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Intro to reed switches, magnets, magnetic fields

This brief introductory video on the DigiKey site offers tips for engineers designing with reed switches. Dr. Stephen Day, Ph.D. from Coto Technology gives a solid overview on reed switches -- complete with real-world application examples -- and a detailed explanation of how they react to magnetic fields.
View the video.

Bi-color LEDs to light up your designs

Created with engineers and OEMs in mind, SpectraBright Series SMD RGB and Bi-Color LEDs from Visual Communi-cations Company (VCC) deliver efficiency, design flexibility, and control for devices in a range of industries, including mil-aero, automated guided vehicles, EV charging stations, industrial, telecom, IoT/smart home, and medical. These 50,000-hr bi-color and RGB options save money and space on the HMI, communicating two or three operating modes in a single component.
Learn more.

All about slip rings: How they work and their uses

Rotary Systems has put together a really nice basic primer on slip rings -- electrical collectors that carry a current from a stationary wire into a rotating device. Common uses are for power, proximity switches, strain gauges, video, and Ethernet signal transmission. This introduction also covers how to specify, assembly types, and interface requirements. Rotary Systems also manufactures rotary unions for fluid applications.
Read the overview.

Seifert thermoelectric coolers from AutomationDirect

Automation-Direct has added new high-quality and efficient stainless steel Seifert 340 BTU/H thermoelectric coolers with 120-V and 230-V power options. Thermoelectric coolers from Seifert use the Peltier Effect to create a temperature difference between the internal and ambient heat sinks, making internal air cooler while dissipating heat into the external environment. Fans assist the convective heat transfer from the heat sinks, which are optimized for maximum flow.
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EMI shielding honeycomb air vent panel design

Learn from the engineering experts at Parker how honeycomb air vent panels are used to help cool electronics with airflow while maintaining electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. Topics include: design features, cell size and thickness, platings and coatings, and a stacked design called OMNI CELL construction. These vents can be incorporated into enclosures where EMI radiation and susceptibility is a concern or where heat dissipation is necessary. Lots of good info.
Read the Parker blog.

What is 3D-MID? Molded parts with integrated electronics from HARTING

3D-MID (three-dimensional mechatronic integrated devices) technology combines electronic and mechanical functionalities into a single, 3D component. It replaces the traditional printed circuit board and opens up many new opportunities. It takes injection-molded parts and uses laser-direct structuring to etch areas of conductor structures, which are filled with a copper plating process to create very precise electronic circuits. HARTING, the technology's developer, says it's "Like a PCB, but 3D." Tons of possibilities.
View the video.

Loss-free conversion of 3D/CAD data

CT CoreTech-nologie has further developed its state-of-the-art CAD converter 3D_Evolution and is now introducing native interfaces for reading Solidedge and writing Nx and Solidworks files. It supports a wide range of formats such as Catia, Nx, Creo, Solidworks, Solidedge, Inventor, Step, and Jt, facilitating smooth interoperability between different systems and collaboration for engineers and designers in development environments with different CAD systems.
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Top 5 reasons for solder joint failure

Solder joint reliability is often a pain point in the design of an electronic system. According to Tyler Ferris at ANSYS, a wide variety of factors affect joint reliability, and any one of them can drastically reduce joint lifetime. Properly identifying and mitigating potential causes during the design and manufacturing process can prevent costly and difficult-to-solve problems later in a product lifecycle.
Read this informative ANSYS blog.

Advanced overtemp detection for EV battery packs

Littelfuse has introduced TTape, a ground-breaking over-temperature detection platform designed to transform the management of Li-ion battery systems. TTape helps vehicle systems monitor and manage premature cell aging effectively while reducing the risks associated with thermal runaway incidents. This solution is ideally suited for a wide range of applications, including automotive EV/HEVs, commercial vehicles, and energy storage systems.
Learn more.

Benchtop ionizer for hands-free static elimination

EXAIR's Varistat Benchtop Ionizer is the latest solution for neutralizing static on charged surfaces in industrial settings. Using ionizing technology, the Varistat provides a hands-free solution that requires no compressed air. Easily mounted on benchtops or machines, it is manually adjustable and perfect for processes needing comprehensive coverage such as part assembly, web cleaning, printing, and more.
Learn more.

LED light bars from AutomationDirect

Automation-Direct adds CCEA TRACK-ALPHA-PRO series LED light bars to expand their offering of industrial LED fixtures. Their rugged industrial-grade anodized aluminum construction makes TRACKALPHA-PRO ideal for use with medium to large-size industrial machine tools and for use in wet environments. These 120 VAC-rated, high-power LED lights provide intense, uniform lighting, with up to a 4,600-lumen output (100 lumens per watt). They come with a standard bracket mount that allows for angle adjustments. Optional TACLIP mounts (sold separately) provide for extra sturdy, vibration-resistant installations.
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World's first metalens fisheye camera

2Pi Optics has begun commercial-ization of the first fisheye camera based on the company's proprietary metalens technology -- a breakthrough for electronics design engineers and product managers striving to miniaturize the tiny digital cameras used in advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), AR/VR, UAVs, robotics, and other industrial applications. This camera can operate at different wavelengths -- from visible, to near IR, to longer IR -- and is claimed to "outperform conventional refractive, wide-FOV optics in all areas: size, weight, performance, and cost."
Learn more.

Orbex offers two fiber optic rotary joint solutions

Orbex Group announces its 700 Series of fiber optic rotary joint (FORJ) assemblies, supporting either single or multi-mode operation ideal for high-speed digital transmission over long distances. Wavelengths available are 1,310 or 1,550 nm. Applications include marine cable reels, wind turbines, robotics, and high-def video transmission. Both options feature an outer diameter of 7 mm for installation in tight spaces. Construction includes a stainless steel housing.
Learn more.

Mini tunnel magneto-resistance effect sensors

Littelfuse has released its highly anticipated 54100 and 54140 mini Tunnel Magneto-Resistance (TMR) effect sensors, offering unmatched sensitivity and power efficiency. The key differentiator is their remarkable sensitivity and 100x improvement in power efficiency compared to Hall Effect sensors. They are well suited for applications in position and limit sensing, RPM measurement, brushless DC motor commutation, and more in various markets including appliances, home and building automation, and the industrial sectors.
Learn more.

Panasonic solar and EV components available from Newark

Newark has added Panasonic Industry's solar inverters and EV charging system components to their power portfolio. These best-in-class products help designers meet the growing global demand for sustainable and renewable energy mobility systems. Offerings include film capacitors, power inductors, anti-surge thick film chip resistors, graphite thermal interface materials, power relays, capacitors, and wireless modules.
Learn more.

Air Force research team awarded patent for new tunable radio frequency filter

By Mary Pacinda, Air Force Research Laboratory

Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) scientists recently patented a new tunable radio frequency (RF) filter design. The new design is for a smaller, lighter, less expensive device that requires much less power than current technology. As the Air Force moves to smaller, more "agile" flying vehicles such as hand-launched drones, reducing size, weight, and power (SWaP) for all components becomes more critical.

RF filters are a standard component in any device that transmits or receives RF signals. A cell phone, for example, operates within a certain frequency range, or bandwidth, assigned by the government. RF filters ensure that a cell phone operates within a particular bandwidth, preventing interference with or from other devices. However, for military applications, the ideal RF filter needs to be tunable.

"If you are on the battlefield, your adversary will likely try to contaminate your signal, something that's not very hard to do," said project team leader Dr. Michael Page. "We have the ability in place right now to tune the filter to remove undesirable signals while preserving intended functionality."

From left to right: Dr. Derek Bas, Dr. Piyush Shah, and Dr. Michael Page examine a potential acoustically driven ferromagnetic resonance material under a microscope in the magneto-optics lab. The microscope is designed to observe magnetic properties on a small scale. [U.S. Air Force photo/Michael Wolf]

 

 

 

 

Although the RF filter can be tunable by an operator, the best technology is "intelligent," that is, it automatically searches for the best "noise-free frequency," and then automatically switches to it. The most common tunable RF filter currently in use is a bandpass filter.

"A bandpass filter is based on an electromagnet," said Page. "It has a little magnetic sphere about the size of the point of a pen. That little sphere sits inside an electromagnet. When you change the magnetic field of the electromagnet, that changes the way the sphere behaves, which changes the operating frequency of the filter."

Even though it works well, there are practical problems with the current technology.

"Electromagnets are fairly large," said Page. "They can't be miniaturized, and they use a lot of power. On a larger platform, that's not an issue, but the way the Air Force is moving, we expect to have a lot of smaller autonomous platforms, drones, where you can't use a big bulky filter with an electromagnet and a big power supply."

Current technology is based on an yttrium iron garnet (YIG) magnetic sphere, which is, according to team member Dr. Piyush Shah, about the size of a hockey puck. "The power unit currently used is about the size of a shoebox," added Shah. "Our filter is about half the size of a matchbox, everything integrated."

Instead of a YIG electromagnet, the new design uses a layer of piezoelectric material, a material that becomes electrically charged when subjected to pressure. That layer is coupled with a very thin film of permanently magnetized material. "The result," said Page, "is a low-power, frequency-agile, small, lightweight, RF-tunable device at a much lower cost. Maybe one percent of the cost of current technology."

"At its heart," said Page, "the technology we're looking at is actually very similar to what's used in modern cell phones. Cell phones have these types of filter banks, but they're not tunable. The tunable technology depends on big bulky components. We're trying to get the tunable capability in a compact device similar to the size of a cell phone."

"Today's top-tier smartphones use about 50 to 70 tiny filters to operate in different frequency bands," said Shah. "More RF filters occupy too much valuable space on the smartphone circuit board, and therefore we believe our invention could potentially decrease the number of RF filters by replacing them with tunable filters."

"The technology is not restricted for cell phone devices, but other forms of wireless communication systems as well," added Shah.

"AFRL began work on this technology about five years ago, but specifically the idea of the patented technology evolved in December 2016," said Shah. "We have shown the fundamental physics of the device and possible functionality of the proposed invention," said Shah. "Our next goal is to improve the application-relevant performance metrics of our device."

Page hopes to have a workable prototype in three to six months. "We submitted the patent on the concept in 2017," he said, "and we've been working on it ever since. So, we are actually farther ahead on the project now than we were when we filed the patent's paperwork."

The team hopes that their progress in developing the technology will be significantly accelerated as a result of their newly formed partnership with Sandia National Laboratory.

"The prototype will be as good as the type of technology it is replacing," said Page, "but of course it will have its own advantages. It will be much smaller in size and weight and it will need much less power."

Published September 2020

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