[chbot] Robotics Group meeting, 5 Idris Rd, 630pm, Mon 18 Nov 2024 report

[Mark Atherton]

Hello everyone,

Good turnout with 30 attendees, and lots of huddles-of tech-talk. $52 + 
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 talked about some high efficiently, easy to drive 56mm green 7 
segment LED displays from Aliexpress (NZ$4 ea). The 2mm WS2812B LEDs on 
the Arduino Nano are also very high efficiency; green is daylight bright 
when drawing 500uA.

Timing for the WS2812B appears to be much looser than specified by the 
manufacturer; decision thresholds for data appears to be based on pulse 
width, not logic 0 duration, although 50us (min) gap is required to 
latch data. He also talked about Arduino Nano Mini D13 and associated 
power LED issues.

Graham brought in a buggered drive shaft spline, and talked about 
failure mechanism.

Ross talked about a low cost WSPR tracker, based on Aliexpress modules. 
See github.com/EngineerGuy314/pico-WSPRer

Andy G talked about his latest acquisition; a 10T forklift...

Andrew Dean brought along his game-show hardware for beta-testing by the 
group. The game was so good that the planned December meeting triva quiz 
has been shelved for 12 months !

Russel talked/raved about his new ANENG 681 smart, 6000 count multimeter 
(NZ$35).

Interesting stuff on Youtube

Hydraulic Vise youtube.com/watch?v=03KvJS_2qY4&t=3s

DIY hydroforming youtube.com/watch?v=kMz8JmDNVyw