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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.

Particle accelerator magnet sets record using high-temperature superconductor

A team at Fermilab has demonstrated the world's fastest magnetic ramping rates for particle accelerator magnets. Noteworthy, they achieved the record by using energy-efficient, high-temperature superconducting tape.

By Vladimir Shiltsev and Alexander Zlobin, Fermi National Particle Accelerator Laboratory

Cost- and energy-efficient rapid cycling magnets for particle accelerators are critical for particle physics research. Their performance determines how frequently a circular particle accelerator can receive a bunch of particles, propel them to higher energy, send them to an experiment or target station, and then repeat all over again.

A small team of physicists, engineers, and technicians at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Particle Accelerator Laboratory, led by Henryk Piekarz, just demonstrated the world's fastest magnetic ramping rates for particle accelerator magnets. Noteworthy, they achieved this record by using magnets made with an energy-efficient, high-temperature superconducting material.

What is the best conductor?
Despite the many attractive features of superconducting wire, the fastest-ramping high-energy particle accelerators still use magnets with copper conductors operating at room temperature. Examples include the 3 GeV proton ring at JPARC in Japan, which features a magnetic field that changes at a rate of 70 tesla per second (T/s) and reaches a peak magnetic field of 1.1 tesla, and the 8 GeV Booster ring at Fermilab, which achieves a ramping rate of 30 T/s and a peak field of 0.7 tesla.

Most of the powerful superconducting magnets employed in modern-day particle accelerators are relatively slow when it comes to increasing the magnetic field. Their main goal is to ramp up to a high peak magnetic field to steer particles around a ring while electric fields propel the particles to higher and higher energy. The higher the energy, the stronger the magnetic field must be to keep the particles in their track as they go around the ring.

Fermilab's Tevatron accelerator was the first machine based on superconducting steering magnets. The ramping of the 4.4-tesla magnets to full magnetic strength took more than a minute and a half, while electric fields increased the energy of the particles to 1 TeV. Today, the world's most powerful accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, uses superconducting steering magnets that ramp up to almost 8 tesla in approximately 20 minutes, while the accelerator propels particles to 6.5 TeV. This corresponds to a ramping rate of about 0.006 T/s and is much slower than the ramping rate of conventional accelerator magnets operating at room temperature.

A dual-aperture, high-temperature superconductor accelerator magnet test setup. [Photo: Ryan Postel, Fermilab]

 

 

Now, a superconducting accelerator test magnet is taking the ramping rate lead as Fermilab's high-temperature superconductor test magnet has yielded rates of up to 290 T/s, while achieving a peak magnetic field strength of about 0.5 tesla. The results have been published on the arXiv and reported at the 27th International Conference on Magnet Technology by the IEEE Council on Superconductivity. Piekarz and his colleagues hope to achieve even higher magnetic field strength by increasing the electrical current running through the magnet, while maintaining the superior ramping rate.

The solution: high-temperature superconductor
Two major problems are limiting the magnetic ramping rate in "low-temperature" superconducting accelerator magnets now in common use. The first one is the heating of the superconductor during ramping, due to eddy currents that can create large heat depositions in the superconductor. This heating rapidly increases with the increase of field amplitude and the ramping rate. The second one is the very small margin for temperature variation in the traditional low-temperature superconductors, such as niobium-titanium and niobium-tin, which are used in most modern superconducting accelerator magnets. Even a small increase in temperature can lead to the undesirable transition of a superconducting magnet into its normal conducting, resistive state.

The solution to these problems is to employ the unique properties of a "high-temperature" superconducting material known as YBCO. Using this material, Piekarz and his team designed a magnet and operated it at temperatures between 6 and 20 K and up to 1,000 amps of electrical current.

The peak strength of the magnetic field achieved during the record-setting ramping tests was limited by the electrical current provided by the power supply used in the test. Piekarz and his team plan to expand the power supply capabilities in the future, possibly achieving even higher rates, as they will carry out further studies on the ultimate capabilities of this advanced magnet technology.

The development of these fast-cycling magnets is critical for future neutrino research, featuring rapid-cycling proton synchrotrons, particle injectors for the proposed Future Circular Collider, and the design of pulsed muon colliders.

Published December 2021

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