[chbot] Robotics Group meeting, 5 Idris Rd, 630pm, Monday 21 Nov 2022

[Mark Atherton]

Hello everyone,

Good turnout with 21 attendees, and lots of huddles-of tech-talk. $33 + 
change (in gold, and flat-money) collected and transferred into the 
robotics loose-change jar (for later banking).

All sales from the trading table should go into the brown box on the 
wall, and are directly for the benefit of our host club, Christchurch 
Amateur Radio Club, NZART Branch 05.

Equipment donations are welcome for the trading table, but no CRT based 
product, printers, toner or items that are likely to be a disposal burden.

With thanks on behalf of the group,

Mark Atherton

==========

Mark opened the evening by talking about some of the issues of 
bare-metal FPGA to SDRAM interfacing for video applications.

Darren started off with a rehearsal-talk about component-level repair of 
a phone. The component of interest was in a BGA package. Part of the 
process involved removing and attempting to dis-assemble the binary held 
in the BGA FLASH device. Fascinating, and scary !

Levine talked about a small business he has started creating recycled 
plastic sheets from discarded plastic milk bottles. He went into detail 
about his production process as well as part of the business model. 
Incredibly diverse skills required for this project, as well as a 
tenacious attitude towards dealing with executives in the milk-industry.

Michael gave us an update on his various projects including the house 
automation system, upgrades to his CNC machines, and a very interesting 
cable failure associated with some older wiring.