Instructable: Recyling PCB Components

Awesome instructable showing how to recycle, by desoldering, all your old PCB components step by step.  Requires:

• Set of pliers (For different size of components)
• Soldering iron
• Vice grip
• Case for the desoldered components

Organizing Electronic Components

Sourceforge offers an asset tracker http://asset-tracker.sourceforge.net to help you organize your electronic components.  Lets you inventory all of your components, and perform a quick search for the component you're looking for to where you located the component.  You can even enter basic specs for each component into the database, so that you can perform a search based on specs and not just specific part numbers.  You decide on the columns whether it be numbers, dates, free form text or drop down lists.  

Bottom 5 Companies in the Electronic Components Industry

mysmarttrend.com reported on the bottom 5 electronic components manufacturers as ranked by revenue per employees (RPE). 

The bottom 5 include:

Superconductor Technologies with an RPE of $70K
Amphenol with an RPE of $99K
Littelfuse with an RPE of $108K
Eltek with an RPE of $121K
Vishay Intertechnology with an RPE of $123K

Full release here: http://www.mysmartrend.com/news-briefs/news-watch/bottom-5-companies-electronic-components-industry-lowest-rpe-scon-aph-lfus-el 

Developing EDE Blogroll

Looking for contributions for an EDE blogroll.  If you know of any great blogs and/or websites please list them in the comments section.  Thanks. 

WEEE Legislation Documents

The WEEE Directive 2002/96/EC is an EU Directive founded on the principle of "Producer Responsibility" and its general objectives are:

1. to prevent waste of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and to promote the reuse, recycling and recovery of such wastes
2. to improve the environmental performance of all operators involved in the life cycle of electrical and electronic equipment, e.g. producers, distributors and consumers and in particular those operators directly involved in the treatment of waste electrical and electronic equipment.

Below are some resources for finding WEEE Legislation materials and resources:
- http://www.element14.com/community/community/legislation/weee?view=documents
- http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/weee/legis_en.htm
- http://www.weeeireland.ie/legislation.htm
- http://www.bis.gov.uk/weee

New Medical Devices: Sensor Tattoos

Smart Planet recently posted on how an iPhone monitors blood below the skin in via a digital tattoo where the ‘ink’ contains tiny sensors that can read – with the help of the phone’s camera – blood levels of sodium, glucose, and even alcohol.

The patch would be applied to the body like a temporary tattoo and would contain the electronic components necessary for sensing, communications and relaying information from the body to a monitoring device.

Alternative Energy Forums

There are a lot of alternative energy forums, however many of them are inactive.  Here are the top three most active forums and their current subject matter:

Permaculture Forums- Current topics include two liter air conditioning, experimenting with Pyramids, and best methods for solar energy generation.

http://altenergyshift.com - More corporate, news oriented.  Current topics cover the Seattle Seahawks use of alternative energy and an interview with the FuelCell Energy CEO.

element14's Alternative Energy Forum -Topics include lightning strike harvesting, fusion reactor to create mini sun on Earth, and solutions to store bad CO2 underground.

Manufacturer Lead Times

Cyclops Electronics posted a table to manufacturer lead times: 
http://www.cyclops-electronics.com/Userfiles/File/HandyTableOfTop14MajorManufacturersLeadTimes.pdf

Identifies corresponding product groups, increase or decrease by quarter.  It's a good comparison for other distributors considering some of the orders are up to 40 weeks!

Guide to Carlo Gavazzi Websites

gavazzionline.com - Their main website. 

carlogavazzi.com - Features media, investor and contact information about the Carlo Gavazzi group. 

gavazzi-automation.com - Appears to be more of an internal site.  Includes events, news, and an employee-only area. 

carlogavazzisales.com - Get quotes, view new products, catalogs and user manuals.

Carlo Gavazzi Distributor

New Fluke 772 and 773 - Are they setting new benchmarks?

Are the new Fluke 772 and Fluke 773 Milliamp Process Clamp Meters are setting new benchmarks for ease of use?  They're said to be designed to make troubleshooting common problems quick and efficient, what do you think?

Read their release: http://www.fluke.com/fluke/usen/community/fluke-news-plus/articlecategories/clamps/breaking-new-ground.htm