Friday, August 28, 2015

Cheapest,smallest programmable power supply?

PSM-102  is a programmable 0-14V/1.25A power supply controlled via USB!  Priced at only $139, and 5.5" x 2.3" x 1.5", this may be the least expensive, smallest programmable power supply available.

The PSM-102 Power Supply fills the need for a small, lightweight, laboratory power supply. Based on modern switching technology, the PSM-102 eliminates the bulky, heavy power transformer and heatsink traditionally required in a lab power supply. The PSM-102 is also unique because it features full touch controls with no moving parts. With these innovations in power supply circuitry, the PSM-102 is compact and light enough to be carried in a pocket. The low pro le design ts easily in a briefcase. Combined with other Syscomp instruments such as the CGR-101 oscilloscope and signal generator and the DVM-101 digital multimeter, the PSM-102 power supply creates a portable, low-cost, analog electronics laboratory.




Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Making Sure EMI Tents Perform

It is vital that EMI shielding enclosures function to specific requirements, whether you are protecting sensitive data from espionage,  assuring evidence for data on seized mobile devices, or testing for EMI before product launches.

How can buyers of enclosures be sure they will perform? Product literature supplied by vendors often provides test data, but that must be carefully examined to see that the specific tests used will predict the functionality of the enclosure in actual operation.

Different tests offer different insight as to effectiveness. Tests of the enclosure’s material may give an indication of shielding effectiveness, but this is insufficient to predict usability. The fully assembled enclosure needs standardized testing to ascertain shielding effectiveness. Leakage may come from seams, vents, filters, I/O plates, or doors, shielding effectiveness should be measured through the wall at multiple locations and at various frequencies.

The minimum shielding effectiveness that is recorded anywhere throughout the enclosure is the critical measure for security applications. An IEEE-299 test of a high attenuation tent plotted on the chart below shows shielding effectiveness of at least 85.7 dB from 400 MHz to 18 GHz throughout this portable chamber. Peak shielding performance of 98.7 dB was recorded at 1 GHz on the side with the door.
Shielding Effectiveness, Double Layer Tent with Internal Vestibu

Specific applications may have unique shielding effectiveness requirements. dB measurements are logarithmic, a 60 dB rating is ten times higher then a 50 dB rating. Shielding effectiveness needs vary greatly with the signal intensity encountered, which drops exponentially with the distance to the source. Critical security applications to prevent electronic eavesdropping in hotels and office buildings may need to shield computer and cellular equipment’s RF emissions from reaching the next room or floors above and below.

Proactively managing your RF shielding enclosure’s procurement process is critical to assure the buyer gets the results they need for their specific application. Specifying shielding requirements in the request for quotation is important. For highly critical applications, you may need to assure that the specific enclosure you purchase, as manufactured and delivered, will actually work for you on the site where and how it will be ultimately used. In these sensitive situations, the request for quotation may possibly include a receiving verification process to assure that the specific enclosure as configured and delivered performs in the field as used. This may require third party testing of the enclosure on the site where it will be used, perhaps requiring the supplier to make field modifications to adjust for any shielding issues. We at Saelig work with customers with highly sensitive requirements to facilitate this verification process.

Picoscope Factoids:

All PicoScope 5200 series 60/200MHz PC-based oscilloscopes have a flexible resolution of 8, 12, 14, 15 and 16 bits.  And a built-in 20MHz low-distortion function generator (sine, square, triangle, DC level) that  allow you to do frequency sweeps. Combined with the spectrum peak hold option this makes a powerful tool for testing amplifier and filter responses. An sophisticated trigger tools allow one or more cycles of a waveform to be output when various conditions are met such as the scope triggering or a mask limit test failing.

60MHz 2-ch version is here:  http://www.saelig.com/MFR00063FA/PSPC10BIT011.htm

200MHz 4-ch version is here: http://www.saelig.com/MFR00063FB/PSPC10BIT015.htm



Friday, August 21, 2015

Happy Customers!



Big shoutout to your awesome tech folks helping me get the driver files. Pleasure doing business with you.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Failing EMC Testing??

More than 50% of designed products fail EMC testing first time. That is a really costly problem to have.  Not it is more affordable than ever to do your own testing before you go to the EMC House so you can almost guarantee success.  Pre-compliance testing pays for itself rapidly!

Avoid EMC failure problems by downloading and reading this!


Monday, August 10, 2015

Friday, August 7, 2015

Designing motion control systems?

Creating hardware and software for stepper motor control has always been time-consuming. A quick short-cut is to buy pre-programmed ICs or driver boards that has simple phase-drive commands for stepper motors with built-in selectable acceleration profiles to take the software burden off a main processor with a single command instruction for movement.

Lots of companies take this approach:  CNC and large cutting machine manufacturers, as well as medical instrument and test equipment designers.

Take a look - like these folks - at our pre-programmed JRKerr products! http://bit.ly/1JRdy9b