I get questions about who I am somewhat regularly, so perhaps it’s time to give a bit of an explanation of where my experience and knowledge has come from…
I was always interested in technical things. About grade 4 I took apart a record player and received my first full 240v electric shock, to this day I still think it was my biggest zap! My first soldering iron burn was also in my childhood, I still have the scar, obviously I was hooked.
Still in primary school, I was gifted a “200 In One Electronics Kit” from Tandy Electronics, and I made nearly every project in that book, and more. I also did upgrades and modifications, adding other connectors and components to it. I don’t recall what happened to it, but I know there were quite a few components that were no longer working (after all, we don’t learn by staying within the limits).
In high school I had an electronics class, I’d spend lunch times in that room building my own things. One of my teachers had me build him an inverter for his 4WD. That was fun, it worked well, I even wound the transformer myself (less fun). The teacher would regularly divert other students’ questions to me, so that was my first experience at needing to provide responsible and correct advice. I even led a team of students in building a solar car of sorts.
A couple of years later, I was a regular shopper at Tandy Electronics (which is now long gone). They knew me by name and eventually I offered to fix their car stereo display that was often not working. Because I was still a kid, they couldn’t pay me, but they gave me batteries instead. A year or so later I did my “school work experience” there, and shortly after that I was working there as a casual employee. I worked at a few different stores over 3 years, even running a store for a while during the managers leave.
I moved on from Tandy and went to work for Jaycar Electronics, way back when there were just 3 stores in Melbourne, and everyone there had a keen interest in electronics. I was there for about 3 years as assistant manager. Eventually I got frustrated at the new rules preventing us from providing any technical advice to customers.
While I was there, I regularly saw people having problems with the kits we sold, and I also developed an interest in big car audio. So my own little business was started, helping people build and repair kits that were not working properly. I managed to get a few clients of my own, building some quirky little things like seatbelt reminder alarms for cars (which are or course now standard in all cars), and some automatic battery discharger/chargers.
Once again I moved on from there and went to work for a repairer and distributor of Hitachi products and spare parts. This ended up being more of an administration role than anything else, and it provided much needed admin experience.
Now in my mid 20’s a change was needed, so I prepared to join the Army, for medical reasons this didn’t eventuate. I spent the next year or so doing some freelance work designing and building electronic items for a Homeopathist. I also worked in a production facility that made the instrument clusters for vehicles, vehicle air conditioner components, food processing machinery and some other mechanical workshop type tasks.
I went back to a technician role at a barcode reader manufacturer after that, but again the role edged towards more admin, and eventually sales. So after a couple of years that was no longer something that was enjoyable.
That was about the point where my movements changed. I went to work for a company that designed and manufactured environmental monitoring equipment. Such a diverse range of skills were needed there which was ideal for me, working with workshop machinery (I learned much of my lathe and machinery skills there). There was a lot of manufacturing with epoxy resins, strain gauges, seismographs, water level meters, turbidity and salinity sensors, and more. After 3 years I moved on.
I decided to go independent again. I got an ABN, a business name, and started contracting to some of the places I had made contacts with. I assembled some medical laser PCB’s, did some programming of temperature controllers, made product displays for HVAC equipment, and rebuilt an industrial plastic pipe welding machine with PLC controllers (just the electronics part). I also did a couple of years as a handyman, fun but hard work!
Eventually I ended up manufacturing some items from home for the BOM, and after a few years of being a supplier/contractor, I was working there full time. I moved from the Radar area to Solar Radiation. That interest has continued, and is very much obvious in my own hobbies. My last experiences there were in the field of backup power systems using LiFePO4, solar and wind power.
PowerPaul was conceived and built up during Covid 19, a lockdown project that grew exponentially by accident it seems. We went from sole trader to company in less than a year, and in 2023 we purchased a factory to provide us with appropriate working space. Being close to 50yo now, my appreciation for quality has increased and this is reflected in PowerPaul products. Producing the best we can and avoiding “good enough” is something we strive to achieve, and nothing less is acceptable. PowerPaul focuses on the product, and the marketing is taken care of by the mass of information and customer experiences.
