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• Chris is off to Makerfaire in San Fran
• Dave loves his Classic Messenger bag
• The East Gipslands MakerSpace is starting up, and they have rented a HUGE space. See the Walkthrough
• People don’t want smart meters on their houses.
• OrCAD now has an online marketplace, where you can download footprints and “apps”
• Mayhew Labs have a nice online 3D Gerber viewer
• New package announce by NXPs. Jeez, can’t they get smaller?
• I have a job, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!
• Map of ee jobs in the US
• Environmental protection: What is it for? How is it done? When is it necessary?
• Chip Of The Week – STM6524

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• All about Sabaticals, and trying to get out of working for a living :->
• We ridicule a Spray-On Antenna in a can!
• We are reluctant to mention a new reality TV show called Top Engineer. Before auditioning, be sure to check out Joe Grand’s experience with a Discovery Channel reality TV show.
• The Mythbusters are producing a show called Unchained reaction
• Jeff doesn’t quite like the new $1300 Cube 3D Printer from 3D Systems, because they ain’t playing the open source game. But it seems all Dave’s predictions are coming true.
• Dave is having 2nd thoughts about doing a through-hole PSU kit
• Dave rants about several things, as per usual.
• Jeff is headed to the Computer History Museum to check out the Jim Williams exhibit.
• Jeff like this new book: Analog Circuit Design: A Tutorial Guide to Applications and Solutions

Next week on the show, we’ll have special guest Bunnie Huang! Get your questions in for him ASAP!

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Whilst Chris is on his belated honeymoon, regular cohort Jeff Keyzer from Mightohm.com takes over.
• Jeff has been travelling again:
• He barely survived Berlin for New Years, what with their readily available fireworks, unlike Australia.
• The Edison National Historic Park in New Jersey
• Another surplus shop tour, including the TWR swap meet.
• Will Detroit just make crappy cars again? or will they turn all Japanese?
• Dave heard a big BANG on his desk, something smells fishy.
• Jeff isn’t too happy with TI’s new MSP430 web based development environment
• Will Raspberry Pie meet their $20 price target? Dave & Jeff think they might have a hard time.
• There is a 6502 documentary in the works.

This weeks special guest is John Edmond, the co-founder and Director of Advanced Optoelectronics Technology at Cree, Inc in Durham, NC.

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• John talks about the history of Cree and how they built the company with no venture capital. Awesome!
• Lots of technical LED talk on manufacturing, Stokes loss, Haitz’s law and  chemistries involved in making LEDs.
• Cree got one of their biggest breaks supplying the blue LEDs in the VW Beetle and Jetta’s of the late 90s models.
• How do you measure the light output of a LED? With an integrating sphere!
• One competitive advantage Cree has (over China, for instance) is their Energy Star compliance.
• In China, Cree has gained market share by buying COTCO four years back.
• Cree also makes SiC FETs and Schottky diodes.
• How many LED’s can you fit on one wafer? How long does it take you to test them?
• Will the war of the currents finally be won by Edison? Should we have DC power our homes for localized efficiencies?
• Some of the other bulb manufacturers are GE, Osram (Sylvania) & Phillips. Some of the other LED manufacturers are Nichia, Avago and Osram.
• Dave talks about doing the math on LED lighting for the new office and how the payback is 15 years. John claims something closer to 6 years.
• John answers the million dollar question of when and how LED lighting will reach critical mass mainstream.
• Those more interested in winning some of Cree’s products (US only, unfortunately) can check out their contest site at Cree LED Revolution.

Many thanks to John for speaking on our show and for Ginny (Cree’s social media personality and the person behind the Cree Twitter account) for helping set it all up! It was a lot of fun!

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• Chris has been issued a challenge to get his (ham) technician’s license by the new year. Can he do it? Do 10 others want to do it with him? If so, we can get Dave to sing on air! (or can we?)
• Dave has a beef with the Agilent U1272A‘s data export capabilities. Perhaps Dave should append his own RS232 port like in a recent HackADay post?

• The Tyne Metropolitan College in England have apparently ripped off Dave’s PCB tutorial document and erased all the copyright info and attribution. Lame!
• Flying probers are crazy to watch! See the video below, starting at 42s in.

• India is predicting electronics imports to top $400B per year in 10 years and want to mandate local production.
• China, on the other hand, wants to move to a knowledge economy (and get rid of manufacturing in the process?). They also want 100 hackerspaces in Shanghai.
• Dave has started his build of an ArduCopter, bought from Hobby King. Their shopping cart plays on human nature and an engineer’s need to optimize.
• Chris hates chasing problems around control loops. They’re interesting, but frustrating.
• From the EEVblog forums: should electronics be more math-centric? Chris and Dave don’t think so.
• This is how Jim Williams taught as well, with less focus on the rote memorization.
• Engineering seems to attract people that are in it just for the money sometimes (they don’t last). WSJ has a great breakdown of salaries (in the US).
• According to Wired, the CEO of Ponoko is predicting printable circuit boards in <24 months. Dave doesn’t think it’s possible based on solder temps.
• There’s been lots of focus on 3d Printing lately, especially in the NYT. One article about The Wild West economy that will rise from the printer availability and another about the possibility of high quality 3D printing coming to a big box retailer near you.
• This Day in Nerd History
• The dry cell battery was patented by Carl Gassner…in 1887! Good gravy, batteries have been around for a long time!