Year: 2017

My friend Karl von Moller came along with me and a few others on a recent trip to Shenzhen, China. Karl is a film-maker so he documented the trip extensively, and the first episode about the trip is up now:

He’ll be following up with more videos about what we saw on the trip, and my own video about our tour of ITEAD and visit to the Sonoff factory will be up soon too.

I’ve heard from a few people that they’ve tried making purchases from my new online store, but haven’t been able to complete checkout. A couple of people have reported that they couldn’t checkout, then tried again later and it worked – even though I hadn’t changed anything.

My theory is that the problem is with the Australia Post shipping calculation plugin that I’m using with WooCommerce. When you get to the part of the checkout where you enter your address, it uses the size and weight of your order to look up the shipping cost with Australia Post before you can complete the checkout. For some people this doesn’t seem to work, so it just sits there and goes nowhere.

Obviously this is really frustrating and I’d like to make sure it’s fixed, so if you have any problems with the online store please email me at jon@superhouse.tv. Having more information about exactly when the problem shows up would be a big help.

I’ve checked that all the products have weights and dimensions specified, but perhaps it has problems with some countries or specific destinations.

Sorry about the inconvenience 🙁

I’ve now arrived in Shenzhen, China, which is the electronics capital of the world. I’m busy recording video and taking photos so that I can show everyone what it’s like here in the most high-tech city in the world.

This was the view from my hotel room window when I arrived last night:

Click the image for a larger version. It’s worth it!

The octagonal building you can see to the left that disappears above the top of the photo is SEG Plaza, the heart and soul of the electronics industry here. Every other commercial building you can see in that photo (and going out many blocks in every direction) is directly related to electronics manufacturing. There are entire buildings full of nothing but LED vendors. Buildings for case manufacturers. Buildings for cell phone parts. Buildings for LCD panels, both bare (OEM) and retail ready, and every stage in between.

If you’re interested in electronics and you haven’t heard of Shenzhen or the Huaqiangbei markets before, the next few videos that I upload will be eye-opening.

For many years now my friend Karl von Moller has been interviewing people within the Australian electronics industry to build a picture of the state of the industry, and to report on where it’s going.

The latest chapter is now up on YouTube. It features many local engineers and Makers, including myself, so you can see what I looked like when I briefly had the start of a beard! Karl will be travelling to Shenzhen, China with me at the end of next week, and this episode is a prelude to what will be reported back after that trip. The video thumbnail is actually me watching my DIY pick-and-place machine populating an ESP-8266 based PCB, and much of the background footage (including footage of Angus from Espressif working on that same board) was recorded in my lab.

Enjoy!