Interpreting trends, analyzing tools and techniques and exploring cross-discipline skills for electronic, mechanical and system designers.
Hot-Tub Pump Teardown & Lessons Learned

My neighbors decided to get rid of a small hot tub, so I put in my request for the pump and motor. I don’t like to waste a decent AC motor that might find use in my workshop. The pump arrived in a plastic-foam enclosure that included a control panel and an AC power cord. I pulled apart the enclosure and found a set of pipes and electronics. An aluminum box that contains the electronics cam ...... Read More
Comments (2)Single CMOS Image Sensor Sees in 3-D

An email arrived from Canesta, a company that I hadn’t heard of, so I went to the Canesta Web site where I learned the company makes 3-D CMOS image sensors. You can buy or design 3-D vision systems with off-the shelf cameras, but most of these systems use off-axis laser beams or several cameras to grab images that intensive software processing turns into a 3-D image. That means they requir ...... Read More
Comments (0)A Water-Meter Reading Robot?

By coincidence, Texas Instruments and Freescale Semiconductor both sent email messages today to tout their “metering” integrated circuits that let engineers design small efficient products that can work within electric, water, and gas meters. Products from TI include microcontrollers, power-semiconductors, and low-power wireless transmitters and transceivers. Freescale’s pro ...... Read More
Comments (21)Motor-Drive Module Includes CANopen Interface and Programming Language

The small PIM3605 module from Technosoft caught my eye because it lets engineers control brushless-DC, brushed-DC, linear, or step motors at continuous powers as high as 180W (36V at , 5A), or 600W peak. The module supports the CAN in Automation (CiA) standards DS-301 and DSP402 for CANopen, which makes the module suitable for applications that communicate over a controller-area network (CAN) bus. ...... Read More
Comments (1)Old Mechanisms Deserve New Attention

One of our cats got a bit too chunky for her health, so I thought seriously about building a small treadmill to give our feline friend some exercise. People have used treadmills for thousands of years and you can find a short video of a recent cat treadmill at: www.videovat.com/videos/2606/cat-treadmill.aspx. What’s old in new. It looks like the cat gets a “treat” every once i ...... Read More
Comments (4)How Long is a Jobber-Length Drill Bit?

Browse through a machine-tool catalog and you’ll find many sets of jobber-length drill bits. I’ve often wondered what jobber-length meant and after seeing yet another flyer from Travers or Enco, I decided to find out. Although you can find many mentions of jobber-length bits, it’s difficult to locate a clear definition. The Wikipedia defines jobber-length bits as those for ...... Read More
Comments (11)Evaluate and Test Power-Factor Correction Needs

Electronic and electromechanical equipment often uses switch-mode power supplies, motors, and other devices that “appear” as non-resistive loads to power-company generators that produce a sinusoidal voltage. These “reactive-load” devices often require power-factor correction, whereas purely resistive loads such as incandescent lamps, steam irons, and electric ranges do ...... Read More
Comments (0)Pay Attention to Enclosure Codes

The International Protection Rating code numbers specified in IEC 60529 will let you know about products you buy and will let you offer an “IP rating” for the products you design and manufacture. The two-digit code indicates the level of protection against the entry, or ingress, of solid objects and about protection of equipment against the entry of liquids. Manufacturers use a nome ...... Read More
Comments (1)Student Mechatronics Project Entertains, Feeds Elephants

Rohan Jhunjhunwala has a passion for robotics and technology, but his current project isn’t part of a school assignment. He plans to build a mechatronic entertainment system for elephants at the Oregon Zoo. Dale Yocum, Rohan’s mentor, noted he’s a highly motivated student who likes to make things happen. Students from Portland State University built the zoo’s original r ...... Read More
Comments (1)What Are All These NEMA Motor Numbers?

When you review the data sheets for small motors you’ll run into specifications such as “NEMA 11,” NEMA 23,” and so on. Unfortunately for design engineers, few data sheets refer to the original motor standards promulgated by NEMA, The Association of Electrical and Medical Imaging Equipment Manufacturers. Although data sheets may provide motor dimensions and informatio ...... Read More
Comments (2)Lego Sends Kids to the "Moon"

In early August, a group of companies announced the “MoonBots” competition, also called the “Google Lunar X Prize Lego Mindstorms Challenge,” and loosely based on the $US 30-million Google Lunar X Prize. But unlike participants in the latter competition, the youngsters will compete on Earth rather than try to reach the surface of the Moon. And the kids will use Lego com ...... Read More
Comments (1)More Motion-Control Kits and Reference Designs

LCR Electronics Designers can buy two ready-to-use reference-design boards for brushless-DC motor control from LCR Electronics. The high-voltage EC105 and low-voltage EC107 should fill a need for engineers who want to buy small quantities of boards for prototypes, for development work, or even for short production runs. Both boards use use a trapezoidal two-quadrant control technique and include s ...... Read More
Comments (2)Sponsored Content
Design News Partner Zones
Light Matters: The Unsung Heroes of
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First, let's define "no-compromise." In an ideal configuration, this lamp would use a high-brightness LED (HBLED) that is built into a small, integrated package and is able to produce a large quantity of focused light, operate with a high level of reliability and generate no audible noise. Is this difficult? Yes, but it is possible.
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Design Engineers' Portal for Sensing and Machine Safety
Whatever industry you're in, or whatever product you manufacture, the right sensors to automate your plant, and to improve your overall efficiency, quality and safety are a must. You'll find Banner Engineering to be an amazing resource of products, training and people with expertise.
Test & Measurement World Machine Vision & Inspection Report
Topics include machine-vision software, Power over Camera Link, thermal imaging and frame grabbers. Read More

