[chbot] Robotics Group meeting, 5 Idris Rd, 6:30pm, Mon 19 Jan 2026 report

[Mark Atherton]

Hello everyone,

Good turnout with 27 attendees, and lots of huddles-of tech-talk. $30 + 
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

==============

Robin was kind enough to drop off a ton of goodies that he cleared out 
from work - none of this is for resale.

Mark Talked about testing a 14GHz, 3W Block Up Converter (BUC). Unit was 
driven with 24V power, a 10.0MHz reference at +5dBm, and an IF of 
1350MHz at -5dBm. A 40dB cross-coupled waveguide attenuator drove an 
18GHz Wiltron 70DSM crystal detector. Output was just over 3W at 14.2GHz.

Andy G talked about progress of the electrification of his tractor. 
Liberties have been taken with the old gearbox assembly with the help of 
a lathe and angle grinder.

Robin talked about his LoRa point-to-point link projects. The good, the 
bad, and the ugly.

Darren talked about IOT bot-nets: just when you thought the new CCTV 
camera was a good idea. He mentioned an IOT search engine 'shodan'.

William introduced his electronic speedo/tacho based on two CPUs.

Rudy talked about dye sublimation printing.

Interesting YouTube videos:
Why AI Agents Replaced the Arduino IDE in My ESP32 Projects
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DG0-_lseR4

Burning Man Art, engineering a 26,000 Pixel LED Cube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn5LcBfCaYw&t=4s

Cody - Pop Tab Thermite - stress relief from this crazy world
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_qWjZxT5Cc&t=8s