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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.

Sharpest laser in the world created

An international team of scientists has created a world-record-setting laser. With a linewidth of only 10 mHz, the laser is the sharpest ever made. The researchers were from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany and JILA in the United States. JILA is a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder. This has been a 10-year joint effort among the participating parties.

This degree of laser precision is useful for various applications such as optical atomic clocks, precision spectroscopy, radioastronomy, and for testing the theory of relativity. The results have been published in the current issue of Physical Review Letters.

One of a laser's outstanding properties is the excellent coherence of the emitted light. For researchers, this is a measure of the light wave's regular frequency and linewidth. Ideally, laser light has only one fixed wavelength (or frequency). In practice, the spectrum of most types of lasers can, however, reach from a few kHz to a few MHz in width, which is not good enough for numerous experiments requiring high precision.

Recent research has therefore focused on developing ever-better lasers with greater frequency stability and a narrower linewidth. "The smaller the linewidth of the laser, the more accurate the measurement of the atom's frequency in an optical clock. This new laser will enable us to decisively improve the quality of our clocks," PTB physicist Thomas Legero explained.

In addition to the new laser's extremely small linewidth, Legero and his colleagues found out by means of measurements that the emitted laser light's frequency was more precise than what had ever been achieved before. Although the light wave oscillates approximately 200 trillion times per second, it only gets out of sync after 11 seconds. By then, the perfect wave train emitted has already attained a length of approximately 3.3 million kilometers. This length corresponds to nearly 10 times the distance between Earth and the moon.

Since there was no other comparably precise laser in the world, the scientists working on this collaboration had to set up two such laser systems straight off. Only by comparing these two lasers was it possible to prove the outstanding properties of the emitted light.

The core piece of each of the lasers is a 21-cm-long Fabry-Pérot silicon resonator. The resonator consists of two highly reflecting mirrors that are located opposite each other and are kept at a fixed distance by means of a double cone. Similar to an organ pipe, the resonator length determines the frequency of the wave when it begins to oscillate inside the resonator. Special stabilization electronics ensure that the light frequency of the laser constantly follows the natural frequency of the resonator. The laser's frequency stability -- and thus its linewidth -- then depends only on the length stability of the Fabry-Pérot resonator.

One of the record-setting laser's two silicon resonators. [Credit: PTB]

 

 

The scientists at PTB had to isolate the resonator nearly perfectly from all environmental influences that might change its length. Among these influences are temperature and pressure variations, but also external mechanical perturbations due to seismic waves or sound. They have attained such perfection in doing so that the only influence left was the thermal motion of the atoms in the resonator. This "thermal noise" corresponds to the Brownian motion in all materials at a finite temperature, and it represents a fundamental limit to the length stability of a solid. Its extent depends on the materials used to build the resonator as well as on the resonator's temperature.

For this reason, the scientists of this collaboration manufactured the resonator from single-crystal silicon that was cooled down to a temperature of -150 deg C. The thermal noise of the silicon body is so low that the length fluctuations observed only originate from the thermal noise of the dielectric SiO2/Ta2O5 mirror layers. Although the mirror layers are only a few micrometers thick, they dominate the resonator's length stability. In total, the resonator length, however, only fluctuates in the range of 10 attometers. This length corresponds to no more than a ten-millionth of the diameter of a hydrogen atom. The resulting frequency variations of the laser therefore amount to less than 4 x 10^-17 of the laser frequency.

The new lasers are now being used both at PTB and at JILA in Boulder to further improve the quality of optical atomic clocks and to carry out new precision measurements on ultracold atoms. At PTB, the ultrastable light from these lasers is already being distributed via optical waveguides and is then used by the optical clocks in Braunschweig.

"In the future, it is planned to disseminate this light also within a European network. This plan would allow even more precise comparisons between the optical clocks in Braunschweig and the clocks of our European colleagues in Paris and London," Legero said. In Boulder, a similar plan is in place to distribute the laser across a fiber network that connects between JILA and various NIST labs.

The scientists from this collaboration see further optimization possibilities. With novel crystalline mirror layers and lower temperatures, the disturbing thermal noise can be further reduced. Theoretically, the linewidth could then become even smaller -- possibly less than 1 mHz.

Journal Reference:
1. D.?G. Matei, T. Legero, S. Häfner, C. Grebing, R. Weyrich, W. Zhang, L. Sonderhouse, J.?M. Robinson, J. Ye, F. Riehle, U. Sterr. 1.5??m Lasers with Sub-10 mHz Linewidth. Physical Review Letters, 2017; 118 (26) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.263202

Source: Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB)

Published July 2017

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