Page 916 – Electronics-Lab.com

Prometheus: Circuit Boards in Minutes

Posted on 15 December, 201515 December, 2015 by mixos

Prometheus is Not a 3D printer – it quickly carves, drills, and shapes your PCB so you don’t have to wait for a delivery truck.

Prometheus makes real circuit boards in just minutes. When we’re prototyping, we need a tool that can give us nearly instant feedback – not feedback that comes in a few week’s time in the form of a PCB delivery. Let the PCB manufacturers make the hundreds or thousands of boards for your production run – not your prototypes. If production is your goal, Prometheus will help get you there faster.

Prometheus: Circuit Boards in Minutes – [Link]

LT8331 – Low IQ Boost/SEPIC/ Flyback/Inverting Converter

Posted on 15 December, 201515 December, 2015 by mixos

Linear Technology Corporation announces the LT8331, a current mode step-up DC/DC converter with an internal 500mA, 140V switch. It operates from an input voltage range of 4.5V to 100V, making it suitable for use with a wide range of input sources found in industrial, transportation and avionic applications. The LT8331 can be configured as either a boost, SEPIC, flyback or inverting converter. Its switching frequency is programmable from 100kHz to 500kHz, enabling designers to minimize external component sizes. Burst Mode^® operation reduces quiescent current to only 6µA while keeping output ripple below 20mV_P-P. The combination of a high voltage MSOP-16E package and tiny externals ensures a very compact footprint while minimizing solution cost.

LT8331 – Low IQ Boost/SEPIC/ Flyback/Inverting Converter – [Link]

PINE A64, First $15 64-Bit Single Board Super Computer

Posted on 14 December, 201514 December, 2015 by mixos

PINE A64 is the world’s first 64-bit expandable Quad Core 1.2Ghz supercomputer, tablet, media center, and more… starting at just $15.

PINE A64 is not only a computer, it is a super affordable 64-bit high performance expandable single board computer (SBC). Whether you are an IT professional, electronics hobbyist, student, teacher, hacker, inventor, or just someone who wants to have more flexibility to increase their productivity at work, the PINE A64 is a computer board made for everyone. Enjoy more fun and entertainment at home with endless possibilities.

PINE A64, First $15 64-Bit Single Board Super Computer – [Link]

Supercapacitors to replace batteries?

Posted on 14 December, 201514 December, 2015 by mixos

by Martin Cooke @ elektormagazine.com:

It was reported last year that researchers at Rice University in the US, led by chemist James Tour had developed a method of producing a form of graphene on commercial polyimide plastic sheet by zapping it with a laser. The process is called LIG (Laser Induced Graphene). The resulting graphene layer is not a conventional flat sheet made up of hexagonally-organized atoms but instead a spongy array of graphene flakes attached to the polyamide, giving a greatly increased surface area. This property can be exploited to build supercapacitors.

Supercapacitors to replace batteries? – [Link]

NerO – An Energy Efficient Arduino UNO Compatible Design

Posted on 14 December, 201514 December, 2015 by mixos

A reference design for an Arduino UNO compatible board based on the FTDI FT231X USB UART, delivers 5V at a full 1A without overheating.

The UNO R3 is the staple of most Arduino based projects but it’s been around for a number of years and many of the features have been improved for example by Adafruit and Sparkfun who make excellent enhanced UNO compatibles. However, our additional requirements for a full 1A current without excess heat dissipation and FCC/CE conformity led us to consider a new 3rd party UNO compatible reference design that met these requirements hence the inspiration behind NerO

NerO – An Energy Efficient Arduino UNO Compatible Design – [Link]

Creator Ci40: The ultimate IoT-in-a-box dev kit

Posted on 14 December, 201514 December, 2015 by mixos

A complete IoT kit that includes all the hardware, software, and cloud infrastructure needed to quickly build a wireless IoT system.

The Creator™ Ci40 IoT kit includes not only the hardware building blocks needed to quickly prototype a wireless IoT system from scratch but most importantly the open source software frameworks, the network stacks and the cloud connectivity capabilities required to securely connect and authenticate devices to the cloud.

Creator Ci40: The ultimate IoT-in-a-box dev kit – [Link]

LT8714 – 80V/5A synchronous 4-quadrant DC/DC controller

Posted on 14 December, 201514 December, 2015 by mixos

Linear Technology Corporation announces the LT8714, an 80V input synchronous PWM four quadrant output DC/DC controller. This device cleanly transitions the output voltage through zero volts with up to 5A sourcing and sinking current capability, regardless of the output voltage polarity, making it ideal for regulating to positive, negative, or zero volts. The bipolar output enables the LT8714 to source or sink current, regardless of the output voltage polarity. Applications include bidirectional current sources, test systems, high power low frequency signal amplification, back body biasing, thermoelectric coolers (TECs) and electronic window tinting

LT8714 – 80V/5A synchronous 4-quadrant DC/DC controller – [Link]

Arduino Tutorial: Using the Soil Moisture Sensor along with a Nokia 5110 LCD display

Posted on 14 December, 2015 by mixos

Using the soil moisture sensor with an Arduino can’t be easier. Adding a Nokia 5110 LCD display makes things more professional since we can visually check the moisture levels of the soil.

The sensor can measure the levels of moisture in the soil. So it can be extremely useful if you want to monitor the soil moisture of your plants or automate the watering procedure. Let’s see the project we are going to build today. I have one cup in front of me with dry soil. If I place the sensor in the cup we can read a low soil moisture value at the Nokia 5110 display. If I pour some water in the cup you can clearly see that the moisture levels rise. The project is working fine and we can visually check the moisture levels of the soil. Of course this is just a demonstration of the sensor, I am going to build more useful projects in the future with this sensor. Let’s now see how to build this simple project.

Arduino Tutorial: Using the Soil Moisture Sensor along with a Nokia 5110 LCD display – [Link]

Galvanic Skin Response System

Posted on 11 December, 2015 by mixos

The Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) is a property of the skin to exhibit electrical characteristics. It is also known as Electrodermal Activity (EDA), Electrodermal Response (EDR), Electrodermal Level (EDL), Skin Conductance Activity (SCA), Skin Conductance Response (SCR), and a lot more. The GSR utilizes the principle that skin property varies with the state of sweat glands. The electro-physiological signal is generated by the sweat glands, and the sweat is the cause of the variation in resistance and conductivity. The signal can be used for capturing the autonomic nerve responses as a parameter of the sweat gland function.

This reference design is a GSR system that is worn in the wrist. It monitors the user’s skin impedance and temperature. This design features a wellness measurement microcontroller and the TE Connectivity’s micro USB 2.0 that is used as the charging port of this device. The TE micro USB connector is ideal for this application because of its reliability, robustness, and versatility. On the other hand, the microcontroller integrates all the analog front-end and other peripherals required for impedance measurements, including one 16-bit ADC with input MUX and PGA, two 12-bit DACs and two 8-bit DACs, 4 operational amplifiers (OP AMP), 4 uncommitted SPST analog switches, and internal voltage references. This design is powered by LIR2032 rechargeable coin battery. With a mobile device for Android that is free to download, a user can monitor his or her skin resistance and temperature within 20m through the Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) wireless interface.

This reference design is applicable to GSR measurement and other AC impedance measurements. The principle of GSR system is the basis for some significant tools such as electrocardiograph (ECG) and electroencephalograph (EEG). The GSR measurement has a good repeatability. Therefore, it is considered to be a useful tool for examination of the autonomous nervous system function, and especially the peripheral sympathetic system. The GSR devices can be used in medical treatment, lie detection, and wellness monitoring.

Galvanic Skin Response System – [Link]

Designing and Building a binary clock

Posted on 11 December, 201511 December, 2015 by mixos

Parker Dillmann @ macrofab.com has designed a wrist LED binary clock based on PIC16F527 Microchip mcu.

The Macro Watch stemmed from those constraints. I picked the PIC16F527 microcontroller by Microchip to be the core of the watch because it was the cheapest MCU I could find that had enough I/O and I knew at least a little bit about it in terms of writing code for and programming. The watch shows time in binary since doing so requires less LEDs to display time than the usual watch patterns, driving the cost down.

Designing and Building a binary clock- [Link]