Dave's mother got cheated out of a vacation when her cruise ship broke! Chris knew someone who has been on the Oasis of the Seas, the largest cruise ship built to date.Dave worked at a company on Garden Island in Sydney's Central Business District. He worked there two months and subsequently left it off his resume.Do you ever leave stuff off your resume?Dave just returned from Electronex where he had a trade booth, which listed The Amp Hour! The big hits were the microscope and core memory:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vJ0c0ioAXY
Dave is also looking at foregoing a bigger lab and instead getting a bigger space.Apple released a new smart watch, will be interesting to see how it changes the sensors game.Chris just got back from the Hardware Workshop in San Francisco (notes available here). It was more "business" focused than electronics.This coming weekend is the World Maker Faire in NY. Chris said on the show that he wouldn't be there, but changed his plans!Altium will be officially releasing their new free PCB tool. Dave has a list of the upcoming features. One possible showstopper is that you have to save your files to the cloud (no local copy).Chris will continue working with KiCad.Breakin (Breakdance) and Breakin' 2 (Breakdance 2), Electric Boogaloo. 80s classics!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMDbBSyS1Rk
Chris's is working on a new component search engine! A new way to discover parts called Parts.io. There is an Alpha signup as well.Chris got to meet the folks from Seeed studio and learned about their Open Part Library. This should reduce cost if you send a board to them. They also have an EAGLE library with the part footprints.This is similar to what CircuitHub is going to be trying with the part bundling. Andy talked about CircuitHub way back on episode 131.Do other CMs publish their part lists? It would be good to create a database or wiki page with links to these.Chip of the Week: The TI FDC1004, "Capacitance to Digital Converter"There was a wonderful teardown of a Tesla 85 kWh battery pack. The pictures show the multitude of networked 18650 lithium cells.We wonder about what happens when a fuse blows. Chris recalls when Bob Simpson was on the show he talked about bypassing cells if necessary.We also learned that Vincent Himpe (also a former guest of the show and prolific EEVblog forum member) recently got a gig as the lead PCB designer for Tesla! We'll try to get him back on the show at some point.Thanks to Charlie J for the picture of the guts of a Rolex
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