Electronics-Lab.com Blog

Maxim’s ModelGauge™ algorithm reduces design complexity and maximizes battery runtime.

San Jose, CA—January 2, 2013—Maxim Integrated Products, Inc. (NASDAQ: MXIM) today announced that it is now sampling the MAX17048, the industry’s simplest low-power fuel gauge for Lithium-ion (Li+) batteries. Operating at only 23µA, this battery fuel gauge uses 4x less power than competitive devices and even less in micropower hibernate mode, in which the fuel gauge continues to operate. It needs only one external capacitor, not the multiple external devices of competitive devices, so it simplifies designs, shrinks solution size by 3x, and reduces costs. This fuel gauge is ideal for portable battery-powered applications where size, cost, and power are critical, such as smartphones, wireless handsets, and mobile accessories, including Bluetooth® headsets, portable speakers, fitness devices, and Wi-Fi® routers.

Traditional fuel gauge designs require multiple external components including current-sense resistors, which increase both bill of materials (BOM) cost and design complexity. Those fuel gauges also use coulomb counting, which can drift and affect the accuracy of the gauge over time. The MAX17048 features the proven ModelGauge™ algorithm and does not require coulomb counting to report accurate battery state-of-charge, thus extending runtime.

MAX17048, MAX17049 Micropower 1-Cell/2-Cell Li+ ModelGauge ICs - [Link]

New aluminium profiles in our portfolio will help you to apply LED strips or other linear LED light sources.

LED strips or PCBs with LEDs are in fact only a semi/product, which should be in the most of cases mounted into an appropriate profile. Two new aluminium profiles are excellently suitable for this purpose, with the possibility to buy a transparent or semi/transparent plastic cover.

Advantages / Features:

● Profile ZH-9099/1000 is suitable to be embedded into panels, furniture and similar.

● Profile ZH-9460/1000 is ideal for installation without embedding – on a surface. That´s why it features somewhat higher cooling properties.

Both types are anodized (natural elox) and they can be equipped with termination profiles and transparent plastic covers. Transparent cover transmits almost 100% of light, thus almost not affecting the luminous flux from LEDs. Semi-transparent cover transmits 75% of light and provides a soft diffused light.  In case of interest in these heatsinks, high-power LEDs or LED strips, please contact us at  info@soselectronic.com.

Comfortable and safe installation of LED strips with new profiles – [Link]

Many users often request if there are any tools that can simplify library part creation. Make-symbol-device-package-bsdl.ulp is one of those tools, it can parse a BSDL file and automatically create a part for you, device, symbol, package everything in just a few clicks. It’s one of the more sophisticated ULPs that ship with EAGLE and can be used to speed up part creation especially with high-pin count components such as FPGA and large microcontrollers. Most manufacturers such as TI and Microchip provide BSDL files for their parts. This is also one of two ULPs that come with a manual you can find it in the doc folder of your EAGLE installation. [via]

Eagle Quick Tip: Simplify library part creation - [Link]

by Publitek European Editors:

Small, flexible, low-cost but high-performance microcontrollers, and the off-the-shelf boards built around them, are revolutionizing the world of electronics design for small systems. Products such as the Microchip PIC16, the Atmel AVR and Texas Instruments MSP430, and ready-made modules based around these and similar microcontrollers such as the Arduino and Basic Stamp, provide a range of flexible, programmable I/Os that lend themselves to a wide variety of different applications.

Many of these systems are powered by batteries, which have a strongly variable output voltage as they discharge. For example, the voltage output by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery will typically fall as it discharges from 4.2 V to around 3 V, with a wide plateau in the 3.5 V region. This is where most of the stored power will be delivered.

Flexible Power for Versatile Micros - [Link]

With the new AIR 40 wind turbine it is possible to gain 40 kWh monthly – easily and safely. 

Advantages / Features:

Small wind turbines are an excellent electric energy source for all „off-grid“ applications with a low and middle power consumption like telecommunications, lighting, SCADA (telemetry) and other. In comparison to photovoltaic panels, they require only a very simple installation – to tighten to a shaft.

AIR 40 are top quality microprocessor controlled wind turbines with a precise mechanical construction. Thanks to a low weight and an integrated controller, they´re easy to install and provide an energy right after the installation.   Composite blades are optimized for a quiet operation, durability and a maximum power in a wide range of wind speeds. A big advantage of Air 40 is a relatively low start-up wind speed – already from – 3.1 m/s. „The heart” of  AIR 40 is a brushless alternator dynamo with permanent magnets and with a long lifetime.

Output power of AIR 40 depends from real on-site conditions, however in average it is able to provide 40 kWh monthly, at an average wind speed of 5,8 m/s (21km/h). At higher wind speeds it can be even substantially more. Wind turbines are capable of a standalone operation and they´re also a well-proven complement of PV panels, where they conveniently supplement a decreased power of PV panels, especially in winter season.
Detailed information will provide you the AIR 40 datasheet. In case of interest, please contact us at info@soselectronic.com.

Catch the wind into a net (or into a battery) - [Link]

The project presented here has come a long way already before becoming a kickstarter project. We developed the tracker for a pilot project at a company that was specifically looking for simplicity (both hardware and software wise), ease of use and cost while also being able to be manufactured in non-optimal conditions: even soldered and assembled by hand with minimal training or older equipment. These goals were met within the pilot project; prototypes were produced on a small scale and the project was an overall success.

Remote GPS Tracking - [Link]

Texas Instruments has developed a new, free real-time operating system (RTOS) based on a pre-emptive multithreading kernel, which will run on the full portfolio of TI microcontrollers, including dual core devices. TI-RTOS includes a deterministic, real-time multitasking kernel (SYS/BIOS) with a TCP/IP stack, including network applications, USB, EMAC, MMC/SD host and device stacks and class drivers, FAT-compatible file system fully integrated with C RTS file I/O functions and Ethernet, USB, UART, I²C and SD device drivers. It also supports low overhead core-to-core communication mechanism for dual-core devices. [via]

TI Launches RTOS for Microcontrollers - [Link]

With OLEDs approaching production maturity, Osram has announced that it is researching another technology that could change the world of lighting: light emitting foils produced in a printing process. The foils are based on light-emitting electrochemical cells made from organic materials, known as organic light-emitting electrochemical cells (OLECs). Although similar to OLEDs, they have a conductive and light-emitting layer containing a liquid material instead of a solid material. This active layer contains freely mobile ions in the liquid phase. When a voltage is applied to the active layer, the ions migrate to the edge. This allows charge carriers to be injected into the layer, where they recombine to emit light in the same way as a light-emitting diode. With suitable combinations of materials, any desired color of light can be obtained. [via]

Printed Light-Emitting Foils Could Challenge OLEDs - [Link]

Dusan Ponikvar writes:

Contemporary power supplies use switching techniques to achieve the desired output voltage from the primary source. Switching power supplies, however, are often too noisy to be used in sensitive analog circuits. You may find linear power supplies to be preferable in these cases.

A standard practice for a linear voltage regulator is shown in Figure 1. A higher-than-desired, unstable voltage is connected to the input, VIN, and the series-pass transistor, Q1, reduces the voltage to the desired level at output VOUT. An error amplifier, IC1, compares a fraction of VOUT with a reference voltage, VR, and controls Q1 to keep the output fixed regardless of the load current, IOUT, and variations of VIN. Such a circuit is suitable only for a small range of output voltages.

Regulate a 0 to 500V, 10-mA power supply in a different way - [Link]

The LT®3651-8.2/LT3651-8.4 are 2-cell, 4A Li-Ion/Polymer battery chargers that operate over a 9V to 32V input voltage range. An efficient monolithic average current mode synchronous switching regulator provides constant current, constant voltage charging with programmable maximum charge current. A charging cycle starts with battery insertion or when the battery voltage drops 2.5% below the float voltage. Charger termination is selectable as either charge current or internal safety timer timeout. Charge current termination occurs when the charge current falls to one-tenth the programmed maximum current (C/10). Timer based termination is typically set to three hours and is user programmable (charging continues below C/10 until timeout).

LT3651-8.2 and 8.4 – Monolithic 4A High Voltage 2-Cell Li-Ion Battery Charger – [Link]