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SOLIDWORKS Tips: 3 easy ways to focus on your model

SOLIDWORKS Elite Applications Engineer Alin Vargatu demonstrates his top tips for focusing on your model: finding planes the easy way inside your assembly with the Q key, breadcrumbs, and a better way to use the component preview window. Very helpful. Lots more tips on the SOLIDWORKS YouTube channel.
View the video.

Push-pull transformer drivers for automotive power supplies

Nexperia's AEC-Q100 qualified, push-pull transformer drivers (NXF6501-Q100, NXF6505A-Q100, and NXF6505B-Q100) enable the design of small, low-noise, and low-EMI isolated power supplies for a range of automotive applications such as traction inverters and motor control, DC-DC converters, battery management systems, and on-board chargers in EVs. Also suitable for industrial applications such as telecommunications, medical, instrumentation, and automation equipment.
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Mini linear position sensor for drones, robots, aero, more

H. G. Schaevitz LLC, Alliance Sensors Group is now offering a miniature, lightweight LZ SERIES linear position sensor product line utilizing LVIT Technology™. These sensors are designed for tight spaces that require excellent stroke-to-length ratio. They are contactless devices for use by drones, OEMs, aerospace, robotics, factory automation, or assembly machinery applications where precision in position sensing is crucial.
Learn all the specs.

What is a Heatric Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger?

According to Parker Hannifin, "A Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger is a robust, corrosion-resistant, high-integrity plate-type heat exchanger manufactured using diffusion bonding." Learn about the technology and why Heatric, a Parker brand, "can manufacture a unit up to 85% smaller and lighter than traditional technologies such as shell and tube heat exchangers."
Read this informative Parker blog.

Tech Tip: Mastering sheet metal bend calculations in Onshape

Mastering bend calculations in sheet metal design is a key skill that can impact the accuracy and manufactur-ability of your designs significantly. Explore the various options available to become a pro in this Onshape Tech Tip: K Factor, bend allowance, and bend deduction, with guidance on when each should be used. You may learn something even if you don't use this software.
Read the Onshape blog.

Seifert thermoelectric enclosure coolers from AutomationDirect beat the heat

Automation-Direct has added new high-quality and efficient stainless steel Seifert 340 BTU/H thermoelectric coolers with 120-V and 230-V power options. Thermoelectric coolers from Seifert use the Peltier Effect to create a temperature difference between the internal and ambient heat sinks, making internal air cooler while dissipating heat into the external environment. Fans assist the convective heat transfer from the heat sinks, which are optimized for maximum flow.
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Raspberry Pi Pico 2: Microcontroller board with 2x flash memory

Raspberry Pi's Pico low-cost, high-performance microcontroller board with flexible digital interfaces is now being offered as a full second-generation product, complete with twice the on-board flash memory, higher performance, lower power consumption, and greater security.
Read the full article.

Free-Core vs. Spring-Loaded LVDT position sensors

Linear Variable Differential Transformers are electro-mechanical devices used in many industrial applications to measure the displacement or position of an object. They convert the linear position or motion of a measured object into an electrical output that is displayed on a local readout or input into a programmable logic controller as part of an automated process control system. LVDTs come in two core configurations -- free-core and spring-loaded -- but do you know what the differences are?
Read the full NewTek Sensor Solutions article.

New sensor listens to fuel for optimum marine diesel engine performance

Condition monitoring expert CM Technologies has added a fuel injection acoustic emission sensor to its proprietary PREMET X range of two- and four-stroke diesel engine performance indicators for marine use. The device allows engineers to monitor the acoustic signature of a diesel engine's fuel injection system to detect any problems with fuel injectors, nozzles, and pumps.
Read the full article.

Application Note: Quadcopter propeller torque/thrust testing

The quadcopter's four propellers are designed to work in conjunction with each other to ensure there are no torque imbalances that could send the vehicle spinning out of control. But just how would a professional developer or hobbyist perform accurate propeller torque and thrust testing? Advanced sensor expert FUTEK has the answer.
Read the full article.

New enclosure heat exchanger options

Automation-Direct has added new Saginaw Enviro-Therm^® air-to-air heat exchangers that use an enclosure's ambient air and either heat pipes or aluminum plate to transfer heat from inside the enclosure to the external environment. Since the ambient air is the cooling medium, the need for refrigerant is eliminated. Features include corrosion-resistant internal components, a filterless design for maximum cooling and reduced clogging, simple installation, and a programmable digital controller.
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World's smallest-width floating connector simplifies automotive installation

Hirose has developed a space-saving, board-to-board connector that combines floating functionality and miniature size to meet automotive specifications. The BM54 Series boasts the world's smallest-width class for its category, a 0.4-mm pitch, and a stacking height of 3.0 to 4.5 mm. This connector is ideal for PCBs with multiple connector sets and offers a wide floating range of +/- 0.4 mm in the XY direction. By absorbing board misalignment errors, floating simplifies assembly and improves assembly work efficiency. Applications include cameras, displays, millimeter wave radar, and LiDAR systems.
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Test equipment advancing to meet rapidly changing market needs

Although the rise of the IoT, 5G, and advanced automotive electronics markets is instigating rapid changes in technology, test equipment is keeping pace, and not just in extensions to bandwidth specifications or signal resolution. Maureen Lipps, Multicomp Pro Private Label Product Segment Leader, Test and Tools, Newark Electronics, runs through important advances in the industry and its tools.
Read the full article.

Smallest rugged AI supercomputer for avionics

Aitech Systems has released the A178-AV, the latest iteration of its smallest rugged GPGPU AI super-computers available with the powerful NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier System-on-Module. With its compact size, the A178-AV is the most advanced solution for artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning, and video and signal processing for next-gen avionic platforms.
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Touchless angle sensors get CAN SAE J1939 interface

Novotechnik has added the CAN J1939 interface (developed for heavy-duty vehicles) to its RFC4800 Series of touchless angle sensors measuring angular position up to 360°, turn direction, turns, speed, and operational status. It can provide one or two output channels. It has a longer life and robustness than an optical encoder. It can signal if a sensor needs replacing or average a programmable number of values to output to reduce external noise if present. This is wear-free angle measurement made easy.
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Researchers make an edible toothpaste-based transistor

A toothpaste-based transistor is the latest innovation from the research team at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT/Italian Institute of Technology) in Milan, which pushes the boundaries of edible electronics.

The innovative nano device is expected to become a key component of future smart pills, designed to monitor health conditions from within the body and then safely dissolve after completing their function. The research findings have been published in the journal Advanced Science.

Technology used to develop a toothpaste-based transistor may become a key to creating future smart pills. [Credit: Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)]

 

 

Several commercial toothpaste formulations contain crystals of copper phthalocyanine, a blue pigment that acts as a whitening agent. This substance is deposited on the teeth, functioning as an optical filter to enhance their whiteness. Throughout the day, copper phthalocyanine is gradually removed by saliva and ingested.

The research team at IIT's Center for Nano Science and Technology (CNST) investigated the properties of this substance in collaboration with a dental researcher from the University of Novi Sad in Serbia. Through laboratory simulations and analysis of existing clinical data, they determined that, on average, we inadvertently ingest about 1 milligram (mg) of copper phthalocyanine each time we brush our teeth when using this type of toothpaste.

"With the amount of copper phthalocyanine we ingest daily, we could theoretically manufacture approximately 10,000 edible transistors," says Elena Feltri, the paper's lead author and a doctoral student at IIT's CNST in Milan.

Actually, an intriguing aspect of this pigment is its chemical structure, which facilitates charge conduction within its crystals, making copper phthalocyanine an excellent candidate for use as a semiconductor in organic electronics applications.

The research team integrated small amounts of this new ingredient as a semiconductor into an already tested recipe for building edible circuits. The circuits are constructed on an ethylcellulose substrate, with electrical contacts printed using inkjet technology and a solution of gold particles, which are commonly used in culinary decoration. A "gate" made from an electrolytic gel based on chitosan -- a food-grade gelling agent derived from crustaceans such as blue crabs -- enables the transistor to operate at a low voltage of less than 1 V.

This edible transistor was developed in the Printed and Molecular Electronics laboratory led by Mario Caironi and follows the invention of an edible battery by the same group last year. Caironi's lab is dedicated to exploring the electronic properties of food and its derivatives, aiming to develop edible electronic devices for future applications in healthcare and quality control within the food industry.

In 2019, Caironi received a grant of 2 million euros (about 2.23 million USD) from the European Research Council for the ELFO project to explore the field of food electronics. Moreover, since 2021, his team has been involved in the European RoboFood project, which aims to develop edible robots.

The research group's next step will be to identify other edible substances with suitable chemical and physical properties to create an intelligent, edible electronic device to use for healthcare applications, such as monitoring body parameters within the gastrointestinal tract.

Source: Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT)

Published October 2024

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