{"video_id":"nLgXeIaK0U0","title":"A Totally Unbiased Review - LTT Northern Lights Desk Pad","channel":"Linus Tech Tips","show":"Linus Tech Tips","published_at":"2022-05-05T14:53:29Z","duration_s":663,"segments":[{"start_s":0.0,"end_s":6.879,"text":"the eagle-eyed among you have probably seen this LTT mousepad many times over","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":5.839,"end_s":13.04,"text":"the last oh i don't know six months","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":10.0,"end_s":15.12,"text":"six months that's cute past Linus","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":13.04,"end_s":19.6,"text":"we tried to launch this video eight months ago when we got our first","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":16.72,"end_s":24.08,"text":"shipment of desk pads but you you guys bought them all then we tried to launch","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":21.439,"end_s":28.4,"text":"the video again three months later and you bought them all again we have loved","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":26.8,"end_s":34.079,"text":"all of your feedback on the mousepads you guys can actually check out some reviews on the store page and finally we","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":31.76,"end_s":37.12,"text":"have our biggest restock yet but i can't promise you that they will last long","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":36.16,"end_s":42.559,"text":"anyway back to you past Linus what you haven't","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":39.6,"end_s":47.76,"text":"seen is the absolutely painful amount of r d that went into our attempt at making","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":44.879,"end_s":51.6,"text":"the best mouse pad we possibly could we didn't actually intend to make a video","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":49.76,"end_s":56.0,"text":"about this experience but we ended up learning so much that i felt that we had","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":54.48,"end_s":60.64,"text":"to share it with you here's how it went down","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":58.48,"end_s":64.239,"text":"this video is brought to you by ubico the ub key from ubico is a cost","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":62.559,"end_s":68.159,"text":"effective and easy to use two-factor authentication solution learn more about","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":66.08,"end_s":71.159,"text":"how to get 10 off yours at the link down below","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":78.32,"end_s":85.36,"text":"feast your eyes on LTT's first peripheral well sort of it doesn't look","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":83.52,"end_s":90.799,"text":"like it should have taken 15 months but the truth is we had no idea how much was","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":88.479,"end_s":94.56,"text":"involved in doing something like this right i thought it was going to be as","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":92.64,"end_s":98.88,"text":"simple as ask one of our lovely designers lloyd in this case to create","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":96.96,"end_s":104.079,"text":"some options for artwork get nick to contact some overseas vendors to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":100.96,"end_s":105.6,"text":"requisition samples evaluate the samples","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":104.079,"end_s":110.399,"text":"and you know the communication of the suppliers and bippity boppity we print","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":108.159,"end_s":115.2,"text":"them well for starters about half of the requests for samples we sent out never","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":112.32,"end_s":120.0,"text":"even got a response their loss i guess and out of the many that we received a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":117.68,"end_s":124.479,"text":"couple of weeks later only four of them weren't obviously garbage even out of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":122.719,"end_s":128.479,"text":"those four none of them were perfect which was a big wake-up call for us","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":126.56,"end_s":133.599,"text":"there's varying materials print qualities and of course costs and as","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":131.36,"end_s":138.56,"text":"part of this process we also bought a whack of competing mouse pads for","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":135.36,"end_s":141.12,"text":"comparison but how do you compare","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":138.56,"end_s":147.28,"text":"if you have no data well aesthetic appeal and overall feel are easy but","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":145.2,"end_s":152.239,"text":"those aren't definitive rankings we wanted to actually quantify the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":149.52,"end_s":157.2,"text":"performance of each sample pad so we needed data we challenged the jank","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":154.879,"end_s":161.44,"text":"master supreme alex to rig something up in the workshop and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":159.28,"end_s":164.56,"text":"well i'll let him speak for himself this is the basic plan for our testing","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":163.44,"end_s":168.16,"text":"here you know just toss down a mouse pad","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":166.56,"end_s":172.959,"text":"and then we're going to use the little cnc rotor here to like wrap it around in","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":171.28,"end_s":178.0,"text":"a bunch of different ways to be able to precisely track","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":175.68,"end_s":181.04,"text":"how much the mouse is moving and then you know switch out the mouse pad throw","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":179.44,"end_s":186.56,"text":"another one in and it'll do its circles or whatever again","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":183.599,"end_s":189.92,"text":"only problem is i some have to attach this mouse","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":188.0,"end_s":193.76,"text":"to the router and i'm not entirely sure how to do it one","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":191.92,"end_s":196.959,"text":"of the problems is that you know if this goes up and down","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":195.28,"end_s":201.92,"text":"i don't know exactly how much force there is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":198.56,"end_s":204.879,"text":"but i think it's uh","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":201.92,"end_s":210.48,"text":"like 960 newton meters which is it's way too much for a mouse","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":208.4,"end_s":214.0,"text":"to handle for sure you know before we do this i'm going to put on some safety","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":211.76,"end_s":217.36,"text":"glasses just in case something to be clear","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":215.28,"end_s":222.0,"text":"the scroll wheel on this mouse actually is broken so if we blow it up it's not","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":220.4,"end_s":228.799,"text":"the end of the world but you know we still don't want to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":225.2,"end_s":228.799,"text":"that said let's give her","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":238.159,"end_s":244.959,"text":"seems to be working because we know that our cnc router's movement is","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":242.319,"end_s":249.36,"text":"sufficiently accurate and repeatable we tested it and we mostly trust the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":247.439,"end_s":253.519,"text":"engineers at logitech who designed their hero sensor we can assume that on a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":251.68,"end_s":258.56,"text":"mouse pad with perfect tracking characteristics the input path should","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":256.16,"end_s":262.96,"text":"match the output plot of our mouse's movement within experimental margin of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":260.32,"end_s":268.08,"text":"error so the idea here is we tell the router to draw a perfect circle over and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":265.84,"end_s":271.759,"text":"over again and we expect to see basically one circle in the software at","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":270.479,"end_s":277.12,"text":"the end we expect unfortunately the data was","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":275.199,"end_s":281.12,"text":"all over the place which is why we were moments from placing our bulk order only","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":279.44,"end_s":286.32,"text":"to end up delaying this product for another six months at the time we","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":284.08,"end_s":291.36,"text":"weren't sure what was to blame we had some theories that maybe our pressure on","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":288.32,"end_s":294.0,"text":"the mouse was too high or too low or our","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":291.36,"end_s":298.16,"text":"dpi settings were bad and that is something we ultimately had to fine-tune","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":296.08,"end_s":302.8,"text":"but what ultimately ended up solving the problem was a stiffer mount for the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":300.4,"end_s":308.639,"text":"mouse how did we know that our testing rig was bad ah i'm glad you asked","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":306.08,"end_s":312.96,"text":"truthfully until fnatic contacted us claiming to have made the world's most","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":310.639,"end_s":316.8,"text":"accurate mouse pad i hadn't even given it a lot of thought i mean","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":314.8,"end_s":322.479,"text":"yeah isn't it the mouse that determines how well it tracks well sort of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":319.68,"end_s":326.88,"text":"here's the thing an optical mouse works essentially by taking pictures","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":324.8,"end_s":330.24,"text":"many times per second of the surface that it's moving over","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":328.32,"end_s":335.28,"text":"some fancy math happens and it determines how far it's moved and in","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":332.4,"end_s":338.88,"text":"which direction by comparing the images which is great as long as the mouse","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":337.28,"end_s":342.96,"text":"exists in a world where the surface is perfect the pictures are perfect and all","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":340.96,"end_s":346.4,"text":"bodies are completely rigid but they're not","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":344.32,"end_s":350.96,"text":"so credit to fanatic they really did make a great mouse pad and studying it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":348.88,"end_s":354.479,"text":"has taught us a lot about how to make ours better","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":352.72,"end_s":358.96,"text":"one thing we figured out even before using theirs as a point of comparison","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":356.4,"end_s":362.8,"text":"was that using a stretchy material could affect the tracking of the mouse","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":360.96,"end_s":368.479,"text":"think about it take this pad for instance it stretches in one direction","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":365.759,"end_s":373.759,"text":"but not in the other direction so when you move this way it kind of","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":371.52,"end_s":377.199,"text":"forms a bow wave ripple if you press hard enough into the pad","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":375.52,"end_s":381.6,"text":"not that you would do that but it's interesting nonetheless","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":379.28,"end_s":386.08,"text":"and while we're at it what if the bottom surface of the pad doesn't grip the desk","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":383.84,"end_s":391.44,"text":"properly i mean that's a ridiculous example we're looking at here but on a","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":388.08,"end_s":394.319,"text":"smaller scale that is a real factor","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":391.44,"end_s":399.199,"text":"armed then with our stiffer mount and a mouse pad that the manufacturer claims","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":396.88,"end_s":403.6,"text":"can produce this perfectly consistent performance we set to work trying to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":401.52,"end_s":408.56,"text":"replicate their results from this point on creator warehouse's very own engineer","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":406.0,"end_s":412.72,"text":"kyle took the reins and in short order built us a new test rig using our prusa","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":410.88,"end_s":416.479,"text":"print farm for all the custom bits aluminum extrusion for the structure and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":414.639,"end_s":420.88,"text":"a bunch of 3d printer hardware for the electronics it's pretty bare bones as","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":418.4,"end_s":425.039,"text":"far as a cnc machine goes it uses a ramps board for the electronics","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":422.639,"end_s":428.639,"text":"essentially an arduino mega some cheap nema 17 size stepper motors and gt2","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":427.68,"end_s":432.72,"text":"belts we couldn't know until it was built if","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":430.88,"end_s":437.28,"text":"it would be rigid enough for our testing but the name of the game here is if","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":434.639,"end_s":440.16,"text":"you're going to fail do it fast and do it cheap","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":438.24,"end_s":443.84,"text":"and conveniently once it was equipped with a new mouse holder that kyle","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":441.84,"end_s":449.12,"text":"reverse engineered from fnatic's picture of their test rig it did end up doing","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":446.4,"end_s":454.319,"text":"the trick it's not perfect perfect but given that logitech only guarantees 98","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":452.0,"end_s":459.84,"text":"accuracy for the hero sensor this test data from fanatics pad looks about right","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":458.16,"end_s":464.16,"text":"for our test the carriage moves the mouse around in a perfect circle 26","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":462.479,"end_s":468.56,"text":"times while we run a super simple pointer plotter on a laptop connected to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":466.0,"end_s":473.52,"text":"the mouse which sorry in spite of this being a g305 is still a gpro wireless","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":471.68,"end_s":477.28,"text":"running the test this way tells us two things one","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":475.28,"end_s":481.84,"text":"if fnatic's test can be repeated by a third party which for all intents and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":479.28,"end_s":484.879,"text":"purposes it can it's a great mouse pad and two","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":483.039,"end_s":488.879,"text":"whether or not we can match or beat their performance","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":486.479,"end_s":493.52,"text":"let's talk about that now in our attempt we sourced two new versions of the LTT","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":491.199,"end_s":497.759,"text":"pad from the same supplier now at the time we were mostly focused on the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":495.44,"end_s":502.479,"text":"stretchiness of the material so we asked for one with two-way rather than one-way","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":500.4,"end_s":506.16,"text":"stretch so at least we'd have consistency to it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":504.08,"end_s":511.12,"text":"and we also asked for one with no stretch and as it turns out","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":508.56,"end_s":515.44,"text":"funny story the first sample we had with the one-way stretch was actually far and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":513.519,"end_s":519.68,"text":"away the most consistent when it came to tracking even better than the no stretch","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":518.0,"end_s":522.24,"text":"sample that our supplier couldn't even do full color printing on so it wouldn't","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":521.279,"end_s":526.24,"text":"even like look all cool we're still not quite on","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":524.56,"end_s":532.08,"text":"par with the data and fanatics marketing materials and i do still think that we","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":528.64,"end_s":534.64,"text":"might see an LTT pad pro in another year","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":532.08,"end_s":538.32,"text":"that manages to be absolutely perfect but","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":535.44,"end_s":542.8,"text":"we are close enough that anyone but the most professional of gamers is not going","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":540.72,"end_s":547.44,"text":"to notice the difference so all that was left at this point was to adapt our","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":544.64,"end_s":551.519,"text":"design for the 15 different sizes","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":549.2,"end_s":555.279,"text":"finalize the thickness we settled on three and a half millimeter by the way","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":552.959,"end_s":560.08,"text":"which i feel is a great balance between soft comfort and performance","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":557.6,"end_s":563.279,"text":"and await our final samples so","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":560.959,"end_s":566.959,"text":"this is it the LTT mouse pad","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":565.76,"end_s":573.68,"text":"take it in yeah it doesn't smell that good i cannot say how proud i am of our team","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":571.2,"end_s":577.839,"text":"for getting this done even for something as simple as a mousepad so many hands","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":576.0,"end_s":583.44,"text":"are involved in getting you guys the best possible swag and i hope that you","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":580.88,"end_s":586.88,"text":"enjoyed this long awaited piece of kit and you can see the whole lineup in our","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":585.44,"end_s":591.44,"text":"shameless promotion ShortCircuit unboxing video over on our other channel","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":589.839,"end_s":595.12,"text":"big thanks to ubico for sponsoring today's video ubico wants to make the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":593.279,"end_s":599.279,"text":"internet safer for everyone so they created the yubi key it's a physical","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":597.519,"end_s":602.72,"text":"two-factor authentication key that helps you secure your online accounts it","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":601.04,"end_s":607.76,"text":"doesn't require batteries or a mobile connection and it's both crush and ip68","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":605.519,"end_s":611.76,"text":"water resistant it works out of the box with hundreds of popular business and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":609.2,"end_s":616.079,"text":"personal apps like gmail twitter cryptocurrency exchanges and password","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":613.6,"end_s":619.76,"text":"managers and ub keys are super portable and work across tons of devices and","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":617.76,"end_s":624.0,"text":"operating systems like iOS Android Windows and mac it's time to take","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":622.0,"end_s":628.88,"text":"security seriously then so go beyond basic authentication and get 10 off your","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":626.399,"end_s":633.44,"text":"ubiq 5 series today by going to the link in the video description and using code","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":630.8,"end_s":637.76,"text":"Linus 10. all right video's over smash that link in the description and get one","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":635.12,"end_s":642.0,"text":"for yourself before they all sell out oh something to note by the way there","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":639.44,"end_s":646.16,"text":"are no limit switches to protect the cnc machine from traveling too far and once","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":644.32,"end_s":649.44,"text":"it powers on it has no idea where in space it is because it has no way to","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":647.76,"end_s":653.04,"text":"reference a home position so if you decide to use the files linked in the","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":651.44,"end_s":658.079,"text":"video description to make one for yourself just make sure you're a diligent","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":656.24,"end_s":664.76,"text":"operator because otherwise it could ruin itself pretty quickly but that won't","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0},{"start_s":660.16,"end_s":664.76,"text":"happen to you you're a diligent operator","speaker":null,"is_sponsor":0}],"full_text":"the eagle-eyed among you have probably seen this LTT mousepad many times over the last oh i don't know six months six months that's cute past Linus we tried to launch this video eight months ago when we got our first shipment of desk pads but you you guys bought them all then we tried to launch the video again three months later and you bought them all again we have loved all of your feedback on the mousepads you guys can actually check out some reviews on the store page and finally we have our biggest restock yet but i can't promise you that they will last long anyway back to you past Linus what you haven't seen is the absolutely painful amount of r d that went into our attempt at making the best mouse pad we possibly could we didn't actually intend to make a video about this experience but we ended up learning so much that i felt that we had to share it with you here's how it went down this video is brought to you by ubico the ub key from ubico is a cost effective and easy to use two-factor authentication solution learn more about how to get 10 off yours at the link down below feast your eyes on LTT's first peripheral well sort of it doesn't look like it should have taken 15 months but the truth is we had no idea how much was involved in doing something like this right i thought it was going to be as simple as ask one of our lovely designers lloyd in this case to create some options for artwork get nick to contact some overseas vendors to requisition samples evaluate the samples and you know the communication of the suppliers and bippity boppity we print them well for starters about half of the requests for samples we sent out never even got a response their loss i guess and out of the many that we received a couple of weeks later only four of them weren't obviously garbage even out of those four none of them were perfect which was a big wake-up call for us there's varying materials print qualities and of course costs and as part of this process we also bought a whack of competing mouse pads for comparison but how do you compare if you have no data well aesthetic appeal and overall feel are easy but those aren't definitive rankings we wanted to actually quantify the performance of each sample pad so we needed data we challenged the jank master supreme alex to rig something up in the workshop and well i'll let him speak for himself this is the basic plan for our testing here you know just toss down a mouse pad and then we're going to use the little cnc rotor here to like wrap it around in a bunch of different ways to be able to precisely track how much the mouse is moving and then you know switch out the mouse pad throw another one in and it'll do its circles or whatever again only problem is i some have to attach this mouse to the router and i'm not entirely sure how to do it one of the problems is that you know if this goes up and down i don't know exactly how much force there is but i think it's uh like 960 newton meters which is it's way too much for a mouse to handle for sure you know before we do this i'm going to put on some safety glasses just in case something to be clear the scroll wheel on this mouse actually is broken so if we blow it up it's not the end of the world but you know we still don't want to that said let's give her seems to be working because we know that our cnc router's movement is sufficiently accurate and repeatable we tested it and we mostly trust the engineers at logitech who designed their hero sensor we can assume that on a mouse pad with perfect tracking characteristics the input path should match the output plot of our mouse's movement within experimental margin of error so the idea here is we tell the router to draw a perfect circle over and over again and we expect to see basically one circle in the software at the end we expect unfortunately the data was all over the place which is why we were moments from placing our bulk order only to end up delaying this product for another six months at the time we weren't sure what was to blame we had some theories that maybe our pressure on the mouse was too high or too low or our dpi settings were bad and that is something we ultimately had to fine-tune but what ultimately ended up solving the problem was a stiffer mount for the mouse how did we know that our testing rig was bad ah i'm glad you asked truthfully until fnatic contacted us claiming to have made the world's most accurate mouse pad i hadn't even given it a lot of thought i mean yeah isn't it the mouse that determines how well it tracks well sort of here's the thing an optical mouse works essentially by taking pictures many times per second of the surface that it's moving over some fancy math happens and it determines how far it's moved and in which direction by comparing the images which is great as long as the mouse exists in a world where the surface is perfect the pictures are perfect and all bodies are completely rigid but they're not so credit to fanatic they really did make a great mouse pad and studying it has taught us a lot about how to make ours better one thing we figured out even before using theirs as a point of comparison was that using a stretchy material could affect the tracking of the mouse think about it take this pad for instance it stretches in one direction but not in the other direction so when you move this way it kind of forms a bow wave ripple if you press hard enough into the pad not that you would do that but it's interesting nonetheless and while we're at it what if the bottom surface of the pad doesn't grip the desk properly i mean that's a ridiculous example we're looking at here but on a smaller scale that is a real factor armed then with our stiffer mount and a mouse pad that the manufacturer claims can produce this perfectly consistent performance we set to work trying to replicate their results from this point on creator warehouse's very own engineer kyle took the reins and in short order built us a new test rig using our prusa print farm for all the custom bits aluminum extrusion for the structure and a bunch of 3d printer hardware for the electronics it's pretty bare bones as far as a cnc machine goes it uses a ramps board for the electronics essentially an arduino mega some cheap nema 17 size stepper motors and gt2 belts we couldn't know until it was built if it would be rigid enough for our testing but the name of the game here is if you're going to fail do it fast and do it cheap and conveniently once it was equipped with a new mouse holder that kyle reverse engineered from fnatic's picture of their test rig it did end up doing the trick it's not perfect perfect but given that logitech only guarantees 98 accuracy for the hero sensor this test data from fanatics pad looks about right for our test the carriage moves the mouse around in a perfect circle 26 times while we run a super simple pointer plotter on a laptop connected to the mouse which sorry in spite of this being a g305 is still a gpro wireless running the test this way tells us two things one if fnatic's test can be repeated by a third party which for all intents and purposes it can it's a great mouse pad and two whether or not we can match or beat their performance let's talk about that now in our attempt we sourced two new versions of the LTT pad from the same supplier now at the time we were mostly focused on the stretchiness of the material so we asked for one with two-way rather than one-way stretch so at least we'd have consistency to it and we also asked for one with no stretch and as it turns out funny story the first sample we had with the one-way stretch was actually far and away the most consistent when it came to tracking even better than the no stretch sample that our supplier couldn't even do full color printing on so it wouldn't even like look all cool we're still not quite on par with the data and fanatics marketing materials and i do still think that we might see an LTT pad pro in another year that manages to be absolutely perfect but we are close enough that anyone but the most professional of gamers is not going to notice the difference so all that was left at this point was to adapt our design for the 15 different sizes finalize the thickness we settled on three and a half millimeter by the way which i feel is a great balance between soft comfort and performance and await our final samples so this is it the LTT mouse pad take it in yeah it doesn't smell that good i cannot say how proud i am of our team for getting this done even for something as simple as a mousepad so many hands are involved in getting you guys the best possible swag and i hope that you enjoyed this long awaited piece of kit and you can see the whole lineup in our shameless promotion ShortCircuit unboxing video over on our other channel big thanks to ubico for sponsoring today's video ubico wants to make the internet safer for everyone so they created the yubi key it's a physical two-factor authentication key that helps you secure your online accounts it doesn't require batteries or a mobile connection and it's both crush and ip68 water resistant it works out of the box with hundreds of popular business and personal apps like gmail twitter cryptocurrency exchanges and password managers and ub keys are super portable and work across tons of devices and operating systems like iOS Android Windows and mac it's time to take security seriously then so go beyond basic authentication and get 10 off your ubiq 5 series today by going to the link in the video description and using code Linus 10. all right video's over smash that link in the description and get one for yourself before they all sell out oh something to note by the way there are no limit switches to protect the cnc machine from traveling too far and once it powers on it has no idea where in space it is because it has no way to reference a home position so if you decide to use the files linked in the video description to make one for yourself just make sure you're a diligent operator because otherwise it could ruin itself pretty quickly but that won't happen to you you're a diligent operator"}