Mass sensing startup Sorex Sensors Ltd. (Cambridge, England) has launched its first product, a particulate sensor along with a development kit. By Peter Clarke @ eenewseurope.com
The Sorex sensor is designed for use in air purifier systems and in semiconductor manufacturing equipment, such as atomic layer deposition tools, where it can monitor amounts and rates. It is also suitable for air quality monitor where it can sense very small amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Sorex has reportedly said that this initial non-specific sensor of capable of detecting particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter. Particles of this size range can be inhaled into the lungs with potentially harmful effects.
“Our particulate sensor – to help with dust control – is the first step towards our development of an array of sensors for indoor air quality monitoring,” said Mario de Miguel Ramos, Sorex CTO, is reported as saying. “The aim is for our sensors to act as your eyes, ears and nose to detect any dangerous build-up of compounds before they reach harmful levels.”
The fact that the sensor is more sensitive than many competing sensors and is highly compatible with CMOS manufacturing gives it a couple of potential advantages in the market. Power consumption is down in the microwatt range.
The development kit can be plugged into a laptop to reveal the particles collected by the sensor as part of the product development process.
Sorex was spun out of the University of Cambridge engineering department in 2017 to commercialize film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) technology that uses a piezoelectric layer that can be excited to resonate. Attachment of mass to the surface changes the resonant frequency and provides a measurement of the amount of mass on the sensing area. The company claims the technology can be sensitive down to femtogram levels.
Tiny device features lower input power to reduce equipment size and power consumption
Toshiba Electronics Europe (“Toshiba”) announces the availability of a new voltage driven photorelay with a tiny S-VSON4T package and reduced input power dissipation.
The new product, designated TLP3407SR, features a maximum LED current of just 1 mA at the input, which represents a reduction to approximately 33% of that of its predecessor, the TLP3407SRH. This allows the product to offer a maximum input power dissipation of 3.3 mW. For use with higher voltages of 5 V or more, the new device can be powered by adding an external resistor in series, allowing designers to implement a maximum trigger LED current of 0.2 mA. This expands the range of permissible input voltages, simplifying the task of circuit design.
With the reduced input power dissipation, the new voltage drive photorelay is suitable for reducing the power consumption of a wide variety of equipment including probe cards, automatic semiconductor test equipment (ATE), semiconductor testers, and other similar applications.
The TLP3407SR is housed in a tiny S-VSON4T package that features a mounting area / footprint of just 2.9 mm2 – a reduction of around 27% when compared to the existing VSONR4 package. As a result, this new product can help reduce the size of end products or increase the number of photorelays that can be mounted in a fixed space.
Particle Industries endpoint and repeater development kit is designed for IoT projects and prototyping
Particle’s Xenon is a powerful mesh-enabled development kit that can act as either an endpoint or repeater for Particle mesh networks. It is based on the Nordic nRF52840 and has built-in battery-charging circuitry so it is easy to connect a Li-Po and deploy a local network in minutes. The Xenon should be paired with an argon or boron gateway to connect data to the particle device cloud.
BLE and NFC features are available on the Xenon development kit. With wiring APIs for both BLE and NFC, particle applications can be created that interact with mobile devices and integrate with off-the-shelf BLE sensors, peripherals, and other Particle BLE accessories. Plus, BLE and NFC complement one another and offer low-power, low-latency communication, getting critical data where it needs to be without wasting time or money.
The kit includes the Xenon development board, a mini breadboard, and a USB cable. Equipped with the Nordic nRF52840 processor, the Xenon has built-in battery charging circuitry which makes it easier to connect a Li-Po battery and 20 mixed-signal GPIOs to interface with sensors, actuators, and other electronics.
Nordic Semiconductor nRF52840 SoC
-ARM Cortex-M4F 32-bit processor @ 64MHz
-1MB flash, 256KB RAM
-IEEE 802.15.4-2006: 250 Kbps
-Bluetooth 5: 2 Mbps, 1 Mbps, 500 Kbps, 125 Kbps
-Supports DSP instructions, HW accelerated Floating Point Unit (FPU) calculations
-ARM TrustZone CryptoCell-310 Cryptographic and security module
-Up to +8 dBm TX power (down to -20 dBm in 4 dB steps)
-NFC-A tag
On-board additional 2MB SPI flash
20 mixed signal GPIO (6 x Analog, 8 x PWM), UART, I2C, SPI
Micro USB 2.0 full speed (12 Mbps)
Integrated Li-Po charging and battery connector
JTAG (SWD) Connector
RGB status LED
Reset and Mode buttons
On-board PCB antenna
U.FL connector for external antenna
Meets the Feather specification in dimensions and pinout
FCC, CE and IC certified
RoHS compliant (lead-free)
All Particle hardware can be set up in minutes using Particle’s mobile- and browser-based setup tools. Every device comes pre-installed with Device OS, Particle’s powerful embedded operating system. Particle hardware is built to scale, enabling seamless transition from prototype to a global deployment with device cloud hosted infrastructure.
Features
No single point of failure: build a local mesh network that is self-healing so if an individual device goes offline the network can reconfigure itself to the closest connection
Self-extending: if more range is needed, add another node and the messages can hop through the mesh back to the gateway
Reliable networks: interconnected devices can simultaneously transfer data smoothly and will not complicate the network connection
Low-cost, low-power: using wireless mesh networks eliminates the cost and complexity of installing fiber/wires between facilities
EEZ teams recently announced their latest project; the EEZ Bench Box 3 (BB3). The Bench Box 3 which is a FOSS and open hardware programmable power supply concept was designed to serve as a successor to EEZ’s H24005, with the aim of providing a power supply with better modularity, higher capacity, and functionality while preserving openness, and rich software support, all at a reasonable level of complexity so it can be built by anyone with intermediate electronics and soldering skills.
The BB3 comes with increased capacity compared to the h24005, starting from the color TFT display. The EEZ H24005 is one of the first programmable power supplies to incorporates color TFT touchscreen display but the BB3 not only also comes with a TFT display, it comes with an even larger display (4.3” 480×272 pixels) with antialiased fonts and larger menu options area improve legibility and simplify interaction. The touchscreen convenience on the BB3 is further expanded with accompanied incremental encoder that can be used for functions that are traditionally performed with push buttons or rotating knobs (e.g. changing output parameters).
The BB3 also comes with a larger number of modules (three instead of two) compared to the H24005 and is available for both single and dual-channel modules which allows configurations with up to six power outputs. The design of the BB3 was done with modularity in mind to allow easy upgrades in the future via the introduction of new peripheral modules to provide various functionality to users. Howbeit, it initially offers three different type of peripheral modules that can serve various user needs at varying budgets.
Modularity which is one of the key/interesting features of the BB3 was accomplished using the EEZ DIB (short for DIY Instrument Bus) concept created by the EEZ team. Currently in its first version, the DIY Instrument Bus(DIB) concept offers a simple way of interfacing a “master” module with up to three peripheral T&M modules connected via separate (dedicated) SPI buses. The master module is CPU-agnostic, therefore any MCU, CPU, FPGA, SoC, etc., with SPI capability can be deployed as main processing resource. The peripheral modules in the DIB concept are allowed to have there own EEPROM to store peripheral specific data and on-board processing resources that communicate with the master module. More on the DIB can be found on the project page.
The EEZ team’s plan is to design new modules alone or in cooperation with other teams that already successfully launched open hardware T&M devices. The new 2-quadrant and 4-quadrant power modules can be expected in the near future but planned functionalities go beyond DC power modules with the introduction of a power analyzer, signal/function generator, data acquisition module, thermal sensor module, stepper/DC motor controller, I/O and switch matrix, and much more. The initial investment in the BB3 will be preserved and the same is the case with accompanied software and firmware features.
Minimalist wire harness for simplified assembling and servicing
Up to 3 peripheral modules
STM32F7 ARM 32-bit MCU (2 MB Flash)
Color 4.3” TFT touchscreen display (8 MB SD-RAM for frame buffering)
Front panel AC power switch
Front panel bootloader switch for main MCU (firmware upload via USB DFU)
Incremental encoder and user-defined switch
USB 2.0 OTG and 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet connectivity
Four power relays for various power outputs coupling
Dedicated full-duplex SPI for each module
Dedicated bootloader control for each module (firmware upload via UART, SPI or I2C)
Low noise Ø80 mm cooling fan with speed control
Remotely controlled by 300+ SCPI commands using the EEZ Studio of similar SCPI controllers
Compact size: 290 (W) x 123 (H) x 240 (D) mm
Max. weight (populated with three DCP405 and AC/DC power modules): 4 kg
BB3 Power Module Features
DCP405
DCP405B
DCM220
Number of Outputs
Single
Single
Dual
Floating Outputs
Yes
Yes
Yes (with on-board common GND)
Topology
Buck pre-regulator with linear post-regulator
Buck pre-regulator with linear post-regulator
Sync buck with CV/CC controls
On-board MCU
No
No
STM32F373
Voltage Range
0 – 40 V
0 – 40 V
1 – 20 V
Current Ranges
2
2
1
Current Range
0 – 50 mA / 0 – 5 A
0 – 50 mA / 0 – 5 A
0 – 4 A
Max. Power
155 W
155 W
140 W
Voltage Programming and Readback Resolution
5 mV
5 mV
10 mV
Current Programming and Readback Resolution
5 µA / 0.5 mA
5 µA / 0.5 mA
20 mA
Remote Sensing
Yes
No
No
Remote Sensing Reverse Polarity Protection
Yes
n/a
n/a
Remote Programming
Yes
No
No
Down-Programmer
Yes
No
No
HW (crowbar) OVP
Yes
No
No
SW Protections
OVP / OCP / OTP / OPP
OVP / OCP / OTP / OPP
OVP / OCP / OTP / OPP
Reverse Polarity Power Output Protection
Yes, fused
Yes, not fused
Yes, not fused
Outputs Coupling
Common GND / Split rails / Series / Parallel
Common GND / Split rails / Series / Parallel
Common GND
Openness and rich software suite is a distinguishable feature of all EEZ projects. The BB3 comes with feature-rich software and firmware, and some unique features of the EEZ software suite introduced with H24005 project, including; the fully featured simulator, in-house developed visual editor, SCPI controller/console, and TFT MHI, are also available for use with the BB3.
The simulator which runs as web application, allows the exploration of all firmware features and others like assigning virtual load on the module power outputs even when you don’t have a physical device at your disposal.
Web Simulator
The visual editor is a part of the cross-platform EEZ Studio that enables the rapid development of HMI for the BB3 color TFT touchscreen display. The EEZ Studio is capable of generating source code that can be directly imported into a firmware project and compiled (e.g. free ST Atollic TrueSTUDIO or STM32CubeIDE). The other part of the EEZ Studio is the SCPI controller application that allows users access BB3 in an intuitive way using the simple text-based SCPI commands. Leveraging on the capacity of the SCPI controller, the EEZ Studio facilitates fast and accurate collection of data like; the instrument’s screen data, logged data, control of inputs and outputs, parameter settings. Each instrument has it’s own “session window” and all interaction are stored in SQL database for efficient searching, presentation and archiving.
The BB3 displays continuity of the practice of the EEZ team to design their devices in a manner that ensures it can be easily replicated by DIYers/makers with intermediate skills in soldering, assembling, testing and have basic understanding of software and firmware installations and uploading. Although it includes custom made enclosure, builders have a freedom to make his/her own enclosure or adopt some general purpose enclosure of similar dimensions.
In line with EEZ team’s open source policy, the project is open source and the Schematics, Gerbers, mechanical drawings, BOM and code are all available on the Project’s GitHub repository, and are offered under TAPR license. Components used in the development of all the modules used in the BB3 are readily available from major suppliers and ordering codes for five different sources are added for every component in the BOM to make it easy to purchase them. Components in packages that require additional assembly equipment and skills (e.g. QFN, BGA) are omitted.
Forthcoming crowdfunding
The EEZ team is in the final stage of preparations for a crowdfunding campaign for the BB3 Project. The campaing will offer the BB3 in a highly completed and tested (Almost-Ready-To-Run) Kit form and backers will be able to choose between multiple configurations starting from bare PCBs set, custom enclosure to the fully-featured configuration with multiple power outputs.
The EEZ team also told us that they’re working on fully assembled, tested and calibrated solution that is expected to be ready for shipment next year with required certificates for the EU and the US markets.
Today, ELECTRONIC ALCHEMY , a startup that emerged from university research launched a crowdfunding campaign for their eForge electronics 3D Printer. It is designed for makers, students and professionals and is now available on Kickstarter starting at the super early bird price of $3,999.
eForge is the first electronics 3D Printer that prints on demand new proprietary filaments that were developed from research sponsored by NASA. It also prints standard filaments like ABS and PLA with precision. The team led by Dr. Chance Glenn has developed an easy-to-use tool that can print up to 8 multi-materials.
“eForge is a tool to enable creativity. Imagine what people can do once they realize the power they will possess with this product. I can’t wait to see it.” ~Co-Creator, Dr. Chance Glenn
This new standard for printing collaborated with Autodesk to utilize a platform that takes standard modeling files like .stl or .obj,, then with a gcode slicer it can print virtually any 3D printer filament. Additionally, the multi-material extruder system uses automatic lifting smart nozzles to control contamination in every print.
The only 3D Printer that prints electronic materials
Achieves precision and speed with modified Bowden extruder system
Compact and contained to fit in workshops, classrooms and studios.
eForge’s Kicks tarter campaign runs from October 15 to November 21. For a full rundown of the pledge levels visit their Kickstarter page. Media wishing to interview their personnel should contact Ms. Latonia Jones at media@electronicalchemy.com
The Adafruit Mini PiTFT – 135×240 Color TFT Add-on for Raspberry Pi is your little TFT pal, ready to snap onto any and all Raspberry Pi computers, to give you a little display. The Mini PiTFT comes with a full color 240×135 pixel IPS display with great visibility at all angles. The TFT uses only the SPI port so its very fast, and we leave plenty of pins remaining available for buttons, LEDs, sensors, etc. It’s also nice and compact so it will fit into any case.
This display is super small, only about 1.14″ diagonal, but since it is an IPS display, its very readable with high contrast and visibility. We had a little space on the top so we give you two tactile buttons on GPIO pins so you can create a simple user interface.
Using the display is very easy, we have a kernel driver and Python library for the ST7789 chipset. You can set it up as a console output so you can have text and user interface through the Raspberry Pi OS or you draw images, text, whatever you like, using the Python imaging library. Our tests showed ~15 FPS update rates so you can do animations or simple video.
Comes completely pre-assembled and tested so you don’t need to do anything but plug it in and install our Python code! Works with any Raspberry Pi computer.
www.hackster.io writes:
Despite its name, the Mini PiTFT isn’t the smallest Raspberry Pi display Adafruit has ever designed: The earlier PiOLED used a monochrome organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display panel measuring just 1″ diagonal, but with a somewhat restricted 128×32 resolution. The follow-up OLED Bonnet doubled the vertical resolution to a 128×64 total, but at the cost of a larger 1.3″ diagonal.
The Mini PiTFT is now available on Adafruit, and soon from the company’s international distribution partners, priced at $14.95.
This control circuit will provide the correct rotational speed and direction of a 12-V DC motor. Nothing special in that? But there is definitely, when you consider the multitude of potential options for actuating the motor. You can adjust the speed manually with a potentiometer (‘pot’), using a DC voltage level between 0 and 5 (or 10 V) or even digitally using I2C.
Go to the article page and download a pdf copy of this back article. Downloading is free to all Elektor e-zine subscribers.
Original publication: Elektor magazine 3 / 2016 (May & June).
FPGA Boards have grown to become one of the “favorites” of the Embedded community. They feature in all kind of applications ranging from automation to DIY Applications, however, typical FPGA boards still cost way more than some other popular boards like the Arduino Microcontroller boards (even though performance is incomparable!). This keeps FPGA boards out of the reach of a good section of the community and to solve this, Sipeed, an open source hardware and embedded computing specialist, recently announced the final specifications for their ultra-low-cost FPGA development board called; the Tang Nano, which according to the firm is expected to cost less than $5.
The Tang Nanos were originally planned by Sipeed to cost only $3 as revealed in an earlier tweet on the company’s Official Twitter handle, but were later estimated at “less than $5 ” by the company in another tweet. While no official specifications was released during the first announcement as only a picture of the board connected with a full-colour liquid-crystal display panel using an on-board display output was included, the announcement generated quite the buzz and led to a lot of people pitching in several ideas and recommendation. Adding support for the suggestions received will no doubt have caused the need for additional components, etc., and most likely be the reason behind the increase in cost.
In the Twitter update, after revealing the slight increase in cost, the company revealed pictures of the first mass-produced models along with final specifications which include; 1,152 four-input lookup tables (LUT4s), 72Kb static RAM (SRAM), 64Mb pseudo-static RAM (PSRAM), an on-board RGB LED, 40-pin RGB LCD display interface, and on-board programmer with USB Type-C connectivity and that the board will be based on a Gowin Semiconductor 48-pin FPGA.
While a comprehensive official specification needs to be provided by the company’s before it can be verified, a mention on the tweet update that the board uses the “cheapest’ Gowin Semiconductor 48-pin FPGA could only mean that the board will be based on an FPGA from the GW1N-1 LittleBee family and this means we chould be expecting a 55nm low-power process node.
A picture of the board was also shared and one can clearly see that the board is based on the WCH CH552 serial-USB chip and other features like; the 21 pin headers arranged in a breadboard-friendly manner, the display connector, and a USB type-C connector which is fast becoming a standard for hardware devices.
Sipeed initially proposed September launch date for the board but it was missed and with no other launch date or any info on the commercial availability, it may be cool to shoot them an email or just stay glued to the company’s twitter account to get information on the board and also get notified as soon as it drops and is available for sale.
What if your PCB can be designed in just a few minutes, with you providing only the specifications and selecting the major components to be used? Circuit-Tree.com is making it a reality with their Intelligent Rapid Circuit Board Design Platform.
Creating Schematics and PCBs, is one of the major tasks associated with the design of any electronics product. For entreprenuers / innovators, it can be very costly, while for Hardware designers and engineers, it is a task they are familiar with but wish it takes less time to complete. This scenario describes the problem being solved by the Rapid Circuit Board Design platform recently announced by Circuit Tree. Through the Platform, designers can design Schematics, create the printed Circuit Board, and prototype using several Processor /Controller, network port, sensors and other hardware features they want in minutes.
The Circuit Tree platform uses the components selected and requirements specified (including Board size, PCB fabrication and add placement rules) by the user to generate an instant schematic and PCB with the smallest possible board size (or the specified board size), using a proprietary intelligent auto-placement algorithm.
During the design process, users have the luxury of selecting from a constantly updated library of 900+ SOCs and other components from diverse manufacturers like STMicroelectronics, Texas Instrument, NXP, and Microchip to mention a few, to ensure you have what is needed by your project and provide diverse design options The platform also comes with various peripherals blocks which allows the addition of your own components along with features that allow users compare alternatives to a particular component in terms of features and costs.
For PCB Design, the platform allows iteration with layer counts, component placement changes and much more when the layout is generated. It also intelligently handles popular PCB topics/issues like the fanout of BGAs, differential traces and length matching for high-speed signals.
Asides providing a platform that handles design of Boards, Circuit-Tree also handles board manufacturing and designers are not only able to go straight from design to order in 10 minutes, they can also get the physical, manufactured board in their hands in just 14 days (including shipping time).
All of these makes Circuit Tree an interesting solution designed with an understanding of the challenges of Hardware development. According to the Founder – Makarand Kapoor, the platform was developed to decrease-time-to-market and allow engineers and enthusiast focus on creativity. In his words, Makarand said,
” Engineers typically spend a lot of time in Component selection, Creation of schematic, placement of components, layout generation stages which need multiple iterations. Enthusiasts and engineers should continue to tap into powerful solution like these to decrease time-to-market and reduce engineering pain they go through. “
Circuit Tree has been used in the development of several development boards and two of those boards; The ESP32 gateway Board and the ESP32 Click board were recently released on Circuit Tree’s Store. The ESP32 gateway board is a palm-sized Ethernet enabled board based on the ESP32 module. It incorporates an Ethernet port and Connectors designed to be compatible with the Click form factor which opens the board to the use of 500+ different types of click boards. While also based on the ESP32 module, the “ESP32 Click Board”, on the other hand, was designed to serve as an end node as it comprises of a Click Board connector and is designed with features to support it as a battery powered board.
Both boards are available on Circuit Trees Online Store with the ESP32 gateway being sold for $35 while the ESP32 Click Module is sold $25.
As we move closer to a world with computers becoming ubiquitous and smarter with AI, I personally find the platform very interesting as it could one day (*putting on my futurist cap*) be the platform through which we issue voice commands to a computer and it creates the PCB we need.
Let’s Start Coding Offers Customizable Electronic Kits That Teach Kids 8-12 Real Code in a Hands-on Way
Remember how much fun you had with chemistry sets from your childhood? You made things blow up and glow and learned about chemistry in the process. Let’s Start Coding is the “chemistry set” for today’s kids, teaching them real-world coding skills while making cool toys and gadgets.
Let’s Start Coding kits are designed with the beginner in mind though they also make a great next step for kids who are familiar with Scratch, Blockly, Minecraft or Hour of Code. This holiday season, give the gift of coding skills– the same skills used by organizations like NASA and Microsoft– to your favorite young learner.
A kit from Let’s Start Coding contains customizable electronics, like LED lights, speakers, buttons, and sensors. Through our free online examples and projects, kids learn to manipulate these physical gadgets with C++ code, building devices and toys as simple as a flashlight or as complex as a mini video game. Recent users have built an LED belt, a gadget that lights up their skateboard, an automatic night light, a “Clapper”-like device, even a digital dj booth.
Let’s Start Coding has a lineup of 6 kits for the holiday season for the budding engineer or inventor in your life. Customizable kits are Speaker ($19.99), Piano ($34.99), Car ($44.99), Rocket ($44.99), Base Kit ($64.99), Ultimate Kit ($114.99). Kits are available on Amazon and at www.letsstartcoding.com.
UPDATE 24/11/2019: If you sign up for the Let’s Start Coding newsletter you’ll receive special discount codes and updates about their products. Sign up now to receive their biggest discount of the season, only for subscribers, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
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The other part of the EEZ Studio is the SCPI controller application that allows users access BB3 in an intuitive way using the simple text-based SCPI commands. Leveraging on the capacity of the SCPI controller, the EEZ Studio facilitates fast and accurate collection of data like; the instrument’s screen data, logged data, control of inputs and outputs, parameter settings. Each instrument has it’s own “session window” and all interaction are stored in SQL database for efficient searching, presentation and archiving.
