Electronics-Lab.com Blog

by Publitek European Editors

There are many different types of accelerometers for industrial applications, ranging from the latest micro-machined capacitive devices to traditional rugged piezo electric crystals. The boom in portable devices and the advantages of knowing the position and orientation of the equipment, as well as the increased use of accelerometers in vehicle air bags, has led to an explosion in the different types of devices in recent years. All of this is to the advantage of the engineer who can use the wide range of devices for different applications, from monitoring to position measurement.

Sensor Technologies for Accelerometers - [Link]

by Publitek European Editors:

This article looks at the integration of sensors into 4 to 20 mA control loops and field bus implementations in industrial automation applications. Adding intelligence to the sensor allows more control and options for closed or open control loops with tighter latencies, and the article looks at the different approaches to implementing a smart sensor control loop. It looks at devices that are optimized for the control loops such as the Texas Instruments XTR117 transceiver and the HCPL-4200 optocoupler from Avago Technologies, as well as controllers that are optimized for sensors on these control loops such as the ADuC816 from Analog Devices.

Smart Sensors in 4 to 20 mA Control Loops - [Link]

Drawing only microamps (other than load current), this circuit switches in accordance with ambient light levels. Raju Baddi writes:

You can use an LED as a photoelectric sensor. A previous Design Idea shows that such a switch is highly power-efficient, consuming almost no power (Reference 1). However, you cannot adjust that configuration to switch at the desired light intensity. You can adjust the circuit in this Design Idea to any threshold level of light intensity necessary to maintain the on state of the photoelectric switch while retaining almost the same power efficiency of the original circuit

Adjust power-efficient LED switch to any light intensity – [Link]

This tiny little breakout board has Microchip’s 24LC512 EEPROM and MCP9802 temperature sensor devices, both of which support I2C protocol. This board can be used for both sensing the ambient temperature and storing it. The MCP9802 is a digital temperature sensor with an user-selectable resolution from 9 to 12 bit. It can measure temperature ranging from -55°C to +125°C and notifies the host microcontroller when the ambient temperature exceeds a user programmed set point through its ALERT output pin. This board allows you to store up to 32000 temperature samples when you use the sensor in high resolution mode (12-bit, 0.0625°C) with each sample stored as two bytes. Raj (from embedded-lab.com) is selling this board for $9.00 on Tindie.

I2C EEPROM plus Temperature Sensor breakout board - [Link]

STMicroelectronics has added a high-performance standalone 3-axis magnetometer to its MEMS sensor portfolio - [via]

By introducing the 2 x 2 x 1mm LIS3MDL magnetometer, ST now offers unique flexibility for designers to implement movement and position detection in space-constrained products such as smartphones and personal navigation devices. The device can also be combined with other discrete sensors from ST such as 3-axis MEMS accelerometer or 3-axis MEMS gyroscope, to build sensors with as many as 9 degrees of freedom (DOF).

LIS3MDL – Single-chip magnetometer by ST - [Link]

Temperature, pressure, humidity, flow – all this you have under control with the Sensirion components, the top quality Swiss producer. 

CMOSens technology and other innovative technologies of company Sensirion enabled production of top quality calibrated sensors with a long lifetime. As you may have read in our articles:

•  New sensors Sensirion will take you only 3x3mm on PCB!
•  Professional humidity and temperature measuring with calibrated sensors Sensirion
•  Professional solution for accurate measurement of humidity and temperature

or other. Sensirion sensors in fact aren´t sensors but ready-made solutions with a sensor, preamplifier, AD converter and a communication interface. The result of this concept is high disturbances immunity, high accuracy, saving of components and a simplified development.

Compendious description of Sensirion components can be found in the Sensirion sensor solutions,  Humidity and temperature sensors and Differential pressure sensors flyers.

If you´re searching for a piezo transducers, buzzer, siren or a loudspeaker with a high efficiency and a high reliability, you´re on the right address. Narrow specialization, long-term know how, many patents and an own “in-house” production make the company Sonitron a European leader in a segment of piezo components.

An absolute majority of Sonitron components is resistant to harsh environment, dust and gases. In the offer we can find many types usable in critical applications (medical, military and other). Thanks to this fact, Sonitron also supplies such customers like for example NATO, Volvo and AirBus.

Directly from our stock, we´re able to provide you with many piezo components – piezo elements (transducers, without a driver) but also with drivers (sirens, buzzers) usually working in a very wide voltage range (for example 2-35V). A more detailed description of a piezo technology and description of products can be found in the Sonitron catalogue (25MB).
In case of interest even in non-stock types, please contact us at info@soselectronic.com.

I´m interested in a sample!

Sonitron – piezo transducers, which you can rely on – [Link]

MSC now offers the E520.32 programmable smoke detector IC from Elmos Semiconductor, a device that includes all active electronic components of a network capable smoke detector.

The E520.32 combines a configurable 200 mA driver for the transmitter LED, a high impedance input for the voltage conversion to the receiver diode and a 2-wire bus interface. It is equipped with 4 KByte of flash ROM and 32 Byte of EEPROM. In addition to a wide photo input current range of 1.5nA to 45nA, the device also features a low current consumption of only 88 µA.

Fully programmable smoke detector IC with integrated bus interface - [Link]

A clap switch is a fun project for beginners. It switches on and off electrical appliances with a sound of clapping hands. Today we will discuss about making a simple clap switch that operates when it detects two clapping sounds in a row. It uses an electret microphone as a transducer for converting a clapping sound into an electrical signal. The microcphone output is amplified by a transistor and is then sent to the PIC12F683 microcontroller which performs an ON/OFF switching action when valid claps are detected.

Making a simple clap switch - [Link]

Pittsford, NY:  imPulse(tm) is a personal, iPhone-compatible, handheld ECG Touch Monitor that will be introduced at this year’s Electronica Show in Munich, Germany, designed using unique EPIC touch sensors.  Created by the sensorʼs manufacturer Plessey Semiconductors,  imPulse(tm) is aimed at the home health market, and will allow the routine, quick and accurate recording of ECG signals outside of the medical environment – without the need for conductive gel or skin preparation. Read the rest of this entry »