About Us (Archived Long Version)

NOTE: This is the archived original (slightly updated) old, long, extensive blabla About us page, I would recommend to just read the now much shorter version which you can find here 🙂

XNL Future Technologies and it’s platform is founded and hosted by Rico Reijenga (me). I’m an software and hardware developer located in The Netherlands. Over the years I have developed numerous custom solutions in regards to software and hardware, varying from small software utils or little ‘sensor boxes’, to large management systems, domotics (full home/building automation), custom solutions and projects and even robotics solutions. I’ve done all kinds of work from studio stuff, photo & filmography, woodwork, metal (mainly robotic, automation or enclosure related) and many other things which are literally miles apart from each other when it comes to ‘profession fields’.

A main ‘thread’ in almost any job or project has always been software and hardware development. “Inventing stuff” is something which I have been doing almost before I could even walk (figuratively speaking obviously 😉 )

My/Our Mission

In the past few years my interest has shifted more and more towards making and publishing my own products and projects while motivating and educating others (from ‘youngsters’ to adult) in electronics, software development, programming, 3D design and teaching them how to build, repair and recycle things.

With platforms like Arduino becoming more popular nearly everyday, the prices of such tool-sets having dropped significantly over the years, and these days it is also incredibly easy to order components over the Internet (and even ‘ultra cheap’ from China).

Of course it’s a good development (both business and educational wise) that such resources have become much more accessible for everyone. However what does however often disappoints me immensely, is that people build truly amazing projects including but not limited to: Windmills, Water power generators, solar energy systems, traffic sensors, security sensors, robotic projects, drones, RC boats, portable entertainment devices, IoT devices and more…..

Well is that a problem? No, that’s not the problem at all, however what I do consider a big problem/issue is that a large majority of those same people for example: just ‘shove’ an entire Arduino board, a Breadboard, and ‘hardware modules’ connected via that breadboard with ‘jump wires’, into something like a lunch-box.

They then either hot-glue or even ‘duct-tape’ it together and call it a finished project/product. The worst thing is that we have even seen big company’s in The Netherlands do this when delivering their prototype to their customers for testing cycles! (no we are not kidding on this! A former client of us had actually received an Arduino with a breadboard in a lunchbox as an commercial sensor solution prototype!).

But why do these projects & products ‘trigger’ me so much you might ask? Well very simple for several reasons actually. First of all it’s a waste or resources (an entire development board, breadboard etc), especially if you’re planning to use something like that for a longer period (and not just a few days test). Secondly, ‘products’ like that are not ‘stable’ and do not properly reflect the end solution in regards to stability, sensor readings etc. Jumpwires and (solderless) breadboards (often) work great during design, development or initial testing of the project or product. However those are NOT a stable and reliable solution, especially not for long-term use.

So I’m not ‘allowed’ to build ‘lunch-box Projects’ anymore?
Oh of course you are! Don’t hold back, experiment and learn from them. Plus we all know that it can be quite difficult to make a decent and professional looking enclosure for your project(s). And while you’re still testing and developing it’s not a problem either that those projects are running from an development board like an Arduino and that you’re using a breadboard. However when you get to the point of calling it a finished project you should take something like a perf board and make a decent prototype of it. Using perfboards for the final project is not only more ‘professional’, it’s also much more stable and reliable. When you have for example used an Arduino Uno you can often take the microcontroller (the chip) out of the development board and solder it into your project directly (or with a socket). You can then just buy a new chip (without the need of buying an complete Arduino board again).

But I still don’t get it, why does this ‘practice’ trigger you so much? They are just experimenting!
Yes and no, because when looking at many of the project that people have made, they have put a lot of effort into the ‘external looks’ and finish of the project(s). They often (aside from the lunch-box projects) have made amazing looking constructions for drones, wind turbines, robots, RC Toys/Drones etc. So they spend a lot of time on the (less important) looks of the project while not spending enough time on the actual functional and technical aspects of the project(s) and product(s). And it might seem intimidating to make decent circuit boards (or even just a perf board), but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually not that difficult at all. And more importantly: Much more reliable and stable!

But it’s their own money they are wasting, it’s not like they are wasting ‘natural resources’ or so right?
Well yes they are, and yes they actually are also wasting resources. The production of an entire development board plus all the components that are used on it (resistors, capacitors, Voltage Regulators, Diodes, Transistors, crystal oscillators, LED’s, USB Connectors) have a bigger carbon footprint than just one single perf/proto board in general.

But when I’m putting the chip on my own circuit (perf) board I will also need those components right?
No, not at all. You will often only need a few of those components. Aside from that you might even want to choose to use an more efficient voltage regulator than the ones that are often used on those board (which also makes your project more energy efficient and thus lasts longer on the battery but also reducing it’s own (energy consumption) carbon footprint). Many projects for example also do not need or use the USB/Serial chip’s once they are completed. Thus making it obsolete when build into the project. And you might think that you might possibly need it in the future to update your project with new code (firmware), but this is not true either. You can easily take the chip out (especially if you have used an IC-Socket) and update it with the original development board. Or you can even include an ISP header into your design and simply upload the new code (firmware) directly to your board without the need of any USB/Serial communication chips.

So the main mission is to make people stop wasting development boards and breadboards?
Nope, it’s part of the entire ‘mission’. We also aim at learning people to actually re-use components from broken equipment to build their own projects with, to repair other broken devices, re-use the enclosures of broken devices etc. This will contribute to recycling but also in providing people (especially starters) to get more resources practically for free while actively recycling. We like to divide recycling into two category’s: Actively Recycling and Passively Recycling. Where we consider Actively Recycling as preparing old (broken or obsolete) devices to re-use their components for new projects, repairs or even products. Where as we consider passively recycling as ‘dumping’ the devices (or remaining materials) at an recycling company/plant. In many of our content we will also show people what components are directly suitable for active recycling and own re-use, but also how, why and where they should ‘passively’ recycle. When explaining the aspect we like to call passively recycling we will also explain how people can ‘pre-sort’ materials and deliver them to the correct company’s for recycling. A nice ‘bonus reward’ for participating in ‘passively recycling’ is that many recycling company’s will actually pay a fee when you are delivering materials like: PCB’s, Copper, Metals, (Lead)-Battery’s etc. Often this fee is even higher when you have already pre-sorted the materials yourself. Of course such fees and programs may vary per region or even country. Thus with this ‘mission’ we are also planning to show people how to re-use components but also how to properly recycle them.

So short summary would be: You want to make people stop wasting materials and want them to recycle more efficiently?
YES….. and no, that’s still not the ‘whole mission’. The whole mission in general is to learn people to build their own stuff, invent their own gadgets, prevent them from wasting precious resources, learn them to recycle more efficiently and also to learn them in a simplified way about electronics and software development. We will try to keep things as simple as possible, but from time to time the ‘skill level’ might be a bit higher, while on other topics we will try to keep it at an absolute beginner level. Our platform should be considered as an educational platform, blog, content provider and maker resource provider. From time to time we will also do ‘tear-downs’ to show (in a simplistic way) how equipment works, we will compare old technology with new technology and show what differences there are in regards to the hardware on the inside compared to the ‘old days’ and modern day technology. But we will also publish DIY projects, ‘building plans’, schematics and several other types of files and resources for you to use.

NOTE: There are some exceptions to the whole ‘wasting entire development boards’ ordeal. For example the Arduino MEGA2560 is often used in DIY 3D Printers or DIY CNC Machines, but these are definitely not ‘lunch-box-and-duct-tape’ projects! Those DIY systems often use decent headers (‘snap in connections’) which connect onto decently made ‘daughter boards’.

I’ve noticed that you switched from me to the we (plural) form throughout the text!
Yes, you’re correct here. I don’t do all this by myself, most of the content, projects, publications are done by me myself, however there are (will) also projects where I work together with my wife, best friend and other people whom belong the the XNL Future Technologies crew/staff. Depending on the project, publication or whatever, involvement of others (from our team) may vary. Next to this it is from time to time also possible you might see projects designed and published directly by one of the other team/”staff” members on our XNL Future Technologies platform. So this is the reason why you might (read: will) often see me/us switch between I, me, us, our etc. We will explain a bit more ‘in-depth’ a little bit further on this page 🙂

So you are basically trying to compete with other EE bloggers/vloggers like EEVBlog, BigClive, Great Scott etc?
Plain and simple: Hellll nooo, David L. Jones (the host of the EEVBlog and often referred to as ‘Dave Jones’ or just ‘Dave’) has done (and still is doing) an amazing job with his EEVBlog, the tear-downs, reviews and online classes/tutorials (Fundamentals Videos). Dave mostly goes into very extensive detail of ‘how stuff works’, his information is very extensive and also contains lots of deep (and interesting) technical details. His viewers (we assume) can range from enthusiastic beginners to expert engineers and that’s also how he targets his content. We absolutely love the EEVBlog and what Dave has accomplished with it over the years, however it’s not the same path we’re taking. And same goes for BigClive, which is also a very knowledgeable guy, makes amazing content, often tear-downs of everything you can imagine, often with a very unique humor and ‘hidden jokes’ in the content. Great Scott is both sharing his own projects and also making educative content, although some of it might be a bit too difficult for (absolute) beginners to understand, I do recommend to watch his video’s. They are very informative and interesting to watch, his content is top notch high quality. And then we have Electroboom, which is also a very knowledgeble professional in the field of electronics, often shows things go wrong in videos like he doesn’t know what he’s doing (or that he’s clumsy), this attracts quite a lot of viewers due to the way he presents it (which we think is quite clever actually 😉). And often when something “did go wrong” he will ‘whip out’ his whiteboard and smack all the extensive details on your screen, explaining in great detail how things work. His channel can just like some of the others be a bit difficult to understand at first when you’re just starting out, but like the others mentioned here, I do highly recommend to watch his videos to learn more about the “technical stuff” behind electronics (and sometimes even physics).

We are however aiming to target our content and publications mainly at the Novice (beginners) and Intermediate audience with some projects or publications a bit more towards the Advanced levels. This means that we will taking a much more simplistic approach to electronics and ‘starting engineers’, we assume that our audience has no prior education in either the field of electronics or software development. By doing so we will also try to keep our content much much simpler than the (amazing) engineering level of the other channels. We will for example often not discuss in-depth how to apply or calculate RF Filters, we will often not go into to much detail on how to calculate inductance or how to calculate the correct coils etc (IF you’ll need them in one of the projects we will just tell you which values you need and maybe explain in a bit simplistic why or how you need them. Same goes for thing like RF Shielding, calculating transformer windings, using Signal Generators, FPGA ‘Chips’, Reballing etc.

So you are literally leaving out a lot of information on purpose?
YES, indeed we are indeed doing that on purpose, the information we’re leaving out is information “you don’t need yet“. Of course it’s officially quite important to learn the fundamentals of things early on, however we have noticed that many people whom starting at these fields of electronics, software development and 3D Printing often get discouraged when it get ‘too complicated’ to quickly (because they then could feel overwhelmed). Therefor we want to keep it as simple as possible and meanwhile ‘sneak in’ educational information about the things we show and teach. We will be using and explaining tools like a Soldering Iron, Hot Air Guns, Multimeters, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers etc. But when we do, we are trying to keep the information about them as simple as possible so it’s easier to learn the basics, however we will also at the same time try to learn you a good balance between price vs quality when it comes to tools. So that when you buy something or invest in it, that it will actually last you a very long time. So that even if you advance quickly, you won’t waste your money on ‘garbage’ products which will become obsolete (to quickly). We might/will shift the ‘difficulty’ on/in content from time to time, depending on the subject, on if we already made quite some ‘basic’ video’s/content about it (and thus the viewers could advance with it) etc. The hardest part for me/us will be that I want to make the content in such a way that it will be informative for beginners while still being fun to follow along or watch for the more advanced users.

So everything will only be ‘simple’ and ‘basic’ with basic tutorials and howto’s on your channels?
No, not at all, we will try to keep things simple as possible, this does not mean we won’t discuss ‘intermediate or advanced topics’. From time to time we might actually do’ ‘higher level’ repairs, ‘hacks’/modifications, builds/projects etc, but in general we will try to keep it more simplistic. We will try to work as much as possible with widely available (and affordable) resources, components and modules. Modules like for example the Matrix – 3-Axis Digital Accelerometer or the ESP-01 – ESP8266 are much easier to use for novice and intermediate users than actually designing an compliant PCB for it.

So to sum up the ‘trying to compete with channels like the EEVBlog (or any of the others) part:
No we are in no way trying to compete with anyone, we would actually like to consider people like David Jones (EEVBlog), Louis Rossmann, Big Clive, GreatScott! and many of the others as our ‘community colleagues’ since our goals are all the same, and that is to entertain and educate you. And I would even recommend you to click on their links above and subscribe to all of them (obviously don’t forget to subscribe to my own channel while you’re doing so 😉).

Of course there are many other great content creators and platforms in the fields of Electronics, 3D designing, 3D Printing, programming etc. But listing and mentioning them all here would make up for a rather large page. So we have a dedicated section for that which you can find at the ‘Community Links‘ section under the ‘Partners & Links‘ menu.

Hacks? Modifications? So we’ll learn to hack and mod our [insert console name here]??
Ahh great.. so that’s all you’ve remembered from the last section huh 😉 ? No we will not be learning you to perform illegal hacks! With ‘hacks’ and modifications we mean that we will show you how to modify (old?) equipment for own personal use in your projects. Like for example how to find what which chip on a board does, if you can re-use it or for example even re-program it to do something else. Or another example (which we have often done in private projects): ‘Hacking’ old navigation devices running on Windows CE to expose their Serial Port(s) and (re-)use these (now obsolete) devices for different projects like for example controlling your robot project. This way of ‘hacking’ enables you to (re-)use lots of old (obsolete) devices in a way which gives them a complete new ‘life purpose’ instead of being scraped for parts or ending up at a recycling plant. Another example might be that we will show how to install (officially unsupported) firmware on older devices so you can still keep using them for yourself or to ‘resurrect’ them for use in projects. We for example have done this with Microsoft®Surface RT tablets (not in content/on video though): we’ve installed Windows® 10 ARM® on them so we can write applications ‘regular desktop applications’ for them and use them for our own building automation project. So these kinds of projects IF we publish them might be a bit of grey/sketchy area, but we will however NOT publish how and where to obtain these files (if they would be considered illegal downloads!), because that would go against our own values and be against the law.

People could argue something like “Yeah but my [insert old(er) console name here] doesn’t get any new games anymore so I want to ‘jailbreak’/’root’/’bootload’/’JTAG’ etc it, so I can keep using it!” Well that kind of stuff we will never ‘help along with’ in our content. For the very simple reason that there are always game-stores around somewhere which do sell games for your older console(s). And it might sound harsh, but if you would then argue something like “Yeah but I have a PSP® Go and it doesn’t take discs or memory cards, only online purchases which doesn’t work anymore!”, then I (Rico) will most-likely say something like: Well if you where ‘stupid enough’ to buy an gaming console (of which we all know often ‘turns outdated’ within 5 years or less these days!) which only supported online purchases, then it’s your own fault, I hope you’ve learned from it. We will just NOT make any content in regards to installing illegally obtained games and such.

We?, whom is this ‘we’

Well XNL Future Technologies is basically the name of my (/Rico’s) platform in it’s whole, this includes the content, posts, projects, downloads, software etc. But it’s not all done alone (anymore) as explained before. ‘Back in the day’ it was mainly a business which developed custom solutions which worked on (custom) software projects, (custom) hardware solution and even worked on games, 3D models, (game)animation and more of such. This was often done under several/different (business) names, just as personal name/contract and many other ways on a ‘per project basis’. This all now has been reduced to one ‘central hub’ and thus this “One Community”, which has become the XNL Future Technologies Community. We still have several partners which we worked with in the past, however we now tend to utilize their services to ‘serve the platform’ in a way which can benefit all community members/users.

So there is no ‘business business’ done anymore?
Well yes there still can be and will be, however this is more in ‘closed circles’ with non-disclosed partners and clients these days, and those ‘business things’ don’t have ANY connection with this platform or it’s affiliated sites, video’s, publications or whatsoever. The projects and ‘products’ displayed or offered through the XNL Future Technologies Platform(s) are all especially designed and developed to be projects and products for this community.

So there still is product/project development?
Yes, definitely, however most (not all) of these projects are intended to be ‘released into the public’ for others to work with, make, re-produce or build up-on. The acceptance of ‘non community related projects’ is very (I mean VERY) rare these days though. You are obviously still free to contact us with questions, a project proposal or requests, however do take into account that it can/will quite some time before you get an reply, and that IF your project/request gets accepted that we do give priority to our community over ‘external projects’. (We no longer accept new external commercial projects etc outside of the Community Platform or which could not be used for or to benefit the XNL Future Technologies platform)

But I/we’re still using [insert project/product name] which has been bought/contracted via you guys as [insert company/legal name here]
Don’t worry, support and such for those previously delivered projects will just proceed as usual, everyone whom it might concern should already have been notified about these change into this platform a long time ago. When a possible contract or such expires, we will however no longer extend it. We will (where applicable and possible) help you in finding an alternative solution to keep your project/product running. Basically none of the contracts which are not clearly XNL Future Technologies or XNL Future Technologies Community contracts will be extended when they reach their ‘expiration date’. Which in essence means that we are literally ‘phasing out’ all ‘older projects’ which are not related to this platform.

So why (still) use the company name XNL Future Technologies?
Well for several reasons actually. XNL original came from TeamXNL (a ‘computer nerd group’ and later also ‘gaming-community’) which back in the day meant Team eXtreme NetherLands, hence the Red, White and Blue in our logo(‘s) (as the Dutch national flag is also Red-White-Blue). The Future Technologies we still use today, does not only ‘represent’ the development of ‘futuristic’/Future Technologies we aim to develop to enhance, improve or simplify the future. It also ‘represents’ preserving the future bit by bit through our platform by learning people a ‘thing or two’ about recycling and the importance of recycling and how to contribute to it yourself. The other aspect of Future Technologies is directed at the knowledge and skills we are trying to pass on to future generations so they might be able to improve several technologies themselves in the distant future. All quite philosophical right? Last but not least, we’re also (re-)using this (already existing and established) name for recognizability and ‘branding’. Using this main platform name makes it easier to contact (component) suppliers, manufacturers and thus giving us broader options to work on new projects and products for our (open) community. And considering that being a content creator is truly a business (which is often heavily underestimated though), which can/will take up quite a lot of time, we decided to ‘keep at it’ like this 🙂

So XNL Future Technologies is just an ‘made-up’ name for this (community) platform and the content?
No, definitely not. The name is established as explained in the previous section but is also one of the (officially) registered trademarks (®) owned by Rico Reijenga registered at the chamber of commerce in The Netherlands, which includes (but not limited to): XNL Future Technologies, TeamXNL, XNL TV, XNL Studio’s, XNL Productions and a few others.

But why use www.teamxnl.com and not register something like XNLfutureTechnologies.com then?
Well we actually do own www.xnlfuturetechnologies.com, only we decided to not run it as a company from such an domain, but to fully focus on the community aspect of it, and thus we decided to redirect XNLFutureTechnologies.com to Team-XNL.nl and run it as a crew/Team to be an educational, informative and inspiring platform for all kinds of makers and tinkerers.

Why don’t you guys (and gals) show your faces or do ‘talking face’ video’s/content that often?
Well why would we? It’s not about us or about ‘fame’ or ‘becoming an known influencer‘ for us. It’s about the content, the projects and showing you what we are doing. We don’t feel the explicit need to ‘show off’ faces or personality’s when it’s not needed. This however does not mean we will never show faces or so, we just do where it’s needed or appropriate for the content itself. If we for example might do an interview or some sort of company/factory tour it would be logical to show whom is performing the interview or tour. And nope it’s not like we are ‘afraid of the camera’ haha. It’s just like we stated here: We don’t care about ‘personal fame’ with the content on this platform, this platform is all about the viewer(s) and the the people actually gaining knowledge from it. And when we want to make content ‘multilingual’ (English and Dutch), it looks much better when it has a (Dutch) ‘voice-over’ when the mouth(s) for example don’t ‘look out of sync’ 😉 For this same reason we might also decide to use face masks (logo printed masks as ‘left over’ from the pandemic), so that it will be easier to do ‘multi language video voice overs’ 🙂

Why is it that I (often) spot spelling or grammar errors on publications or documentation?
Well that’s simple: Because most of it is written by me, and I’m as Dyslectic as possible! 😉 I/we often try to proofread and use spell checkers as much as possible, but that doesn’t always work out that well when it’s not your native language. And aside from that it’s not about small grammar perfection here, it’s about what and if you can learn from the content and publications. And as far as we can tell it’s not to difficult to understand what is said/written. We suspect that they have installed a faulty dictionary in the Rico version that has been shipped to us. Unfortunately we don’t have the receipt anymore for an replacement version with newer firmware, so that’s unfortunately just one of the “bugs” in our version which we can’t fix, Sorry. 😉
More about this can be read in our Dyslexia Disclaimer.

Isn’t this basically part of a YouTube channel with a bunch of editors, content creators and more ‘hidden behind the scenes’?
No I/we don’t have a bunch of editors, content creators and a ‘massive film crew’ or anything like that. Most of the content is written, prepared, filmed, voiced, edited, published and maintained by just one person: Me/Rico. And same goes for lots of the projects, products etc.

I do still mention ‘we’ simply due to the fact that there are moments where my wife, friends and some of the XNL Future Technologies Crew help out here and there. This could be with all kind of things like brainstorming about a project, (beta-)testing something, solving some mathematical issues, doing some (project/product) ‘field testing’, providing additional data or even just something simple as giving feedback on an idea. This isn’t ‘the mainstream process’, but I do want to give credit where credit is due. Because even just a simple thing like supporting me in doing what I love and just listening to me every now and then rambling about my projects also helps out greatly.

The XNL Future Technologies Crew/Staff mainly works on projects, products ‘and stuff’ which has nothing to do with my platform or the related channels, next to this they also help me here and there to ‘keep an eye’ on things like the platform, keeping me ‘on-track’ (where possible) and things like that.

If this is part of a YouTube channel? YouTube is a part of what I’m doing and publishing on here, and vice-versa. What I care about more is creating great, awesome, interesting and educational content (not just talking about video’s here), boards, projects/products, (3D) Models, Software and more. And then YouTube definitely is a great way to get (more) exposure.

Why content topics might from time to time shift completely

I have a very broad range of interest including (but not limited to): Music (Guitar, Bass etc), Remote Controlled Stuff (Cars, Drones, Helicopters, Planes and sometimes boats), 3D Printing (from functional to self designed artwork), Programming (from desktop to games, to automation and robotics), robotics, gaming (mainly development of though), 3D Modeling (game related, product design/CAD), Model/Miniature stuff, doing (designing) educational projects and much much more. And due to this you might from time to time (in my posts, content etc) also notice a ‘stronger interest’ for one of these topics 🙂 .

Next to this I also have severe ADHD (officially diagnosed and (unfortunately) not just the “ow I’m annoyingly hyperactive and attention seeking because I have ADHD hype type”). The ‘annoyingly hyperactive’ part has (luckily) gotten much less noticeable (read: annoying) when I got older, however for ‘people around me’ that is. ‘Inside my head’ it’s often still chaos, distractions everywhere and thus lots of concentration issues. Due to hyperfocus (along with my ADHD) I can sometimes ‘go all in’ with something like designing a project or learning ‘everything’ about a topic which I find interesting. Now you might think: “Euhm, concentration issues… but you also said hyperfocus??” Well a problem which I often have with these concentration issues and the hyperfocus is that I’m working on a certain chip for example to drive LED’s, then I’m doing some research on this chip and I discover it can also drive ‘full graphical LCD’s’. Then I suddenly find this topic (this chip and the LCD’s) much more interesting, and my hyperfocus will then shift so much to this part, that I will learn ‘everything possible’ on this topic for the next two weeks and then totally ‘forget’ about the project i was actually doing research for.

Of course this could be considered ‘great’ if you want to learn many (different) things quickly, but it also often means that your ‘to-do projects’ and ‘backlog’ pile up very fast. Another problem on having too much hyperfocus (for too long) on one single project/topic is that I might actually lose interest in it because it starts to feel like I’m ‘stuck on a topic which has (for now) nothing new to offer’.

And then I will just (have to) switch projects or topics a while, this however doesn’t mean that I have ‘abandoned’ a different/other topic or project for example. It just means that the ‘previous project/topic’ has most likely ‘shifted down’ a gear, and that this topic will be more prominent again later on.

I just like to enjoy things (and life) as much as possible, and in my personal opinion that is not something which I can do when I would “just stare blindly” on one topic (to use a common Dutch expression). By doing multiple topics (and shifting the interest back and forth from time to time) I’m just ‘keeping the spark’ alive 🙂

Why the ‘big corporate look’ on the website?

Well very simply put: I just like the ‘big fancy look’, and in my opinion it’s not only the big $$$ company’s whom are/should be entitled to ‘large corporate like looking websites’. And considering I do have the development capabilities of making something exactly as I want it, I decided to go for the “go big or go home” route 😉

Why am I using a ‘webstore’ for my projects, products and downloads?

I’ve setup this custom webshop/store system so that it would be much easier for me to publish projects, products and anything related to platform content. With this custom-build system it’s very easy for me to publish content (projects, products and more) in different or linked (grouped) categories, it’s a lot easier to maintain each project individually, keep track of visitor/user interest in certain projects, it’s easier to keep users up-to-date about information regarding the projects etc etc.

So I’m just using this custom shop system as a centralized hub to keep it easier to manage for myself and to ensure that users/visitors can much faster find what they are looking fore (AND all the related information). And due to this (because lots of sections are fully automated), I/we can focus much more of our time to actually make content, develop new projects and publishing content, instead of constantly having to update ‘mundane stuff’ manually on all kinds of pages 🙂

Why most of the platform is in English

A small word on why most of the platform is in English. You might ‘here and there’ find some projects, products or documentation which might also be available in Dutch, however most of the platform is in English. Considering that people already need to use/know English when working with or on topics like electronics or programming for example, we decided to just keep English the main language on our platform.

Thank You

Thank you for your time and interest so far, and we hope that you have a better vision on our mission and goals now. For now, welcome to our (new) platform and we hope you’ll enjoy yourself on it 🙂


P.S: Ow and for those wondering and whom might have ‘caught-on’: Yes the ‘banner’ at top (Passion has LED us here) is an intentional pun to LED’s 😛

Last Updated: 30-09-2024