Get back to the basics and bring back the show we all learned to love

[feetwet]

Dear Dave,

I have watched all of your videos over the last year and a half. The first 600 I watched during the first year alone. The body of work speaks for itself. For me electronics was a boy hood passion that I never got the chance to fulfill. I actually graduated from college with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and never got the chance to work as an engineer during my lifetime. Unfortunately, I graduated during the 90s when Aerospace Engineers were being laid-off, more than they were hiring. I spent my childhood building projects like Heath kit: i.e. 5 MHz single trace oscilloscope and a signal generator to calibrate it. I used to love going down to the local electronics’ shop to buy parts and just learn how they work.

Your YouTube channel reminded me of some of the best parts of my childhood, and aloud me to live some of those great memories all over again. I will always be grateful for that. If you don’t make another video, the body of work you have created will always speak for itself. Please don’t take what I am about to say the wrong way. I feel like you have lost your enthusiasm for the work. I’m guessing that maybe the financial reward for the work you have done has not rewarded you the way your videos have rewarded your viewers.  As far as I am concerned, your work is some of the finest material on YouTube. I actually got rid of my cable box, because I would rather watch an episode of the EEVblog than the junk that is on TV today. After watching all 700 of your videos, I would have to say that no one would blame you for becoming tired of doing it week after week. The last 100 videos or so have lost their edge. Occasionally you come-up with something interesting, but it’s basically the same mailbag segment every week. Some of your best work was just watching you build and test a simple circuit using some voltage regulator or some other chip. I used to go out, buy every part, and reconstruct the circuit you made and then test it with the very same equipment you recommended in previous episodes. You helped so many people find the passion that they did not know they had or help rekindle a passion that they had lost. A truly remarkable thing if you think about it.

If you are going to keep doing the show, I only ask one thing: find the passion that you had during the filming of those early episodes in your garage. Get back to teaching the basics. You were a wonderful teacher on YouTube, and I think many people would like to see that again. It was always amazing when you would pull a part out of your bin, constructs a circuit on your breadboard and test it. Showing us how to use test equipment were some of your best episodes. Sure touching on the mailbag segment, to show what is new in the industry is a great idea. However, opening ever package and uploading it to YouTube as your only content every week, is making me loose interest in your show.  It’s not the only thing that drew so many viewers and me to your show in the first place. It would also be great if you could do a few episodes on just how to use a single piece of equipment. I still wish someone would dedicate time on YouTube just how to properly use all the basic functions of an oscilloscope. I have a Rigol DS2072A and I still do not know how to use a majority its functionality. It would be nice to see you use your DC Load, power supply, voltmeter, oscilloscope, and soldering iron again. You could do so many shows on Resistors, Capacitor, Inductors, Diodes, MOSFET, Op Amp, Voltage Regulators, Transistors, etc. Many viewers would just like to see how someone with your experience uses them.  Get back to the basics and bring back the show we all learned to love.

Best Regards in the New Year,

Feetwet 


Just some suggestions for the New Year
Inverting Amplifier
Non-inverting Amplifier
RC Lowpass Filters
Discuss Hysteresis, Quiescent
LC Oscillators
FET Switches
Diode OR
Flyback Diode
Open-collector Logic
CMOS Inverter
FET Level Shifter
RC Highpass Filters
RC Time Constant
RL Time Constant
RLC Circuits
Bipolar Transitors
Shift Registor IC
Counters
Logic Gates
Schmitt-Triggerered Gates
SR Flip-Flops
Take something apart and try to fix it, or blow it up in the process. I do not care, just talk about it.

[hammy]

+1 

[MacAttak]

+2

Although I can't say that I think the newer videos have lost their edge - I just skip the ones that don't seem like they would interest me. Fundamentals though are something I'll probably never skip. Even when I *think* I know a basic concept there are still lots of nuances yet to be learned.

One thing I thought about that would perhaps be really interesting is to follow the next MIT 6.002x offering - after each week, post some supplemental educational discussion to augment the material presented by prof Agarwal's team. I've actually started on the course three times now but couldn't complete it for various reasons - the first time I just wasn't ready for it, and the other two times I had to travel for work during the mid-term exam and couldn't attend it due to my schedule. P.S. it runs again starting in 9 days: https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-mitx-6-002x

[apelly]

I've seen criticisms suggestions like this many times over here. Dave typically replies that you can't please all the people all the time. Which is true.

That said, I know he gets a kick out of inspiring/re-inspiring budding hobbyists. Personally, I don't know shit about electronics, so I love episodes that tend towards education. There are, however, a lot of old hands around here that complain when things are too basic.

So, while I personally agree with you, others will not, and it doesn't seem fair on Dave to have people complaining no matter what he does. We get what we get and for the great majority of the time it's a good use of my time.

Thanks Dave.

[nixfu]

Honestly, Dave isn't huge on the basic electronics tutorial stuff really.    In many ways he assumes you have a certain level of electronics knowledge already.   

If you want good basic tutorial topic stuff there are other good youtube channels like mikeselectrialstuff, and (my fav) w2aew and many others that are suggested around here. 

Dave does not have to be the only youtuber you watch.   Watch others and don't expect Dave to be your only one stop shop. 

[miguelvp]

His soldering tutorials have the most views, but since they've been uploaded long ago, that might be part of the reason.

Of course the solar roadways was the most popular as in average views per month.

[devanno]

I will say that I learned a lot as well from a number of the more basic videos that Dave has done.  I also sometimes wish there were some multi-part segments on the in-depth use of certain test gear as the OP mentioned.  And Dave is right, you can't please everyone... I always marvel at the number of thumbs down counts I see on what I (and apparently many others) have found to be a superb piece of work.

Someone mentioned w2aew ... I subscribe to his work as well.   

So, although I, too, would like to see a little more basics stuff, I can recognize if there isn't sufficient audience appeal to go there.

I'll just leave with a big THANK  YOU to Mr. Jones for his hard work and continued efforts.   

[codeboy2k]

I enjoy all of Dave's videos; the mailbag segment is just once a week and if you don't like that video you can just not watch it. It's clearly labelled.

I must say that I also really enjoyed the older design videos, but there hasn't been much like that lately. i.e. the ones like the USB powered PSU that was spread out over several videos.  I like to know the thought processes going into it, and WHY an engineer chose a particular part for a design, and what criteria was used in deciding. I like to see the testing and the failures, and the changes that are made to correct the failures.  I learn the most from those episodes. The precision 1A current source was another good one.

Repair videos are also really high on my enjoy list.

Teardowns are informative, and Dave's blog is teardown heavy, but his motto is "Don't turn it on... take it apart!" so I expect teardowns here and I enjoy them just as much.

You can never please everyone, and Dave knows this.  So just watch what you like 'a la carte' ... And as others have said, there are plenty of other electronic tutorials, teardowns and repair videos on Youtube.     I haven't had cable TV for over 10 years now

[hammy]

I suppose Dave tries to avoid videos where all these smart know-it-all EE's have a different and nitpicking opinion how to do something. He said once in the AmpHour that he had a lot of "why you don't do it this way?" for his uPowerSupply and he never had the feeling he was able to make a video about this stuff without captious critic. He also got critics for the OpAmp tutorial.

It is easier for him to unpack mailbags and review some scopes.

[feetwet]

Do not get me wrong, I am not asking Dave to teach electronics to the masses. I just feel that Dave’s YouTube channel has lost its spark, no pun intended. We have gone from a variety of things to just one thing. Sure there is a little variety. However, nothing like a few years ago that would make me go and order parts on Digi key and try it for myself. Look at the following episodes and ask yourself, does Dave do any of this any more?

473 - Voltage Doubler
476 – Opamp Offset Voltage
479 – Opamp Input Bias current
483 – Voltage Inverter
486 – Current flow through a cap
490 – Peak Detect circuit
496 – What is an FPGA
499 – What is JTAG and Boundary Scan

I’m not saying every show needs to be about building electronics. Some of Dave’s best episodes had nothing to do with teaching us electronics, but it always had something to do with technology. I think all of us like watching Sagan grow up right in front of our eyes. I am sure some of us are wondering whether one day, will Sagan assist dad on the show, and will Sagan follow in dad’s footsteps? I know that’s still a long way off. My concern is that we may never make it that far. I remember when Dave first brought Sagan on the show; both my wife and I watched that episode several times. The show got its roots so that Dave could have a place to discuss electronics with the masses and it just grew from there. My feeling is that the show is loosing its way. Now that Dave has repaired Doc Brown’s Time Circuit, he needs to go back and replace the last 100 episodes before Biff looses interest in the show and Marty ends up unemployed or worse working for Biff.

Compare that to his latest show 700-Indiana Jones HO scale model Train Set. This episode only consisted of a tour of a store that had already gone out of business. As I said earlier, Dave has had a great run. Dave is responsible for boys and girls developing a passion in electronics, going off to college, and majoring in EE.  Hobbyist and enthusiast rekindling their passions from a by gone era. Increasing sales for companies like Adafruit, Spark Fun and even Digi Key. Nevertheless, most importantly, Dave single handedly jump the spark gap in an industry that had pretty much died out in the 1970 and 80s. Personally I will miss the guy who made me laugh every time he dressed up like Indiana Jones and went dumpster diving, and then took his mother’s television apart. Personally, I think Dave should take some time off to recharge his batteries, while watching us make parodies of him doing our favorite episodes. This way he could see how much laughter he brought into out lives. Because if you really think about it, Dave made us laugh, while teaching us electronics. I miss that guy.

 

[feetwet]

I suppose Dave tries to avoid videos where all these smart know-it-all EE's have a different and nitpicking opinion how to do something. He said once in the AmpHour that he had a lot of "why you don't do it this way?" for his uPowerSupply and he never had the feeling he was able to make a video about this stuff without captious critic. He also got critics for the OpAmp tutorial.

It is easier for him to unpack mailbags and review some scopes.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. If you worry about what everyone is saying you will never get anything done. Dave appears to have more confidence in himself, than to worry about what others are thinking. At least I hope he does. It's easy to play "what if" with someone else’s content. At least Dave was putting stuff up on YouTube. If others want to comment negatively, then I say ignore them. If they have a better idea, I say let them put-up their own YouTube video and then will really see if they know what they are talking about. It is easy to comment, but doing the actual work takes some effort. I think Dave knows that and does not take to much stock in those comments. If he did not know that then I think he knows that now.

[feetwet]

Honestly, Dave isn't huge on the basic electronics tutorial stuff really.    In many ways he assumes you have a certain level of electronics knowledge already.   

If you want good basic tutorial topic stuff there are other good youtube channels like mikeselectrialstuff, and (my fav) w2aew and many others that are suggested around here. 

Dave does not have to be the only youtuber you watch.   Watch others and don't expect Dave to be your only one stop shop.

Thanks for the suggestions. I was not aware of mikeselectrialstuff, I will have to check out his channel. W2aew is also one of my favorites and I watch his channel whenever he comes up with a new video.

[Syntax_Error]

Add another +1 to the stack. I totally get that you can't please everyone. But there is a bit of a solution nonetheless:

Nobody is asking that every video be jam packed with educational material, and I for one don't really think basics is really the best educational material. But my favorite EEVBlog videos are the educational ones where I didn't even know I had a question in the first place. What is JTAG and Boundary Scan is a perfect example. My first thought was wtf is JTAG? I loved that video.

Dave, if basics doesn't interest you, that's cool. Plenty of basics on the web. I'd say do it the dart board style. "What do I feel like talking about today?" and just talk about that. Done. Do a video like this every once in awhile.

Do that, and I'll listen with a bowl of popcorn in one hand and a soldering iron in the other, dangerous as that may be.

[nanofrog]

I'll listen with a bowl of popcorn in one hand and a soldering iron in the other, dangerous as that may be.

Too much time in the dog house that you've taken to eating like one?    Besides, how do you watch the screen with your face in the bowl? 

[Syntax_Error]

Maybe.

How are you supposed to eat popcorn? With a salad fork and a doily?

[EEVblog]

 
The eyeroll above is for the fact that this always comes up, again and again, and I keep having to explain it again and again, why you are:
a) essentially mistaken
and b) not really helping me

Here is a breakdown I did of my first 50 videos (my "golden age" according to many) vs ones after 500
http://www.eevblog.com/images/EpisodeContentList.png
That data shows that I have in fact kept up many thing that people think are missing form the blog and/or that I never actually did as many, say, tutorial videos as they think I once did. So you are quite simple mistaken.

The bottom line is I now have a much larger audience that subscribe for a wider range of reasons. This means that as the years go by it is simply inevitable that there will be more people like you who think I've "lost my enthusiasm", "lost my edge", "strayed from my original intention", or insert any other gripe the person has. The fact though is that almost always, none of that is true. It is just that the those people had an idea of what they think my blog was like, and subconsciously what they think it is about and should be about.
Note my emphasis of "they" several" times.
Quite frankly, you are simply another voice among 200,000 others.

And yes, I'll say it again, I can't please everyone. And that becomes more and more true with every day that passes and another 300 people subscribe to my channel for whatever reason it is, which will be different to your own, and everyone elses reasons.

You think I'm this great teacher, and well, thanks, that's appreciated, but the fact is my blog has never been about teaching or tutorials. That is demonstrable with the data I have shown above, and my relatively low percentage of tutorial videos.
I find it interesting that it's usually the tutorial people who say this kind of stuff, and somehow have a skewed memory on how many tutorial videos I've done. But I do also see the same passion in the people who like rant videos for example. Same thing there, I've actually done relatively few of them, yet they stick in people's minds.

Sure, there are many ebbs and flows in my videos, and I may do a flood of tutorials, or a flood of teardowns, or a floods of mailbag, or whatever, and many people usually use those periods to complain the way you have.
Ok, you aren't a fan of mailbag, I get it, but you are in the minority. Mailbag is one of my most popular segments, that's why I still do it.
More popular in fact than my tutorials.
I get far more "where is mailbag this week?" complaints, than "where is fundamental friday this week?"
And you know what, I enjoy doing both, sometimes more so than at other times, so I'm going to continue doing both.
You know what usually happens when I do a tutorial video?, one I invested a lot of thought and energy into and thought it was quite decent:
a) I get maybe half the views a mailbag or teardown, or some other video type gets
b) I get half the amount of feedback
c) A good lot of the feedback isn't about the that video, it's about what they'd *really* like to see

Tell me again why I should up the number of tutorial videos again?
I'll still do them of course, I enjoy doing them, but quite frankly the feedback is usually not great nor encouraging. So when I'm thinking what video I'll shoot today (they aren't plan, there is no list, it's all daily whim based thing), tutorials at times do not rank high on my desire list I'm afraid.

I appreciate feedback, but these really heartfelt ones where I feel compelled to explain myself, when it's often impossible to explain myself, I find do not really help me. If anything my make me more disillusioned and want to throw in the towel.
No of course I won't throw in the towel, but I can certainly understand those bloggers that do.
The bigger my channel gets, the more people try and pull me in every direction they want.

My wish? That people would just continue to let me do whatever I want to do on any given day, and either watch or don't watch. That's how I've always done this blog, and that's how I wish to continue doing it. I do enjoy feedback, but it's now not nearly as valuable as it once was in the early days of growing my channel, the white noise just gets higher in amplitude.
And also the bigger my channel gets, the more complicated and time consuming it gets, and the less time I actually have to work on content. Add in family and personal life that seems to get more complicated every year, and the time gets even less and less.
I'd love to do a whole series of tutorial videos like you suggest, but it's just impossible, I do not have the time, and good practical tutorial videos take a lot of time.

*Sent from my hotel room at midnight on my family holiday, because, well, I'm a bit pathetic 

[EEVblog]

Dave, if basics doesn't interest you, that's cool. Plenty of basics on the web. I'd say do it the dart board style. "What do I feel like talking about today?" and just talk about that. Done. Do a video like this every once in awhile.

Every one of my videos (bar regular segments, because they are, well, regular segments) has always been done like that!
Go ahead and ask me what my next video will be, go on...

[EEVblog]

And for thsoe who hate mailbag, and woder why I do so much of it.
I currently have 30+ packages sitting on my shelf that people spend a great deal of time and money sending to me. I feel compelled to open them. And more come in every week to replace them. So the regular segment will remain just that, a regular segment, it must, unless I call it quits. Even if I called it quits today, there is still two months worth of material there.
If you don't like a segment, don't watch it.
I only ask that you don't complain about the frequency of them, because, well, it's simply very rude to do that. Not to me, but to the countless others that do like it.

[EEVblog]

Look at the following episodes and ask yourself, does Dave do any of this any more?
473 - Voltage Doubler
476 – Opamp Offset Voltage
479 – Opamp Input Bias current
483 – Voltage Inverter
486 – Current flow through a cap
490 – Peak Detect circuit
496 – What is an FPGA
499 – What is JTAG and Boundary Scan

 
That was a period where I came up with the idea of Fundamentals Friday and gave it a go for quite some time.
It had a lot of good feedback to be sure, but was actually pretty lackluster in terms of being a successful segment, so I eventually lost interest in doing it regularly. (plus other things going on in my life at the time meant it was eventually harder to commit to another regular weekly segment.

Compare that to his latest show 700-Indiana Jones HO scale model Train Set. This episode only consisted of a tour of a store that had already gone out of business.

That was a clearly one-off opportunistic video about something I was excited about, so please forgive me if I'm being blunt, but it's late and I'm grumpy, so I'll say it - I don't give one rats arse if you didn't like it. I was excited about that train set and that's all that matters.

[deephaven]

I think that if you describe to someone that hasn't seen it what Mailbag Monday is about it would go something like this: A video about some bloke opening his mail. So that sounds pretty lame. The reality is that it is an amazing opportunity to let the 'small guy' make his product known to the outside world. What a great marketing resource it is with all those viewers. Alright, it's a bit hit and miss about when it might be shown but, hey, how much did it cost? It's not just a marketing opportunity, that was one example, it could be someone just showing off his personal project. "Hey, that's a good idea" someone might say when seeing it. You might even be able to contact the guy and get a PCB from him. There are often newbies appearing on the forum asking "What shall I make?". Well, the answer is, look at the mailbag videos and get some inspiration.

I enjoy all your videos, having the variety of content keeps them interesting. So keep up the good work Dave 

[codeboy2k]

I think the marketing aspect of Mailbag Monday is one great feature of it.  I have learned about some new products and new blogs/vblogs simply by watching the mailbag segment.  So I think that I agree, it's a great way for small designers to get their product known to several hundred thousand relevant viewers. 

When you look at it that way, Dave should be charging for exposure on Mailbag Monday but he doesn't and kudos to him (Thanks, Dave!) for providing a meaningful and relevant forum to expose and critique new products without any bias.

I personally have not mail-bagged anything to Dave, but I will if I ever have something to offer.

[Meshka7]

I personally watch Dave, for teardowns (you learn a lot from them), new equipment, test equipment pitfalls, interesting circuits, and CAD reviews. I don't watch him for electronics basics per se, but in each one of those mentioned, there is a great deal of learning. More on the practical side rather than the theoretical.

If you want basics and theory, w2aew is an amazing teacher.

There are numerous other nuggets of gold on youtube, you just need to keep looking into the "Related" videos.

Here are some example videos that I bookmarked:

The signal path -- nice intro to crystal oscillators
Mike's electric stuff: -- nice work on probing
BTCInstrumentation -- best explanation of reflections and characteristic impedance I've seen on youtube

[DIPLover]

I believe the real strength of EEVBlog (apart from Dave's insight and humor) is in the VARIETY of content.

And mailbag, although recurrent, shows an incredible variety of content. Some rant, some jokes, some new product from small guy X, some ancient interesting product from reader Y, lots of mini teardowns...

Dave is very good with a whiteboard, I enjoy watching him in fundamental friday because I always pickup some interesting angle to the subject to use in my own teaching.

Dave is even better with the whiteboard in the "let's design X" videos. Those are awesome. I like the iterative approach with a conceptually simple design first then a second pass to reduce part count and cost. That's engineering.

But it also needs the most preparation, and unfortunately, seems to offer the least material rewards for Dave. That's life, there are simply more people looking for product reviews and teardowns than design demonstrations. But that is where the art lies, in my opinion

Dave's incredibly over-the-top enthusiasm of the early episodes is now more subdued, but that's just a sign of maturity as a host and frankly, I prefer the new style.

If anybody doubts his profound enthusiasm for what he does please just rewatch the mudrun episode (crazy aussie!) and the subsequent TDS220 teardown (one though little sucker!)

TL;DR : You're awesome Dave, just keep it up and do whatever you feel like doing.

[ozwolf]

I believe the real strength of EEVBlog (apart from Dave's insight and humor) is in the VARIETY of content.

And mailbag, although recurrent, shows an incredible variety of content. Some rant, some jokes, some new product from small guy X, some ancient interesting product from reader Y, lots of mini teardowns...

Dave is very good with a whiteboard, I enjoy watching him in fundamental friday because I always pickup some interesting angle to the subject to use in my own teaching.

Dave is even better with the whiteboard in the "let's design X" videos. Those are awesome. I like the iterative approach with a conceptually simple design first then a second pass to reduce part count and cost. That's engineering.

But it also needs the most preparation, and unfortunately, seems to offer the least material rewards for Dave. That's life, there are simply more people looking for product reviews and teardowns than design demonstrations. But that is where the art lies, in my opinion

Dave's incredibly over-the-top enthusiasm of the early episodes is now more subdued, but that's just a sign of maturity as a host and frankly, I prefer the new style.

If anybody doubts his profound enthusiasm for what he does please just rewatch the mudrun episode (crazy aussie!) and the subsequent TDS220 teardown (one though little sucker!)

TL;DR : You're awesome Dave, just keep it up and do whatever you feel like doing.

All of the above, well said! +1
Ozwolf

[Yago]

Reminds me of a couple of things:
Roses tinted glass and selective memory, when I started watching I cherry picked the episodes. When you are caught up to date, can't do that any more.
Comfort zones, (IE people stated new every album "Bowie should have stuck to the same as the last album"), would have been a shorter career if he did!

Lastly, something I found myself in my "rock and roll" years; with popularity comes advice, after every single gig/studio/release, "you should do this, that or the other".. I ended up saying fuck off and go write your own music then (didn't make me any more popular on a personal level though!)

Bat on Dave, have faith in yourself and your talent, that is what brought us all here is the first place.
Oh and get back to those holidays, we'll still be here, and I'll still be talking sh!te!