Road trip to the deep space network
Dave Jones of EEV blog and Chris Gammell of Contextual Electronics discuss their recent hardware meetups in Sydney and New Zealand, highlighting projects like a hand-soldered LED matrix and a portable Hakko soldering station. They then debate the future of energy storage, arguing that lithium-ion batteries are unsuitable for grid-scale applications and advocating for flow batteries or solid-state alternatives. The conversation concludes with a critique of US university costs and a proposal for a soldering time-trial contest board.