Tag Archives: Elektor

SMD Stencil Reflow Soldering Tutorial

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Surface-mount SMD reflow soldering doesn’t have to be difficult. All you need is a solder paste stencil, a hot air gun, and a little know-how. No reflow oven necessary!

Dave Jones, of EEVblog.com, covers everything you need to know in the following easy-to-understand SMD stencil reflow soldering tutorial.

The kit is available via Elektor’s partner, Eurocircuits.

The Eurocircuits kit includes all the essential SMT components, circuit boards, and solder stencils.

For SMT info and additional projects, refer to Vincent Himpe’s book, Mastering Surface Mount Technology (Elektor).

CircuitCellar.com is an Elektor International Media website.

RS Components + Elektor = DesignSpark Magazine

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RS Components has announced the launch of its new online publication, DesignSpark Magazine. The new magazine will be published in collaboration with Elektor International Media, the global electronics design and publishing house that publishes Elektor, Circuit Cellar, audioXpress, and more.

DesignSpark Magazine will replace RS Components’s popular eTech Magazine, which was first released as a digital edition in July 2010. According to a statement released by RS Components, “The new title is available as a fully digital publication in iPad, iPhone, Android tablet and page-turner formats. The publishing partnership with Elektor will produce not only a fresh-look magazine, but in addition will draw on Elektor’s long experience in the electronics publishing field to deliver the highest quality of technical content as a source of inspiration for design engineers worldwide.”

DesignSpark Magazine, which derives its name from designspark.com, the RS online community for electronics design engineers, will address three key topic areas:

  • Technologies – This will feature the best boards and board-level components for engineers and give readers a snapshot of the newest hot products in the market.
  • Software and tools – Keeping readers in touch with the latest resources to save time and money, this area will focus on free tools to support engineers.
  • Projects – Inspired by positive feedback on project-style articles in eTech, this expanded section in the new magazine will feature more design-tips articles contributed by Elektor, as well as make-and-build projects from the DesignSpark community. Readers will have access to the information located in this section to develop their own projects.

The new publication is designed to appeal to readers across the globe, with the concurrent launch of eight different language versions: English; Dutch; French; German; Italian; Japanese; Simplified Chinese and Spanish.

Mark Cundle, Head of Technical Marketing at RS, commented, “The RS online DesignSpark community has become a respected and well-used source of information and tools for electronics engineers over the past few years, so it is a natural progression to align the name of our proprietary online publication with the DesignSpark brand. The magazine is an integral part of our efforts to provide customers with a trusted, reliable source of technical information to help reduce design times and costs.”

Wisse Hettinga, International Director for Elektor International Media, said, “This exciting collaboration with RS Components will be good news for everyone who is an enthusiast and active in electronics design. It will mean more designs, more inspiration, more ‘how to’ and ‘where to get’ information to speed up the design process and create new, interesting electronic products.”

[Via Electrocomponents.com]

CircuitCellar.com is an Elektor International Media website.

Retro Electronics (“Retronics”): Analog, Test, & Micrcontroller Tech

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Pop quiz: What was the first microcontroller to leave the Earth? Find out the answer in Jan Buiting’s new “Retronics” webinar. Check out the video below.

The Tektronix 546B

If you read Circuit Cellar and Elektor magazines, you likely have as much passion for old-school electronics as you do for he new, cutting-edge technology you find at events such as the Embedded Systems Conference. Elektor editor Jan Buiting is well-known for his love of both new and old technology, and in his Retronics webinar series he presents some of his favorite old-school technologies.

In the video below, Jan explains how and where he found some of his retronics equipment. He also details how he fixed some of the systems and what he does with them. Examples include:

  • A Heathkit TC-2P Tube Checker that Jan found at lawn sale
  • Old audio equipment
  • A satellite TV receiver
  • An “Elektorscope” from 1977
  • 1980s-era test equipment
  • And more!

CircuitCellar.com is an Elektor International Media publication.

Game On with the Arduino Esplora

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Every time the Arduino team is about to release a new board, we expect something great in terms of better specs, more I/Os, a faster processor, more memory—or, well, just something to “fill the gap,” such as small-scale versions. With “Esplora” the Arduino team pleasantly surprises us again!

Arduino Esplora

The brand new Esplora is targeted toward gaming applications. It consists of a gamepad-shaped development board that includes an Arduino-compatible Atmel ATmega32U4, a light sensor, a temperature sensor, an accelerometer, a joystick, push buttons, a slider, an RGB LED, and a buzzer.

The Esplora is as a ready-to-use solution for designers who don’t want to deal with soldering or prototyping by means of discrete components. In fact, it comes preprogrammed with a controller script, so you only have to connect it to a PC, download the free game “Super Tux Cart,” and have fun.

An additional color LCD will be released soon in order to create a portable console. The only drawback is you can’t directly connect standard Arduino shields to it , mainly because of space limitations. Nevertheless, the board itself includes enough features to make it interesting.

The Esplora should enable you to implement a controller for almost any application you dream up. In our case, we’re sure it will bring back nice memories of the time when we were too young for soldering irons but already pros with gamepads!—Jaime González Arintero Berciano, Elektor International Media

 

PCB Service for Prototypes

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Elektor recently inked a deal with Eurocircuits for the production and sale of PCBs. The decision is an important step toward delivering valuable services to Elektor members.

All of Elektor’s PCB orders will be handled by Eurocircuits. If you have a nice design yourself, you can try the Elektor PCB Service for prototypes or small production runs. Visit ElektorPCBService.com for more information.

Elektor.TV visited the Eurocircuits booth at the Electronics Show in Munich. In the video Dirk Stans (a Eurocircuits owner) comments on some of the company’s services and deliverables.

CircuitCellar.com is an Elektor International Media site.