Episode 87 - MLAstro's founder, Minh Nguyen

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Welcome BAAACK to The Astrocast! This week, Roo sits down with the founder of MLAstro, Minh Nguyen! Minh started his company in Vietnam and has done a phenomenal job so far, and is looking to challenge the big guys in this field with his awesome equipment. You can check out Minh's work at MLAstro. 

This is a VERY in depth conversation that may not be for the brand new to the hobby, but I think for those of us who are interested in what goes in to starting a company like this, this is first hand knowledge you truly won't find anywhere else. Furthermore - Minh is just an awesome guy who is doing amazing work for the community, and for that, i truly commend him. 

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Transcript

00;00;23;22 - 00;00;28;03
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Main engine start..

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You are listening to the Astrocast

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00;00;51;28 - 00;01;10;26
Roo
Welcome back to the Astro\cast. I'm your host, Roo! Today is Tuesday, February 10th, 2026.

00;01;10;29 - 00;01;35;27
Roo
I hope you've all been doing well. Certainly been a, busy week for me, but a fun one. Got some, really, really cool stuff to discuss with you guys today. We're going to have a very special guest on this week, and I guess I just kind of want to be upfront with a couple of things.

00;01;36;00 - 00;01;58;17
Roo
Actually, I'm rerecording the intro because it got a little bit blown out. During the initial recording, I'm using this software called Riverside for all of the, remote interviews that I've been doing. And it, it generally works wonderfully, but sometimes, I've had issues with audio being too loud and muddled, and that's why me and Nathan had to rerecord our episode.

00;01;58;17 - 00;02;26;10
Roo
But I think I got most of it figured out at this point. But that intro got a little blown out. But I just want to say upfront, this is a a very deep dive conversation into equipment. So we're going to be getting into the weeds. We're talking harmonic mounts. We're talking worm gears. We're talking about the industry and practices that are occurring in the industry.

00;02;26;12 - 00;02;55;27
Roo
And the guests that I have is incredibly educated about these things. And I might misspeak on a couple of things here and there. I apologize if I do. I was listening during the edit, and I know I caught myself saying 1 or 2 things wrong, so I'll make corrections as needed next week. But I want to say that if you have any questions after hearing this conversation, we want to see if we can get answers for them.

00;02;55;27 - 00;03;17;24
Roo
So by all means, please feel free to, shoot me an email through at the Astro cast.com. And I will get back. With my interviewee. And, we'll definitely see if we can get answers. I know that a couple of questions came up in our discord chat that I'm hoping to get answers on. I know we did discuss it during, the interview.

00;03;17;27 - 00;03;37;00
Roo
So after everybody listens, I'm going to bring those back, to mean and then we will, get answers and, and go from there. And I'm sure this won't be the, the only time, we talk with him. But without further ado, I'm going to pass it over to pass through and let him pick up that interview.

00;03;37;02 - 00;04;02;15
Roo
Clear skies. I had a very special guest with us this week who I'm, quite thrilled to have on the show because I've seen his work for, quite some time now. I actually, came across him on Facebook originally, and I went to the, the web page and was kind of blown away with what I saw. So today on the Astro Crest, we have the founder of EML Astro with us.

00;04;02;18 - 00;04;04;01
Roo
Hello, Minh. How are you today?

00;04;04;03 - 00;04;06;20
Minh
Hi. I'm good. And, thanks for having me here.

00;04;06;21 - 00;04;16;08
Roo
Yes, very, very happy to have you on the show. Tell me, tell me a little bit about yourself, man. How did you get into astronomy? Like, how did you get to where you are today?

00;04;16;10 - 00;04;44;14
Minh
Well, by profession, and, civil engineering. Okay. Engineer. I have a, Before I met Astro, I have a, construction company, and, we mostly do, government under contract. I'm from Vietnam. Okay. I know what the capital city of Vienna. So, I got into the astronomy, very early. I think back when I was a teenage.

00;04;44;14 - 00;04;45;28
Roo
Oh, wow. So a long time.

00;04;46;00 - 00;05;19;16
Minh
Yeah. It was a long time. My first telescope was the, Celestron Nexstar 8SE Right. A classic, I, oh. What form of astronomy, family, you know, all this all very long time. And then, just quite recently about, oh seven or maybe back in 2017. Maybe. Yeah, I got back to the astronomy and to, you know, astrophotography.

00;05;19;19 - 00;05;43;11
Minh
First I just, you know, do some, Milky Way shot, right? Chuck, astronomy. And it just one thing led to another, and then just a few. Just a few. Yeah. I have a full blown, astrophotography, kit. And then in 2020, maybe, after the pandemic, I got into solar astronomy, and I was hooked.

00;05;43;13 - 00;06;04;28
Minh
I, you know, go all the way to I have my at a long, night, dedicated solar scope. And then it's started. My astro is completely by, you know, coincident. I was, looking at the, solar, project by Christian Bale. You know that one? Yes.

00;06;04;28 - 00;06;05;06
Roo
Yes, I.

00;06;05;06 - 00;06;20;07
Minh
Do build this spectacular handicraft by yourself. I, I, I bought the optical kits from shell. Yeah, they sold there. So sell that. And you supposed to, you know, 3D print the, the, the, the, the how to give.

00;06;20;07 - 00;06;21;25
Roo
Yeah. The housing for it essentially.

00;06;21;27 - 00;06;50;12
Minh
Yeah. The housing. Yeah. And you put, the, the, the optics on it and, you have a spectacular roof. So, I played, printed. I stumbled a few times, after about 4 or 5 iteration, I got it worked. But it's, you know, kind of a mess. The, plastic housing, the 3D plastic housing is not for outdoor use.

00;06;50;15 - 00;07;08;12
Minh
Up to a few exposure. It just crumble. Yeah. Become very brittle. Right. And, and the, you know, aperture, long exposure, under the sunlight, the, the plastic housing just, you know, flex, it's create all kind of problem.

00;07;08;14 - 00;07;10;16
Roo
Yeah. You can't have that.

00;07;10;18 - 00;07;40;14
Minh
Yeah. So, I was thinking, hey, I got, I'm very familiar with the guys who do the CNC, right? Yeah, I happily traded for. Fine. So why don't I just, you know, make it from aluminum, right? It will be more rigid. It will be more out of, suitable for outdoor use. So that's what I did. I got into, a job with two friends, and they were all very supportive.

00;07;40;14 - 00;08;04;25
Minh
But the idea, so I just, you know, I got into making the aluminum selection, right? And I got to about, a few dozen of orders. People just came to me and say, oh, that's a good idea idea, right? I just, I, I, posted my, my builds on a solar, group on Facebook, and people just came to me, and.

00;08;04;25 - 00;08;36;11
Minh
Oh, can you make that for me? I said, yeah, sure. It's, cheaper. We can, you know, break in a few orders and make it in batch. Right. So, yeah, one thing led to another. We have these, the solid aluminum select, but then, the design is still, you know, essentially a select by Christian Bale, which to have some problem, the focus mechanism is not very good, right.

00;08;36;14 - 00;08;59;06
Minh
You have to use the soldier, sleep, which is designed for nighttime spectroscopy. Right. Okay. The select actually use all those shell. Yeah. Product. And they use old for, nighttime spectroscopy. Okay. It's just not suitable for solar exposure. Right. Because you have a lot of, heat in flux, right?

00;08;59;06 - 00;08;59;28
Roo
Absolutely.

00;09;00;02 - 00;09;32;27
Minh
Heat the sleet and destroy it. It requires you to put, you know, eaf a, energy reduction filter in front of this scope to reduce the heat. Received. So I, think, well, maybe I can fix this. And, first, I can potentially design a, a housing, right, with focusing mechanism. Then I got to solve the sleep problem by using a more durable, the quartz substrate.

00;09;33;03 - 00;09;59;25
Minh
Okay. It doesn't expand when it heats up. And then we got into a better coating because the shell costing is not suitable for solar. Use it. You know it. It's very thin. Yeah. And it's become you know best semi semi-transparent in some way plan. Right. So we increase the thickness and when you increase the thickness it create other problem.

00;09;59;25 - 00;10;28;22
Minh
Yeah. Because you use a little graphy technique to create the slip, the same that and the process that they use to create microchip. Oh, okay. The edge of what. Yeah. They actually the, the, the, the, chrome layer using you know, asset. Yeah. And they have a photoresist on the surface to protest the, the places that you don't want the acid to touch you.

00;10;28;26 - 00;10;54;28
Minh
Right. So, the, the ticular, the, the chrome coating is, the easier of the, the hardware for the photoresist cleanly live the way it has a lift up process where they wash away the place when it doesn't happen equal to or is it right? And it's peel up the, the chrome layer. Oh, wow. But your, your promo layer is so thick.

00;10;54;28 - 00;11;25;16
Minh
Right. Then on the flip up process you will have, you know, some residual. Yeah. On to add up to slip. Right. And those stories, it'll show on the, on the slip and irregularity of the, of the etch right. And it create artifact when you go to a meeting. So for the, for the, for the, some other spectrometer application, the etch, roughness is not a problem, right?

00;11;25;18 - 00;11;35;03
Minh
You can have the very rough like this, and it doesn't affect your, like laser spectrometer. Or stellar spectrometer. But for.

00;11;35;05 - 00;11;37;19
Roo
Solar specifically it's an issue.

00;11;37;22 - 00;11;52;21
Minh
That's still the slit. That has to be very very small. Right. And we ran into that technical difficulty in I solve it to we have a, you know, patent pending.

00;11;52;23 - 00;11;54;02
Roo
That's great.

00;11;54;04 - 00;12;07;18
Minh
So do the lift up cleanly and it just create one of the best sleep is being used on your graph, and that is one of the, secret. So MLA so success.

00;12;07;19 - 00;12;08;20
Roo
I see that.

00;12;08;22 - 00;12;23;03
Minh
And and then, we have, you know, create that also one of the best lens miniaturized optics to be used on. So, yeah.

00;12;23;06 - 00;12;42;12
Roo
That sounds like it all came about very organically, though. I mean, you essentially you had an interest and then you wanted to make a better version for yourself. And then other people started asking about it. Right? I mean, what what better way to start a company for something that was already a passion of yours, right?

00;12;42;14 - 00;13;11;29
Minh
Absolutely. I love that, my construction company. Right. I, I'm actually doing quite well financially with it. You obviously, in a country like Vietnam, if you are able to go full all in with, astronomy, that's a hobby, right? You can for up for a, you know, 20, 40, US dollar, a thousand U.S. dollar a month for it.

00;13;12;02 - 00;13;40;11
Minh
And you are easily in the, you know, tippy top of the 1%. Yeah, yeah. The population. Right. So before I my last show, I was doing quite well financially. But up the decades that I do, my work in the shop certain company. Right. I don't feel like it's, I like I love what I do, right, I don't I don't feel like I don't feel that it's just a job, I do it, but because just put, you know, put.

00;13;40;13 - 00;13;41;12
Roo
I understand that.

00;13;41;12 - 00;13;43;01
Minh
And get it. Yeah.

00;13;43;03 - 00;14;05;25
Roo
So, that sounds very familiar to me. That mean actually that now that you because this doing this show started because of my passion for astronomy and I work in the IT sector and I do pretty well in the IT sector, but it's it's not something that I love to do. And I love doing this. I love sitting down and talking with people like you and hearing your story.

00;14;05;25 - 00;14;13;20
Roo
And you know how you come up with ideas and like, I can completely understand where you're coming from in that regard. Yeah.

00;14;13;22 - 00;14;40;01
Minh
So, yeah, that's, everything every problem with, that we solved with my last show is what I have experienced myself. Right. I set out to solve that problem for me at first. So, and then I just you know, it comes naturally that people want those two. They ran into those the same. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

00;14;40;01 - 00;15;03;00
Minh
And. Yeah. And, I think if I can help people, would, you know, I have a very strong industrial backing. I have a background in technical technology and, you know, I have it now. I have a team that helped me, you know, perfectly design and, have, make it into a marketable, and so. Why not?

00;15;03;07 - 00;15;36;15
Roo
Absolutely. And I guess I guess that leads very well into my, kind of next question for you. Was it because in 2020, I probably don't need to tell you this as long as you've been into, astronomy, but we saw just a huge explosion in the astrophotography sector post pandemic because, you know, so many people wanted something to do that was safe to do at the time, you know, and astronomy, natural fit was that around the time when you started thinking about the Sal series, Mount?

00;15;36;17 - 00;16;12;08
Minh
Actually the, at, you know, 33, is, I thinking about doing a, a harmonic mount for a long time? Oh, yeah. Okay. You know, the, the, as you can see, people flocking to creating harmonic mounts, right? So the reason is because it's relatively mechanically simple. Yes. Right. For any other mounts, a, a, let's say a, the warp gear mount, right?

00;16;12;08 - 00;16;17;00
Minh
Yes. So very familiar with the, German equatorial mount. The warm gear.

00;16;17;00 - 00;16;23;08
Roo
Yes. That's what I have in most of mine besides my M3. I finally got a harmonic mount. But yeah, all my others.

00;16;23;08 - 00;16;24;05
Minh
Are.

00;16;24;07 - 00;16;26;04
Roo
Are warm gear, so. Yeah, absolutely.

00;16;26;07 - 00;16;51;25
Minh
That is the tradition. German equatorial mount. So for the warm get mount, you will need a few things. First you will need, you know, in an infrastructure to, you know, machined very, very rigid access. Right. You have to have the declination rotation. Yep. Right. And you have to have the ideal rotation. And then you have to have a lot of connecting mechanism.

00;16;51;25 - 00;17;20;24
Minh
Right. For a, a warm gear mount, I'm, estimating you need about, a probably a, 1 or 200 of a part. Right. Okay. But for a harmonic mounts, you need two gearbox and a way to connecting them. And an outer space, some kind of ballast. But in a lot of, you know, cheap, budget type manufacturers go just go cheap out on it.

00;17;20;25 - 00;17;22;13
Minh
Yeah, and make a flimsy buy.

00;17;22;16 - 00;17;23;13
Roo
Of course.

00;17;23;16 - 00;17;34;02
Minh
You know, at at as long as it work. Yeah. Right. So it is actually very mechanically simple and and easy to make. I that's why people.

00;17;34;09 - 00;17;46;16
Roo
Absolutely. I've got, I've got friends in our chat group in our discord that have made their own harmonic gear mounts with, you know, 3D printers at home or sent away for sync parts.

00;17;46;16 - 00;17;48;04
Minh
So to the printer here.

00;17;48;05 - 00;17;50;21
Roo
So. Absolutely.

00;17;50;23 - 00;18;25;13
Minh
So, beside that, the, the warm gear mount, right. The, the geometry of the part, it's very hard to do with a simple light like you have round part, you have two, you have, you know, a lot of things that, you know, it's very hard, much more complex. Much, much. Yeah. Like geometry. Right. So sometimes it relies on, casting and then machining the part of the, the rest of the geometry that they need to learn.

00;18;25;18 - 00;18;49;29
Minh
Right. So they, those kind of techniques required a significant overhead and significant, still to for you to, you know, to, to reach a break even point. Yeah. Right. So you have to have established market and you have to have an established manufacturing, carbide capability before you can even get into the game.

00;18;50;03 - 00;18;51;06
Roo
Yeah, that makes sense.

00;18;51;06 - 00;19;14;19
Minh
So that, that that is the reason why there are only a few, warm gear maker before, so from you. And it is very hard for a new player to get in the game. So, you can see that with the high momentum, like, mount the geometry, it's much more simple, right? You can do it. What?

00;19;14;21 - 00;19;41;27
Minh
Flat panel. And you can use connecting screw. And that is the reason, the harmonic mount is exploding in popularity. Everyone can have a cap. Everyone can even enter the market with relatively, small investment and relatively small, technical expertise. All the hard it pass it already, on the gearbox. Yeah. The the rotation.

00;19;41;27 - 00;19;44;10
Roo
The part that you buy off the shelf.

00;19;44;12 - 00;19;48;21
Minh
Yeah, yeah. And so it it's it's it's easier.

00;19;48;27 - 00;19;49;07
Roo
You know.

00;19;49;07 - 00;19;50;12
Minh
It's people to you.

00;19;50;12 - 00;20;28;06
Roo
Have me thinking now the, the difference between your German equatorial now and your harmonic mount. It seems like you need so much more knowledge and money essentially, engineering skill, etc., to make the German mount the harmonic mount being much simpler and easier to make with like off the shelf parts. It's funny that the companies, when they started coming out with them, were actually charging significantly more initially, significantly more for the harmonic mounts, because I think most people like me, they just see it and they say, oh, that's new and it doesn't need a counterweight.

00;20;28;06 - 00;20;34;27
Roo
I'll pay more for that. But in reality, based on what you're saying, it was probably a lot easier for them to make those.

00;20;35;00 - 00;21;05;24
Minh
So, yeah, that, the, the, the actually the harmonic mount is also considered a type of German equatorial mount. Right. The only difference is the drive technology. And for the German equatorial man unit, you know, the one gear. Right. And you need balancing for those to work. Right. Well for the harmonic mount, it just replace the one gear with the in planetary gear with the, with the Hamonic drive.

00;21;05;29 - 00;21;33;25
Minh
Right. So, yeah. And I, I was saying that, the harmonic mounts is easier to make, right? Yeah. But it it doesn't mean it it's cheaper. True. Right. True. The harmonic mounts. What about for us Mount? Right. About a half of the price of the product is now residing in the harmonic drive.

00;21;33;28 - 00;21;36;26
Roo
Okay. So that's the significant portion of the cost.

00;21;36;26 - 00;22;05;22
Minh
Yeah, it's it's a very significant portion of the of the price is into the, into the harmonic gearbox because they are only a very few, you know, country that have the ability to, to make those gearbox. Currently the biggest player is Japanese. The and they have they are the one who come up with the with the harmonic drive.

00;22;05;23 - 00;22;07;09
Roo
Oh really? I didn't know that.

00;22;07;10 - 00;22;20;29
Minh
Right. Yeah. It does. The harmonic drive system is the first company to make it commercially available, and it's not a long time ago. It's maybe in the last decade or so. Oh, wow.

00;22;21;01 - 00;22;22;04
Roo
So very recently.

00;22;22;04 - 00;22;54;14
Minh
And then it's very recently and then, the, Chinese get on with their, you know, they have literally hundreds of harmonic, drive makers in China right now. And yeah, then we have, other player too, as well, but the, the, Japan and China, China is probably the two most common, and significant player with unit, super high.

00;22;54;17 - 00;23;05;02
Minh
You, you know, durability. You go with the Japanese and if you need a little bit, you know, on a budget side, you go with the Chinese.

00;23;05;05 - 00;23;11;23
Roo
Gotcha. Do you mind if I ask what you guys are using, or does it depend on what kind of what you're able to source or.

00;23;11;23 - 00;23;50;23
Minh
You know, we we we we use, Chinese, gearbox that for sure for the, for our, you know, price range. Yeah. I, I'm only aware of two other harmonica maker that use, ATF gearbox and the, all very expensive. The for example, the rainbow Astro, the Korean. Okay. Harmonic mapmaker. Right. They use the at the, at the Japanese, harmonic drive, and, they're Rs the 300, it's go into the ten grams for oh wow.

00;23;50;27 - 00;23;51;06
Minh
Mounts.

00;23;51;11 - 00;23;53;24
Roo
Okay. So that's more like an hour.

00;23;53;25 - 00;24;15;15
Minh
Yeah. It's, Yeah, but a lot a large portion of that goes into the, the harmonic drive. Yeah. Gearbox. Right. I think each of those, it's about $1,500 for the rest and the unit two. Right. Yeah. So it's about 3000 for the high we go alone. Wow. And you.

00;24;15;15 - 00;24;16;05
Roo
Don't. Yeah.

00;24;16;10 - 00;24;27;17
Minh
That's don't get anything else. So they charge ten brands and it's completely understandable. Yeah. They still take a a considerable cap but.

00;24;27;19 - 00;24;28;27
Roo
Well it's it's.

00;24;29;00 - 00;24;29;29
Minh
Is what it is. It's like.

00;24;29;29 - 00;24;37;20
Roo
Codex. Right. You got to pay if you, if you want them. So it's going to be expensive because it's expensive technology.

00;24;37;22 - 00;24;45;19
Minh
We, we use Chinese harmonic gearbox. So let's we don't apologize. Oh, no.

00;24;45;19 - 00;24;48;00
Roo
No, you should do this because you're making.

00;24;48;03 - 00;25;13;04
Minh
No, let me let me explain. Sure. So, for the, for the harmonic drive, they they were designed for design for robotic use, right? They used on pick and place machine on welding. Welding. Okay. Right. The robot arm. You see the robot arm on the factory on the automation. The factory. Right? Yeah. So, the harmonic drive is very good at one thing.

00;25;13;12 - 00;25;43;06
Minh
It is repeatability, right? It can repeat the the the motion to the, you know, very precise. Yes. That if you, go online and you see the, at the, at the Japanese, you know, apps for the harmonic drive, they have a robot hand that go like this and it back out and they go like this, and it it has a it got here and it trained how precise the movement of the arm.

00;25;43;07 - 00;25;46;03
Minh
Right. And it hits the exact place. Wow.

00;25;46;03 - 00;25;47;11
Roo
Any time, every time.

00;25;47;18 - 00;26;09;04
Minh
And every time the, the repeatability is very, very, high. Right. And it makes sense. Yeah. Since the robotic robot arm has to, you know, go to the same place every time, right? It pick and place and it do the welding. If you have non repeatability on that you will have, you know trouble.

00;26;09;07 - 00;26;20;21
Roo
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can't have that on that. And I guess that's why it transfers so well to what we do. Because we also need something very consistent and repeatable as well with what with what we do. Right.

00;26;20;24 - 00;26;41;25
Minh
So so what I'm going, for, good reachability. You need zero backlash, right? You don't you cannot have a tiny bit of backlash, because if you have backlash, you can go in or you can go in and out and, the when you come back, it doesn't, you know, it's still have to eat up the backlash.

00;26;41;25 - 00;27;07;21
Minh
Yes, you can, you can configure that for what, you know, software calibration but stick. But the other thing prevent that. Yes. Work very well. And you still have some, you know, repeatability if you have backlash, the main design point of, goal, design goal of the, of the harmonic drive is to have zero backlash, right?

00;27;07;24 - 00;27;38;13
Minh
But, another place that the harmonic drive is, is the transmission error, right? Yes. So you turn the input rotation into the output rotation. Okay. I corporate side those to collaborate to each other. That is the transmission error okay. And in astronomy that is actually because you have to point where you want to point. Right. And you have to move at the rate that you want to move.

00;27;38;15 - 00;28;03;14
Minh
Right. Because this side reorient is already fixed and you have to move at that precise rate, right. The motor, you can control the speed of the motor. Right. You can can make the motor rotate at a fixed bit. Right. But if the output is not tracking at a constant constant rate, you will have a problem. And that is what we call periodic error.

00;28;03;14 - 00;28;05;23
Roo
The the periodic yes yes yes.

00;28;05;26 - 00;28;34;03
Minh
Yeah. On the output. Right. So yeah we have that problem with the harmonic drive and the, the transmission error is usually high on, on the, on the harmonic drive. And it's for, you know, even very expensive job and it's made, harmonic drive. It's usually in the, in the train of 60 to 90 arc second.

00;28;34;08 - 00;28;57;19
Minh
Okay. 80 to put that into perspective for for me it's huge. Yeah. Massive one. Yeah. One half means to one point. Find out when. Actually the the first harmonic drive. Even the expensive one by the Japanese. They are not this mounts in mind.

00;28;57;26 - 00;28;58;13
Roo


00;28;58;15 - 00;29;06;02
Minh
So the, they have huge parodic error to correct for that by guiding auto guiding.

00;29;06;02 - 00;29;14;02
Roo
Yeah. And that's. Yeah. Why German equatorial mounts might not necessarily need auto guiding for a three minute exposure, but.

00;29;14;05 - 00;29;24;03
Minh
You might get, very precise. And you have map modeling and, you know, some, pay and permanent and a periodic error correction. You might not need that.

00;29;24;03 - 00;29;36;27
Roo
And is that an inherent, design with harmonic mounts, in other words, like, could they perfect them to the point where a periodic error is no longer a problem, as the technology is also.

00;29;36;27 - 00;30;01;14
Minh
What what what what I'm getting. Okay. Right. So, so that is the problem with the initial design of the harmonic model. They do they don't want they don't need to control the, the transmission error. Those can be calibrated out in software. Right. If you know this way and it, you know, it has transmission error, you just calibrate the software to go, you know, back up a little bit or go forward a little bit.

00;30;01;14 - 00;30;39;04
Minh
Right. So that can be easily calibrated. I would, would, you know, software calibration. But for astronomy, we do not have that luxury. We have to correct for the, deviation with guiding. Yes. So, the, Chinese, the right smile maker. Right. The they got into the mapping. Very good. Is that the push for the, you know, the the advancement of the, periodic error control from the Chinese maker.

00;30;39;06 - 00;31;03;10
Minh
Right. So actually, the Chinese harmonic drive now has a special class, harmonic drive, that specialist, which is, designed for for the, harmonic mounts in mind for that. You on me? Oh, y right. They they have very well control, harmonic, transmitter scenario. The, you know, the.

00;31;03;10 - 00;31;04;20
Roo
Periodic error.

00;31;04;23 - 00;31;17;25
Minh
Right? You can see that, for, a few maker, these now specified, plus minus ten. Oh. That.

00;31;17;27 - 00;31;19;07
Roo
Yeah. That's that's good.

00;31;19;11 - 00;31;45;20
Minh
Much better. So about 28 second picture in comparison with maybe, 90 or 100 at second before it's a huge improvement. Right. So yeah. Actually if you are using the, the, you know, the, harmonic, harmonic drive from China, China, it actually they an advantage for I.

00;31;45;20 - 00;31;46;06
Roo
See that.

00;31;46;06 - 00;32;12;14
Minh
In term of, periodic error. Right. And one more thing to keep in mind is that the reason that the, the Japanese harmonic drive, it's very expensive, and they still are, and they still sell very well in robotic. They have, you know, the material science, the metallurgy go into the product, the, the, the drive that makes that drive is very durable.

00;32;12;14 - 00;32;13;02
Minh
Gotcha.

00;32;13;02 - 00;32;13;28
Roo
Okay.

00;32;14;01 - 00;32;43;05
Minh
They, they measure up to about a million a rotation until the harmonic drive is concerned that they have more backlash and other thing, and they consider, you know, a while now the okay, they they drop it out there. But for astronomy not needed. We do not need that much. Absolutely not at all. Right. Correct. I don't think you will ever, you know, reach a field cap for, you know, thousand of.

00;32;43;07 - 00;32;45;08
Roo
Realistically, you just don't need it.

00;32;45;10 - 00;32;49;29
Minh
Yeah. For it, for your, your whole mouse life. So, so.

00;32;49;29 - 00;32;55;27
Roo
It just makes more sense in, in every sense, really to use Chinese for my grandpa and.

00;32;56;03 - 00;33;30;22
Minh
For, for, it's have some other, you know, consideration, but those can all be weeded out with proper, quality control. Yes. Assurance. All right. The the difficulty of the, of the Chinese harmonic drive is, you know, higher. Of course, but we screen them individually, and, that is why we, you know, rarely catch the problem.

00;33;30;24 - 00;33;36;00
Minh
A fraction of a one person. Oh, well, 1%. Yeah.

00;33;36;00 - 00;33;36;19
Roo
Very minimal.

00;33;36;19 - 00;33;40;28
Minh
None. But it's still, you know, or to test them.

00;33;41;00 - 00;33;41;26
Roo
Absolutely.

00;33;41;28 - 00;33;44;01
Minh
Without those problem before.

00;33;44;04 - 00;33;53;14
Roo
I think your customers will definitely appreciate that too. I know for me, like especially with astronomy gear, I prefer it be tested before it send to me right.

00;33;53;16 - 00;34;11;05
Minh
So, yeah. So that is the least consideration with the harmonic drive, right? So, the, the Chinese make a special class of harmonic. They, and they have the, the in-app order to push the manifest.

00;34;11;05 - 00;34;11;27
Roo
Yes.

00;34;11;29 - 00;34;33;14
Minh
To. Yeah. To go into the innovation and, actually bring out a, a better, you know, class of harmonic drive for astronomy. And I think that is an incredible thing. You have something designed for a purpose. You would use it on your use. Okay. And you see that it is not, you know, not good enough. Right?

00;34;33;14 - 00;34;38;27
Minh
And you push for you have to have all the volume to push for innovation. And that is incredible.

00;34;38;27 - 00;34;49;01
Roo
I would never happen with something that is, you know, such small volume because it's so much more expensive. You'd never be able to get enough for them to make a change to the design you want.

00;34;49;02 - 00;35;13;12
Minh
You will never actually, I think it it just aside from the quality control, it's it's a picking. Cherry picking the good one. Yes. They the factory and have some, you know, but periodic error control putting. Right. But then they cherry pick the one that go into harmony while I'm getting my. When we order, we have to specify that.

00;35;13;12 - 00;35;28;20
Minh
Oh, I want my period. Yeah. Or below this threshold. Right. And they have to pick those one and the other one. The job that did go into robotic and the other application that doesn't require such a high control or periodic error. Right.

00;35;28;26 - 00;35;30;12
Roo
Sounds like binning sweeping.

00;35;30;15 - 00;35;33;10
Minh
By by product of the in robotic industry.

00;35;33;11 - 00;35;55;17
Roo
Yes. That's all so so getting to your company, something I've noticed is that there's a real focus on user service ability. You can see it as soon as you look at your mount, you can you can instantly know, like, okay, I can take this apart if I need to make a repair or if I need to reach out to customer service.

00;35;55;19 - 00;36;19;14
Roo
And it speaks through your design philosophy entirely on something else that we'll get into in a little bit. With some huge decisions that I, I just applaud you for making, with your software. But why what why did you want to make sure that users could repair things on their own? Like, why not seal it up and say, yeah, send it back to us and we'll fix it for you?

00;36;19;14 - 00;36;21;17
Roo
Like, why was that important to you?

00;36;21;19 - 00;36;46;04
Minh
So, yeah, I, I, I kept where the manufacturer going with the close down the, you know, everything is glued together and so make it hard to repair. Like, they don't want. Look, not to me. Even me don't want people to poking around the product and breaking them. That's, the themself. Right. But let's, here it's the.

00;36;46;04 - 00;37;13;27
Minh
This is, sounds similar to you, right? You have a mount. It. You know, for some reason, it broke down by and you are a very handy guy. And you know for sure that it just some, you know, but losing bell or losing bell or other thing that you can easily solved by yourself. Right. And you just need the manufacturer to give you the instruction how to open the mounts and how to, you know, do the adjustment.

00;37;13;29 - 00;37;42;22
Minh
But now they said you have to send them back the back, the mount. Right. You pop them up. You missed, a whole season of clear sky. Then you, you send it back at your own expense, about a few hundred dollars for the shipping alone. Right? They take the mount, up to about 2000 of the emailed back and forth, and you threaten to, you know, go all on the public forum that the mic like your mouth.

00;37;42;26 - 00;38;03;02
Minh
Yeah. Okay. I go back we we done the job on the mount and we sit back. They sit back and enjoy spends a few couple hundreds of dollars more and, well, when you get it back, the problem is still there. So you say he doesn't even get to fix that? Well, that is my personal experience with this.

00;38;03;02 - 00;38;03;20
Roo
Happened to you.

00;38;03;21 - 00;38;27;17
Minh
One of the. It's happened to me. Wow. So, Yeah, that is one of the things that I, you know, super annoyed that the, the the I'm actually just still that I'm just maker all the you that's showing me here just to do that. The, the mount is not that, hard, right. Yeah, but it should be user serviceable.

00;38;27;17 - 00;38;49;13
Minh
And if it can be made easier. So it's always should be made so serviceable and out. You know, astronomer is the by design. We are very, you know, handy very absolutely want to go around and thing and we that is the part of the joy of the hobby right. It is troubleshoot joke. Yeah. Yeah. You you make them work.

00;38;49;13 - 00;39;17;10
Minh
You see how they work under the hood. I think that speaks to the so the, the vast majority of the one the people who are into astronomy, the curiosity, the, the handiness. Yes. So, yeah. I think making demands so user serviceable is not only that, it is a sound, business. This is ambition, right?

00;39;17;13 - 00;39;32;10
Minh
For us. We have very thin margin. If we have to pay for the shipping back and forth up the mount, to just for a simple service, it will never work on our end. Right. You. I've built our business in, you know, in which if that happens.

00;39;32;10 - 00;39;32;26
Roo
Yes.

00;39;32;26 - 00;39;57;11
Minh
So we realize on the user stuff, it's the more we, provide instruction. I could do a video calling and I provide all the part in the, I say all 33 is, you know, off the shelf, right? You can replace the driver, you can replace the motor, you can replace the, the, the belts. Right. And you don't even have to wait for us.

00;39;57;13 - 00;40;17;21
Minh
We can do a refund, or you can. We can send you the money to buy the needed part locally. Wow. So do you have minimal downtime? So that is, you know, I think is what, you know, really easy to do. For example, the part that we expect the most trouble to come from the electronics, right. The, the.

00;40;17;27 - 00;40;18;01
Roo
Yeah.

00;40;18;02 - 00;40;29;28
Minh
Of course you can just remove four, screw and pop the box out and you have the driver is, you know, plug and play you if you have trouble, you just unplug it and plug in the new one.

00;40;30;00 - 00;40;31;26
Roo
Oh I love that.

00;40;31;28 - 00;40;46;16
Minh
And yeah. And the other part, like, you know, the gearbox, it has a problem that probably is some power place that the user couldn't salvage from them.

00;40;46;16 - 00;40;47;00
Roo
Of course.

00;40;47;00 - 00;41;08;20
Minh
You have a forwarding warehouse and you if you know it comes to that, definitely you have to send it back. But we have a warehouse. You only have to ship domestically and we will find a way to compensate you for the shipping. And the ship back is, you know, we will try to use the ship. It's possible, but overseas shipping is.

00;41;08;27 - 00;41;36;23
Minh
And that is the problem here. So, I'm happy to report that, because of our, QC quality control and quality assurance, the first batch is, you know, pretty smooth sailing so far. We do not have any, you know, serious problem. There are a few shipping related problem like loosen the belt. But yes, those it's easily solvable and it's proven.

00;41;36;23 - 00;41;57;23
Minh
It's a, you know, proof of concept. Yes. Our user serviceability it's working right. I can have people, even with the scope on the amount and the amount. Right. We can have they stripped down the mountain, you know. Minutes. Yes. One Allen key. Right. And I can walk them to how you do. You tighten those belt.

00;41;57;25 - 00;42;21;11
Minh
How do you, you know, check for the part that is giving you problem. And, they are probably suitcase out about almost a hundred. Oh, wow. On the first that have that problem. And we are shipping related problem and all resolved quickly. People customer were very happy with that. They also like that they can probably around the mount and take a look.

00;42;21;12 - 00;42;21;28
Roo
I bet they.

00;42;21;28 - 00;42;22;15
Minh
Do it right.

00;42;22;21 - 00;42;24;24
Roo
I know I would too. Yeah that's great.

00;42;24;26 - 00;42;49;05
Minh
So so that is the way we are approaching the problem of, you know, shipping back and forth amounts. Right. And I think it it is working. You need more, you know, time to, to prove it working. But we have, you know, the mechanism and we have the, the pre-planning for if things go wrong. How do we fix that?

00;42;49;05 - 00;42;51;18
Minh
How do we solve that with the customer?

00;42;51;20 - 00;43;15;08
Roo
That's great. So I think the big difference here is you're an astronomer who is building an astronomy mount for other astronomers. And, you know, the types of problems that people run into and the frustrations that you've already dealt with. And, I mean, I don't know how many. I mean, I given I haven't spoken with every company in the world, but I will say that is a very refreshing take.

00;43;15;11 - 00;43;37;26
Roo
It's good to hear. It actually kind of leads me to my next question. We've talked about the hardware a little bit, but one of the biggest things, that I've seen, on your website is that you guys are using, step backs, open source software for your mouth. That's that's a very, very big deal.

00;43;37;28 - 00;43;40;23
Roo
Tell me a little bit about that.

00;43;40;26 - 00;44;06;23
Minh
Actually, now that if you go into the mile making business, right, you do not have a lot of choice in terms of software, the controlling software. Right? You have a few proprietary software, right? Then you have the open source and, the most commonly used, it's, step, mostly because, it is very popular.

00;44;06;25 - 00;44;34;16
Minh
You use stepper motor for controlling a lot of other, you know, mount controller, you, saw from where you use the, server. Right. Server. Yes. So those are, you know, more expensive and, they are harder to control. It is very hard to get, you know, consistent result with not a lot of electronic, background, or knowledge.

00;44;34;16 - 00;44;59;20
Minh
Right. For the, on step, they already provide, reference design. You can poke around and, you know, modified a little bit on the reference boards and you can have, you know, you're good to go in, you know, days instead of months. Yes. Electronic. Right. So the on step six is actually a, a natural choice when you go out and do it homework.

00;44;59;21 - 00;45;26;05
Minh
Now that is why, you know, I think 90% of the maybe 100% of the, Chinese, or small maker Panasonic maker out that year on step. Yes, it's right on step, but we use, stabbings. So, the difference here is how we approach the, the, the open source. Right now, I, I have nothing against closed down system.

00;45;26;05 - 00;45;47;12
Minh
Right. I get where, you know, where people are, going with the closed system. They want to protect their, intellectual property. Right? I believe they pay time and, human resources to do the development they are entitled to. You know, prep them the the the, the result. Yep. The rewards. They.

00;45;47;13 - 00;45;47;26
Roo
Absolutely.

00;45;47;29 - 00;46;17;21
Minh
Right. Yeah. They they are entitled to that. But what I'm having problem with some of the, the Chinese, equipment maker is that the blatant disregard for the, the open source licensing, right? Yes. A lot of the open source is free for use under you know, commercially use. Right. But it's required in standard GPL licensing. Right.

00;46;17;21 - 00;46;29;26
Minh
And you are required to make your derivative work open source. So. Right. That is the the way we keep the open source community, be open source.

00;46;29;26 - 00;46;30;16
Roo
Exactly.

00;46;30;16 - 00;46;57;17
Minh
And not, you know, close current. You have to play with the. All right. You you cannot just take the open source and then play by your own rules. That is the biggest problem that I'm having with with the other matter. Yes. Utilizing open source and then close down and even more than eating all the equipment doesn't compile compatible with that system.

00;46;57;20 - 00;47;02;23
Minh
Not, you know, not just not just unethical, it's downright illegal.

00;47;02;27 - 00;47;05;28
Roo
Yes, I couldn't agree more.

00;47;06;00 - 00;47;31;12
Minh
Yeah. So we we we don't want to do that. Even if you, you know, you do it. You don't do not do any direct. Right. It is understandable that people, you know, just forget how other works. It put in the outsourcing. Right. It is. People have to pay real time and with the it's it's just feel wrong.

00;47;31;12 - 00;47;56;16
Minh
Yes. All those work and give nothing back. Right. I'm a, a, a personal friend with, How what? Dutton. The lead developer on steroids. Okay, I know him before. Before I email Astro. Right. And I have done, you know, when I use a, an, my first time using an on step, my on is the, GDR, the Gidon GDR.

00;47;56;19 - 00;48;14;16
Minh
Okay. Yes. Yeah. The the friction mount. I use the first my first time with with with with on step. What's from that mouse? And I reached out to him and I do I do a small donation. Just to thank him for the, for the, you know, for the awesome work done. I'm out of step.

00;48;14;18 - 00;48;34;24
Minh
All right. So, it just feels wrong that I'm now doing, you know, a commercial product, and I profit off his work and doesn't give anything back. And that's why I sold. How what I don't. Hey, hey, I going to use your software on all amounts, and I want to pay you a royalty fee for each mouse, so.

00;48;34;24 - 00;48;55;24
Minh
Wow. It's not much, but it's something to get, you know, to help you with the project. Right? And that is what we're doing. So what? That's the first I can see it's skeptical. This thing. Oh, another harmonic mouse maker. I don't think that will be much, but. Well, we have been paying him. I love that this idea.

00;48;55;24 - 00;48;58;17
Minh
But it's something and it is something.

00;48;58;21 - 00;48;59;24
Roo
And that's sort of.

00;48;59;27 - 00;49;07;15
Minh
A sum, isn't it? This is an issue, right? It's not just. It's not just charity.

00;49;07;15 - 00;49;09;14
Roo
Yeah. No no no no, not at all. It's it's hard.

00;49;09;14 - 00;49;35;24
Minh
Work. Yeah. It it it it not, it is the a sound business decision. Why I'm saying that because, for example, we ran into a few problem with the, you know, with the, commercial release up the sale territory. Right. We have the, the problem with that, right? I guess what, they stop right there so they would not all they are all work, but I haven't.

00;49;35;27 - 00;49;43;23
Minh
I tested with ACA, but limited testing because this the the the, you know, the controller personally.

00;49;43;25 - 00;49;49;10
Roo
So me either I haven't use this I it's a paperweight now.

00;49;49;12 - 00;50;22;08
Minh
Yeah. So, yeah. So I tested but it, you know, it doesn't solve that problem, but as soon as someone who use, I say to, you know, as a primarily imaging device, they have problem right out the gate. Wow. And, yeah. And and actually, that is not the problem with, with, amounts personally, because it has been there the problem has been there for, you know, gotten off the no.

00;50;22;09 - 00;50;44;21
Minh
Long and a lot of people using a yes has been have that problem. Oh yeah. One step for you know for for forever. And I talked with them and they said, oh no, it's always behaving that way. And we just, you know, find workaround and, and you know the way to they said, oh no it shouldn't look that way.

00;50;44;21 - 00;51;08;06
Minh
It should, it should work. So I, I call the Harvard. We work it out and I implement the fix, you know, in the, in the and now it's on on step eight mince brands for everyone to, you know, to to use. Wow. And then a lot of other thing like that on step like it has a lot of power.

00;51;08;10 - 00;51;31;11
Minh
Right. How old is a great guy. But he's a little bit old school. Right on it. Approach you. So the man's, He he's not in the system inside out, so. Well, so he does it. Doesn't see the need to fix those. Yes. He say, oh, you just do it and do that. And they talk. But now the the the beacon a the new user.

00;51;31;13 - 00;51;32;04
Roo
Yes.

00;51;32;06 - 00;51;58;11
Minh
I understand what put on step will not see it that way. They will see it a system that it's not you know, commercially you know really you need to fix though. And I put those requests and he fix it in the next day. Wow. He's very, very productive. But he needs the use of it. But I think one of the biggest, step is how what next?

00;51;58;13 - 00;52;22;12
Minh
You know, the end user feedback, I understand thing is from the group IO the test group IO forum. Right. The mailing lists, these are experts. They they they are experts. So they don't see those. Yeah, they they they don't they don't have that for a problem of a, you know, they new users. Yes. Getting into our step so we can be that rich.

00;52;22;12 - 00;52;42;13
Minh
Right. We can give him the, the the the he need to, you know, to complete, for example, one of the very quirky, behavior of the on step amount is that, if you sleep with the mouse or if doing go to. Right, and it hit one of the limit, for example, the mirror in the limit.

00;52;42;13 - 00;53;07;10
Minh
Yeah. It frees it. It doesn't respond to any other command. You press home and it frees and people say, oh, it's some have broken. Yeah, I, I have I have to turn all them out and it go back again. But actually a safety mechanism. Right. When the, when it hit the, the the limits. Right. You have to manually slew them and use the arrow key.

00;53;07;11 - 00;53;32;29
Minh
Right. Yeah. I know least leave them out of the limit first and then up to the alpha if you can press go home. Right. It is actually an industrialized, industrial approach to the problem. If something's wrong happen. Right. You have to have, you know, manual, labor. Yes. You know, supervise what is going on. You have to debug it and you have to bring it up to play.

00;53;33;01 - 00;53;39;09
Minh
But for the average user, if I hit the go home button and the mouse doesn't go.

00;53;39;09 - 00;53;40;18
Roo
Home, they don't understand the.

00;53;40;18 - 00;53;41;02
Minh
Problem.

00;53;41;05 - 00;53;58;18
Roo
Yeah. You know, it's so funny, all the things that you just described, I see on a daily basis in the IT industry and me and my colleagues will talk about it where like, for us, it's so easy to just, oh, I know the workaround and, and just do the work around and then keep it moving. And that's how our brains work.

00;53;58;18 - 00;54;06;20
Roo
But the person who's emailing me their problem, they they don't know. They don't want to hear anything about a workaround.

00;54;06;23 - 00;54;24;08
Minh
So that that is, what I'm trying to do with on step here, I have one I'm trying to make it more user friendly. Yes. And we also have that fixed for the limit problem, on on step. And now it's also available for everyone else.

00;54;24;14 - 00;54;25;05
Roo
That's so.

00;54;25;06 - 00;54;41;12
Minh
Great. It's one one of the limits you just hit go home and it if the go home movement bring the amount out of the limits, yes, it will continue to do so that it's very convenient for, you know, a new user. Right.

00;54;41;15 - 00;54;49;27
Roo
So and since it's own stuff, like you just said, if you fix that for your amount, it fixes it for all on step mounts.

00;54;49;29 - 00;55;25;21
Minh
It's, I'm working with, with, how it works on the main branch, on step six. Right. We use the vanilla, vanilla. Yeah, I love that, called upon. Step it. We make just make some configuration. No, change that which is reflected on our GitHub. But, That's great. Essential. The main branch. So any, any, bus on master mount is now available for the public to use.

00;55;25;24 - 00;55;39;17
Minh
Well, and that is, I think is the spirit of open source. Yes. You you, you take you keep the, you know, the, the ram going the project alive.

00;55;39;17 - 00;55;41;22
Roo
Yep. Absolutely.

00;55;41;24 - 00;56;04;23
Minh
I, I'm happy that I can, you know, provide a monetary support and I can provide the feedback for the, for the project and we will keep doing that. We are working with the whole world on a very, you know, a problem. I, I think I can share more about it now because it's almost complete, you know, the for what amounts, right?

00;56;04;23 - 00;56;13;22
Minh
Yes. If your mount head, I'm a snap. No problem. Because the top. It's not that great. I think the step will just keep.

00;56;13;23 - 00;56;14;02
Roo
Yeah.

00;56;14;03 - 00;56;14;26
Minh
It keeps keep.

00;56;14;26 - 00;56;16;12
Roo
Stepping. Yes.

00;56;16;14 - 00;56;33;14
Minh
Yeah, but for for harmonic mouse, right. It has some, you know, scary amount of torque. Right. It's you're talking about a lot of trouble. Yes. So if something is to go wrong it go very wrong. And you know you know can damage. Seriously terrible.

00;56;33;18 - 00;56;34;10
Roo
Yeah. Absolutely.

00;56;34;10 - 00;57;01;10
Minh
Your equipment. Yeah. So, people have been try to solve that by, you know, limit sensor by other stuff. Right. But for the sake of simplicity. Right. I so thought that I do not want to be the first mount. See, the customer thinking they cross their finger or, doing some new. You don't want to be that headline.

00;57;01;11 - 00;57;04;18
Roo
No, you do not. That's news you could do without.

00;57;04;24 - 00;57;44;07
Minh
I tell him that we need to have some kind of, you know, collision avoidance system. Right. And, with other manufacturer. Right. Like for, anti-collision. Yeah. Mounts have, the motor had encoder when it detected that it's skipping step, it just stopped right. But for the stepper, motor. Right. We don't have that. But, I'm working with a good code, and we are deriving a, you know, a collision system for the stepper.

00;57;44;10 - 00;57;56;24
Minh
If the mount head instead of keeping step, hit a collision, it just a bit. Wow. Keep going. And it actually a whole world is reporting that. Okay. Wow.

00;57;56;27 - 00;57;58;13
Roo
That's huge.

00;57;58;15 - 00;58;22;09
Minh
And and it's you do not need any kind of sensor. It's your sensor on that. Wow. You just it it just utilize something called stall guard on the on the stepper driver. It's already there. Everything else it just software and we can, you know, like get public some object. You know, extensive that thing. But it is feasible.

00;58;22;09 - 00;58;50;17
Minh
It it's it's doable. Wow. And, those kind of, you know, advancement. I think we're, we very hard to to, to get it to be done. I if you don't have the, monetary support perhaps the, the, you know, they say in the project. Absolutely without contribution. Right. And I just happy that I can I can be that guy and I can do this little.

00;58;50;17 - 00;58;55;07
Roo
Thing that affects the entire astronomy community, affects like.

00;58;55;07 - 00;59;03;20
Minh
That. I, I hope that we can make a difference here. And I think we have a real shot of doing that. I, I think community more open.

00;59;03;22 - 00;59;31;01
Roo
Definitely think so. I think I think you should prepare yourself because I'm telling you like based on, talking with you, like, right thing here. You know, looking at it from an outsider's perspective, I was like, wow, this looks really great. This is special and open source. Wow. He's really going in on this. And now sitting down and talking with you, I can tell how passionate you are about it.

00;59;31;04 - 00;59;58;27
Roo
And I can tell how important it is to give back to the community and, and and this hobby, you know, I, I say, you know, for astronomers, it's a passion. It's a way of life almost. For us, it's, people, people really resonate with that. And especially if you're putting out a great product like you guys are, prepare yourself because you're going to be making many more batches.

00;59;58;29 - 01;00;33;18
Roo
If you continue in this direction, for sure. Yes, absolutely. Gosh, there's there's so many other, topics we could talks of, open source and, you know, when I started in photography, it's funny, I went through this, this cycle. I started with, a laptop and plugging everything up and using, open source software. And then I eventually found Red box, and I was.

01;00;33;18 - 01;01;01;13
Roo
This is easy. And you know how easy it was. But over the last, many pieces are becoming more trouble. And Nenagh K stars, you can run K stars on a Raspberry Pi. And then I started thinking bigger in terms of my projects and what to be able to collect, and really using the little red box batteries. It makes no sense at all.

01;01;01;16 - 01;01;28;24
Roo
It really doesn't. So why would myself? Going back to where I originally started and I'm very, very happy about that, quickly realized that this isn't come with everything. You know, people don't realize they buy this. They buy the the red camera, the red mount. But then like eventually you want to try other, you want to try other cameras and maybe you have a, a canon camera or, you know, any other camera.

01;01;28;24 - 01;01;50;15
Roo
And, and when you can't use it, that's when you run smack into that wall. And that's when you start hearing all the stories. And we haven't even talked about two and that whole disaster. But what you're doing, I mean, it's it's very, very, impressive. And I just the whole community should be thanking you for what you're doing.

01;01;50;15 - 01;01;54;08
Roo
It's very respectable.

01;01;54;11 - 01;02;27;04
Minh
Thank you. And, I, I say, I said it before the decades that I'm doing the, the construction job, and what, I do very well financially, but I have never a single time in my life been, you know, generally, I by my, customer, I understand. I it's it's but it is very refreshing. I when, when I get into the the and when I, when I started my astro and I can see that people are happy with the instrument.

01;02;27;11 - 01;02;33;25
Minh
Right. And I've been generally changed by so and it's it just hit me personally right. It it's very fulfilling.

01;02;33;25 - 01;02;35;22
Roo
It is. Absolutely.

01;02;35;24 - 01;02;37;19
Minh
And I, I just love that.

01;02;37;21 - 01;02;43;27
Roo
That's great. That is so I'm so happy for you man. As so wonderful.

01;02;43;29 - 01;03;08;21
Minh
So yeah. That used speaking of the, you know, the it's there. I, I never use it personally. Right. I think it's a great approach, but I just have the problem with the way the, you know, utilize open source plan and then go sit down. My system, I don't think I, I think that is wrong.

01;03;08;25 - 01;03;09;13
Roo
I agree.

01;03;09;21 - 01;03;22;16
Minh
That is wrong. As you and I'm happy that there are competition on the horizon. Maybe not. I think I, I have this one here.

01;03;22;18 - 01;03;24;00
Roo
Okay. Yes.

01;03;24;02 - 01;03;55;08
Minh
Yeah, but it's quite buggy. Okay. I, I'm looking very good. You know, relationship with two subtext. I, I have the camera on, on our 6700. My and I recommend the camera, but, I have a direct line, so that's wonderful. I will try to I will try to, you know, help them with the development and user feedback.

01;03;55;11 - 01;03;57;14
Minh
If they choose to listen.

01;03;57;16 - 01;04;08;12
Roo
Okay. Well, because, I mean, where, where can you get better feedback and the community of astronomers and astrophotography enthusiasts, I mean, if they.

01;04;08;12 - 01;04;08;24
Minh
Want to.

01;04;09;00 - 01;04;10;06
Roo
If they want to hear it.

01;04;10;09 - 01;04;12;06
Minh
Yeah, they I hope they do.

01;04;12;07 - 01;04;17;13
Roo
Yeah. It sounds like, you're the, I'm sorry. Did you say his name was Howard?

01;04;17;15 - 01;04;18;21
Minh
Yeah. Howard. Howard, that.

01;04;18;25 - 01;04;26;04
Roo
It sounds like he's, really listening, even though he's an old school guy, as you said. And this is so great.

01;04;26;07 - 01;04;56;03
Minh
Howard, actually, a, you know, I don't think I have ever seen someone that productivity. Right? His his productivity is optimal. He's. If he sees an error or some requests, he got an on it and, you know, just days or, you know, hours you got, you know, the an email and the the fixes already on the main screen.

01;04;56;03 - 01;05;07;09
Minh
You can test it. It's amazing. He is I don't think I have ever since and he's I don't know if he's in its 60 maybe. But I was.

01;05;07;09 - 01;05;13;03
Roo
Thinking he's got an he's got to be an older gentleman. If he's been around this long. This is great. Yeah.

01;05;13;05 - 01;05;35;23
Minh
It's, I'm pushing for some other chains to add to it. So the software shoots. But, I think we have a real shot of, you know, making a difference here and, making not only on step, but, you know, the whole ecosystem. He, he has a, an ecosystem built around on step II. They have the, the whole shoot.

01;05;35;23 - 01;05;40;10
Minh
And I want to, like, get you know, more users. Compatible.

01;05;40;17 - 01;05;41;02
Roo
Yes.

01;05;41;02 - 01;05;41;17
Minh
Friendly.

01;05;41;17 - 01;06;01;18
Roo
Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's, I certainly hope that it continues going in that direction. And if I, if I can help spread that word, I am very happy to do that and honored to be a small part of helping spread the word. Yeah. So let me just say.

01;06;01;20 - 01;06;02;06
Minh
If we can get.

01;06;02;11 - 01;06;18;15
Roo
Yeah, let me just say, if you haven't yet seen means work, check out ML astro.com. Are you doing preorders right now for the next batch, or do you know when you'll be doing the your next preorders.

01;06;18;17 - 01;06;38;22
Minh
Sir, I'll preorder is in the fifth batch. Right. Is for the SA 33. We do everything in batch and we only take, fully paid preorder. That is actually our model, right? As you can see, the sale is, you know, relatively cheap.

01;06;38;24 - 01;06;39;07
Roo
Yes.

01;06;39;07 - 01;07;05;14
Minh
Oh, yes. 1000, $1,099 is currently and for comparison, we just the puts thing into progress. Step right. We have to pay for the same amount for the harmonic drive. In comparison with, you know, a certain, you know. Right. Call. Yes. Manufacturer. Right. They have the order number. They do, they can negotiate. Very good price.

01;07;05;14 - 01;07;18;06
Minh
Yes. It's not us. Right. We do not have that kind of, secondly, the electronics are pretty much the same, right? We may pay more since we, you know,

01;07;18;11 - 01;07;18;24
Roo
Again.

01;07;18;24 - 01;07;38;05
Minh
We use, volume again. The, Yeah. The smaller batch production play is. So they always push the price up. So I think realistically, we, having the OMD build material higher than popular. Brian.

01;07;38;05 - 01;07;40;08
Roo
Absolutely. I'll say so.

01;07;40;08 - 01;07;57;27
Minh
And, Yeah. So we are savings on some, you know, business overhead. Like we do not have the huge infrastructure that they have to operate. Right. But realistically, I think our factory price is higher than them.

01;07;57;29 - 01;08;03;04
Roo
Right? I mean, that that just makes sense at the scale it. Yeah. Absolutely.

01;08;03;07 - 01;08;03;23
Minh
Absolutely.

01;08;03;24 - 01;08;09;28
Roo
But you're still selling it for significantly less than what the big companies are charging.

01;08;10;05 - 01;08;30;06
Minh
You can literally it just dawned on me yesterday that if currently, if you placed an order for to sell 33 included shipping to the US, right, you still pay less than if you and amplify. And at the US, you're, you know, you get to for one.

01;08;30;06 - 01;08;32;28
Roo
$2,500 now for Vernon five aren't.

01;08;32;28 - 01;08;46;25
Minh
They. Yeah. Yes. You a, 2400 em. Wow. I don't know my. Wow. But it's still cheaper, right? And our cost is, you know, relatively the same. Right.

01;08;46;26 - 01;08;53;05
Roo
And and you don't get a laser engraved front plate with your own.

01;08;53;05 - 01;08;55;21
Minh
Oh, do you have to pay for that, too? Especially now that.

01;08;55;21 - 01;09;17;05
Roo
It. But still significantly less. And you can't get plates on your on your. Well, I love that you do that. By the way, I saw the picture that you posted of the next batch about to come out with all the different front plates on it, and I just, I just love that so much because when someone personalizes their mount, I think it becomes more special to them.

01;09;17;08 - 01;09;27;16
Roo
And I personally think they're a lot less likely to say, you know, I'm going to, you know, get a new mount and get rid, like, now they're going to hold onto those, you know, and I mean, it's it's theirs.

01;09;27;21 - 01;09;37;08
Minh
And the beautiful thing is with the modular design that if they eventually decide to sell it right, they can just get a new.

01;09;37;08 - 01;09;38;10
Roo
Plate, they can just replace the.

01;09;38;10 - 01;09;50;07
Minh
Plate from us. And they, they can they can just replace the plate. That is the beautiful side up, the modular design. Right? You can just replace the parts that have a problem and keep it going for years.

01;09;50;07 - 01;09;50;23
Roo
Yes.

01;09;50;26 - 01;10;15;05
Minh
I mean another another thing that I, I'm, I'm going to announce in a few days, but I think I can get to get you a sneak peek. Is that right. The azimuth adjustment screw. Right. It's just that little bit the the trap side is a little drop. Right. And it create a lot of movement when you when you adjust it.

01;10;15;05 - 01;10;21;20
Minh
Okay. Just a little bit the the the adjustment go a lot. Right. It actually planned

01;10;21;22 - 01;10;23;00
Roo
Very much so.

01;10;23;03 - 01;10;38;19
Minh
But we decided to fix that. All right. We use a fine. It's right on the on the adjustment screw. Make it very smooth. And the adjustment is now twice as, you know you have to this the resolution, the precision.

01;10;38;21 - 01;10;39;04
Roo
I love.

01;10;39;04 - 01;11;14;06
Minh
That. Right. And, I decide to skip all about first batch, customer who have already received the amount, a free upgrade. That's they just pay for the plastic free and, they just remove the fill screw with holding it, and they bury, but they are ready to go with the, with the new upgrade, and it's, it's a it's it's why we chose to go with the modular design, for example, the, the the robotic, polar alignment kit, right.

01;11;14;06 - 01;11;23;12
Minh
Oh, yeah. We, we, we have, we have the, we have the plan for that from the inception of the, of the automated tree. Right.

01;11;23;12 - 01;11;26;19
Roo
So you've always been planning for that? I finally get.

01;11;26;25 - 01;11;39;15
Minh
Planning for that. That is why I was making the ultimate at the our attitude adjustment style as you cannot have this is this is a.

01;11;39;15 - 01;12;02;27
Roo
Very big deal. So your your azimuth altitude adjustment is incredibly precise without having to lock it down. And, and let me tell you from someone who owns mounts from multiple different makers, no one has solved that problem properly. I mean, people have gotten close. Don't get me wrong.

01;12;03;00 - 01;12;04;00
Minh
So. Yeah.

01;12;04;00 - 01;12;12;21
Roo
So important. Angry to get my hands on one of these. I'm going to be ordering one in the net specs for sure, but I wasn't going. I didn't mean it. So.

01;12;12;23 - 01;12;42;28
Minh
Yeah. So, yeah. We have that in mind for, you know, since inception. Right. But at the time of the SA 33, finishing development. Right. We have two choice. We can wait for the robotic polar alignment to be ready and release it with the mouse, maybe have a year or year of development. Right. Or we can go ahead and release the mounts.

01;12;43;00 - 01;13;10;04
Minh
And I decide that pointing more would just, you know, create more uncertainty. So we decide to go ahead and release the mounts, but we want to make the existing mount to be compatible. Right? You we want the robotic alignment to be a ridge of it, not just, you know, some up the top. Yeah. And you have to throw away your current mounts and buy any one.

01;13;10;07 - 01;13;29;21
Minh
I don't want that. The mount have detachable because we do not let to walk out the you know, we do our trade and then yeah, we have an idea of what we want to do and how we wanted to do that, but we do not have a, you know, a blueprint of the yeah, design just yet. I think a lot of things can change.

01;13;29;23 - 01;13;52;02
Minh
So, we decide that we will make the mount have detachable. Now, you can unscrew the mount head by using for unscrew for screw. And we need that next time you just if we have to be asked by you, just put it on the, the new one, the motorized one. And you do not have even have to throw away the the old our asked.

01;13;52;02 - 01;14;03;05
Minh
But we have to use for that too. Right. An adapter plate that you can put on and you know put your maybe your Seastar as 50 oh oh wow.

01;14;03;05 - 01;14;03;26
Roo
That's great.

01;14;03;29 - 01;14;04;09
Minh
On that.

01;14;04;09 - 01;14;06;13
Roo
So you can reuse it as well. Yeah.

01;14;06;16 - 01;14;18;19
Minh
You just have to isolate the hours away from the Seastar, you know. Horrible right? A lot of options. Yes. Now just unusable. Or if you have a star tracker. Yeah. Or you know they.

01;14;18;19 - 01;14;23;22
Roo
Always have bad anything else as mount. So I have, I operate on star tracker.

01;14;23;24 - 01;14;49;22
Minh
Yeah. Same problem. You can see the, the adapter is very, very, universal, right? You know, you have to eat three. Eight. Yes. Screw. Right. We just have to have that and a few more, you know, screw hole for adapting to the existing, jacker or DC star or other mass mass scope that required equatorial, alignment.

01;14;49;22 - 01;15;00;26
Minh
Right. So, and that is the kind of cup, you know, from right from the start and, yeah.

01;15;00;29 - 01;15;28;19
Roo
It's the whole philosophy really around the company from the ground up. It's very clear that you're designing things to not only last a long time and be user repairable, reusable. I mean, I, I'm thinking 95% of companies in the world would just release the S.r.l. 33 plus that's now compatible with, you know, robotic polar alignment. And you'd have to go out and buy a whole new mount.

01;15;28;19 - 01;15;31;25
Roo
But you said, no, I'm not going to do that from the get go.

01;15;31;25 - 01;15;44;13
Minh
That's on wait. And we don't we don't want to do that. We don't want to do that. I, I don't know, but we ship Vietnamese. We do not throw anything away is a part of.

01;15;44;13 - 01;15;49;08
Roo
The culture for Vietnamese to reuse and and keep things.

01;15;49;11 - 01;16;23;25
Minh
Use and keep thing going for s mindset, we we just got out the war a few decades ago, right? My father's generation, he got back from two wars and then go build our country. I, we are the chai of that generation and we have been very, you know, extreme hardship. I'm very lucky that I have a, far more financially secure family in the country, but we have been through extreme.

01;16;23;25 - 01;16;38;29
Minh
Has we just been titch to, you know, not to waste anything you try to reuse to put new use into your, your, your job and even for the US. But we don't want it to be you know, paperweight a.

01;16;39;01 - 01;16;39;13
Roo
Throwaway.

01;16;39;13 - 01;16;47;24
Minh
Yes. Has to have some, you know, some purpose, some, some way to make it make it work for you.

01;16;47;24 - 01;16;59;03
Roo
And that's so great. I think if if more of us in the world could think that way, it it would be a better world very quickly.

01;16;59;06 - 01;17;17;24
Minh
Even if you do not have it and use for the last. But I believe that you can sell it on second hand market people can, can, can have a use for it. Right. And, people have been I have asked that to make the, zero ship us be available to, you know, to other mountains to.

01;17;17;24 - 01;17;18;27
Roo
Stand alone product.

01;17;18;27 - 01;17;37;06
Minh
Make it, make them. Yeah. Make it a a sea star compatible. Right. And I always said that. Well, currently we do not have a plan for that but. Well maybe you can buy a s to second hand. Oh yeah.

01;17;37;09 - 01;17;49;26
Roo
They will be out there at some point. They will definitely be out there. Well, do you have a timeline in mind for, the polar alignment?

01;17;49;28 - 01;18;20;19
Minh
For the, for, currently actively developing the, okay. That we are currently actively developing the, the, our space, but along with the, you know, the, the manual. Yeah, mainly. Yeah. For the, SL 33, we ship, we have the and a also, motorized by working. Right. It's just a matter, you know, Mitchell miniaturized the thing and.

01;18;20;22 - 01;18;50;14
Minh
Yeah. In which, go my way. I think we can have the, at, say, our 66, robotic polar alignment available around late. Oh, wow. The main problem here. So, to have robotic polar alignment, you have to sort of thing, right? You have to solve the, mechanical side of it. You have to make the the, work, without tightening.

01;18;50;18 - 01;19;16;18
Minh
Yep. Neela, you have to make it, like, enough to be movable by a small stepper, right? Yes. And make no mistake, it is no small feat. Right. You can have, for example, for the, as. And they are right. We are estimating about eight upload wow thing on that mount. Right. And you have to move it with the tiny yes motor.

01;19;16;25 - 01;19;27;22
Minh
Right. It is no small feat. But we are confident that we solve that problem with the general shape alignment. And

01;19;27;24 - 01;19;55;09
Minh
So the the other problem, other part of the problem is the, software side by the, the electronic is simple, you just side. But for the software side up thing. Right. We, we are working with I sent, Jason Matlab, the lead developer, Indy and K star. Oh, wow. It's on the way to him right now.

01;19;55;11 - 01;20;01;21
Minh
So he would use that to, you know, making sure he, he loved the the idea.

01;20;01;24 - 01;20;02;24
Roo
I'm sure he does.

01;20;03;00 - 01;20;49;27
Minh
So, so, I sent certainly I then selected for his, you know, he will make sure that it's it is first, his first on step mounts, so. Oh, wow. Integration. Yeah. Integration with, was, the on step driver with indeed, you can expect smooth to work because Jason missed on it. Yeah. And we are I have discussed with him and we will you know, as soon as I have a prototype for the RPA, I will send him with the assembly protocol so that he can work on integrating the, the, polar alignment routine into the base star to align.

01;20;49;29 - 01;20;53;10
Roo
Oh, yeah, yes I do. I've used it many times.

01;20;53;13 - 01;21;30;19
Minh
We just we just, want to, you know, make it a, you know, turnkey, plug it in. And for example, like a focuser. It it's not much different converging and the just. True. Yeah. No on that. So, the other part of the, we try to make it compatible with Eskom, right? The approach, the current approach to RPA with other manufacturers is they, try to make it a natural device and make it work with the Neenah as a plugin.

01;21;30;21 - 01;21;56;28
Minh
Right. But I want to think more long term here. Right. And make it you know Eskom and a new class. Currently they are no class for you know robotic polar like oh wow. Right. You. Yeah that's yeah. That class of device. While you do not have that class of device in Pascal. And I hope that if things go our way I can make that a a class of device in Pascal.

01;21;57;00 - 01;22;13;07
Minh
And, but we will see how that works. And if that doesn't pan out, I will just have, you know, the, the plugin, which is the Nina plugin. You just on the current approach? Yes. A lot of, you know, window based.

01;22;13;07 - 01;22;27;24
Roo
Use, of course, and observatories, a lot of people around me and obviously and I'm, I'm betting that a lot of people who are setting up in cell 66 are doing so in a permanent location. They want to be able to remotely polar align.

01;22;27;24 - 01;22;49;28
Minh
Right? So, that's and we also have, you know, a standalone web interface running different, you know, independently on the, on the, on the RPA, on the robotic polar Line. You can move it manually, you know, your software. That's that's real. Oh, I love that. Like, just don't just don't choose to play along. Right?

01;22;50;00 - 01;22;57;23
Minh
That's great. You know, I hope it answers your home Wi-Fi or observatory Wi-Fi. All right. And I think a lot of people will will use it that way.

01;22;57;24 - 01;22;58;22
Roo
Oh, yeah. Redundant.

01;22;58;22 - 01;23;27;23
Minh
Same fine tune. Yeah. Fine tune. The the other adjustment without running the whole routine. That's great. So, yeah, we have the multi-pronged approach. Right. There are some manufacturers that will not choose to play along that for sure, but will for even for those will still have, you know, and that is, you know, the kind of point we are approaching this the problem.

01;23;27;26 - 01;23;54;02
Roo
I love it. I think it's wonderful. I love the whole philosophy around the company, and I've blown my expectations away. I had already high expectations, but man, I'm for it. I just think it's so wonderful. It's it's a great thing for the community. And anybody listening to this very excited about what you're doing, because ultimately sort of changes have to start somewhere.

01;23;54;04 - 01;23;55;18
Roo
And, you know.

01;23;55;21 - 01;24;08;02
Minh
There has to be absolutely. You want if you want to see one change, you just be the change you want to see in the war. Right? You if you don't do it. Well.

01;24;08;04 - 01;24;29;04
Roo
I love that you, you could apply that to so much in the world right now. And I'm sorry it mean. So thank you so much. I definitely want to have you back on the show. If you'll come back on, I would love to have you. And I will certainly stay in touch. I'll, I'll email you.

01;24;29;05 - 01;24;34;02
Roo
We'll stay in touch, and we'll definitely, have to have you back on soon. Yes.

01;24;34;05 - 01;25;05;21
Minh
Absolutely. Now, yeah. Another thing that I think I would want to share. Sure. For, our future customer. About the, the small batch production. Right. We have really two, the financial risks, low. Yes. Oh, yeah. Pounding down sell. And we keep the capital investment low. Why? Because we already have the capital for the production batch.

01;25;05;23 - 01;25;36;10
Minh
Right. But regularly keeping you in production, intentionally keeping the production size small. And the batch far, from each other. Right. I, I have a very strong industrial backing. Yes. Vietnam is becoming, you know, second largest manufacturing hub in the war. They're just coming up to China, right? I have, you know, the ability to expand our production three full time just by a few phone call, right.

01;25;36;12 - 01;25;45;29
Minh
But, thing that is not going scale to scale. Well, in Massachusetts, the customers love it. Handling it personally, right?

01;25;46;02 - 01;25;47;21
Roo
Yes.

01;25;47;24 - 01;25;56;04
Minh
Keeping, you know, the batch size manageable. I still have a a day job. I this is a yes construction account.

01;25;56;04 - 01;26;27;11
Roo
So this is important, though, because you don't want to scale too fast, because then you're not able to take care of your customers and your product. And I completely understand, actually, that guy that I, a friend of the show, Nathan, he's actually opening a remote observatory. And while he has people lined up wanting to get a spot, he's only starting with 50 because he wants to make sure that all of those piers are running perfectly before he expands.

01;26;27;11 - 01;26;37;02
Roo
So I completely respect the model. And it's it's the most, you know, the way to do it if you really want to, you know, make it last long term.

01;26;37;04 - 01;26;57;02
Minh
Yeah. So yeah. So that that's a that and about the pricing, I will announce it, but we are experiencing some price highs. Absolutely. Because, well, it's also been there. The plan for the price, I guess.

01;26;57;08 - 01;26;58;11
Roo
Of course, you.

01;26;58;14 - 01;26;59;28
Minh
You know, from, from beginning.

01;26;59;28 - 01;27;04;25
Roo
Absolutely. Founders get a little bit of a discount expected.

01;27;04;28 - 01;27;37;13
Minh
Yeah. So, we, remain price high. And I want to share the, the reason for us, we have a new administration in Vietnam just recently, and let's just say they are very small business unfriendly, right? They are a lot of new regulation and tax scheme that, you know, require compliance. The CIP create a lot of, strat on us recently.

01;27;37;16 - 01;28;13;19
Minh
That is part of the reason why the SA 33 is now currently not available on any other, dealer yet. Only strictly available exclusively on maestro. Partly because we do not have the margin for a dealership, but more importantly that we are currently do not have a reliable way to receive payment from overseas. PayPal. PayPal is the only, you know, payment, currently out of the government.

01;28;13;19 - 01;28;23;25
Minh
You know, the hand. But that kind of stay and we do not have a place but, from out of the country, those, you know. Yeah.

01;28;23;28 - 01;28;31;05
Roo
Those are situation at hand. Yeah. But can can change in time though. And hopefully they will hopefully things will improve.

01;28;31;05 - 01;28;49;25
Minh
I hope that they will come to that sense. And you know let the small guy know a chance to to grow to yes. Want to, you know a bigger player have all the fun. But. Well how do you get big player. You don't let the you know small guy grows right.

01;28;49;27 - 01;29;09;29
Roo
You have to be there. Absolutely. Yeah I okay I appreciate that. It's not serious. I think that's important to share with people because so many times you see a price increase for any reason and you never get an answer. It's just that's what it is now, you know, that's that's what.

01;29;09;29 - 01;29;14;27
Minh
We we do not want. We do not want that, value, openness.

01;29;15;00 - 01;29;15;29
Roo
Clearly.

01;29;16;02 - 01;29;17;22
Minh
Built, built around openness.

01;29;17;22 - 01;29;18;10
Roo
Yes.

01;29;18;13 - 01;29;43;20
Minh
And, if I have a price high, I want to explain and not just explain. That is what happening. Yes, it is for, you know, the price high it is for complying. So I think I will have kind absolutely fit batch finish. So we have people with him some more time to grab the AC out of the tree at the price that they want.

01;29;43;22 - 01;30;05;04
Minh
And then from batch onward we will have them I price. So try to keep it that minimal as possible. We are. We have about 10% more, tax related problem to compliance that we have about 10% of price hiking. And I hope that will be for, you know, for the foreseeable future for good.

01;30;05;06 - 01;30;17;08
Roo
Well, I'll certainly hope that things, get better in that regard for you. And as an American, I can tell you that I understand what it's like to have, crazy situation that.

01;30;17;08 - 01;30;21;02
Minh
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah, I mean.

01;30;21;04 - 01;30;28;28
Roo
Oh, Letty. But I mean, thank you so much. I really enjoyed talking with you today. Please.

01;30;29;00 - 01;30;29;13
Minh
Likewise.

01;30;29;15 - 01;30;34;10
Roo
Keep keep me keep in touch. And, we'll we'll talk more. Okay?

01;30;34;12 - 01;30;41;27
Minh
Okay. Okay. Absolutely. And, take care. And, and, please let me know when the show air. Oh, I will absolutely.

01;30;41;28 - 01;30;49;01
Roo
Yeah, I will, I will send the link. Absolutely. I will definitely do that. And, thanks for spending some time with me today. Okay.

01;30;49;03 - 01;30;51;00
Minh
Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

01;30;51;00 - 01;31;17;04
Roo
Thanks for being there. Which is huge thank you to me for coming on the show. From ML Astro. Of course, you can check them out at ML astro.com. I'll obviously have a link in the show notes as well. And like I say, guys, if you have any questions, that arise from the interview about the, Sal model mounts that you would like to have answered or spectra helio graphs, because they do make a very nice one as well.

01;31;17;07 - 01;31;33;12
Roo
Please feel free to shoot me an email. You can send it to ru at the Astro cast.com, and I will be sure to, speak at mean about it once I get a list of questions together. I'll email him about them and and see if we can get answers. Or maybe we'll just hop on a call and see if we can do that as well.

01;31;33;12 - 01;32;01;02
Roo
I will tell you, planning to chat with someone in Vietnam is very interesting because I believe it was like 8:00 at night, or I was in 8 a.m. the next day where he was. So it's, it's definitely interesting, speaking to somebody on the other side of the world. So I just want to say another really, really big thank you to me for coming on the show and speaking with me.

01;32;01;02 - 01;32;27;24
Roo
It means so much. It's really cool that I'm starting to get the ability to, you know, speak with people, in the industry who are, you know, making big moves and hopefully creating genuine competition, for the big groups that are out there. Because obviously, I own a lot of zwo gear. That company has probably gotten more money than any other astronomy company, out there from myself.

01;32;27;24 - 01;32;49;14
Roo
And I'm sure many of you as well. But competition is a great thing in this industry, and the more that there is, the better the community will do. So thank you for what you're doing. Mean it? It's, it's huge. It's going to make a huge difference. And you're you're going to have to figure out how to get more production lines going soon, man.

01;32;49;14 - 01;33;03;09
Roo
Because I can tell you with what you're doing, it's going to take off. So thanks so much for tuning in to the Astro cast this week. I am your host, Reuben, and as always, clear skies.

01;33;03;12 - 01;33;08;12
Speaker 4
Wednesday evening the feed goes live.

01;33;08;15 - 01;33;09;16
Minh
Rue's voice cuts.

01;33;09;16 - 01;33;22;28
Speaker 4
Through the dark like a 135 from backyards goes to mountain peaks. We're all tuned in. No time to sleep. Red dot finders coma correctors. Gagne breaks it down like a simple never.

01;33;22;28 - 01;33;39;29
Unknown
Pain can match rising planets in the frame. Every week we chase the sky by name. Pixels glowing hearts of lions. Thousands of miles. One state of mind.

01;33;40;02 - 01;33;41;23
Speaker 4
This is the Astro cash.

01;33;41;27 - 01;34;07;28
Unknown
Where the dark brings us to the light. Before I tell you, Kayla is wide awake under the same sky. Just hoping it never quiet grows on the mike. The whole world's invited. This is the Astro Cash. Yeah, this is the Astro. Can I say?

01;34;08;01 - 01;34;33;02
Unknown
I know someone in Texas. Just snap the heart. Set a guy in Chicago stacking flats till dawn. Belgium sharing deep sky drums while Switzerland soaring train the roar of bombs. Beginners asking which way is north? Old timers dropping wisdom back and forth through life. You'll get it. Just wait and see. Welcome to the family 24 seven the channels never sleep together.

01;34;33;02 - 01;35;04;15
Unknown
Building showcase. Blowing up the feed meme. The 3 a.m. coffee at noon. Someone's livestreaming the rising moon where different flags, same obsession. So what I be the dark sky. Samsung's. This is the astro gas where the dark brings us to the light from the ceiling to the Canadian. I is wide awake under the same sky. No borders in the fold on fire crews on the mic.

01;35;04;15 - 01;35;40;08
Unknown
The whole world united. This is the Astro guys. Yeah, this is the Astro Castle. Here's the room to the crew to the glow of dance party. Where the wild stars glow. Wherever you are, whatever you shoot. You're never alone. Under the cosmic roof. Turn it off now. Let the neighbors come play. It's Wednesday. Yeah. There's a guest on the way.

01;35;40;11 - 01;35;50;16
Unknown
Here. Skies full hearts. See you destroy the Astro cash. Never fade.