New high-speed CMOS op amp ideal for anomaly detection added to high noise immunity EMARMOUR™ series
ROHM recently announced a high-speed ground sense CMOS op amp, BD77501G, optimized for industrial and consumer equipment requiring high-speed sensing, such as anomaly detection systems used in measurement and control equipment along with sensors that work with very small signals.
The proliferation of IoT in recent years has led to a significant increase in the number of electronic components used for advanced control in a variety of automotive and industrial applications. Among these, op amps are used and are capable of quickly amplifying minute sensor signals in anomaly detection systems that provide safety. However, board design can become problematic as conventional high-speed op amps are susceptible to oscillation due to capacitive loads (i.e. from wiring). At the same time, degradation of the noise environment resulting from increased electrification and mounting density is making it extremely difficult to implement noise design for small-signal devices.
In response, ROHM developed the EMARMOUR™ series of op amps and comparators*1 that have been well-received in the automotive and industrial markets due to its superior noise immunity that allows users to reduce design resources to address noise issues. This time, ROHM has expanded the lineup by adding a new high-speed type ideal for anomaly detection that prevents oscillation over the entire load capacitance range.
The BD77501G is the industry’s first op amp that not only supports high-speed amplification (high slew rate: 10V/us) required in anomaly detection and other systems, but also completely eliminates oscillation caused by load capacitance (i.e. wiring). Unlike conventional high-speed op amps that can become unstable due to load-capacitance-induced oscillation, ROHM’s new product ensures stable operation with no unwanted oscillation. In addition, whereas the output voltage for conventional products can fluctuate by ±200mV or more across the entire noise frequency band, the BD77501G provides unprecedented EMI Immunity*2 (noise immunity) that limits variation to less than ±20mV (1/10th). This enables high-speed signal amplification without being affected by load capacitance or external noise when installed in the latter stages of sensor applications, improving reliability and reducing design time.
ROHM is committed to expand the lineup of this product to automotive market in the near future.
Battery testers provide an easy way for hardware designers and hobbyists to determine the genuine capacity of βatteries. There are different makes and models being sold across diverse online stores but one which stands out among all that I have used in recent times is the ZKETECHEBD-A20H.
ZKE, over the years, has produced some interesting battery testers like the handy EBD-MO5, but the EBD-A20H is probably the most versatile and professional looking one I’ve seen.
Spotting the kind of professional look that will fit right on the workbench in any lab (Professional or DIY home lab), the ZKETECH EBD-A20H is essentially a DC electronic load with multiple, controlled, battery discharge modes, that can be used to conduct various battery capacity and other power-related tests.
Some specifications of the EBD-A20H include:
Power Supply: DC 12V/1A
Voltage Setting: 0.00-30.00V, minimum step is 0.01V
Current Setting: 0.1-20.00A, minimum step is 0.01A (Current automatically limits when power is overrun)
Test mode: DSC-CC: constant discharge current for testing battery capacity or supply current/ DSC-CP: Constant discharge power for simulating constant power equipment or testing power supply
Voltage Test: 0.000-4.500V (low pressure) accuracy to 0.003V, error ±0.5% / 4.50V-30.00V (high pressure) accuracy to 0.01V, error ± 0.5%
Current Test: 0.10-20.00A, accuracy to 0.01A, error ± 0.5%
Capacity Test: Within 10Ah, resolution is 0.001Ah/ 10Ah-100Ah resolution is 0.01Ah/ Above 100Ah resolution is 0.1Ah
Discharge Power: Max 200W (It should be controlled within 90% for a long time working)
To make the visualization and analysis of test data easier, asides the LED display where the test data including voltage, current, capacity, time, power, energy, are displayed, the device also works with the “EB software” which precisely displays and can be used to plot curves, perform calibration benchmark tests, automatic current testing and also push firmware upgrades to the Battery tester device.
EB Tester Software UI
Summarized features of the device include:
Performs battery capacity, discharging and power performance tests
Supports up to 30V/20A/200W
Digital display of test data (voltage, current, capacity, time, power, energy)
Four-wire connection method
Built-in Fan for better heat dissipation
Measurement representation through PC software
The battery tester is currently available for sale on Seeed Studio at $79 without shipping fees. More information on its features and capacities is available on the product’s page on Seeed Studio’s website.
Chinese vendor Sipeed has announced a $72, open spec “Sipeed Tang Hex” SBC which supports Linux on a Xilinx Zynq-7020. This is coming after they recently launched a Sipeed MaxiCube dev based on a Kenryte K210 RISC-V chip, and a FPGA board called Sipeed Tang based on an a Gowin GW1N-1-LV FPGA selling for $5. The board goes by other names like the Lychee Sugar and the Litchi candy. The Sipeed Tang HEX can be purchased for $72 with shipping on Aliexpress, and it is referred to as the “Lychee HEX ZYNQ-7020 FPGA Development Board Raspberry pie Edition ZEDBOARD” on AliEXpress. You can also get it for 439 RMB ($62) on Taobao for people based in China, and on Amazon for $124.13 with free shipping.
The $72 price tag is fair considering the price of other open-spec Zynq-7000 SBCs such as MYIR Z-turn Board, which sells for $119, which features a Zynq-7020, 1GB RAM, and 512MB NAND flash, and the Z-turn Lite with less features, which sells for $75 and features a Zynq-7010 with a lower-end FPGA and 512MB RAM. However, the Xilinx Zynq-7020 (XC7Z020-1CLG484) features dual-core Arm Cortex-A9 processor and FPGA with 85K logic cells, 4.9Mb Block RAM, 220 DSP slices. The TANG Hex enables 1GB LPDDR3, 256MB NAND, and a microSD slot. It offers a 10/100Mbps Ethernet port, which is in contrast to the GbE on the Z-turn, and 4x USB 2.0 ports. For onboard interfaces, it features a UART, JTAG, and the 26-pin GPIO, which is unknown if it will support early Pi add-on boards. The board is powered by a 12V/3.5A DC jack, and it enables a power button and 2x user LEDs. There is no HDMI output/input just like the other boards.
The SBC specifications look ok, but it features no power supply or cables. The only information about documentation is a link to schematics. For now, there is no response from the company about the board. Hopefully, we will get better documentation about the board from the company because the documentation available looks scattered. The board might likely be an open-source board with limited tech support. The Sipeed TANG Hex is available at AliExpress for $72.47 plus $1.05 shipping to the U.S. and in China at Taobao for 439 RMB ($62) plus shipping and at Amazon for $124.13 with free shipping which is handled by it’s a company or reseller called Taidacent. Sipeed’s website does not contain enough information about the board, however, you could find more information on Sipeed’s wiki.
Sometimes, a precise value of voltage is needed as a reference or simply before a specific stage of a circuit that requires less power. Voltage dividers are a simple resolution to this problem as they take advantage of the fact that a voltage can be dropped across components put in a series configuration.
The most common type of voltage divider is based on the series association of two resistors, we present in detail this type of configuration in the first section of this tutorial.
By keeping the same architecture, resistors can be replaced by reactive components such as capacitors or inductors. These different types of voltage dividers are presented in two other sections.
Presentation
fig 1: Illustration of a resistive voltage divider
In Figure 1, we present the most common and simple configuration for a resistive voltage divider:
In the following, we will label this configuration “R1-R2“.
We can first of all note that according to Kirchoff’s Voltage Law, V1+V2=VS. This relation can be rewritten thanks to Ohm’s law into VS=(R1+R2)×I.
Since V1=R1×I, V2=R2×I, and I=VS/(R1+R2), we obtain in Equation 1 the following voltage divider formulas:
eq 1: Resistive voltage divider relations
It is interesting to note that both dimensionless factors for V1 and V2 in Equation 1 can range from 0 to 1. As a consequence, both signals V1 and V2 can range from 0V up to the source value VS.
With a data program, it is possible to plot every possible value that V1 or V2 can take depending on R1 and R2 such as shown in Figure 2. For this example, we chose to plot V2 with VS=10 V and R1,R2=[0;300] Ω.
fig 2: Map of the possible values for V2
Often, voltage sources or current sources can only provide a fixed value of voltage or current. Some stages of a circuit, however, need lower values that the source is providing.
A simple voltage divider in which resistors values are appropriately chosen can provide any voltage value between 0 V and the source value, it constitutes a good solution to attenuate the source before a specific stage.
Another application in which resistive voltage dividers are suitable is the measure of high DC voltages. We illustrate this approach in Figure 3:
fig 3: Process to measure a high DC voltage
Note that the shape of the resistors is voluntarily modified to reflect the ratio R1/R2.
In order to protect the voltmeter (and its user) from measuring directly the high voltage VS, only a small fraction is measured by the voltmeter corresponding to R2/(R1+R2)×VS. The display is then corrected by multiplying the measurement by the same value that the high voltage was divided with.
For example, if R1/R2=99, the voltmeter measures only 1% of VS. The voltmeter will then display on the screen the exact value of VS by multiplying the measurement by 100.
Loaded voltage divider
We consider now the same voltage divider R1-R2 as presented in Figure 1 but with the additional presence of a load RL at the terminals of R2:
fig 4: Illustration of a resistive voltage divider with the presence of an output load
We will demonstrate the expression of V2. First of all, we express the equivalent resistance Req of the R2//RL parallel association:
We then apply the formula of the voltage divider (Equation 1) to the voltage divider R1-Req:
If we develop and rearrange this expression, we obtain V2 as a function of R1, R2, RL, and VS. Moreover, if the output load is instead connected to the terminals of R1, we can also write the expression of V1 similarly to obtain both formulas for the load voltage divider:
eq 2: Resistive loaded voltage divider relations
Voltage divider network
A voltage divider network is the association of three or more resistors in series that act as a voltage divider. In the following Figure 5, we illustrate a voltage divider network with five resistors:
fig 5: Illustration of a resistive voltage divider network
If we note Rseries=R1+R2+R3+R4+R5 the equivalent resistance for the series association of resistors, each voltage is given by Equation 3:
eq 3: Voltages expressions in a voltage divider network
For a voltage divider network with N resistors, Equation 3 remains valid with Rseries=R1+R2+…+RN.
We need to conclude the sections about resistive voltage dividers by saying that they are highly inefficient because the resistors dissipate power by Joule’s heating. For obvious safety reasons related to these power losses, they are only used for low-power applications such as for example in microelectronics to drive MOSFET and Bipolar amplifiers.
For high-power applications, reactive voltage dividers are preferred since they do not dissipate to much power by Joule’s heating.
Reactive voltage dividers
Alternative voltage dividers can be based on a capacitor or inductor instead of a resistor, they are known as reactive voltage dividers.
Capacitive voltage dividers
Capacitive voltage dividers are based on the same architecture as presented previously in Figure 1 by replacing the resistors with capacitors. Since the reactance of capacitors is given by 1/Cω, capacitive voltage dividers only work in the AC regime.
The advantage of using capacitors is that they present much lower power losses at high frequencies than a resistor. Indeed, we have seen in the dedicated tutorial about AC Resistance that the AC impedance tends to become much higher than the DC impedance for high frequencies due to the skin effect.
Moreover, capacitive voltage dividers are usually used for voltages above 100 kV in RMS value. The reason why is that resistive voltage dividers dissipate too much heat for high voltages, while ideal or near-ideal capacitors store the energy in the form of an electric field and release it in the circuit.
fig 6: Illustration of a capacitive voltage divider
If we label V1, V2, and VS the RMS values of the voltages, it is easy to demonstrate again that they follow similar relations as presented in Equation 1. However, since the impedance here is proportional to 1/C, the subscripts of the numerator change:
eq 4: Capacitive voltage divider relations
A similar circuit of Figure 3 by replacing the resistors with capacitors is suitable to measure high AC voltages. Since the voltage drop in a capacitor is proportional to 1/C, a large voltage drop will occur in the small capacitor C1:
fig 7: Process to measure a high AC voltage
Inductive voltage dividers
We do not encounter in the literature the term “inductive voltage divider” but we rather refer to this circuit as an autotransformer. An autotransformer is a single inductor with multiple tapping points, which can be seen as multiples inductors connected in series.
In Figure 8, we present an autotransformer with one intermediary tapping point, which corresponds to the simpler design and is equivalent to two inductances in series:
fig 8: Illustration of an autotransformer (left) and its equivalent “inductive voltage divider” (right)
If we note N1 and N2 the number of windings in L1 and L2, the ratio of voltages is simply given by V2/V1=N2/N1.
Similarly to capacitive voltage dividers, an autotransformer is suitable for high-power applications since the inductors store the energy in the form of a magnetic field and release it to the circuit, producing no heat dissipation.
When drawn as an equivalent “inductive voltage divider”, the voltage formulas of the autotransformer are given by Equation 5:
eq 5: Autotransformer relations
Usually, autotransformers are most found in high-power transmission lines to step-down or up voltages. Step-down and step-up autotransformers are easy to recognize by the proportion of their primary and secondary winding:
fig 9: Step-down and step-up autotransformers
Conclusion
Any voltage divider consists of at least two components in a series configuration in which a voltage drop can happen. The output is taken between a tapping point and the reference of the circuit (ground).
The goal of such circuits is to obtain a smaller voltage output value than the source supply VS in order to respect the dynamics of the incoming stage of the circuit. The output corresponds to a fraction of the source, between 0 and VS.
For low-power applications, we rely on resistive voltage dividers based on resistor components. We detail the demonstration of the output voltage formulas, the modification that an output load provides, and the existence of voltage network dividers, where many resistors can be interconnected in series in order to simultaneously provide different voltage outputs.
The disadvantage of resistive voltage dividers is that they are not suitable for high-power applications such as grid distribution. For this function, reactive voltage dividers are preferred as they do not dissipate large amounts of heat such as resistors.
Reactive voltage dividers are divided into two categories: capacitive and inductive, depending on which basic component is used. For capacitive voltage dividers, capacitors are connected in series and the largest voltage drop occurs in the smallest capacitor as their reactance is inversely proportional to their capacitance.
Inductive voltage dividers are most referred to as autotransformers, the largest voltage drop occurs, similarly with resistive voltage dividers, in the largest inductor as their reactance is directly proportional to their inductance.
While capacitive voltage dividers are mostly found in multimeters to probe high voltages, inductive voltage dividers are used in the grid distribution to step-down or step-up 50 Hz high-voltages. A typical example would be that autotransformers establish links between countries that not necessarily use the same voltages in their transmission lines.
Whether it’s to print your name on personal belongings, elevate product value with your own logo or print your favorite photo on any surface, this 2nd generation machine gives an output resolution of 500 DPI.
After we saw what could be described as “the very first palm-sized compact laser engraver and the most funded fabrication tool ever on Kickstarter” back in 2017, designer of the compact Cubiio Laser Engraver is back with a more powerful and much faster laser cutter and metal engraver with Autofocus and WiFi remote control.
Measuring 30 cm x 22 cm, the 2nd generation of the laser engraver features a workspace bigger than the size of an A4 paper and offers plenty of room to bring your ideas and creativity to life. It is a portable, easy-to-use, and safe machine designed particularly for makers, bakers, designers, handcrafters, leather workers, carpenters, and anyone with amazing imaginations.
Some cool things about the Cubiio 2 include its maximum cutting thickness of 5mm and its ability to cut through materials like leather, felt, wood, cardboard, paper, acrylic, fabric, and many others. If the material appears to be too thick for a single pass to cut through, the Cubiio 2 will focus continually downward into it for subsequent passes until it is able to cut.
The Cubiio 2 is also known for its versatility; it is able to craft designs on several kinds of metal surfaces.
“Thanks to the first latest advances in semiconductor laser technology, our laser cartridge works on stainless steel directly, without pre-coating spray. Cubiio 2 can engrave on titanic, dark glass, shale, brick, concrete, most varieties of colored anodized aluminum, and other materials. It even works on curved surfaces, like wine bottles.” says Muherz.
In order to cut or engrave properly with the laser beam, the Cubiio 2 employs the LiDAR technology that focuses the laser beam precisely and automatically on the target’s surface. Other rich user-friendly and intuitive features include alignment-free optics, preview, OTA firmware update, embedded fume filter, cross-format compatibility, and of course, a WiFi remote control that makes it an easy tool to handle. It is further equipped with an attenuator, thermometer, beeper, digital lock, emission indicator, accelerometer, and an emergency stop switch for safety.
The product has already been launched on Kickstarter with delivery scheduled to start by November 2020 to any part of the world. More information can be found here.
High Performance, Low Power Consumption of Third-Generation MPPA® from Kalray now Available on Same Terms as Existing Multi-core Processors to Suit Applications such as Autonomous Driving, Edge Computing, Robotics and Medical Equipment.
The eMCOS® POSIX high-performance, scalable real-time operating system (RTOS) from eSOL, a leading developer of real-time embedded software solutions, now supports the Coolidge™ third-generation MPPA® (Massively Parallel Processor Array) intelligent processor developed by Kalray. As a result, developments based on the MPPA Coolidge can be brought to market for advanced applications such as Autoware and AUTOSAR Adaptive Platform software for autonomous driving, as well as ROS[2] for robotic control. Further notable applications include edge computing, data centers, medical equipment, high-performance computing (HPC) and machine learning (ML). Importantly, developers will be able to access the extremely high computing performance and low power consumption of the MPPA Coolidge (80 cores) on the same terms as existing multi-core processors. For eSOL it ultimately means the ability to offer a POSIX-compliant, secure software platform that takes advantage of the Coolidge ‘manycore’ architecture.
eMCOS POSIX complies with the POSIX PSE53 profile for running multiple processes. A proprietary distributed microkernel architecture extracts maximum performance from the MPPA Coolidge manycore processor and provides scalable support across different processor configurations, ranging from single-core through to multi-core, many-core and multi-chip. Scalable support is also provided, not only in homogenous settings that lack a cache coherence mechanism, but for heterogeneous configurations combining different architectures.
The safety of the eMCOS platform is delivered by eliminating single points of failure and providing freedom from interference (FFI) in the software that mixes different automotive safety integrity levels (ASILs), an essential requirement of Functional Safety (FuSa) standards.
As a point of note, an optimized development environment and tools are available for creating advanced applications with multiple POSIX processes targeting the MPPA Coolidge.
In heterogeneous hardware configurations, eMCOS supports a variety of profiles that include POSIX, AUTOSAR and a hypervisor. This flexibility enables the RTOS to deliver optimal computing performance from MPPA Coolidge, which can be used as a stand-alone embedded platform that mixes functions with different criticalities on the same chip, or as an accelerator delivering high performance when combined with a separate host processor.
“By adding support for MPPA Coolidge, eMCOS POSIX has become the world’s first commercially available full POSIX OS to run on 80 cores,” said Bob Nobuyuki Ueyama, Executive Vice President of eSOL. “eSOL intends to continue working closely with Kalray to supply platforms for intelligent systems that provide superior computing performance, energy efficiency, real-time capabilities, and safety and security.”
Stéphane Cordova, VP Embedded Solutions at Kalray, added:
“We have engaged with eSOL as part of a technical and strategic collaboration for many years, and this latest development highlights what we can achieve together for the benefit of customers. Moving forward, we intend continuing this teamwork to supply secure software platforms that combine high performance and safety for a wide range of advanced and demanding applications such as Autonomous Driving, industrial equipment, robotics, medical devices and edge computing.”
Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML) are shaping and advancing complex automated technology solutions. Having these capabilities integrated into hardware allows for solutions that can recognize objects in an image, analyze and detect abnormalities in patterns or find key phrases. These functionalities can be paramount for applications including, but not limited to, autonomous vehicles and robots, monitoring devices for IoT networks, and voice & language processing applications. Nearly any industry can take advantage of this powerful technology, including manufacturing, oil and gas, security and defense, agriculture and automotive.
Google Coral TPU Card in the bottom left Mini-PCIe Socket.
Google Coral TPU & Gateworks SBC Highlights:
Rugged SBC & TPU Solution
Accelerates neural networks with edge TPU
Performance: 4 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second)
Half-size Mini-PCIe Form Factor (PCIe Gen2 x1)
Supported Framework: TensorFlow Lite
Works with AutoML Vision Edge
Power: 2 Watts Typ, 4 Watts Max
-20 to +70C Operating Temperature
A rugged & compact platform that can provide AI & ML in a single small package is available from Gateworks. Gateworks single board computers can be paired with a Google Coral Tensor Processing Unit (TPU). A demonstration has been created showcasing these two pieces working together in an image recognition scenario. The Google Coral Mini-PCIe card is inserted into a Gateworks SBC which also has an USB webcam connected to it. The Coral unit analyzes the live video from the webcam to detect and identify different objects. Each inference is extremely fast and accurate. A video of the demo is available.
The Belgium-based global supplier of micro-electronic semiconductor solutions, Melexis has announced the MLX90395 Triaxis Magnetometer Node, an automotive-grade (AEC-Q100) monolithic sensor that uses the Hall effect to provide contactless 3D sensing in three dimensions. The dual-die version of the MLX90395 provides redundancy for demanding scenarios, such as gear lever position sensing in automotive applications. The functionality of the MLX90395 is defined through the system processor, rather than hardwired into the device itself.
In terms of its applicability to position sensing, it has practically unlimited scope. The MLX90395 offers both I2C and SPI interfaces, making it simple to integrate into an automotive or industrial control environment. Both medium-field (50 mT) and high-field (120 mT) versions are available in three package options: SOIC-8, TSSOP-16 (dual-die for redundancy) and QFN-16 (with wettable flanks).
All package options are qualified to AEC-Q100 covering the extended temperature range for -40°C to +125°C and are RoHS compliant. The selectable digital output provides 16-bit resolution for X, Y and Z magnetic field measurements, enabling the host processor, DSP, microcontroller or digital signal controller to decode the absolute position of any magnet as it passes the sensor. The MLX90395 is smaller and more power-efficient than alternative Hall effect sensors, thanks in large part to Melexis’ Triaxis technology.
This innovative and proprietary technology helps return an industry-low power consumption, with an idle current of 1.4μA and standby current of 2.4μA, and supply current of 4mA or less. Along with magnetic field sensors to measure three fields (Bx, By, Bz), the MLX90395 also integrates a temperature sensor and supply voltage monitor.
Functionally, the sensor features three state machines and operates in one of three modes: single measurement, burst mode and wake-up on change mode. Engineers can select which magnetic field is measured and the frequency of measurement, to further fine-tune the sensor’s energy efficiency as well as the filtering and sampling time to optimize noise vs bandwidth.
“The MLX90395 represents a new way of sensing position for the automotive and industrial markets, one that can redefine the way a wide number of applications are designed in HMI, top column, center stack and body control,” commented Nick Czarnecki, Global Marketing Manager Position Sensors at Melexis. “Its strengths lie in its high sensitivity and versatility, coupled with its low power and small size. Manufacturers now have access to the very best 3D magnetic node sensing solution qualified to an automotive-grade.”
Operational modes can be defined and selected at runtime through the I2C or SPI interfaces, allowing multiple sensors to form part of a sensor cluster, controlled by a single microcontroller. The bus protocol (SPI or I2C) is also selectable, running at up to 10MHz for SPI and 1MHz for I2C. Each sensor is given a unique 48-bit ID number during the manufacturing process and contains additional free space to store customer traceability information.
Microchip’s TensorFlow Lite kit features the Microchip ATSAMD51 microcontroller
The ATSAMD51J19 high-performance microcontroller family from Microchip Technology was formerly targeted for general purpose applications until now. The ATSAMD51J19 can now be used for edge computing in machine learning applications using the Adafruit ByBadge and TensorFlow. ATSAMD51 microcontrollers feature a 32-bit Arm® Cortex®-M4 processor with floating point unit (FPU) running up to 120 MHz, up to 1 MB dual-panel Flash with ECC, and up to 256 KB of SRAM with ECC.
Machine learning has come to the “edge” – small microcontrollers that can run a very miniature version of TensorFlow Lite to do ML computations. Complex hardware to start developing the TensorFlow models is no longer needed. Teachable Machine is a free service for TensorFlow experimentation that takes the pain out of training models. In just a few moments users can get video data for image recognition, train a model, and export it for use with TF or TF Lite. Use a mod of tiny sorter to send a WebUSB signal to a Circuit Playground Express to light up LEDs based on which class was detected. The TensorFlow kit utilizing the Microchip ATSAMD51 Cortex-M4 processor is a cutting edge development platform for machine learning applications.
TensorFlow Kit Contents
Adafruit PyBadge with SAMD51 Cortex-M4F processor @ 120 MHz with display, speaker, and buttons
Electret microphone amplifier – MAX4466 with adjustable gain
JST PH 3-pin to female socket cable – 200 mm
Lithium-ion polymer battery with short cable – 3.7 V, 350 mAh
TensorFlow Kit Features
ATSAMD51J19 @ 120 MHz with 3.3 V logic/power – 512 KB of FLASH + 192 KB of RAM
2 MB of SPI Flash for storing images, sounds, animations, and more
1.8″ 160 x 128 color TFT display connected to its own SPI port
8 x game/control buttons with silicone button tops
5 x neopixels for badge dazzle or game scorekeeping
Triple-axis accelerometer (motion sensor)
Light sensor, reverse-mount so that it points out the front
Built-in buzzer mini-speaker
Class-D speaker driver for 4 ohm to 8 ohm speakers, up to 2 W
LiPoly battery port with built-in recharging capability
USB port for battery charging, programming, and debugging
Two female header strips with feather-compatible pinout so users can plug any featherwings in
JST ports for NeoPixels, sensor input, and I2C (I2C grove connectors fit in here)
TEC Microsystems introduces the new 1MA10 Series of thermoelectric coolers, with aluminum plates instead of ceramics.
All 1MA10 thermoelectric coolers have bare metal, aluminum plates instead of ceramics. Aluminum instead of ceramics is the key approach in TEC manufacturing. According to the company, aluminum is easy to machine, it has suitable thermal conductivity than ceramics, and it matches ideally by CTE with Aluminum heatsinks. An ideal combination for PCR and any application with long-term temperature cycling.
1MA10 TECs have the combination of classical bulk thermoelectric coolers technology with advanced high-density (HD) pellets placement. This combination allows reaching a 30W/cm2 cooling power density and creating 4x times smaller TEC solutions without compromises in cooling performance. More than 100W of TEC cooling capacity (Qmax) is possible now on just 20x20mm2 size instead of traditional 40x40mm2 or 50x50mm2.