FranLab is getting evicted

[coppercone2]

challenge accepted

but really, once you work at anything other then low frequencies and low powers thats bull shit, and even then, you can start using space quick once you start making custom test fixtures, amplifiers, sensor interfaces, etc

as soon as you wanna test a more complicated system you need to add more equipment too, more power rails, more scope channels, more data loggers, more processing, more everything.... otherwise you expand without having test ability, which leads to uncertainty, which is bad.

like do it properly with enclosures that actually power themselves not some kind of crap you need to occupy a bench supply with..

if you are advanced different amplitude/power levels, frequency ranges, noise ranges, all occupy space. All the precise DC stuff is different then the low noise DC stuff then the low current DC stuff then the audio stuff and everything has those categories

and don't forget the calibrators.. low noise enviroment, etc (and thats just for up to HF because no one has the budget to do the same stuff with microwaves unless your really big).

You can fit an entire room with just bridges and standards EASILY.

then you get into stuff like mechanical test fixtures, thermal test stuff, ovens, etc......................... yea no I don't want to see a god damn 3 phase motor tested on the same bench as fucking precise RF equipment. Thats dog shit, you need a separate crude bench for that.

All I see is a shortage of money that requires me to pick targets.

i could fill a room to the brim with antennas.

fran tone also does audio equipment. That means you need a proper audio room (or various kinds) to test the sound in to determine realistic use conditions (i,e, stuffed up living room, small hall way, large halls, etc... thats the whole point of her business to find out what works and sell different solutions. You can't do good 'human precpetion' stuff in a limited test setting. you gotta know whats in your customers heads so you can explain whats going on (even stuff like the effect of windows, curtains, etc) and recommend a good solution to them. If your good you would even have furniture test standards to see what different environments you can setup for people.. someone might send you a picture of their living room and ask 'whats a good product for this'? You might end up making mock ups of furniture etc. And her work is supposed to be custom/artistic so the enclosures etc all need to match.. its like having some kind of interior decorator acoustic laboratory just to test the product. Someone likes the decour and their willing to spend to make it sound good even if its total shit for audio quality.. you gotta be able to solve their problem or you lose a customer. Turning your living space into a test area? not the best for your psychology.

Maybe its not at that level yet but you can always do more with space.

also most people say that a healthy business is looking to grow/expand capabilities to become the go to. If you don't have some kind of R&D its easy to get eaten or become marginalized.

I appreciate the pitch, but you're not making the sale. We could go back and forth with all kinds imaginary requirements, but we both know that little of what you mention realistically applies. We could dream up equipment to fill a building the size of a Ford plant all day.

Until we have a list of things Fran is absolutely going to require, 2000 square feet is a huge space to fill.

and this people, is how your boss keeps costs down

i know your type, your working on a shrink ray aren't you? you wanna run shit out a broom closet to keep rent down

[coppercone2]

looking to hire: ant man

[Bud]

uhh some people dont like working in sardine cans and running an effective business means you pay other people as little as possible and if you get the process down yourself then you shorten your supply chain demands. A skilled person can use much less conventional overhead like having production stop because a supplied decided to fuck up.. once you have alot of parts you buy you need a purchasing department that keeps things organized.... and a quality department
...

Now that was a long post but i have no clue why you went to that extreme. It is about one person, not a full blown company  with employees, and the person said it is a Lab (not manufacturing facility).

[coppercone2]

cuz someone is loosing a work space and lab and people are like nah you dont need that, your backwards, dont know how to use space, etc

ridiculous , i think she has been doing it for like 20 years

[Mr. Scram]

At the moment you seem to be the one obsessing about it.

Even if NiHaoMike is paying a bit of attention to young nubile women that's quite normal in a lad of his age. It's only when old perves like you start obsessively dragging the subject up that we might use the word "problem", possibly followed by the words "blood pressure", "shortness of breath" and "ambulance". Now leave the poor lad alone and both of you get off my lawn!

I'm not the only one who's entirely fed up with the obsessive behaviour. From your response I gather you haven't been privy to what came before, but it hasn't been pretty and only got exponentially worse when left unchecked. Even a teen in heat can show restraint. The only thing that seems to make any difference is consistently calling it out, which I will do until my keyboard is pried from my senile hands. Now, let's get back to Fran's predicament.

[coppercone2]

obsessive is news paper cutout collages in a dim basement, creepy guys with binoculars and lockpicks, love letters being mailed, dmm's, constant current sinks

this is more like advertising for a particular sub segment of a community

[Cerebus]

At the moment you seem to be the one obsessing about it.

Even if NiHaoMike is paying a bit of attention to young nubile women that's quite normal in a lad of his age. It's only when old perves like you start obsessively dragging the subject up that we might use the word "problem", possibly followed by the words "blood pressure", "shortness of breath" and "ambulance". Now leave the poor lad alone and both of you get off my lawn!

I'm not the only one who's entirely fed up with the obsessive behaviour. From your response I gather you haven't been privy to what came before, but it hasn't been pretty and only got exponentially worse when left unchecked. Even a teen in heat can show restraint. The only thing that seems to make any difference is consistently calling it out, which I will do until my keyboard is pried from my senile hands. Now, let's get back to Fran's predicament.

I was trying to lighten up the whole thing, and frankly your attitude towards it is a bit obsessive. I don't recall you being appointed as a moderator. it's one thing to call out bullshit, or object to racism, or some other on-the-spot thing that might happen in a normal conversations. It's quite another to announce a campaign where you're declaring that you've decided to moderate a particular user's postings. Some might characterise that as bullying.

[Mr. Scram]

and this people, is how your boss keeps costs down

i know your type, your working on a shrink ray aren't you? you wanna run shit out a broom closet to keep rent down

What makes you think bosses don't care about output? They generally rent what's required for the staff to do their job properly. Staff tends to be a lot more expensive than rent. You turned that into needing a large amount of square meters or choking your staff productivity, but that's a false dilemma.

It's good to remind ourselves that people simply wondered what all that space is required for, as it's a lot of space for a one woman band. That's a fair question.

[Mr. Scram]

I was trying to lighten up the whole thing, and frankly your attitude towards it is a bit obsessive. I don't recall you being appointed as a moderator. it's one thing to call out bullshit, or object to racism, or some other on-the-spot thing that might happen in a normal conversations. It's quite another to announce a campaign where you're declaring that you've decided to moderate a particular user's postings. Some might characterise that as bullying.

I didn't quite read the lightening up part in it, but fair enough. My response was a bit tongue in cheek for sure. It should be pretty obvious I'm not moderating anything. I just felt compelled to address an issue that has bothered quite a few forum members before and which they talked to NiHoaMike about before on a few occasions. Much like how you felt the need to address me, I guess.

[Simon]

At the moment you seem to be the one obsessing about it.

Even if NiHaoMike is paying a bit of attention to young nubile women that's quite normal in a lad of his age. It's only when old perves like you start obsessively dragging the subject up that we might use the word "problem", possibly followed by the words "blood pressure", "shortness of breath" and "ambulance". Now leave the poor lad alone and both of you get off my lawn!

I'm not the only one who's entirely fed up with the obsessive behaviour. From your response I gather you haven't been privy to what came before, but it hasn't been pretty and only got exponentially worse when left unchecked. Even a teen in heat can show restraint. The only thing that seems to make any difference is consistently calling it out, which I will do until my keyboard is pried from my senile hands. Now, let's get back to Fran's predicament.

Yea OK he has a bit of a problem but you seem to be a bit trigger happy here and now half the thread did become about you obsession about his obsession. If you think there is a problem then please report it.

Are we all happy and calmed down now?

[EEVblog]

It's good to remind ourselves that people simply wondered what all that space is required for, as it's a lot of space for a one woman band. That's a fair question.

I have 88sqm spread over two offices, plus a 44sqm storage bunker. Fran is looking for 185sqm.
I have one full time employee but he only takes up one small desk, so let's say it's just me.
We are basically in the same business with similar requirements in terms of space for filming, R&D, stock, assembly, packing and shipping, works in progress, and storage of gear and other stuff.
I have 7 work benches in my lab and its STILL not enough space.
I can totally understand why Fran would be looking for 185sqm.

[coppercone2]

a good space will have some benches not up against the wall too that you can walk around in all sides for assembly or hook up, and so you can do things like have a few empty rack mounts in your lab so you can wheel a rack mount over to a bench, configure it up with a bunch of test equipment that might not even have inputs on the front (i am looking at you microwave amplifiers or high power supplies or other specific things) and comfortably work there or possibly leave it running over a long period of time.

People expect you to 'build stonehenge' for some reason. You can have a rotary table but as soon as you have some hook up wires in the front and you need to adjust something in the back, your in trouble and risk kinking the cables with the equipment its self and you can stress the connectors. If its heavy and sinks into a ESD mat then you need to play build the ancient monuments.

I have had to egyptian walk behind crap to do hook ups before, because someones area was housed in a catacomb. Not fun.

[tooki]

Not good:

I recon we could crowd source finding a new place for her if she lets us know the budget and requirements.

If there's anyone in the electronics world who deserves that kind of help, it's Fran. Historical preservation is not financially productive, yet IMHO extremely important.

If just a quarter of her 80K subscribers pitched in 25 bucks each, that'd cover moving and construction costs as well as make a massive down payment to buy a building. Renting just isn't viable in the volatile, skyrocketing real estate market of any halfway-desirable US city.

PITA and part of living in the Tenanted world. I have had it happen to me commercially at the end of lease. I was offered a new lease with a 50% hike or else. I suggested impolitely I would be taking the or else option and they could place their bluestone building somewhere appropriate 

No need for outrage or response or campaigns just a sad/annoying event in the quirky, offbeat and slightly kooky (good thing) that is Franlabs 

This sort of thing has been happening a lot in Seattle, older buildings being demolished and replaced with high rise buildings full of luxury condos or apartments. I can't even explain how thankful I am that I bought a house back when I did because there's no way I could afford to live around here anymore if I hadn't. Screw renting, I don't ever want to be paying someone elses mortgage again.

If she really is the last one in the building maybe they will offer her a generous settlement to walk away early. That should at least should pay for the relocation etc.

This is what angers me about rental agreements in USA: they are barely worth the paper they're printed on, as far as tenant security goes.

<rant>One of the things I (as an American) appreciate about Switzerland is that tenants are very sensibly protected. (In the US, where tenants are protected, it's often poorly implemented, leading to abuse at the expense of landlords.) Like, if you have a lease, and the building is sold… well, tough luck, new owner, you must adhere to the lease, and you can't just kick someone out with a month's notice. That's the thing that I really hate about US leases: you can end it on far too short notice. Here in CH, it's 3 months notice and not before the lease ends. (If a tenant wants to break the lease, they must also give 3 months notice, or find nominate a suitable replacement tenant. This seems like a very equitable system to me.) And you also can't just raise rent arbitrarily — you can raise it to cover costs and then some, just not open-ended. (I moved into my current apartment right as this neighborhood had begun to gentrify, so I essentially locked in a rent quite a bit below market rate these days. And since inflation here is essentially zero, there have been no cost increases to justify a higher rent.)

I realize that USA has designed its real estate system and laws around homeownership, not rental. But given how real estate prices have skyrocketed, and real wages have remained flat, this just isn't a sustainable model. We can do better.</rant>

[station240]

Also lets not forget, the stuff Dave sells comes pre-assembled and pre-packaged.
Were the EEVBlog lab being use to assemble PCBs, cases, package equipment etc, it would need a lot more space too.

[sokoloff]

I know of many other female tech TV show hosts that I didn't mention because they seem to have been doing just fine. Just mentioning that previously, when a woman in tech asks for help, it's not long before a lot of guys jump in offering to help her.

Don't play innocent, you're not fooling anyone. You take every opportunity to talk about the women you obsess over, which are generally opportunities you inappropriately invent yourself. Find help and work your problem out.

At the moment you seem to be the one obsessing about it.

Even if NiHaoMike is paying a bit of attention to young nubile women that's quite normal in a lad of his age. It's only when old perves like you start obsessively dragging the subject up that we might use the word "problem", possibly followed by the words "blood pressure", "shortness of breath" and "ambulance". Now leave the poor lad alone and both of you get off my lawn!

None of the above presents a particularly welcoming environment for fellow EE/tech nerds who happen to genetically differ from the dominant profile in only one of 46 chromosomes... To me, it doesn't have a place here, regardless of how normal and species-survival-critical a behavior might be in the wild, if it doesn't affect what happens in the engineering, I think it's best left aside.

[sokoloff]

If she really is the last one in the building maybe they will offer her a generous settlement to walk away early. That should at least should pay for the relocation etc.

This is what angers me about rental agreements in USA: they are barely worth the paper they're printed on, as far as tenant security goes.

<rant>One of the things I (as an American) appreciate about Switzerland is that tenants are very sensibly protected. (In the US, where tenants are protected, it's often poorly implemented, leading to abuse at the expense of landlords.) Like, if you have a lease, and the building is sold… well, tough luck, new owner, you must adhere to the lease, and you can't just kick someone out with a month's notice. That's the thing that I really hate about US leases: you can end it on far too short notice.

I don't read or hear anything to suggest that Fran is being forced out prior to her lease term ending in July 2019. She seems to be taking sensible precautions and planning ahead, but she specifically says in the video that she re-upped her lease right before the building was sold. My read on that, knowing a bit about general real estate practices is that she's probably OK until then, and the other tenants that she sees being "forced out" with 30 days' notice are being forced out by simple non-renewal of their lease which may have transitioned over to month-to-month at the end of a defined tenancy. Around here (MA and NH), a new building owner absolutely does inherit the leases of existing tenants and there are very few cases where commercial tenants can be forced out against their will. (Negotiated settlements and non-renewals do happen all the time, of course.) I'm looking at some commercial property in NH and the very first thing we reviewed with the current owner is the status of the existing leases and renewal options. (In my case, I'm interested in keeping the tenants, but either way, I want to know what I'm buying into.)

Assuming she's not going to be kicked out against her will prior to July '19, she might be able to reach a cash settlement to leave earlier (if that's acceptable/preferable to her) or can stay until then.

If the facts are as above, I don't see this as a particular failure of the US real estate system and norms, but simply a natural conclusion of "you have more control over your real estate if you own it than if you don't".

[EEVblog]

a good space will have some benches not up against the wall too that you can walk around in all sides for assembly or hook up

I need a bench like that for the lab. The mailbag bench doesn't cut it as I have to keep it at least reasonably clear.
I'd have 3-4 such benches if I had a big open lab, so you can have a few projects ongoing at once and you can leave then so they don't get disturbed.

[EEVblog]

Also lets not forget, the stuff Dave sells comes pre-assembled and pre-packaged.
Were the EEVBlog lab being use to assemble PCBs, cases, package equipment etc, it would need a lot more space too.

Indeed.
I have done some small scale assembly, and have tested thousands of boards in my 50sqm lab. Packaging and shipping was on the floor in a few sqm available:


The current 88sqm is too small, 120sqm would be more what I really need to not be cramped. Include my storage bunker and that's close to Fran.
Fran does more stuff than me, so 185sqm is definitely not too big. And Fran said it's the size she's always found she needed for 20 years or whatever, and I can certainly believe it.

I should consolidate my lab and office into one bigger space, but it's about $50k in rent.
Trio Test moved out their office in the same business park which was about 130sqm and it was very nice, but again, about $50k in rent.
Also, setting up a lab with all the required lighting and benches and a zillion parts doesn't make for a clean space when they come around to inspect.
Not to mention the hassle of moving, but it would at least force me to clean up   

[EEVblog]

She seems to be taking sensible precautions and planning ahead, but she specifically says in the video that she re-upped her lease right before the building was sold. My read on that, knowing a bit about general real estate practices is that she's probably OK until then, and the other tenants that she sees being "forced out" with 30 days' notice are being forced out by simple non-renewal of their lease which may have transitioned over to month-to-month at the end of a defined tenancy.

That's what just happened to my office space, I'm now on month to month, so they could boot me out any time now.
There was no financial benefit to signing another multi-year lease so I didn't bother.
Getting booted out of the office space wouldn't be much of a hassle, it's just desks and boxes.

[Messtechniker]

Guys and gals,
stop wasting your time with this useles discussion.

If I were anywhere close, I would offer some assistance in moving all that gear.

Looking at the videos, moving such a lab will involve quite some man and lady power. I'd expect some 80 to 100 man hours (10 volunteers each working 8 to 10 hours or so) to get it all out and roughly back in at the new place, depending on distance of course.

[nctnico]

challenge accepted

but really, once you work at anything other then low frequencies and low powers thats bull shit, and even then, you can start using space quick once you start making custom test fixtures, amplifiers, sensor interfaces, etc

Maybe its not at that level yet but you can always do more with space.

also most people say that a healthy business is looking to grow/expand capabilities to become the go to. If you don't have some kind of R&D its easy to get eaten or become marginalized.

I appreciate the pitch, but you're not making the sale. We could go back and forth with all kinds imaginary requirements, but we both know that little of what you mention realistically applies. We could dream up equipment to fill a building the size of a Ford plant all day.

Until we have a list of things Fran is absolutely going to require, 2000 square feet is a huge space to fill.

I agree. Just look at what Rxpilot is doing with only a 400 square feet garage. More space costs more money.

[coppercone2]

i looked and I saw a inspection microscope on a toolbox. no.

temporary folding table. no.

work bench access being blocked by cabinet.

crap on the floor? how you gonna clean. you never wanna use floor for storage space.

I am gonna wait for him to clean up before i make further comments but that is NOT a good work space. I wish he had more space available.  I think that work space could trigger clausterphobia. You want at least 4 feet clearance between the PNP machine and the walls. Preferably 6.

Monitors on speakers. Why is there an arbor press in the electronics area?





that is a cramped storage closet. I would not be happy with that setup.

[james_s]

a good space will have some benches not up against the wall too that you can walk around in all sides for assembly or hook up

I need a bench like that for the lab. The mailbag bench doesn't cut it as I have to keep it at least reasonably clear.
I'd have 3-4 such benches if I had a big open lab, so you can have a few projects ongoing at once and you can leave then so they don't get disturbed.

The number of benches you need will probably turn out to be something like n + 3, where n is however many you currently have or have space for.

[maginnovision]

i looked and I saw a inspection microscope on a toolbox. no.

temporary folding table. no.

work bench access being blocked by cabinet.

crap on the floor? how you gonna clean. you never wanna use floor for storage space.

I am gonna wait for him to clean up before i make further comments but that is NOT a good work space. I wish he had more space available.  I think that work space could trigger clausterphobia. You want at least 4 feet clearance between the PNP machine and the walls. Preferably 6.

Monitors on speakers. Why is there an arbor press in the electronics area?





that is a cramped storage closet. I would not be happy with that setup.

Sometimes you need to compromise between what you need, and what you can afford. If fran can't afford something, then she needs to figure something else out.

[nctnico]

I don't read or hear anything to suggest that Fran is being forced out prior to her lease term ending in July 2019. She seems to be taking sensible precautions and planning ahead, but she specifically says in the video that she re-upped her lease right before the building was sold. My read on that, knowing a bit about general real estate practices is that she's probably OK until then, and the other tenants that she sees being "forced out" with 30 days' notice are being forced out by simple non-renewal of their lease which may have transitioned over to month-to-month at the end of a defined tenancy.

I'd be less optimistic. A new building owner is not going to evict paying customers unless there is something to gain from that. If I where Fran I'd ask what their plans are (new tennants?). If not then she could make clear that she is willing to move soon if they help her a bit.