Tag Archives: measurement

CC 274: A Sensory Experience

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The May issue of Circuit Cellar provides a number of articles focusing on how to utilize measurements and sensors in your designs.

Knowing how to generate a magnetic field to calibrate a sensor can help with a number of

Winding 25 turns of 26 AWG enamel wire on a toroid is normally difficult, but that slit made it very easy. You would wind much smaller wire on a toroid used as an inductor.

DIY projects. Most electronic devices use inductors or transformers that depend on magnetic fields. In the May issue, Ed Nisley describes how he used a small ferrite toroid to produce a known magnetic field, which he utilized to calibrate some cheap Hall-effect sensors he obtained on eBay (p. 52).

“While the results certainly don’t transform cheap sensors into laboratory instruments, you can use them for tech jewelry with a clear conscience,” Nisley says. “You’ll also have a better understanding of magnetic fields, which may come in handy when you’re building inductors.”

Whether you’re designing a small controller for your own use or an electronic device for mass production, it’s important to keep “testability” in mind. So, it’s a good idea to make a dedicated tester for your product part of the design process at the outset. Such a tester can ensure your device is working properly in your workshop—before it ships to a customer. On page 56, George Novacek describes how an inexpensive tester can bolster an electronic device’s reliability and increase its marketability.

Brothers Robert and Donald Kunzig, both with backgrounds in the telecommunications industry, stepped outside the technologies most familiar to them when they took on an ambitious project—to produce an accurate and easy to use wireless, energy-usage monitor. They also wanted the monitor to hold its collected data even during a power outage or a router issue. Did they succeed? Check out their article on page 18 to find out.

The DNA sequencer’s design includes a motor controller, a light sensor amplifier, and an injector driver circuit.

While DNA, the molecule that provides genetic instruction to all living organisms, is complex, building a DNA sequencer can be relatively simple. Fergus Dixon used a light sensor amplifier,  a motor controller, and an injector driver circuit to fulfill a customer’s request for a DNA sequencer with a color screen and full connectivity via Ethernet or Bluetooth (p. 26)

If you’re a DIYer who is nervous about possible levels of radiation in your home, find out how to build a hand-held radiation sensor on page 60.

Also, Jesús Calviño-Fraga describes how he built a serial port-to-SPI bridge programmer, the “S2S Dongle,” which functions without a pre-programmed microntroller (p. 34).

Finally, this issue includes articles that wrap up intriguing projects Circuit Cellar introduced in April.

Last month, Jeff Bachiochi explored the musical instrument digital interface (MIDI). In Part

An Atmel ATmega88 microcontroller is at the heart of the CNC router controller.

2, he focuses on a hardware circuit that can monitor the MIDI messages sent between his project’s MIDI devices, which include a Harmonix drum kit used with the Xbox version of the Rock Band video game (p. 68).

Brian Millier calls his construction of a microcontroller-based, G-code controller for a CNC router one of his most challenging DIY projects. The second article in his series focuses on two functional blocks: the axis controller and the host controller (p. 42.)

Great Plains Super Launch

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Contributed by Mark Conner

The Great Plains Super Launch (GPSL) is an annual gathering of Amateur Radio high-altitude ballooning enthusiasts from the United States and Canada. The 2012 event was held in Omaha, Nebraska from June 7th to the 9th and was sponsored by Circuit Cellar and Elektor. Around 40 people from nine states and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan attended Friday’s conference and around 60 attended the balloon launches on Saturday.

Amateur Radio high-altitude ballooning (ARHAB) involves the launching, tracking, and recovery of balloon-borne scientific and electronic equipment. The Amateur Radio portion of ARHAB is used for transmitting and receiving location and other data from the balloon to chase teams on the ground. The balloon is usually a large latex weather balloon, though other types such as polyethylene can also be used. A GPS unit in the balloon payload calculates the location, course, speed, and altitude in real time, while other electronics, usually custom-built, handle conversion of the digital data into radio signals. These signals are then converted back to data by the chase teams’ receivers and computers. The balloon rises at about 1000 feet per minute until the balloon pops (if it’s latex) or a device releases the lifting gas (if it’s PE). Maximum altitudes are around 100,000 feet and the flight typically takes two to three hours.

Prepping for the launch – Photo courtesy of Mark Conner

On Thursday the 7th, the GPSL attendees visited the Strategic Air and Space Museum near Ashland, about 20 minutes southwest of Omaha. The museum features a large number of Cold War aircraft housed in two huge hangars, along with artifacts, interactive exhibits, and special events. The premiere aircraft exhibit is the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird suspended from the ceiling in the museum’s atrium. A guided tour was provided by one of the museum’s volunteers and greatly enjoyed by all.

Friday featured the conference portion of the Super Launch. Presentations were given on stabilization techniques for in-flight video recordings, use of ballooning projects in education research, lightweight transmitters for tracking the balloon’s flight, and compressed gas safety. Bill Brown showed highlights from his years of involvement in ARHAB dating back to his first flights in 1987. The Edge of Space Sciences team presented on a May launch from Coors Field in Denver for “Weather and Science Day” prior to an afternoon Colorado Rockies game. Several thousand students witnessed the launch, which required meticulous planning and preparation.

EOSS ready for launch – Photo courtesy of Mark Conner

Saturday featured the launch of five balloons from a nearby high school early that morning. While the winds became gusty for the last two launches, all of the flights were successfully released into a brilliant sunny June sky. All five of the flights were recovered without damage in the corn and soybean fields of western Iowa between 10 and 25 miles from launch. The SABRE team from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan took the high flight award, reaching over 111,000 ft during their three-hour flight.

The view from one of the balloons. Image credit: “Project Traveler / Zack Clobes”.

The 2013 GPSL will be held in Pella, Iowa, on June 13-15. Watch the website superlaunch.org for additional information as the date approaches.

A Workspace for Radio & Metrology Projects

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Ralph Berres, a television technician in Germany, created an exemplary design space in his house for working on projects relating to his two main technical interests: amateur radio and metrology (the science of measurement). He even builds his own measurement equipment for his bench.

Ralph Berres built this workspace for his radio and metrology projects

“I am a licensed radio amateur with the call sign DF6WU… My hobby is high-frequency and low-frequency metrology,” Berres wrote in his submission.

Amateur radio is popular among Circuit Cellar readers. Countless electrical engineers and technical DIYers I’ve met or worked with during the past few years are amateur radio operators. Some got involved in radio during childhood. Others obtained radio licenses more recently. For instance, Rebecca Yang of Tymkrs.com chronicled the process in late 2011. Check it out: http://youtu.be/9HfmyiHTWZI and http://tymkrs.tumblr.com/.

Do you want to share images of your workspace, hackspace, or “circuit cellar” with the world? Click here to email us your images and workspace info.

 

Weekly Elektor Wrap Up: Laser, Digital Peak Level Meter, & “Wolverine” MCU

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It’s Friday, so it’s time for a review of Elektor news and content. Among the numerous interesting things Elektor covered this week were a laser project, a digital peak level meter for audio engineering enthusiasts, and an exciting new ultra-low-power MCU.

Are you an embedded designer who wants to start a laser project? Read about “the world’s smallest laser”:

What is the biggest constraint in creating tiny lasers? Pump power. Yes sir, all lasers require a certain amount of pump power from an outside source to begin emitting a coherent beam of light and the smaller a laser is, the greater the pump power needed to reach this state. The laser cavity consists of a tiny metal rod enclosed by a ring of metal-coated, quantum wells of semiconductor material. A team of researchers from the University of California has developed a technique that uses quantum electrodynamic effects in coaxial nanocavities to lower the amount of pump power needed. This allowed them to build the world’s smallest room-temperature, continuous wave laser. The whole device is only half a micron in diameter (human hair has on average a thickness of 50 micron).

The nanolaser design appears to be scalable – meaning that they could be shrunk to even smaller sizes – an important feature that would make it possible to harvest laser light from even smaller structures. Applications for such lasers could include tiny biochemical sensors or high-resolution displays, but the researchers are still working out the theory behind how these tiny lasers operate. They would also like to find a way to pump the lasers electrically instead of optically.

Be sure to check out Elektor’s laser projection project.

In other news, Elektor reached out to audio engineering-minded audio enthusiasts and presented an interesting project:

Are you an audio amateur hobbyist or professional? Do you try to avoid clipping in your recordings? To help you get your audio levels right, in January 2012 Elektor published a professional-quality peak level meter featuring 2x 40 LEDs, controlled by a powerful digital signal processor (DSP). As part of the eight-lesson course on Audio DSP, all the theory behind the meter was explained, and the accompanying source code was made available as a free download.

The DSP Board has been available for a while, and now we are proud to announce that the Digital Peak Level Meter is available as an Elektor quality kit for you to build. Although the meter was designed as an extension module for the Audio DSP board, it can be used with any microcontroller capable of providing SPI-compatible signals. So get your Peak Level Meter now and add a professional touch to your recording studio!

And lastly, on the MCU front, Elektor ran interesting piece about the Texas Instruments “Wolverine,” which should be available for sampling in June 2012:

Codenamed “Wolverine” for its aggressive power-saving technology, the improved ultra-low-power MSP430 microcontroller platform from Texas Instruments offers at least 50 % less power consumption than any other microcontroller in the industry: 360 nA real-time clock mode and less than 100 µA/MHz active power consumption. Typical battery powered applications spend as much as 99.9 % of their time in standby mode; Wolverine-based devices can consume as little as 360 nA in standby mode, more than doubling battery life.

Wolverine’s low power performance is made possible by using one unified ferromagnetic RAM (FRAM) for code and data instead of traditional Flash and SRAM memories, allowing them to consume 250 times less energy per bit compared to Flash- and EEPROM-based microcontrollers. Power consumption is further reduced thanks to an ultra low leakage  process technology that offers a 10x improvement in leakage and optimized mixed signal capabilities.

MSP430FR58xx microcontrollers based on the Wolverine technology platform will be available for sampling in June 2012.

Circuit Cellar and CircuitCellar.com are part of the Elektor group.

 

audioXpress: HP456A Current Probe Restoration

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Retro electronics (or “retronics”) projects are growing in popularity. Across the globe, professional engineers and DIYers alike are tweaking, updating, and hacking retro systems to create all sorts of innovative designs. Restoring and upgrading an old electronics tool, MCU-based design, or audio system can be a rewarding experience.

In the February 2012 issue of audioXpress magazine, Bill Reeve details how he restored a Hewlett-Packard 456A current probe (“Restoring the HP 456A Current Probe”). Here’s an abridged excerpt:

The restoration is finished and ready for cover installation (Soure: Bill Reeve AX 2/12)

The Hewlett-Packard 456A AC current probe is a treasure. It can be bought cheaply because many of the units sold were battery powered and all were designed with a now-out-of-date oscilloscope interface connector. However, when restored, the 456A is a fabulous addition to any test bench, matching the performance of more expensive modern instruments.

Released as a new product by the Hewlett-Packard Company in 1960, the 456A was HP’s first solid-state, stand-alone, clip-on current probe. Its elegantly designed amplifier uses two— then “state-of-the art”—PNP germanium transistors.

The Original Probe
In 1960, The Hewlett-Packard Journal (July-August, Vol. 11) proudly announced:

“This new probe measures current over the full range of the frequencies most commonly used in typical work—25~ to 20 megacycles—and over an amplitude range from below 0.5 mA to 1 A rms…The probe operates with an accompanying small amplifier…to convert the AC current being measured to a proportional voltage. This voltage can then be measured with a suitable oscilloscope or voltmeter. The current-to-voltage conversion factor is 1 mV/mA.”

The 456A operating and service manual is available at www.hparchive.com, but this scanned copy contains incorrectly annotated schematic values for R7 (should be 3300 Ω), R8 (should be 2700 Ω) and C5 (should be 0.01 μF).

Old battery-powered 456As are usually in excellent physical shape because when their batteries ran down these instruments were often shelved and forgotten. Another 456A advantage is that its probe head is wired directly to the amplifier, so they cannot be separated by surplus electronics dealers.

Restoration
Restoration of the 456A consists of three steps: replacing the old battery pack with DC power, restoring the amplifier electronics, and converting the obsolete oscilloscope banana plug interface to a BNC connector.

Step 1: Replace the old battery pack. Remove the two Phillips-head screws on the housing back to slide off the 456A’s cover. Re-thread the screws into the frame to keep them from getting lost. ….

Step 2: Restore the amplifier electronics. At this point, if you are happy with your current probe’s performance, you can skip the following upgrades, but these are five modifications you might need to perform to get your 456A working or improve its performance:

• Replace the electrolytic capacitors
• Replace the two germanium transistors
• Replace the 8-V breakdown diode (CR1)
• AC-couple the output
• Flow solder onto the printed circuit traces

Photo 6 is an annotated close-up of the amplifier’s single-sided printed circuit board. Following vacuum tube circuit convention, the +5 V is labeled “B+” and the –8 V is labeled “B–”. There are three electrolytic capacitors in the amplifier (see the horizontal silver cylinders in Photo 6), and their replacement is straightforward. ….

Photo 6: The amplifier's original printed circuit board (Source: Bill Reeve AX 2/12)

Step 3: Convert the oscilloscope interface to a BNC connector. This final modification can be performed one of three ways. Pomona electronics (visit the website pomonaelectronics.com) sells a female banana to male BNC adapter (Model 1296). You can cut the banana plug connector off the existing cable and attach a male BNC connector. This requires special tools.

You can replace the output cable with coax having one BNC end. This is a straightforward replacement. Photo 9 shows the new BNC output cable. …

Photo 9: BNC ouput cable installed (Source: Bill Reeve AX 2/12)

This restoration should make your 456A ready for another 50 years of service.

Note: The complete article appears in the February 2012 issue of audioXpress magazine. audioXpress magazine, like Circuit Cellar, is an Elektor group publication.