Fans of the sci-fi franchise Star Trek may recall a scene in the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home that mentions a make-believe material called transparent aluminum. A real-world version of it eventually emerged from Oxford University where researchers created a ceramic alloy (officially called Aluminum Oxynitride or ALON) by fusing aluminum, oxygen […]
Non-toxic thermoelectric energy harvester could help enable the IoT
Energy scavenging electronics has long used the thermoelectric Seebeck effect to convert temperature differences into electric voltage. A Seebeck device creates voltage when there is a different temperature on each side. One bugaboo with using thermoelectrics, however, is that most employ toxic materials. But in a development that could help enable a variety of internet-of-things […]
Raspberry Pi lab to get test instrument upgrade
Electronic instrumentation maker Tektronix says it will outfit the R&D lab for Raspberry Pi with the latest Tektronix high-speed test gear. Raspberry Pi’s new laboratory will focus on high-speed serial design and validation testing. The new test equipment from Tektronix will deliver the kind of bandwidth necessary to support any future high-speed interfaces that would […]
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Never mind what’s in the recycling bin: Lead-acid batteries are the most recycled U.S. consumer good
You can say one thing about February 18, National Battery Day: It shows how to make a good that ends up being almost 100% recycled. Figures provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that 99% of lead batteries are recycled, making them the most recycled consumer good in the U.S. It is easy to […]
New filament LED bulbs said to be most efficient yet
Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University claim to have developed the most energy-efficient Light Emitting Diode (LED) filament technology yet. Bulbs devised at the HKPU lab have a luminous efficacy of 129 lm/W. To be clear, the new bulbs employ LEDs shaped to look like the filaments of an incandescent light bulb. The light […]
LED drivers with PFC target big lighting installations
The HLG (C.V.+C.C. output) and HLG-C (C.C. output) family from MEAN WELL USA, Inc. are high performance LED drivers that target significant LED lighting installations such as stadium lighting. With the continuing demand for 480-W applications, MEAN WELL is pleased to unveil the new 480W~ HLG-480H and HLG-480H-C series to meet the needs of large-scale […]
MCUs carry built-in LCD driver optimized for data loggers
The ML630Q464/466 from ROHM Group company LAPIS Semiconductor are the first ICs to integrate all major functions required for data logging (USB, high-speed clock generation, LCD driver, high-accuracy RC oscillation type AD converter), data acquisition (i.e. temperature, humidity, acceleration), data display, and PDF file generation on a single chip. The chips are designed to be […]
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Developing a mixed safety-critical IIoT robotic arm
Robots that can man-handle car bodies incorporate several safe guards to protect workers. New software architectures have evolved to make these systems reliable and easy to manage. Muhammad Shafique | Mentor Graphics • Embedded Systems Div. The industrial automation industry is rapidly making use of today’s heterogeneous multicore system-on-chip (SoC) architectures. These multicore environments help […]
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IIoT robotic arm appeared first on Microcontroller Tips.
Deficiencies in energy efficiency tests of TVs get attention
H.R.117 – The Energy Efficiency Free Market Act of 2017 – introduced in Congress in January would prohibit the Dept. of Energy (DOE) from enforcing energy efficiency standards now on the books or setting new ones. If the Bill is enacted, one result will be making moot what seem to be misleading energy efficiency figures […]
Teardown: The Garmin Forerunner 220 sport watch and heart monitor
Chest-mounted electronics do a more accurate job of counting heart beats than do optical sensors on the wrist. That’s one of the conclusions to come out of a close look at this sport watch aimed at runners. Leland Teschler Executive Editor A sport watch from Garmin called the Forerunner 220 is basically a runner’s watch […]
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