Electronics-Lab.com Blog

Reliable loudspeakers needn´t be expensive. K50/8 from company Visaton is a good example of a universal louspeaker suitable even to less favor conditions for a very affordable price.

K50/8 belongs to 5 cm (2“) industrial loudspeakers with an increased resistance. IP65 (from the side of membrane after building into an appropriate housing) says it all. Plastic membrane from mylar is UV-resistant and a metal basket ensure a long-term stable properties in a wide range of temperatures. K50 easily handles what it is intended for – reproduction of voice and various sound in a wide frequency range (naturally except low and highest frequencies). K50 also meets another requirement important for the most of applications – small profile – 17mm only. Similarly like the most of small loudspeakers, also K50 is virtually omnidirectional even at higher frequencies (-5db/90°/8000 Hz)..

Thanks to its small dimensions, low profile, resistance and last but not least also an affordable price is the K50 a suitable component for a sound output of various devices like audio door-keeper, lifts, machines and control panels. K50 and many other Visaton components are our standard stock items. In case of interest in non-stock types, please contact us at info@soselectronic.com

Add a sound to your devices – for an outstanding price - [Link]

The APDuino project is for those want to use an Arduino to run a custom sensor monitoring and automation projects (such as aquaponics, greenhouse, gardening DIY automation) without having to program any code. [via]

Main features and characteristics:

• free, ready-to-flash software for Arduino Mega 2560 + W5100 EtherShield hardware combo
  • supports a number of analog and digital Sensor and Control components in any custom (electronically valid) layout on the Arduino pins, allowing building Your Own Automation System
  • custom Rules for automation, allowing Sensor and Control data access, scheduler, timers and more, allowing Your Custom Program to be created, without programming
  • data logging on SD card and online sinks (cosm, thingspeak, apduino online), allowing to Hook Your Automation System to the Internet-Of-Things and Web 2.0 services, eg. Twitter ^{via 3rd party services}
  • JSON data acces to device status, allowing to Build Your Custom Device Web Interface
  • customizable default web gui for interacting with the device & remote management, allowing to Start Using APDuino Right Immediately, once built and installed
  • no programming required - just flash-and-go ^{(if using supported components)}
• an online configuration and management service for managing device(s) running APDuinOS

Arduino Sensor Monitoring Without Coding - [Link]

Tessel Renzenbrink writes:

With everybody constantly on their phones, the emergence of the Internet of Things and augmented reality, ubiquitous computing does not seem all that far-fetched anymore. That being so, the question arises how we will interface with our smart cars, our smart homes and our domestic robots? Will we hunch over tablets to control the sound and lighting systems in the house? Make exaggerated gestures to control our motion-sensing robot? Talk to our smart albeit inanimate car? Or will we take out the middle man and interface with our smart environment directly with our brain.

Carbon Microthread Connects Brain to Machine - [Link]

Literally endless long bands of a linear light can be produced with LEDs of the Duris E3 and E5 series. A wide-angle beam and a very uniform light distribution make these LEDs very easily applicable.

This is exactly the case of Duris E3 and Duris E5 LEDs. Thanks to their compact SMT packages, they can be freely used on PCBs of virtually any shapes. Small dimensions of both LEDs enable tight placing of LEDs next to each other. OSRAM Duris E3 and Duris E5 LEDs feature a very homogenous radiation pattern in a wide angle (120°) and a high efficiency of up to 110lm/W. The result is a perfectly homogenous light without visible dots. That´s why they´re perfectly suitable for a construction of replacements of classic fluorescent lamps (CCFL) (T5 a T8) and bulbs. Duris E3 and E5 have very similar optical specification, the main difference is in the maximum current of 30mA/E3 versus 180mA/E5.

It is good to realize, that a maximum current of LED has nothing in common with efficiency, i.e. even low-power LEDs feature a high efficiency (lm/W). That´s why approximately the same-efficient light source can be created by 1 OSRAM OSLON Square LED, but even by for example 50 pcs Duris E3 or 8 pcs Duris E5. An advantage of high-power LEDs is an easy achievement of a high luminous flux from a small area (spot lights) and an easy application of optics. On the other hand, less powerful LEDs are usually more easily applicable, no secondary optics is necessary and often even no additional heatsink is necessary because the power is dispersed on a bigger area and already the PCB itself is often able to lead away and dissipate a generated heat. That´s why the usage of Duris E3 and E5 is very simple and virtually immediately after soldering LED to a PCB we gain a working source of a homogenous light. .

A light without an end with OSRAM Duris E3 and E5 LEDs - [Link]

Operating on power harvested from an NFC reader’s RF field, the AS3953 NFiC near field communication interface chip requires no external power source and at most one external component (a capacitor). According to the manufacturer, the device enables full bi-directional NFC capability at a total cost less than half that of a typical NFC reader implementation.

The AS3953 is fully compliant with NFC Forum specifications (NFCIP-1 target at 106 kbps) and the ISO 14443A standard (up to 848 kbps, to Level 4), making it suitable for use in contactless smart cards and as an NFC Forum-compatible interface tag, and it can establish instant communication with any NFC-enabled phone in close proximity (less than 10 cm). [via]

NFC Interface Chip Harvests Power From RF Field - [Link]

micro-nova.com made a rather unique FPGA development board. It packs a Xilinx Spartan-3A 200K and all its support circuitry onto a 64-pin DIP package. It is USB programmable, and also has an on-board 8-channel ADC, easy to interface to SRAM and 5-volt tolerant I/O pins, all for a very competitive price.

Features:

• Xilinx Spartan-3A FPGA – 200,000 gates
• 50MHz crystal oscillator
• 5-volt tolerant I/O pins
• 8 channel, 200 kSps, 10-bit ADC
• 4 Mbit asynchronous SRAM
• 2 Mbit configuration Flash
• Mini-USB and JTAG programmable

Mercury FPGA module in DIP format - [Link]

This article shows you how to hack a bathroom scale in a scale wifi able to publish the weight in Google Docs.

This modification allows you to publish your weight in a table in Google Spreadsheet, so you can keep monitored the weight (up to 10 persons) directly online. With Google docs you can then analyze this data and create graphs.

Wi-Fi Body Scale with Arduino - [Link]

New family of conectors picoMAX from company Wago is substantially lower than traditional connectors and it is extremely resistant to vibrations.

picoMAX is a vast system of connectors with spring contacts for „wire-to-board“, „wire-to-wire“, „board-to-wire“ but also „panel-feed-through“ connections with very compact dimensions and universal usage, with pinov 3.5mm, 5.0mm and 7.5mm pitch. The biggest construction novelty of the picoMAX series is a new substantially changed design in comparison to a traditional design. New design of a pin+socket contact bridge enabled a significant decreasing of the connector´s height and at the same time a perfect mechanical connection of both parts to each other. It means a significant improvement of resistance to vibrations (up to 20g) in comparison to common connectors. A sturdy connection is further supported by integrated locking latches which avoid disengagement caused by vibrations

A new construction resulted in a very short path for an electric signal, what means a lower contact resistance (contact bridge and pins are from a tin-plated electrolytic copper) and a higher reliability. An absolute reliability of the contact is ensured even at high temperatures, thanks to an innovative clamp technology and an insulation material based on glass fiber reinforced PPA (polyphtalamide). As we might expect at Wago mark – connecting of wire conductors is simple, without specialty tools (only a usual screwdriver is necessary to release a wire) and in praxis there´s no limitation regarding the type or termination of a wire conductor (solid, stranded, fine-stranded, with ferrules, …).

A big plus of the picoMAX series is a diversity. With the picoMAX series we can be sure, that in this family we´ll find mutually compatible types for all connections. Simple and at the same time sophisticated system of coding enables to ensure a correct installation, for example in applications with several connections on one place. Despite of a vast amount of combinations of various connectors, the picoMAX system features a simple and an intuitive application.

picoMAX is also available in the „picoMAX eCOM“ version – a PCB terminal block, which can also be used as a removable connection (plug-in). It is even more compact and economical version with pins without a plastic housing, suitable for applications in which you don´t need all advantages of the picoMAX system.

A complete description of the whole series would require many pages of text. A better and quicker idea will provide to you the attached video, picoMAX flyer and picoMAX catalogue. 3,5mm pitch version (2091-xx) is for wire conductors 0,2-1,5 mm2/10A, 5.0mm pitch version (2092-xx) is for wire conductors 0,2-2,5 mm2/16A/250-630V. 7,5mm pitch version (2092-xx) has similar properties as the previous one, but it has a higher nominal voltage (400-1000V).

picoMAX connectors are usable literally everywhere – in a huge amount of versions will be very probably found the right ones for your application.

Small “big” connectors – Wago picoMAX - [Link]

Multimeter VA588 also measures an insulation resistance at voltages of 50-1000V thus enabling to check many devices or an electric installation.

A possibility to measure an insulation resistance of various devices is very useful and it is often able to discover a beginning problem on time – sooner, than it will appear in a form of a device malfunction or an injury. Though VA588 doesn´t replace an expensive professional revisional instrument but it is able to reliably discover a diminished insulation and significantly increase safety of your workplace.

VA588 literally represents a 2in1 solution. Besides an insulation tester with a selectable testing voltage of 50-100-500-1000V, you also gain a solid automatic range multimeter with max. 5000 counts. As an insulation resistance in the most of cases doesn´t have a linear character, the measurement at a higher voltage is much closer to reality than measurement with a common multimeter with a testing voltage of 0,5-3V. In other words, VA588 creates a testing voltage by a built-in DC/DC module and from the current flowing through a testing circuit it calculates an insulation resistance value.

VA588 also features further useful features like True RMS measuring, measurement of AC current with 0,1uA resolution, 51-segment analog bargraph and measuring of frequency of linear as well as digital signals. Also beneficial is the possibility to activate/ deactivate an auto-off function.

Test the safety of your devices with the VA588 multimeter - [Link]

Brian Bailey writes :

Flash memory has very quickly risen from being an obscure memory type to perhaps becoming the dominant memory type for many devices, including music players, cell phones, tablets and now increasingly servers and mainstream PCs. But flash memory does not scale quite as well as the more traditional DRAM that it is replacing. It is thought that DRAM can scale down to 1nm whereas we are already hitting some problems with the scaling of the floating gate in NAND flash. It is not thought that planar NAND can go below 10nm which is only a couple of processes steps away from where we are today.

3D NAND flash is coming - [Link]