Neale 00:09
Hi, welcome to another episode of Another Bright Spark podcast. I’m Neale Mighall. My guest today is Fred Dally of ElectArc 240. YouTuber. Hi Fred.
Fred 00:18
Hello.
Neale 00:18
How are you doing? You okay?
Fred 00:19
Yeah, good thanks.
Neale 00:20
Excellent. So, your YouTube channel, 130,000 subscribers almost to date. How did that happen?
Fred 00:27
I honestly don’t know to be honest. Yeah, I think maybe a year and a half ago I had a thousand subscribers and Yeah about a year ago. It just really took off I did a few a few videos on power supplies and that I seem to have become the power supply guy. Yeah
Neale 00:42
It’s, you’ve got like, your, your videos are really interesting. Um, you come across as like, you want to educate the very, very technical, you describe them really well. Um, what do you think is the secret to the success of you? Cause do you, have you nailed it down yet? Well, a lot of people will be interested to know.
Fred 01:00
I don’t know, I think I always, when I hear other people explaining things, people like to use the sort of big long technical words, and I try really hard to avoid that, so in the more recent videos they’ve been more scripted, and whenever I’m writing the script, if there’s a big long word, I’ll go back and break it down and just try and use sort of as simpler language as possible, I think, that differentiates the videos a bit.
Neale 01:23
Okay, so they’re quite creative as well. Do you see yourself as like a educator, sort of an entertainer, sort of an educator, educator, or where would you position yourself?
Fred 01:35
Um, yeah, I think mostly educator, I think you have to put a bit of entertainment in to keep people interested.
Neale 01:41
Lots of these are graphical stuff as well.
Fred 01:42
Yeah.
Neale 01:44
When you come to do your videos, how long does it take to put a script together?
Fred 01:48
The script is usually what I normally do is go on a really long walk so I’ll do sort of 40-50 kilometer walk the whole day and the whole day I’m just there walking talking into my phone which doesn’t understand any words like MOSFET so then I have to go back and spend the next day going through correcting all of its incorrect transcription but yeah normally the scripts just take one long walk.
Neale 02:12
It’s fantastic and then when you come to sort of put it together what sort of scope are you looking for in terms of filming, voiceover, what’s that sort of process look like if someone was looking to you know set up their own channel.
Fred 02:24
Yeah I think I’ve found the more recent videos have shifted a lot more towards voiceover because it’s a lot more consistent, the audio is better, it’s a lot easier to just sort of write the voiceover or write the script as you’re writing it kind of come up with oh when I’m talking about this I’ll show this and then I’ll show a screen recording from the oscilloscope and then I’ll show a Powerpoint of something and it just makes it a bit less pressured when you can just record the whole voiceover in one go and then be like right that’s done. Now I’ve just got to spend three or four days getting lots of camera shots.
Neale 02:55
Yeah. Where do you get inspiration for the videos? I mean, there’s the topics are so wide ranging. I think we were talking before, you’ve got a wide interest in electronics in general. How would you choose what to go for and what to focus on?
Fred 03:12
I do find it quite difficult to sort of nail down on a particular topic because I’ve got just a massive list on my computer of video ideas I want to do. So basically it’s just a case of looking down the list and thinking which of these videos do I already have sort of all the parts for and things and then if there’s videos I want to do but I need some bits then more recently because of the size of the channel I can sort of reach out to a company and say I’d like to make a video about this, would you like to send me this and I can show it in a video. So yeah it mostly just comes down to which videos I’m able to make with the stuff I’ve got.
Neale 03:48
Now you’ve got a bigger audience do you find it’s given you a bit more freedom, as you say, you’ve contacted companies it’s given you that sort of confidence it’s given you a bit of a boost a bit of a lift and a bit more of a presence?
Fred 03:57
Yeah, definitely. I’d say my confidence sort of talking to technical people and things has just gone this. I used to have very little confidence and I think sort of seeing that I can do it in that sense has helped quite a lot with that.
Neale 04:14
Fantastic. So we talk a lot about AI on this podcast. Mr. Beast very recently was sort of, it was just a few days ago, was talking about how AI in the creative world, so I’m a marketeer in the world of creativity, ads are getting really sophisticated. But at the end of the day, people aren’t going to fall in love with avatars. They’re going to sort of, you know, they still want a human connection. Where do you see that fitting in in the world of engineering? Obviously, AI is a co-pilot. How do you use it or do you use it as a student?
Fred 04:49
Um I don’t use it for uni work.
Neale 04:51
No, obviously he doesn’t use it for uni.
Fred 04:54
I know I know some of my peers maybe do
Neale 04:56
But tell no lies yeah?
Fred 05:00
Yeah I think in general I find the AI stuff quite quite scary to be honest so.
Neale 05:06
In what way?
Fred 05:07
I think like I’ve been using Chat GPT a bit more just kind of messing around with it the last few months and yeah the number of times when I’m like oh write a script for a video about this and I read it and I’m like that’s really good like if I just read if I just read this and then get some shots of some circuit boards no one will notice and that’s that’s a bit worrying because it’s sort of um I guess that is the problem with the more sort of creative career path is that seems to be the things it’s pretty good at the moment. Yeah yeah so yeah.
Neale 05:39
AI, as I said, we talk about AI a lot on the podcast, and it’s affecting the way we work, it’s affecting a lot of changes. In terms of electronics and engineering, what innovative things are you seeing? You’re shooting, you’re researching, you’re on the cutting edge, you’re young, you’re on top of current technology. What do you think is going to be the biggest change in electronics over the next 10 to 15 years that’s going to push us forward? What exciting things are you seeing? What are you getting excited about?
Fred 06:07
So power electronics is definitely the sort of the area I’m most interested in and EVs have been giving that a massive a massive push recently there’ve been a lot of companies investing in it and then also sort of slightly unrelated or slightly on the side but AI is also giving quite a big push because there’s all these data centers that are wanting to power these really power hungry chips and at trade shows and things recently a lot of the sort of coolest power electronics I’ve seen is just these power converters for powering these chips that need like one volt at a thousand amps or something like that.
Neale 06:42
Why do we need the processing power? What are the chips processing in terms of the EVs then?
Fred 06:47
Yes, so the power electronics and the EVs, that’s not, so there’s a bit of processing going on, especially for the cars like the Teslas that are trying to do all this driverless stuff, but the power electronics in those, it’s mostly just the inverter and the charger.
Neale 07:01
Getting the power into the vehicle.
Fred 07:03
Yes, yeah, which that’s something I find, I think that’s probably my favourite power electronics is, because I really like cars as well, so combine the two together.
Neale 07:13
and you’ve got it made. Yeah, I think one of the videos that I really liked about yours on your channel rather, was how you compare the phone charger and the, you know, the get in the power actually into a vehicle. Yeah. And one of the biggest drawbacks that they have in the electronic automotive industry is range anxiety, you know, people are, you know, saying, oh, you’re gonna run out of power and that kind of stuff, which is which is nonsense. There’s tons of charges around there. How quickly do you see power conversion going in? Do you think at some point we’re going to get it where it’s going to be the sort of same as petrol sort of pump it in, it’s going to be a matter of minutes or is it going to be tens of minutes? Where are we at? And where do you think it’s headed?
Fred 07:54
Yeah, I think that’s, I think that’s a bit of a problem is we’ve, we’ve got sort of charges and power converters and things that can put upwards of one megawatt into the car, which will charge them in sort of under 10 minutes. But where’s that power coming from? And I don’t mean, I don’t mean sort of far away, like, Oh, are we burning coal or wind turbines? I just mean, if you’ve got a sort of service station on the motorway and you’ve got 20 of these one megawatt charges, that’s going to need a whole transmission line and pylon system, just to that service station. So like in Formula E, I’m not sure if it was just a trial, but I saw they had something where during the pit stop, they’d bang in a load of charge. And I think that was at 600 kilowatts. Wow. And then I was talking to someone at work who sort of knew some people in Formula E and I was saying like, where’s that power coming from? And they said, they’ve just got another battery. So they’re just going from one battery to another battery.
Neale 08:47
So they have a big battery on the back of a lorry, sort of cart it into the pit stop and then just stick it in.
Fred 08:52
So that’s that sort of makes you wonder whether that’s that’s what will happen is at the sort of service station and things you’ll pull up in your car with your battery and then just charge it from an even bigger battery yeah yeah
Neale 09:01
rather than directly from the grid. Yeah, yeah. And I suppose that makes sense because then you’ll just keep on charging that. So when the cars are on there, the grid will just charge up your big battery. It’s the best system at the end of the day, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah. Going back to your YouTube channel, you said it sort of took off a year or so ago. Why did you set up the YouTube channel in the first place? What was your inspiration?
Fred 09:22
Um, so I set it up a bit over six years ago. I think I was either 15 or 16 when I first started and it was mostly just cause sort of from, from when I discovered the internet, I basically just spent all my time watching, watching these sorts of videos on YouTube, like people like Big Clive and EEV Blog. And to the point where anytime, anytime I was at my work bench, sort of when I was younger, just messing around with circuits or motors or transistors or anything like that, I’d either have sort of Big Clive on in the background, or I’d just be talking through what I was doing as if I was, as if I was on YouTube. And then at some point I thought, maybe I should just put these on YouTube. Um, but of course sort of 16 year old me, the videos were pretty bad.
Neale 10:12
Um, we have to start somewhere.
Fred 10:13
Yeah. So yeah, the channel’s been a bit on and off because I sort of did, did a few videos then, and I thought, Oh, maybe, maybe I should wait a little bit. And then a few years later, I think it was second year of uni did some more videos and they, they sort of, at the time I thought they were doing really well, hundreds of views. Yeah. Uh, and then again, that stopped for a year or two. And then just when I started my placement last year, I thought, I’ll give the videos another go cause I’ve been meaning to start up again for a while. And then first video goes out few thousand views. Next video, like, so I just check on my phone the next morning. I’m like, so I already got 20,000 views. This is just crazy. So clearly, yeah. I think I’ve learned so much at university in the sort of, yeah, three years I’d spent there. I think that’s what made the big difference.
Neale 10:57
What do you think people, do you know what people get from you, do you know why people connect with your videos?
Fred 11:04
Um, I like to think it’s, it’s because I, I can sort of, I’m explaining concepts in a way that’s understandable to sort of people, people who either sort of didn’t go to university or people who are sort of pre-university age or just sort of trying to make it as non-technical as possible. And then also I’ll start off at very high level just to try and make it so that I can capture as many people as possible and then try and sort of sneakily drip in some really low level things. Yeah. Just to, uh, yeah, try and get it so that even if they don’t understand it, they recognize it. So if they’re at a job in a few years’ time and someone says, oh, the sort of parasitic past tense of this MOSFET’s causing Miller Turn-On, they’ll go, I’ve heard of Miller Turn-On. Yeah.
Neale 11:50
That was Fred, thank you ElectArc 240. You said you started when you were 15, 16. If you could give yourself some advice on those early videos or in fact we’ve got some aspiring YouTubers who are thinking of starting a channel themselves or creating some content or some videos themselves. They’ve got passion in electronics or any field. What would your advice be to them?
Fred 12:14
I think it would just be sort of go for it, like the first few videos or first year of videos or anything like that, they might not be any good, but you need to just get used to the whole setup of getting used to what it’s like having a camera on you and that kind of thing. So the first videos I did, I managed to convince my friend to be behind the camera, and that sort of made it a lot easier because then it was like I was talking to him, but then sort of unsurprisingly, he got bored and was like, I’m not doing this anymore. And after after that.
Neale 12:49
the salary wasn’t enough. Yeah.
Fred 12:50
when you’re just talking to the camera that’s a lot harder so I think it takes quite a long time to just get used to that really so I think persevere yeah
Neale 13:00
Yeah. So we don’t tend to ask sort of similar questions on, on this podcast, but I thought I wanted to start asking guests a sort of a set question. So I asked you if, so here at Ignys, we are electronic engineers, we’re consultants. We help people bring ideas to life, whether you’ve got a concept or you’ve got an existing product and you need help sort of get to the next stage. If you were to work with Ignys, you had unlimited resource, unlimited budget. What would your dream project be? What would you work with us on?
Fred 13:31
Um i think it would have to be something because obviously there’s there’s a lot of people in the world that already have lots of money and so in terms of any any sort of anything that’s already around at the moment like sort of electric cars or something it’s like there’s i wouldn’t say there’s a lot of scope for development if you had more budget because they already have plenty of budget but i think something that’s that i’ll admit i don’t know a lot about but something that’s that seems like it could do with a lot of investment would be maybe like fusion fusion power okay uh because i know there’s there’s a lot of there’s a lot of cool power electronics in there they’re creating these really strong magnetic fields to contain the super hot plasma and all this stuff so i think yeah if you had unlimited resource that seems like something something that could do with unlimited resource and that would benefit everyone
Neale 14:18
and fuel as well, the vehicles in the service station. Just need one of those at each service station. Okay, I’ve got Ask, I’m a bit of a petrol head myself. I’ve got electric BMW i4. Dream car, what would your dream car be?
Fred 14:33
I think probably the Porsche Taycan, I quite like slow cars, it’s a little bit too fast for me, but it looks really nice, it sounds quite cool, yeah I think so.
Neale 14:45
Okay, so you’re Year 4 studying at university, you’ve just done your placement, as you said, yeah. In terms of sort of going out into the big bad world and sort of learning at universities, what have the differences been for you? Obviously, you’re, I mean this in the most warm way, you’re a massive geek, you know, you love your electronics. University was obviously the right option for you, but you’ve done a placement in the world. What would you recommend? What’s your take? We talked, we talked about apprenticeships versus university placements, and what would your advice be now that you’ve seen both sides of the coin? If young engineers looked at this going, where should I start? What would your, what’s your take?
Fred 15:28
I think I think at the moment there’s a lot of people sort of just go to university because either they’re pressured into it or they just feel like they should or their friends have gone or that kind of thing. I think also a lot of people at the moment are struggling with even knowing what what they want to do what they’re interested in but I think it’s I think it’s definitely worth thinking like do I need do I need university specifically to get to this or as you say if it’s something that you need those sort of qualifications for I think a degree apprenticeship I’ve spoken to people that are doing them and I’m quite jealous really because like they’re getting paid and they’re doing they’re doing real things yeah whereas yeah at university there’s just sort of a lot of theory and yeah compared to compared to working in industry when it feels like you’re actually sort of contributing to something and you can look at the end and say I’ve made this thing or is it degree you just sort of look at a piece of paper at the end and go that cost a lot right so
Neale 16:30
Would you say at university you get like wider exposure, I suppose if you do an apprenticeship you’re sort of working on one project, I’m not saying that’s a negative, but is it sort of a broad scope compared to sort of a narrow hands-on approach?
Fred 16:45
I think in my experience it’s probably that’s almost better is that at uni you’ll be learning a lot of things that you’re not going to need probably whereas and and not learning a lot of hands-on stuff because even though there might be sort of practical elements at the university you’re probably not going to be designing designing a particular board from start to finish to go into a car or anything like that like you would a degree apprenticeship so I think I think it’s almost the other way, at university you don’t learn so much how to just focus on one specific thing and become an expert.
Neale 17:19
So you’re Year 4. We already spoke off camera, so potentially PhD next. Yeah. What’s the future look like for you? Where do you want to go? You’ve got a YouTube channel, you said you’re entertaining, you’re like education. What’s your plan? Can we expect more videos from you? Where are we going?
Fred 17:37
Yeah, I think sort of my dream career would probably be to do the videos full time, whether that’s possible in terms of like whether I can earn enough from it and sort of how like my mum doesn’t want me to do that because she knows I’ll just become a recluse and never leave her house.
Neale 17:57
So, her house as well, I’m staying here, staying here, mum. I can’t afford to leave, I’m a YouTuber.
Fred 18:04
Yeah, that’s, that’s sort of one reason that I’d probably, I think, I think the videos probably make more sense to do as a sort of side side thing. Something to do with the weekends. Yeah. Um, but in terms of post PhD jobs, I’m not really, as I say, I like, I like electric cars a lot. So potentially something in automotive or motorsport as well. So my, my placement was at Red Bull powertrains. So I’m into F1 a lot. Yeah. Um, I’ve worked at Mercedes before that as well. So I think that’s, that’s also, it’s sort of like automotive, but a bit faster paced and a lot more money. Not, not, not for me, but for the, for the project we’re working on. Fantastic.
Neale 18:44
So, in terms of inspiration, origin stories, you’re a superhero to a lot of people. We spoke to Mend It Mark, another fellow YouTuber, and he said his inspiration for electronics his passion came from when he saw the TV repairman came round, opened the back of the TV, and he could see the insides was like a city. Our engineers have similar experiences sort of taking their toys apart when they’re younger. Engineers, especially electronic engineers, seem to get that bug early on, there’s like a little spark of inspiration. What was yours? How old were you? And do you remember that moment when you thought, this is something that I love and I’m passionate about?
Fred 19:22
I definitely don’t remember it but I do I do have um there was I’ve got I’ve got a piece of paper that from primary school and we had to write down sort of it just says name age and a few other things it says name Fred age seven and then interests electricity so that’s sort of my memory is not very good but that’s some evidence that I’ve been interested for quite a long time I remember at primary school when we were building circuits in like maybe year four that was that was always the thing that I was really into um I sort of always at that age you’re not aware of many careers and things so I always dreamed of being an electrician my friend’s dad was an electrician and I was like oh that’s so cool he’s got color changing lights in his house
Neale 20:08
That is pretty cool to be fair, I’d quite like that. Are there any heroes, any people in the history that you look up to or admire?
Fred 20:19
I think probably just all of the all of the youtubers basically they’re the ones because I sort of I was a little bit too late to be able to do electronics at school in terms of GCSE or A level my school like stopped teaching it the year before and so before uni I basically haven’t met anyone interested in electronics I tried it tried as hard as possible to get my parents into it right but yeah that that was basically my exposure to sort of proper engineers and people interested in in the hobby was yeah people like especially Big Clive I think uh there was quite a few years where I just just binged him all the time.
Neale 20:59
Twenty four seven yeah okay if you’re going to give us like a recommendation, you mentioned Big Clive, you mentioned your friend’s dad with a multi-changing-colour lights in his home i’m sure he hasn’t got a channel he’s got a YouTube channel is he no he hasn’t got a YouTube channel okay Big Clive aside if you’re going to give some recommendations to people if they’re interested because again people there are going to be people watching this who watch your channel give us some recommendations how who who who should be people looking out for
Fred 21:23
I do watch Marco Reps so he makes he makes videos about about sort of test instruments and things like that um also yeah EEV Blog i mentioned earlier is very good um for sort of more higher level things and definitely a lot more entertainment there’s ElectroBOOM um these sort of transcended electronics and is now just a
Neale 21:44
cultural phenomenon is that the shock out yeah I know ElectroBOOM go and check out ElectroBOOM
Fred 21:50
Yeah, I think those are the main ones. Mr Carlson’s Lab as well, he does lots of sort of retro repairs without wanting to sound rude. That sort of old radios and things like that, which is, it’s very interesting comparing that to sort of modern like power converters or something that I often am looking at. Because there’s sort of techniques for that that you’d think, oh, maybe although it’s completely different, this sort of valve radio from 100 years ago, you’re like, maybe I could sort of use that technique to solve this sort of silicon carbide MOSFET.
Neale 22:26
Yeah. It’s an interesting point. So if, again, in terms of recommendations, you know, you’re a clever guy, you’re already passionate about this. If people are watching this and seeing your passion, they follow your channel, and they wanted to sort of get into electronics, what would the first steps be? You know, they didn’t offer it to you at school, you had to wait to get to university. So you watch Big Clive, what would you recommend people sort of look back at some vintage stuff? What tools would you recommend? Getting a bench? Where would the starting point be? Any books or…
Fred 22:58
Um, I’ve, I’ve never read any books really ever. No, I’ve had books read to me. Um, yeah, I think watching the videos and then getting, getting some kind of practical experience is really invaluable as well. So I think something that I’m, I’m sort of really grateful for looking back is that instead of, is that was sort of when I was younger, instead of playing football with everyone else, I’d just be at home, just messing around with electronics all the time. And so it’s a little bit sad looking back, but then also
Neale 23:29
I had the same with the guitar, don’t worry.
Fred 23:32
I think that’s, that’s sort of what’s what sort of sets me out from, from my peers in some, some ways that it’s sort of like I come to university and already had maybe eight years experience just messing around with circuits and things. And then also it’s, it’s probably not very good advice because it’s anyone watching it will be too late for them. But, um, a lot of, a lot of the stuff I learned was just through messing around cause, cause I sort of at that, at that age, I didn’t really know how useful the internet was or I didn’t, and I didn’t have anyone to ask my questions to. So like, I’d, uh, if someone got me like an electronics kit, obviously I’m not going to read the instructions and do what I’m supposed to. So there’d just be a load of these sort of black plastic rectangles with three legs coming out, and then I’d just plug one into a strip board and put my power supply on smoke comes out and I’m like, Oh, maybe I’ll try these legs instead, and then sort of over, over the course of a month, uh, sort of after setting fire to like 15 transistors, you sort of, I’d work out like how a transistor worked without ever sort of looking up and looking for a circuit or anything. And then, and then that was just quite funny. Then yeah, going, going to uni first year. And they’d be like, so this is, this is how a transistor works. And I’ll be like, I worked that out myself.
Neale 24:50
Because all these were on fire. Yeah. Well it’s learning by error. It’s not what we were talking about before. It’s like you make mistakes and you learn. You’re not supposed to set them on fire and start smoking but that’s how you learn and progress.
Fred 25:02
yeah i think i think the connections it puts in your brain kind of figuring things out yourself versus being told it and then just using it then yeah i mean it’s a just just the example of like setting them on fire is like if you’re told this is the this is the base the collector and the emitter and these are what you connect to it you never know what happens when you don’t connect that to it no so it’s good to find out
Neale 25:23
So people can say you can do don’t jump off a cliff or if you do jump off a cliff you’ll break your leg. You know not to jump off a cliff. Exactly. Yeah.
Fred 25:30
so yeah my recommendation for at least in terms of learning the components and things is basically just to maybe buy a few cheap electronics kits but instead of just soldering together a little bedside radio which basically just teaches you how to solder just mess around with the components.
Neale 25:48
Give it a go. I think I think your advice is sound it’s exactly what you’re saying about your YouTube channel you know if someone’s interested in creating content just get on with it just start if someone’s interested in electronics just get on with it and just start. yeah and when we said before this is no criticism, you’ve not had a video for a while when can we expect another ElectArc 240 video to appear?
Fred 26:07
Oh, I don’t want to commit to anything okay, but I’m hoping in the next in the next sort of month or two yeah, I’ve just been been very busy and then also my my lab so I’ve moved back to Nottingham after my placement and It’s I found it’s quite hard to get back in the flow of things when it’s like the labs different Where’s where’s the bin or the bins not there? It’s there and just all these little things are just it’s quite hard to yeah, I had to get back into it
Neale 26:34
Okay, well, last fun question then, speaking of your bench. Okay. If your bench could talk, right? What would it say about you as an engineer and how you work?
Fred 26:46
I think it’s I’d probably say I need to relax a bit.
Neale 26:50
Just chill. Concentrate. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Fred, you’ve been a wonderful guest. Thank you for coming by.
Fred 26:56
Yes, thank you very much.
Neale 27:01
Thanks a lot.