Scotty Allen

Catching Up on Shipping Shirts & Hoodies

I wanted to sincerely apologize for the delay in sending out shirts and hoodies to those of you who have recently signed up for Patreon. I know you’ve been patient and supportive, and it truly means the world to me. Life got a bit hectic behind the scenes, and unfortunately, this is one of the things that slipped. I feel terrible about it, and I’m genuinely sorry.

The good news is that I’ll have everything shipped out in the next week or two, tops. Thank you so much for sticking w...

Attempting to review the flawed Micronics SLS printer

I got my hands on a preproduction review unit for the new Micronics SLS nylon powder printer. Super cool idea, but... Mine doesn't work. I've spent countless hours with them on the phone, taking it apart, filing bits down, and installing new parts they shipped me. I've hit three major showstopping issues, and implemented a fix for a fourth that another reviewer hit.

The video will go up tomorrow morning on YouTube on the second channel, Stranger Parts, but here's a sneak peak at our...

Open Sauce ticket giveaway and a brief update

First things first: I'll be at Open Sauce in San Francisco next weekend, June 14th and 15th. And I have a free ticket to give away. All you have to do is reply to this post with a comment with a video you wish I'd make. I'll pick the winner next Monday. Hoping to meet a lot of you there!

In other news: An update has certainly been too long in the making. As you probably noticed, it's been pretty quiet around here. And as some of you might have guessed, yes, it was another concussion. ...

Inside the World’s Most Famous LED Factory - in China

I think this might be one of the coolest factories I've visited yet.  I got to go see World Semi, the manufacturer of the infamous WS2812 addressable RGB led, aka the Neopixel.  It's the leds that are on virtual all led strips (at least the interesting ones that can do animations).  We got to see everything from bare silicon wafers to wirebonding to testing and packaging into reels.

This is a rough cut, so it's not totally polished yet, but I'm really happy with how it's...

Inside a Desktop CNC Mill Factory - in China Video

Late last year, I was given a Carvera desktop CNC mill to try out by a Chinese startup called Makera.  I did an unboxing/first use video on my second channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-l_0QYilC0

The more I used it on the iPhone enclosure milling project this year, the more I've fallen in love with it.  I got to talking with Josh, the CEO of Makera, and he asked if I'd consider visiting...

Shirts and Hoodies - The final chapter

I can't tell you how excited I am to say this is the last post about t-shirts and hoodies.  Everyone who was still waiting on a shirt or hoodie (including anyone who needed a replacement) should have either gotten one in the past week or two, or there's one on the way to you right now.  Either way, you should have received an email with a tracking number.

If you haven't received an email, or you don't receive your shirt and/or hoodie in the next few weeks, please send me a mes...

Inside a Flexible PCB factory - in China

This is the first of the five factory tour videos we shot in China in June and July.  JLC took us to their flexible circuit board factory in Shaoguan, and then to their PCBA factory in Zhuhai, to see how flexible printed circuit boards (FPCs) are made from start to finish.  I'm SO excited to be going to China again, as well as to be back making these kinds of videos.

This is one of our earlier rough cuts, so it doesn't have things like color correction yet, and it's longer tha...

Factories!

I'm back in China, and back in my element.  I knew I missed being in China and getting to make videos in factories, but I'm not sure I remembered exactly how much.  We've been here a week, and have two more ahead of us, with the goal of shooting five videos total.  It's a been a whirlwind so far - we're visiting at least 6 different cities.  But we've seen some amazing manufacturing, I'm very excited for the videos to come.

Thank you for your support in getting back ...

The first Patron credits easter eggs are in the latest video

For all you Laobans and Changzhu out there - the first video that includes Patron credits is now live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzxW3B3_Pak.  This screenshot is only one of the three hidden in the video.  We'll be doing this in every main channel video going forward - so keep your eyes peeled!

This laser fixes iPhone screens without taking them apart!

I was in China for a week at the end of April, and Xuan from the Tool Brothers took me to a factory to see an incredible machine that fixes iPhone screens with a laser, while they're still on!  It was mind blowing.  This is a rough cut - we're still working on the story order, so it might feel a bit jumbled, but I'm confident we'll sort it out before it goes up on YouTube.

If anyone knows about laser structuring in the OLED manufacturing process, I'd love to talk to you for a...

Japanese Retro Vending Machines!

When I was in Japan last month shooting the next season of Jet Lag with Wendover Productions, I got a chance to hang out with John Daub from Only in Japan.  He took me to this amazing tire yard outside of Tokyo, where the owner has started an incredible retro vending machine museum.  We got him to open up some of the more unique machines and show us how they worked.  And boy, are they incredible.  We're still polishing up this edit (John went back out there yesterday to ge...

Trying out a Chinese laser cutter with no enclosure

This is a quick review of one of the new(ish) Chinese open frame laser cutters.  These new diode laser heads are amazing - this one is 40W!  You don’t need a huge CO2 laser tube, cooling, mirrors to clean and align, etc. anymore.  But, it’s not perfect…

I hit a huge milestone on one of my secret iPhone projects!

Shhhhh - it's still a secret!

I have successfully milled an iPhone enclosure that has most of the internal features, and parts actually correctly fit!

This is a HUGE win, given that I was very uncertain whether I was getting accurate enough measurements with my milling/flatbed scanner approach (covered in this post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/long-overdue-and-79118526).  But t...

Hiring - Test shoots!

I'm about to hire a camera operator/editor.  I have it narrowed down to two candidates.  I had each come to the shop and do a test shoot with me, and then edit it down to a short segment that will be part of the iPhone shell video.

Here's the first one: https://vimeo.com/812866142/1901610669

And here's the second one: h...

A Long Overdue Update (and a sneak peak at two current projects)

It's been WAY too long since my last update!  I was expecting to have a lot more to share with you a lot sooner, but I figured I should just spill the beans on everything that's been going on behind the scenes, even though it's not finished yet.  And I'm going to work on sharing things more frequently, even when I'm hitting lots of roadblocks.

First off, you might have noticed I haven't put a video out in a while.  I'm working on a couple projects at the moment, and both ...

Carvera CNC unboxing and first use - Rough cut

I was given a Carvera CNC mill by Makera to review - and I'm pretty psyched about it.  We're still working on tightening this up, and I think I'm going to add a new conclusion with more thoughts since I've played with it more while we were editing this, so now I have lots more thoughts and opinions:)

This will be posted to the second channel, Stranger Parts (http://youtube.com/strangerparts) in the next week ...

Thank you! (and a few quick Patreon-specific updates)

Thank you all for suppporting me and Strange Parts!  I'm so so grateful for the support and love, and I'm really looking forward for everything to come in the new year.

A couple quick updates on  Patreon itself:

- I've gotten at least one request asking if there's a way to get both a shirt and a hoodie.  So I added another tier that includes both: Changzhu (厂主) - Factory Owner (and everything else of course).  If you'd like both a shirt and a hoodie, feel f...

If you had a (small) army of robots, what would you make them do?

I recently bought these, and I'm working on getting them working.  They have a ton of hand and arm dexterity, force sensors in the fingertips, and some good onboard cameras.  But no control software.

So what should I have them do for a first video?  I have a few ideas, but I'd love to hear yours!

Keep in mind that control loops are HARD, so I'm preferably looking for things that are either simple tasks that don't rely on knowledge of the world around it (like dancin...