Chinese-based Longan Labs has started developing the Squama series, which is primarily designed for IoT-based applications. The first product in the series of Squama boards was launched – Squama Ethernet – Arduino W5500 Ethernet Board. The board is integrated with a high performance MCU based on Cortex M0+ and an Ethernet control chip W5500 that will help developers to design ethernet-based applications.
The board is integrated with 32-bit ATMEL’s ATSAMD21G18 chip that is an ARM-based Cortex-M0+ microcontroller running at up to 48MHz. The chip features a 256KB in-system self-programmable flash memory, a 32KB SRAM memory along with power-on reset (POR) and brown-out detection (BOD). The BOD feature is usually disabled on the microcontroller that monitors the supply voltage level during operation.
Specifications:
MCU: ATMEL ATSAMD21G18 – ARM Cortex-M0+ CPU running at up to 48MHz with 256KB flash memory and 32KB RAM
Interfaces: High-Speed Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI MODE 0, 3), Grove connector for I2C and UART, RJ45 Connector
Power Supply: 5V via USB and 48~57V via PoE
Output Current @ 5V: 2A
Size: 62×30 mm
Weight: 15g (without PoE), 20g (with PoE)
Indicative LED: WS2812B LED
Onboard buttons: Reset Button and User Button
Compact form-factor board that is sized at just 62x30mm, has support for PoE (Power Over Ethernet) that is capable of delivering power as well as data over one cable. The hardware is designed to use the Arduino Zero-like bootloader that allows the users to use Arduino IDE for programming.
To get started with the product, you need to first have Arduino IDE that can be installed on Windows, macOS and Ubuntu-based systems. From the file menu, go to preferences and search Longan. With this, you can download the latest Longan SAMD board and then select the Squama Ethernet board.
Lately, we have seen several development boards that support LoRa, a low-power wide-area network modulation technique. You may have seen the latest release Arduino Potenta Vision Shield – LoRa that was built on the multicore 32-bit ARM Cortex processor. With these new developments, SeeedStudio has come up with a new addition to their LoRa-supported development boards by introducing the LoRa-E5 mini development board and LoRa E5 development kit.
The compact-sized LoRa-E5 mini has the powerful SeedStudio’s LoRa-E5 STM32WLE5JC Module that has everything you can imagine. The module is packed with ARM Cortex-M4 core and Semtech SX126X LoRa chip to support the LoRaWAN protocol. This spectacular STM32WL module LoRa-E5 STM32WLE5JC module is an ultra low power, extremely compact-sized design offering the high performance of TXOP equal to 22dBm at 868/915MHz.
It becomes very important to note here that when LoRa-E5 mini dev board is compared to the newly launched Potenta Vision Shield- LoRa, the former is equipped with ARM Cortex-M4 that achieves lower power consumption because of the smaller number of instructions to realize a certain operation with respect to the ARM Cortex-M0+ (in Arduino’s dev board).
With the existing support for the LoRaWAN protocol, the LoRa-E5 is capable of ultra-long-range transmission at low power consumption over a range of up to 10 km. The development board provides all the GPIOs that come with the LoRa-E5 STM32WLE5JC module that has UART, ADC, SPI, IIC, and many more. The manufacturer has designed it with a good set of interfaces required for the user. You can power the board with USB Type C or through the port of 3.7/5V on the hardware.
To add on more complex interfaces and explore the efficiency of the LoRa-E5 STM32WLE5JC module, the manufacturer has launched an upgraded version of LoRa-E5 to release the LoRa-E5 Development Kit. This includes more sets of GPIOs to add RS-485 and Grove interfaces allowing you to prototype at a faster rate.
Either board has the same MCU that provides some basic features that are required to smoothen the user experience. With the availability of USB to UART function on the board, you can now connect the hardware to your PC with a USB type C cable. In addition to this usage of the UART function, you can interface the board to another mainboard via UART.
According to the designer, with all these features this can be one of the best choices available in the market for your IoT device development in smart agriculture, smart office, and smart industry. The Mini Development Board and development kit is currently sold at $19.90 and $24.90 on the official product page.
Back in time, we have seen several tiny laser engravers powered by ESP32 or even Arduino. However, with the new technological advancements, more laser devices see the light, and today we have a China-based manufacturer specializing in the development of laser engraving equipment to launch a new affordable laser engraver project for crowdfunding the DJ6 Laser Engraver. The company says:
“Laser engraving turns everyday objects extraordinary, and has endless applications for business, art and production. Our goal with DJ6 was to create a user-friendly solution that would be easy enough for anyone to use. With DJ6 users can easily create any pattern or design and begin engraving in seconds. The special open-frame design of DJ6 allows larger objects to be engraved and it’s portable enough to go anywhere. It is the perfect engraving solution for beginners as well as advanced users and it’s affordable enough for anyone.”
With a new affordable laser engraver on the market, the manufacturer has provided everything one can imagine to get a creative design on wood, glass, colored ceramics, painted metal, food, acrylic, leather, fabric, plastic, and many more. We have recently seen one such engraver, the Cubiio 2 that was launched on Kickstarter a couple of months back and was cost inefficient yet provided as many features as possible. Then the DJ6 Laser Engraver came to the game to introduce another option.
When compared to Cubiio 2, we can notice the huge cost inefficiency after looking at this affordable, powerful laser engraver designed for all levels of users that require patterns, designs, logos, and images on virtually any materials. If you are an artist looking to engrave a design on any fabric, this will make your job easier.
The manufacturer has designed DJ6 Laser Engraver in such a way that is portable, which is very important in the context of an artist. With these portable capabilities, this engraver is the perfect customization tool for creating designs. Thanks for the feature that offers it to work with any material that has been the limitation of the product available in the market.
Through cost efficiency and portability, this becomes a user-friendly, powerful engraving solution that lets anyone achieve a professional level of engraving. In the world of bulky and complicated laser engravers, this device is small, portable, and easy to use, giving all the features one would imagine.
Specifications
According to the specifications provided, the company says that the laser wavelength is about 450nm at 3W giving a maximum focus of 100mm. Even though the maximum focus might be wider, the advised focus range is about 30-50mm. Through a rich set of interfaces, the device takes 24W of input power with a supply voltage of 12V at 2A. Designed with ABS and aluminum alloys, the engraver comes with a power port and USB type B data port.
The DJ6 has powerful features at an affordable price, it’s built around a 3,000mW laser that gives it 1.5mm cutting thickness performance, and lets users engrave on multiple material types. In order to provide a more versatile engraving experience, it uses an open-frame design for the work area so that creations are no longer limited by size issues. Any horizontally stable object can be engraved quickly and easily.
Additionally, you don’t have to worry about the size limit as the design ensures a flexible engraving experience through the open-frame design. In layman’s language, any horizontal object can be engraved with this hardware at a minimal cost of setup. To make it easy for the users, the manufacturer has provided support for all the major operating systems, including Windows, MacOX, iOS, and Android.
Demo
Our first print was our Electronics-Lab.com logo. All we had to do was to install the included drivers and the Windows software. Then we launched the program and waited for it to connect to the device. At first, it seemed that it refused to connect as the connection icon didn’t change in color so we were a little bit disappointed. We tried pushing the buttons, loading a file but nothing happened. Then, boom the connection was established out of the blue. It seems that we had to wait a few moments for this to happen. This may take some minutes to complete so be patient.
Next, we loaded our logo in .jpg format and we set up the parameters a little bit. Nothing special as the software is pretty basic and lacks features, but we are sure it will do the job. We centered the card paper under the laser and hit the start button. After a few seconds of processing the engraving started.
The laser turned to full power and the head started moving over the cardboard. The speed the laser head was traveling was quite slow and definitely slower than any type of injecting printer if we can compare the laser with injecting heads. We assume this is to ensure the design prints as accurately as possible without leaving any traces behind. Then overall engraving of our logo took about 8-10 min and the results were satisfying as you can see in the photo below.
During the engraving process, it’s advisable not to look at the beam as it may harm your eyes and there is not reverse on that. We also noticed that the fine dots that the design is comprised of are smaller than the edge of a needle. These tiny dots are burned one by one all over the surface of the material to form the entire design and are really tiny, so the whole design looks even.
Final Thoughts
Through easy interfacing, you can now design and create any patterns on your smartphone using the APP that offers multiple image formats. Some of the mentioned image formats that are supported by the hardware include .jpg, .gif, .png, .svg, and .dwg. If you are not sure about the design, the device is provided with an option to preview the pattern before engraving begins. This allows the user to get an idea as to how the design looks on the selected material, and “also prevents placement errors that are common with other engravers”.
DJ6 is perfect for those new to laser engraving with an intuitive user interface and software that is compatible with Windows, MacOs, iOS, and Android. With the included app, users can easily design and create any pattern using different devices and across multiple image formats.
For customization, you can control the head of the engraver by moving it in four different directions. It also gives you the option to pause and re-start the engraving process.
When it comes to the security aspect, it becomes very important for every professional user to check the safety protocols. The manufacturer has received FDA, FCC, and other certifications to ensure that the engraver meets the standards for laser requirements. Since the laser used is 3W, it is designed with a safety shield and motion detection in mind.
With the motion detection feature, the device pauses when there is a movement of the hardware detected to ensure safe usage. Additionally, there is a ventilating fan to lower the internal temperature.
And, with a useful preview mode that shows the approximate engraving area of the pattern before engraving begins, reliable results are achieved. DJ6 is FDA and FCC certified
says the company.
Video
Availability
As expected, the DJ6 Laser Engraver has been funded above goal and is still available on Kickstarter. There are several levels of pledging, but I would recommend getting $169 that gets you a laser engraver that is expected to ship by May 2021.
Full HD @ 120 fps | Color Global Shutter|AR0234CS CMOS sensor| ON Semiconductor® | USB 3.1 Gen1
e-con Systems Inc., a leading embedded camera solutions company adds yet another exciting product to its wide portfolio of industrial USB cameras by introducing the Full HD color global shutter USB 3.1 Gen1 camera, See3CAM_24CUG. The camera is designed to capture moving objects and rapid motion sequences with superior image quality and accuracy. See3CAM_24CUG is based on the 1/2.6″ AR0234CS image sensor from ON Semiconductor® with a pixel size of 3.0 µm and a dedicated image signal processor (ISP). It comes with an innovative global shutter pixel design optimized for reliably capturing moving scenes and objects with a resolution of up to 120 fps.
See3CAM_24CUG produces extraordinarily clear and sharp images with the AR0234 color global shutter sensor. Also, its ability to capture both continuous video and single frames makes it the perfect choice for a wide range of applications including license plate recognition, autonomous mobile robots, gesture recognition, robotic vision, drones, barcode scanner, factory automation, conveyor monitoring cameras, and traffic monitoring systems.
”Ever since we launched the MIPI interface version of the AR0234 based 2MP color global shutter camera for NVIDIA Jetson family for edge computing on Feb 3, 2021, we have witnessed the huge demand from our embedded vision customers. Taking forward this lead, e-con launches See3CAM_24CUG the first-in-the-world USB3.0 UVC color global shutter camera using AR0234 sensor”, said Ashok Babu President of econ Systems, Inc. “With 120fps capability and zero motion artifacts, this camera is an ideal camera for autonomous mobile robots for marker reading, Visual SLAM, barcode scanning/object recognition for smart carts and smart checkouts, inventory management drones, Driver Management Solution etc”, he added.
Features and benefits:
A combination of global shutter and high frame rate helps to capture moving objects with no rolling shutter artifacts and close to zero motion blur.
Onboard ISP helps to bring out best-in-class video output in both uncompressed UYVY and compressed MJPEG formats, and offloads image processing tasks and reduces CPU usage.
FHD at 120fps helps to minimize frame-to-frame distortion.
Low noise capabilities help to produce clear and sharp images.
Its external trigger support makes it suitable for applications requiring synchronization of multiple cameras.
Availability
Customers interested in evaluating this FHD color global shutter USB camera can purchase See3CAM_24CUG from e-con Systems’ online store.
Würth Elektronik has complemented its infrared product range with the new WL-SIQW SMT Infrared QFN LED Waterclear product series. The LEDs in Quad Flat No Leads (QFN) format are available in 2720, 3535 and 3737 packages with different radiant intensities from 125 to 800 mW/sr and in 90°, 120° or 150° beam angles.
Depending on the application, the infrared sources are available in wavelengths of 850 or 940nm.
The SMT-mountable WL-SIQW components are suitable for a wide range of applications in the fields of infrared cameras, night vision, surveillance and security solutions, as well as face and motion detection, or biometric identification. With the compact QFN format, Würth Elektronik achieves excellent thermal properties for the powerful LEDs and ensures stable, reliable contacts on standard solder pads.
All WL-SIQW SMT Infrarot QFN LEDs are available from stock without a minimum order quantity. Würth Elektronik provides developers with free samples.
This is a Knight Rider LED Light and it is one of the best Arduino projects for beginners. This board drives 16 high-power LEDs to turn them ON one by one sequentially. This is an open-source Arduino compatible project that contains 16 high current MOSFETs, Atmega328 microcontroller, 5V regulator etc. The gate of IRLR7843 MOSFETs is connected to the I/O pins of the Atmega328 chip. Screw terminals are provided to connect the LEDs and power supply. Additional 2 x tactile switches and one connector for analog input are provided for further experiments. Operating power supply 12V to 15V DC, each output can drive 1A constant current load (1W to 12 W LED) without cooling and load up to 2A with forced cool air.
16 High Power LEDs Knight Rider Light – Arduino Compatible – [Link]
If you need safe power to run your project, then this circuit is a possible solution for you. This project provides protection to your system device against over-current, over-voltage, under-voltage, thermal overload, and reverse current flow control to the system device. Basically, this project can play a key role between the power supply and the sensitive system device, where the system device will be protected against the above conditions. When there is a change other than the set parameters the circuit will disable the output and go in retry mode, until the condition is as per the set value. The project is built using MAX17561 chip. Refer to the datasheet to get further information. Refer to the schematic shown below and have look at some of the panorama of the project explained below.
High Accuracy Adjustable Overvoltage and Overcurrent Protectors using MAX17561 – [Link]
The TSV791 and TSV792 are single and dual 50 MHz-bandwidth unity-gain-stable amplifiers. The rail-to-rail input stage and the slew rate of 30 V/µs make the TSV791 and TSV792 ideal for low-side current measurement. The excellent accuracy provided by maximum input voltage of 200 µV allows amplifying accurately small-amplitude input signal. The TSV792 can operate from a 2.2 V to 5.5 V single supply; it can typically handle an output capacitor up to 1 nF and is fully specified on a load of 22 pF, therefore allowing easy usage as A/D converters input buffer.
Features
Gain bandwidth product 50 MHz, unity gain stable
Slew rate 30 V/µs
Low input offset voltage 50 µV typ., 200 µV max.
Low input bias current: 2 pA typ.
Low input voltage noise density 6.5 nV/√Hz @ 10 kHz
Wide supply voltage range: 2.2 V to 5.5 V
Rail-to-rail input and output
Extended temperature range: – 40 °C to +125 °C
Automotive-grade version available
Benefits:
Accuracy of measurement virtually unaffected by noise or input bias current
MPS’ MPM3860 1.2 MHz ultra-thin module can achieve 6 A of continuous output current over a wide input range with excellent load and line regulation
MPM3860 from Monolithic Power Systems is a fully integrated, high-frequency, synchronous, rectified, step-down power module with an internal inductor. It offers a very compact solution to achieve 6 A of continuous output current over a wide input range with excellent load and line regulation. The device has synchronous mode operation for higher efficiency over the output current load range. Full protection features include short-circuit protection (SCP), overcurrent protection (OCP), undervoltage protection (UVP), and thermal shutdown. The MPM3860 features constant on-time (COT) control operation, providing very fast transient response and easy loop design, as well as very tight output regulation. It is available in a QFN-24 (4 mm x 6 mm) package.
The new pixxiLCD graphic displays from 4D Systems are the ideal solution for easy integration. Due to the wide range of options offered by the embedded displays, developers can find the right full-color HMI for almost any application. The series is available at Rutronik UK.
4D LABS-configurable PIXXI-28 or PIXXI-44 GPUs enable a variety of functions, including touch detection, microSD or serial flash memory, GPIO and ADC, with multiple millisecond timers, UART and I²C communication.
The displays are offered in different shapes and sizes, such as round (with 1.3’’) or rectangular versions with 2’’, 2.5’’ or 3.9’’. In addition, depending on the requirements of the application, there is a choice option between capacitive and non-touch displays.
The pixxiLCD embedded graphic displays have a standard 15-pin ribbon cable connector in 0.5mm pitch with ZIF socket interface, through which UART, I/O, I²C and the power supply with reset signals are led from/to the display. The 4D Workshop4 IDE developer software, which is compatible with all available pixxiLCD displays, offers extensive possibilities for programming the system.
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