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Interpreting trends, analyzing tools and techniques and exploring cross-discipline skills for electronic, mechanical and system designers.

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Hot-Tub Pump Teardown & Lessons Learned

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on October 27, 2009

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

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Single CMOS Image Sensor Sees in 3-D

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on October 22, 2009

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

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A Water-Meter Reading Robot?

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on October 13, 2009

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

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Motor-Drive Module Includes CANopen Interface and Programming Language

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on October 7, 2009

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

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Old Mechanisms Deserve New Attention

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on September 29, 2009

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

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How Long is a Jobber-Length Drill Bit?

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on September 11, 2009

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

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Evaluate and Test Power-Factor Correction Needs

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on September 9, 2009

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

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Pay Attention to Enclosure Codes

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on August 31, 2009

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

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Student Mechatronics Project Entertains, Feeds Elephants

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on August 25, 2009

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

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What Are All These NEMA Motor Numbers?

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on August 18, 2009

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

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Lego Sends Kids to the "Moon"

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on August 10, 2009

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

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More Motion-Control Kits and Reference Designs

Jon Titus
Posted by Jon Titus on July 28, 2009

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

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