The Amp Hour

An Interview with Martin Lorton - Variegated Video Vagility

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Welcome, Martin Lorton! Video blogger and fellow Clevelander!

  • Fresh off replacing his basement, he stopped by Chris's basement
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mprDdGp6rWI
  • Martin got started in IT, working for the large company EDS in his home South Africa. That was bought out by HP and they managed BP's accounts.
  • Once Martin moved to the states in 2008, he had extra time to begin video blogging.
  • Fluke got ahold of his early videos and started sponsoring him. At one point, Martin was making a video per day. (!)
  • The reason Martin got into video was to explore solar, which he did extensively and eventually he put onto his house back in South Africa.
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agSfgsH97PE
  • The test equipment was another market that he got interested in exploring, especially because it was related to solar.
  • Martin says up front that his videos are from a novice perspective. Chris mentions a book about teaching adults that says this is necessary to be an effective teacher.
  • Another important aspect is to maintain the community, much like Dave does on his forum.
  • The support that Martin and Dave both get seems to stem from the idea of 1000 true fans.
  • At the beginning, Martin did not appear in front of the camera. In fact, he hired a female actress to be in front of the camera (without much success).
  • One part of solar that the mjlorton channel focuses on is the data. Chris mentioned a book by Astro Teller that does the same for marriage called Sacred Cows.
  • You wouldn't think of Cleveland for renewables, but wind turbines are popping up everywhere. Lincoln Electric has a HUGE one that can output 5 MW.
  • Dave's solar data from his house is available online (but not updated regularly).
  • Another project that is approached from the "beginner" perspective is Martin's power supply project. Much like other modern problems, sometimes it's simply knowing what terms to Google for.
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70dsAWBkXIM
  • Sometime you need to find ways to filter the audience to get to the core of folks who really care. Money is one way to do that.
  • Long form videos come naturally to Martin (and Dave), they realize how much is left out from DMM tutorials like the one from Afrotech. Same thing for Curious Inventor's 5 min videos (who told us he spent 6 months learning more about soldering before making his popular video).
  • Other engineering video blogs:
    • Signal Path
    • Engineer Guy
    • Photonic Induction
    • Martin acts as a stimulus for audience talking to one another on various medium.
    • Both Dave and Martin are in the midst of trying out KiCad. Martin used Design Spark for the early part of his power supply project.
    • Recently Jack Ganssle started putting out videos on YouTube.
    • Dave lets us know that 74 series logic is celebrating its 50th video (really 5400 series)
      • Many thanks for Martin stopping by the basement to talk to us. If you come through Cleveland you can join Martin and Chris at the Charged Conversation meetup.
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      The Amp HourBy The Amp Hour (Chris Gammell and David L Jones)
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