Electronics Committee Meeting 2015-04-02

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We had quite a turnout. Not sure if that was due to our guest or food.

Meeting Called to Order at 5:37pm.

Members present: Lance Preston Ralph Green Nick Sainz Katie Looper Art Givens Carl Ott

3-4 visitors

Guest Rick Salberg - Region Manager for Hakko USA: Rick toured the space with Ken Purcell & Nick Sainz. He was very impressed with the breath of tools, activity and amount of space that DMS has. He offered to work with his boss to assist DMS in getting soldering irons and hand tools to outfit the E-Lab, Vector and Stained Glass. He felt that it was likely that he could get them for free or at a significant discount to us as a non-profit. The only thing they could not offer for free was consumables like tips, etc.

Even more exciting is the possibility of assisting us with classes and guidance on soldering. Nick and I both felt we had leaned 3-4 things just from our quick chat.

Rick left us with a catalog to see if there was anything else we might need. I left the catalogue on the bench in electronics

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While I was showing Rick out, the committee renominated me (Ken Purcell) as the proposed committee chair.

Motion made by Ralph Green to make the governance of the committee a Consensus Committee. Seconded by Carl Ott. Vote taken: 1 yea, 6 nays. Motion failed. For now we will use the Benevolent Dictator Model of Governance

Discussion about the governance model: can be changed at any moment by a majority of members. Pretty much means the Benevolent Dictator can be replaced or governance model changed at anytime the membership wants to take a vote can carries the majority of members.

Discussion about what we have been working on since our last meeting on 1-10-2015:

  • Big donation by @ARBatteiger who is not a member of DMS but heard our call for a serious need of a good benchtop power supply. Alan donated three great bench supplies, some amazing robots and other items to boot! This was facilitated by @nick & @artg_dms who took time out and went to Plano to meet Alan and look over his generous offer. We can't thank them all enough.
  • As chair I have been working with Hakko, Rigol, Tektronix and Agilent to sweet talk them into free or discounted gear. It is quite possible we will have Hakko & Rigol take the tour next Thursday. I have also invited them for a personal visit if that is more convenient to them.
  • At the last board meeting we were allocated $1,000 for supplies and small items to complete outfitting the workbenches. Plus an increase in our ongoing monthly budget from $20/month to $250/month.
    • Also at the BOD meeting were were granted a request for a Desktop PC. I asked for $800, they gave us $1,200. Our DMS President @AndrewLeCody is selecting the parts and building us a super sweet computer. I think I saw a glint and sparkle in Andrews eye at the prospect of building another PC.
  • We need to thank several members who have been holding classes and allocating the honorarium to electronics. At last count it looks like we had 9 classes related to electronics/robotics for the month. There are several scheduled for April already! If you have an idea for a class you may want to get on the schedule soon, it's getting hard to get a room!
  • The Adafruit order has been a great success! We have ordered over $2500 worth of stuff and saved members about $650. We are order #4 so if you want something visit this thread https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/t/adafruit-group-order-30-off-on-most-items/1635/61 Thanks to @Kluper who had the forethought to sign us up for a makerspace account. Next month we will try a SparkFun or other vendor. Let me know who you are interested in trying a group discount.
  • Most of all thanks to everyone who has been doing a great job keeping the room clean. It's not perfect but we are doing well.

Meeting adjourned at 6:45pm.

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