Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. May you find many PCBs and other electronics wizardry under your tree or pole. Remember, support is available on Christmas. Just give us a shout in the forum.
Author Archives: DP
App note: Criteria for selecting connectors for LED lighting/industrial apps
App note from AVX covering ideal connectors used on industrial applications. Link here (PDF) Connectors used in industrial and solid-state lighting applications pose uniquely challenging design constraints on power density and form-factor while simultaneously demanding the highest reliability under harsh environmental conditions. As a designer in these spaces, one cannot simply prioritize piece cost in […]
App note: Energy storage capacitor technology comparison and selection
App note from AVX about MLCC, Tantalum, Tantalum Polymer and Supercapacitors. Link here (PDF) Tantalum, MLCC, and super capacitor technologies are ideal for many energy storage applications because of their high capacitance capability. These capacitors have drastically different electrical and environmental responses that are sometimes not explicit on datasheets or requires additional knowledge of the […]
App note: How to Port U8g2 to LPC55(S)6x and support a mono OLED display
App note from NXP Semiconductors helping you to use cheap OLED panels found on Taobao or Amazon to interface with their LPC5500 series micro using U8g2 graphics library. Link here (PDF) The LPC5500 is an Arm® Cortex®-M33 based microcontroller for embedded applications. There are many 128 × 64 resolution OLED panel modules on the market […]
App note: Driving brushless long-life vibration motors
App note from Precision Microdrives on new brushless motor design and how to drive them efficiently. Link here For a long time, all motors driven by DC supplies relied on using metal or carbon brushes to provide electrical power to the motor’s internal components. Meanwhile, in larger motor designs it has also been possible for […]
App note: Using SPICE To model DC motors
App note from Precision Microdrives helping you model DC motors in SPICE. Link here SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis) is an open-source program for simulating electrical circuits. It enables engineers to model the behaviour of their circuits in software, which reduces prototyping costs and time. As DC motors have mechanical properties – i.e. […]
App note: High-side current sensing for applications using high common-mode voltage
App note from STMicroelectronics. Link here (PDF) This application note explains how to extend the common input voltage range of a standard operational amplifier (op amp) to realize a high-side current sensing.
App note: Introduction to comparators, their parameters and basic applications
App note from STMicroelectronics about comparators and their limitations, also info on substitution depending on the application. Link here (PDF) After operational amplifiers (op amps), comparators are the most generally used analog, simple integrated circuits. Operational amplifiers are well described in many publications and a lot of information can be found regarding the design and […]
App note: Power inductors 101
App note from Vishay about how modern power inductors are made and their performance. Link here (PDF) Power inductors are typically used for energy storage in DC/DC converters or high current noise filter applications, including motor speed control, adjustable lighting, DC power conditioning, and more. Power inductors can be divided further into two groups – […]
App note: Inductors as RF chokes
App note from Coilcraft on how inductors where used for solving RF isolation issues. Link here (PDF) Many consumer products communicate with each other over broadband networks. From television to fiber transmission networks, the bandwidth of data communication is increasing, and the integrity of RF signals has become a major design concern. This paper provides […]
App note: Measuring self resonant frequency
App note from Coilcraft on determining the self resonant of an inductor and how to compare them to other identical inductors. Link here (PDF) When comparing published electrical values, engineers require a common basis for comparison. Ideally, a 100 nH inductor with a self resonant frequency (SRF) of 1 GHz from one manufacturer is equivalent […]
App note: Utilizing the power shutdown capabilities of the Kionix tri-axis accelerometers
Conserve power on using accelerometers with the help of this app note from Kionix by shutting it down on specific operating duty cycle. Link here (PDF) Kionix tri-axis accelerometers feature a power shutdown capability. Even with their typically low current draw, there are still applications that may require even less power consumption. For these applications, […]
App note: Multiplexing Tri-Axis accelerometer outputs
App note from Kionix on reading multiple accelerometer by a single ADC using off the shelf chip or accelerometer built-in multiplexer. Link here (PDF) A Kionix tri-axis accelerometer with analog outputs provides three output voltages (Xout,Yout, Zout) which are proportional to the respective accelerations in those directions. However, with three analog outputs to digitize, it […]
App note: Smart battery charger by LPC845 with SMBus interface
Battery charger using NXP’s LPC845 through SMBus communication. Link here (PDF) Batteries are used everywhere, such as smart phones, notebook computers, wearable devices, handheld electronic products, smart small appliances, etc. Users always want to know the battery temperature, voltage, current, capacity, how long it can be fully charged, and how long the battery will be […]
App note: Low-Power Real-Time algorithm for metering applications
Tested algorithm library from NXP Semiconductors on power metering. Link here (PDF) High accuracy metering is an essential feature of an electronic power meter application because inaccurate metering can result in substantial amounts of lost revenue. Moreover, inaccurate metering can also undesirably result in overcharging to customers. The common sources of metering inaccuracies, or error […]
App note: Loudspeaker characterization and compensation
Using DSP and ST’s Tune software to compensate for a flatter response on speakers discussed in this app note from ST Microelectronics. Link here (PDF) The application note describes how to measure and analyze the performance of a loudspeaker and how to compensate the frequency response using the ST Speaker Tune software, a tool available […]
App note: Pre-amplifying the analog output of a MEMS microphone
Designing pre-amp for MEMS microphone found in this app note from ST Microelectronics. Link here (PDF) This application notes describes the key parameters related to pre-amplification of the output signal of an analog MEMS microphone (MP23AB02B). A solution is proposed based on the TS971 op amp. For a differential output configuration, we can consider using […]
App note: The importance of compensation capacitors on the eFuse power line
Inductive spike on voltage rails causes eFuse to shutdown, here’s an app note from ON Semiconductors on how they solve this problem from happening. Link here (PDF) ON Semiconductor produces a wide variety of silicon based protection products including current limiting devices such as Electronic Fuses (eFuses). During an over−current stress, eFuses can limit the […]
App note: eFuse reverse voltage protection
App note from ON Semiconductors about eFuses’ ability to block reverse voltage. Link here (PDF) One area in which they (eFuses) differ in performance is reverse polarity protection. While a TVS device and polyfuse will protect against reverse voltages, the nature of an integrated semiconductor device does not inherently allow for this type of protection. […]
App note: Implementation of error code correction in EEPROMs
App note from ON Semiconductors about their EEPROM error correction. Link here (PDF) Some of ON’s automotive EEPROMs, like the Grade 0 NV25xxx family (SPI, 1 – 64 Kb) and the Grade 1 CAV24Cxx / CAV25xxx (Grade 1, 128 Kb and higher) implement an Error Code Correction scheme. What this means is that for each […]