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Thermal imaging on the quality control line

On a high-speed food and beverage line, what you can see is not always what is happening. Thermal imaging adds a different layer of control. Instead of relying on surface appearance, it measures heat distribution as seals are formed and products move through the line, providing continuous, 100% in-line inspection instead of just sampling.
Read the full article.

Built for the test bench, ready for the field

FUTEK's IDC150 Signal Conditioner packages high-performance signal conditioning in a rugged aluminum enclosure. Built for engineers needing accurate, synchronized data from strain gauge sensors, it fits prototyping and lab environments. The device connects seamlessly to existing setups and pairs with SENSIT software and Python APIs. It is ideal for compact, high-performance digital sensor evaluation.
Learn more.

Automotive lighting systems simplified, optimized

The new MLX81119 from Melexis is an 18-channel LIN RGB LED controller with an integrated DC/DC converter, designed to simplify and optimize automotive lighting systems. By generating the LED supply voltage locally on chip, this unit significantly reduces power dissipation, external components, and space requirements in increasingly dense vehicle applications such as door panels, dashboards, and charge-port lighting.
Learn more.

How healthy is your machine? Moisture-in-Oil Sensor

iST's Moisture-in-Oil Sensor is a compact, digital RH/T module that accurately and continuously monitors the water content in oils and fuels. This sensor does not simply measure the absolute water content -- it measures the relative saturation level in % RH or water activity aw in %. This means you get a direct picture of the current oil quality and can react in time. Applications include: marine engines and gearboxes, commercial and rail vehicles, wind turbines and generators, drilling and paper machines, and more. Eval kit available.
Learn more.

World's first native color lidar sensors

Ouster Rev8 features the world's first patented native color lidar sensors. For the first time, a single lidar sensor can understand road signs, interpret brake lights, or simply capture the richness of planet Earth in survey-grade, colorized maps. Based on patented Ouster Silicon with embedded Fujifilm color science, the L4 chip boasts 42.9 GMACs of processing power, detection of up to 20 trillion photons per sec, and a 40-kHz measurement rate with picosecond timing precision. Sees up to 200 m.
Learn more.

Real-world applications: 3D camera ensures precise aircraft cabin drilling

In modern aircraft production, precision is everything. In this application article, learn how an Ensenso 3D camera integrated into an automated process chain ensures accurate detection and alignment of drilling positions in aircraft cabin assembly using the CAD data of the aircraft frame.
Read the full article.

What are Onshape Custom Features?

Certified Onshape Professional Too Tall Toby explains how to supercharge your workflow using community-created tools. In this insightful tutorial, he dives into the world of FeatureScript -- the powerful coding language behind Onshape. Learn where to find new scripts and how to use them. Save time. Learn new skills, shortcuts, and maybe even better ways to do things. Incorporate Custom Features into your everyday work. Very useful.
View the video.

What can you do with touchless magnetic angle sensors?

Novotechnik has put together an informative video highlighting real-world applications for their RFC, RFE, and RSA Series touchless magnetic angle sensors. You may be surprised at the variety of off-highway, marine, material handling, and industrial uses. You'll learn how they work (using a Hall effect microprocessor to detect position) and their key advantages, including eliminated wear and tear on these non-mechanical components. We love when manufacturers provide such useful examples.
View the video.

What can the new Autodesk Inventor AI Assistant do for you?

Autodesk Assistant brings industry-specific context to help execute tasks and orchestrate actions across your 3D models -- not just answer questions. Designed to understand your workflows, Assistant appears as a dockable panel alongside your Inventor workspace and includes the ability to perform complex tasks or gather information from your designs without writing a single line of code. Find out what this new AI "colleague" can do for you.
Watch this informative Autodesk video.

Useful! Snap-together LED enclosure lighting

Seifert StripLite SL 4000 Series LED enclosure lighting provides bright illumination to 700 lumens. On/off switch and motion sensor models are available. Easily daisy chain up to 16 light strips. Magnetic or clip mounting. See video/info on website or contact Bristol Instruments for more information.
Learn about snap-together lighting.

Next-gen multi-touch panels

Beckhoff's Next line of multi-touch control panels and panel PCs is engineered for demanding human-machine interface and control tasks. These panels offer convenient operation with advanced multi-touch technology, a high-quality look and feel, anti-glare and anti-ghosting effects, and a wide choice of formats (from 7 to 23.8 in.) and options. A main draw is the line's attractive pricing.
Learn more.

Most powerful handheld 3D laser scanner on the market

Creaform, a business of AMETEK, has launched HandySCAN 3D|EVO Series, the most powerful handheld 3D laser scanning solution on the market. This innovative series features a built-in touchscreen display and an integrated high-res 12-MP photo camera, incorporating augmented reality (AR) and advanced on-scanner visualization. Users can streamline repetitive inspections and enhance quality control processes using the new auto-alignment feature. Powered by 46 blue laser lines with accuracy of 0.020 mm. The Creaform Metrology Suite includes four application software modules: Scan-to-CAD, Inspection, Automation, and Dynamic Tracking. So many more features.
Learn more.

Continental develops first sensor to measure heat in EV motors

Global automotive supplier Continental has developed a new sensor technology that measures the temperature inside permanently excited synchronous motors in electric vehicles directly on the rotor for the first time.
Read the full article.

LEDs with highest output power available

The new OCI-460 SWIR LED series from EPIGAP OSA Photonics features markedly improved output power compared to the company's previous OCI-480 package and all competitive SMD SWIR LED devices. For example, model OCI-460 ID1550-XS operates at 1,550 nm and features drive current up to 1.5A to deliver approximately 13% higher output efficiency over EPIGAP's OCI-480 package. This impressive advancement features 96% higher output power compared to any other SWIR SMD LED currently on the market. Ideal for use in sensing, machine vision, and more.
Learn more.

AI and collaboration in SOLIDWORKS

Discover AURA, the new AI assistant built into SOLID-WORKS, in this informative video from TriMech Group. What can AURA do for you? It can streamline workflows and make collaborating on and tracking projects even easier, for starters. Other top features of SOLIDWORKS Design 2026 are also covered. Some good tips here.
View the TriMech Group video.

Blue -- the final color of efficient OLEDs -- now viable in lighting and could boost phone battery life by 30%

Haonan Zhao, a doctoral student in physics and graduate student research assistant in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Michigan, holds a blue PHOLED device in the lab. [Credit: University of Michigan]

 

 

 

 

Lights could soon use the full color suite of perfectly efficient organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, that last tens of thousands of hours, thanks to an innovation from physicists and engineers at the University of Michigan (U-M).

The U-M team's new phosphorescent OLEDs, commonly referred to as PHOLEDs, can maintain 90% of the blue light intensity for 10 to 14 times longer than other designs that emit similar deep blue colors. That kind of lifespan could finally make blue PHOLEDs hardy enough to be commercially viable in lights that meet the Department of Energy's 50,000-hour lifetime target. Without a stable blue PHOLED, OLED lights need to use less-efficient technology to create white light.

The lifetime of the new blue PHOLEDs currently is only long enough to use as lighting, but the same design principle could be combined with other light-emitting materials to create blue PHOLEDs hardy enough for TVs, phone screens, and computer monitors. Display screens with blue PHOLEDs could potentially increase a device's battery life by 30%.

"Achieving long-lived blue PHOLEDs has been a focus of the display and lighting industries for over 20 years. It is probably the most important and urgent challenge facing the field of organic electronics," said Stephen Forrest, the Peter A. Franken Distinguished University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at U-M. He is also the corresponding author of the study published in Nature on Dec. 20.

PHOLEDs have nearly 100% internal quantum efficiency, meaning all of the electricity entering the device is used to create light. As a result, lights and display screens equipped with PHOLEDs can run brighter colors for longer periods of time with less power and carbon emissions.

Before the U-M team's research, the best blue PHOLEDs weren't durable enough to be used in either lighting or displays. Only red and green PHOLEDs are stable enough to use in devices today, but blue is needed to complete the trio of colors in OLED "RGB" displays and white OLED lights. Red, green, and blue light can be combined at different relative brightness to produce any color desired in display pixels and light panels.

So far, the workaround in OLED displays has been to use older, fluorescent OLEDs to produce the blue colors, but the internal quantum efficiency of that technology is much lower. Only a quarter of the electric current entering the fluorescent blue device produces light.

"A lot of the display industry's solutions are upgrades to fluorescent OLEDs, which is still an alternative solution," said study first author Haonan Zhao, a doctoral student in physics and electrical and computer engineering. "I think a lot of companies would prefer to use blue PHOLEDs, if they had the choice."

To make blue light, electricity excites heavy metal-containing phosphorescent organic molecules. Sometimes, the excited molecules come into contact before emitting the light, transferring all of the pair's stored energy into one molecule. Because the energy of blue light is so high, the transferred energy, which is double that of the single excited molecule, can break chemical bonds and degrade the organic material.

One way around this problem is to use materials that emit a broader spectrum of colors, which lowers the total amount of energy in the excited states. Such materials, however, often appear cyan or even green, rather than a deep blue.

The U-M team got around this issue by sandwiching cyan material between two mirrors. By perfectly tuning the space between the mirrors, only the deepest blue light waves can persist -- and eventually emit from the mirror chamber.

Further tuning the optical properties of the organic, light-emitting layer to an adjacent metal electrode introduced a new quantum mechanical state called a plasmon-exciton-polariton, or PEP. This new state allows the organic material to emit light very fast, thus further decreasing the opportunity for excited states to collide and destroy the light-emitting material.

"In our device, the PEP is introduced because the excited states in the electron-transporting material are synchronized with the light waves and the electron vibrations in the metal cathode," said study co-author Claire Arneson, a doctoral student in physics and electrical and computer engineering.

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and Universal Display Corp., in which Forrest has an equity interest. U-M also has a royalty-bearing license agreement with, and a financial interest in, Universal Display Corp. Forrest is also the Paul G. Goebel Professor of Engineering and a professor of physics. Dejiu Fan, the other author on the paper, is an alumnus of electrical and computer engineering.

Source: University of Michigan

Published December 2023

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