AC voltage levels: 0.316V The most common nominal level for consumer audio equipment is -10 dBV, 0.316 volts root mean square (VRMS). 0.7746V The reference voltage for the decibel unloaded (0 dBu) is the voltage required to produce 1 mW of power across a 600 ohms load (approximately 0.7746 VRMS) 1V The reference voltage for →
As we all know, a good LED could last very long up to 50,000 hours with with a good heat sink. But how is the LED driver electronics life? For common LED drivers there is at least one component is very weak. It’s the electrolytic capacitor. High Bay LED Lighting Driver Heat Dissipation Temperature Test →
Ever worry that robots are getting a little too smart? Thankfully, some people are dedicated to keeping our metal friends dumb. Bacarobo, the Stupid Robot Championship, is a showcase for just such robots. The contest originated in Japan (running in 2007 and 2008) before moving to Hungary in 2010. The competition has three main rules: →
Power Quality Symptoms & Solutions e-book is is written from an electronics point of view, rather than a power engineering one. And in so doing, provides the bridge between theory and real life. According to the book introduction more and more lecturers are using this material as a reference in their courses. You can find →
Have you ever designed an electronic schematic then wanted to share it on your blog? Or wanted help improving your circuit on a forum? Ever peered at a tiny/massive image of a circuit on a website and wondered why on earth there wasn’t a better alternative? I have done that quite often. CircuitBee is a →
As system speeds increase and designs shrink, circuit designers increasingly must debug signal integrity problems. Debugging common digital problems with a scope article tells how to effectively use your high speed oscilloscope to debug modern digital circuits. The ideal digital signal has fast transitions and only two states: high and low. In the real world, →
Lighting apps boost LED usage article says that in in 2011, DisplaySearch predicts global LED capacity will reach 180 billion units, and by 2013 will reach 227 billion. The total average LED penetration in lighting was 1.4% in 2010 and is forecast to reach 9.3% in 2014. →
What else can you do with our ubiquitous PC-board material? We’re all familiar with printed circuit board material, also called PC board or PCB. The most common type is FR-4, with glass-epoxy substrate (see here), but there are other materials available, such as low-cost, easily punchable phenolic. FR4 is a strong, stiff, hard-to cut, tool-dulling, →
There are many Arduino-compatible microcontroller boards nowadays. The Ruggeduino is a ruggedized Arduino-compatible microcontroller board. Features include overcurrent and overvoltage protection on all I/O pins and 5V/3.3V outputs, ESD protection on all I/O pins and USB port, total microcontroller overcurrent protection, and operation at up to 24V. There are some things a regular Arduino will →
Researchers have studied keystroke inference based on side channels, such as sound, electromagnetic wave, and timing. Since these attacks exploit characteristics of physical keyboards, they become ineffective on smartphones with soft keyboards. Attacks using sensors on smartphone raises the awareness of privacy attacks on smartphone sensors. Besides the obvious privacy concern over the GPS sensor, →