put the drawer in the way you need to take the oil out and leave it on the desk.
put it like on the door of the printer itself. Yeah.
On the handle attached to the
hinges. It's just right there. Do we want to just wrap this thing up, Steven?
Yeah. Yeah. I think so. We're going for a good time. So Yeah.
Yeah. I think this is certified good enough.
I like it.
Yeah. So, Matt, thank you for coming on a podcast this week. Where where can people find out more about you listen to you on YouTube and that kind of stuff?
SuperfastMatt on YouTube, SuperfastMatt on Instagram. That's pretty much the only two places I post. Yeah, that's it.
Well, make sure to put those, links in the podcast description. So, thank you again so much, Matt, for hanging out with us for about an hour.
Absolutely. Yeah. It's been fun. Thanks for, inviting me on.
And thank you for listening to circuit break from Macrofab. We were your hosts Parker Dohlman
And Steven Craig.
Later everyone.
Take it easy.
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