High-brightness LEDs for solid-state lighting can last 50,000 hours or more, but the components surrounding them generate heat that can cause early failures. The early failures can be seen on many LED products, especially the cheap ones. Lighting products have historically been reliable, but as electronics-rich CFLs (compact fluorescent lights) began to replace incandescent bulbs, →
Minimig (short for Mini Amiga) is an open source re-implementation of an Amiga 500 using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The original Minimig prototype is based on the Xilinx Spartan-3 Starter Kit, the Original Amiga Chipset is synthesized in the FPGA. The prototype was shown at an Amiga meet and loads most Amiga programs although →
White paper: Logitech Squeezebox Boom audio design is an interesting in-depth look behind the design of an all-in-one network music player from one of its lead designers. This device includes amplifier and speakers and other music player electronics in one box. One of its lead designers tells the story. Image source: http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/product_matrix.html →
Lightning Reveals Its Power in Slow Motion article on Wired has a series of videos that combines severe weather, electricity, and technology. The maker of those videos, Tom Warner, documents the powerful beauty of lightning with an array of optical and electromagnetic sensors. “Lightning is one of nature’s most spectacular phenomena,” says Warner. “I want →
The normal way to drive a stepper motor is to use switched-dc voltages to energize the stepper motor coils one by one after each other. But a stepper motor will run off ac lines if you introduce a 90° phase shift between the voltages applied to the motor’s two windings. The extremely simple circuit in →
Differential amplifier approach uses an operational Amplifier. Operational Amplifiers only amplify the difference between the two input lines. This method eliminates common mode noise between the incoming signals by making A-B=C, as only the difference between A & B are amplified. Operational amplifiers is maintain wide bandwidth signals throughout your system while eliminating ground loop →
How much does the components that make a smartphone cost? iSuppli has analyzed over the years the cost of the components to make several cellular phones and other electronics gadgets. Interesting reading always when you get your hand to this material. Nexus One is the new HTC Phone, with a Goggle name on it, with →
There are so many processor options for embedded-system applications that it is easy to miss the perfect fit just because you do not know it even exists. EDN microprocessor/microcontroller directory has kept electronics designers up to date on available microprocessors/microcontrollers for 36 years. You have access a wealth of information on more than 70 vendors →
A modern Audio-Video amplifier/receiver (AVR) is an exceedingly complex piece of consumer electronics, requiring expertise in many aspects of analogue and digital audio and high definition video, plus considerable software skills. ‘The anatomy of a modern audio-video amplifier’ lecture by John Dawson from Arcam for Audio Engineering Society UK is an interesting talk on engineering →
An instrumentation amplifier is a type of differential amplifier that has been outfitted with input buffers, which eliminate the need for input impedance matching and thus make the amplifier particularly suitable for use in measurement and test equipment. The ideal common-mode gain of an instrumentation amplifier is zero, which means that it is a very →