Electronic Test Equipment News

Portable measuring instruments all suffer from one unavoidable drawback. They run on batteries. For all of the advances in electronics technology, a breakthrough in battery design remains elusive. According to this white paper, lithium polymer batteries can offer considerable flexibility (both philosophical and literal) over available alternatives for a variety of applications. They permit a wide range of capacities (from 50 mAh to 10 Ah) and their plastic-construction allows them to fit easily into odd-shaped spaces. Still, no good deed ever goes unpunished. Lithium-polymer batteries are more expensive and more susceptible to intra-cell shorts.

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The 1555F series from Hammond Manufacturing is a family of rugged IP67 sealed enclosures designed for wall mounting PCB-based or DIN rail based equipment such as security components, control equipment, and radio repeaters used in harsh industrial environments or outdoor applications.

Pickering's 41-743 PXI single channel programmable power supply is capable of providing 2 A at output voltages up to 20 V and 0.8 A up to 48 V. The 41-743 allows load sensing at the end of cables. A voltage monitor and programmable current limit is included and supports PXI Triggering and external triggering.

Performs E1 frame data monitoring and analysis, dual E1 channel testing, loop delay, APS delay, pulse measurement, jitter measurement, signal level measurement. The analyzer also has many enhanced test functions such as "PCM Simulator", "Mux/Demux", "Drop & Insert," and "Network Tools."

'.. the I2C decoding on the Cleverscope just saved me a whole lot of debugging time. With the decoding I quickly noticed that I was sending out the wrong address and within a couple of minutes I had it working correctly.' - Eric.

When you need to switch seamlessly from analog to digital to frequency-domain measurements, timing and triggering can represent a considerable challenge. This electrical engineer contends that in such situations, he spends most of his time trying to get time bases and triggers aligned. The video offers a customer's look at an instrument that combines oscilloscope with logic-analyzer and spectrum-analyzer functions to simplify that effort.

When analyzing an RF or microwave signal, do you select time domain or frequency domain? The correct answer is: It depends. Typically, signals offered a waveform in time domain and a spectrum in frequency domain. If the signal's information content depends on how it varies with time, however, a conventional approach will not produce reliable results. This article discusses how different instrument architectures addressed this problem.

Testing a complex board is supposed to require a great deal of test hardware. But what if you could shrink the tester to the size of a chip and build it into the board? This company offers just such a solution, using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to carry the test instructions.

How do you optimize a low-cost in-circuit tester to fit better into high-speed production? You could integrate external applications that measure LED currents and analyze test results or test the integrity of automotive and consumer-electronics boards. You could also add an automatic board handler that can boost overall productivity by up to 20%.

KEW 3125 is a fully featured, moderately priced 5 KV insulation tester ideally suited for field service. Includes a wide measurement range (500-5000 V up to 1000 GOhms), large digital display with bar graph, polarization index measurement, timer function, voltage measurement, auto discharge, auto power off, and IEC61010-1 CAT III 600 V safety.

A well run lab means controlling cost. Follow these rules: 1.) repair existing electronic test equipment, 2.) sell or trade your unused surplus, and 3.) buy premium quality used vs new. BRL Test is your partner in cost control. Highly trained repair technicians, cash buying power, and a huge product catalog.

When you have to perform inspection in tight spaces, most standard cameras are just too big. To address such situations, this latest offering claims to be the smallest camera available that conforms to the GigE Vision standard. Offering a 1.3 megapixel image sensor that can capture 30 frames/second, the camera measures just 29 mm x 29 mm x 30 mm.

Achieving optimum performance from an inspection system requires verifying that the system itself is performing up to specification. This new feature, recently added to one company's vision system, tests the system automatically during operation. It allows confirming program changes by checking them against results from baseline configurations, and can assist in identifying borderline results and refining pass/fail criteria.

Incorporating boundary-scan testability into a board design often requires integrating a number of dissimilar tools, each equipped with its own unique interface. This software "shell" allows a common approach to address the disparate design and test issues. The company promises that the primary goal was to create an interface so intuitive that even a novice could easily access the most sophisticated functions.

Sometimes the tool you need is sitting on the lab bench in front of you. An oscilloscope offers a largely ignored math function that allows you to calculate parameters you can't measure directly. Load capacitance, for example, can show you the power dissipation of a MOSFET during startup or shutdown. This white paper describes how to take advantage of this powerful capability.

Secure electronic devices from RF interference and/or emissions with Select Fabricators, Inc.'s U.S.A. made RF shielding enclosures and pouches. Flexible and highly conductive, SFi's 'Faraday cage' enclosures support design and pre-compliance testing. SFi's RF shielding enclosures are single or double layer conductive silver/copper/nickel material. Specifications.

Built on a solid foundation of many years of analog experience, Intersil is committed to developing leadership solutions for the instrumentation market segment. Over the past several years Intersil has heavily invested and will continue to invest in robust technology capable of supporting the demanding requirements of the instrumentation market.

So you have a job. You consider yourself lucky. Or do you? In a survey asking workers around the U.S. how they feel about their current job status, a surprising number were less than satisfied. Responses ranged from "confident" from someone working for a healthy company to "ambivalent" from a consultant who depends on the strength of the economy to "scared" from a highly educated member of the ranks of the unemployed.

Most people regard Isaac Newton as the father of modern science. (Not to mention the father of physics, optics, calculus, and a great deal more.) Much less well-known is a physicist from 700 years earlier who made some revolutionary discoveries in optics. This item from BBC News takes a look at Hassan ibn al-Haythem, regarded by many who know of him as the real father of the scientific method.

Will the Real Steve Jobs Please Stand Up?

Despite his accomplishments, Steve Jobs had his share of detractors who regarded him as but a flawed human being. What's your opinion? Do you embrace the man or the myth? The anarchic revolutionary or the corporate mogul who wanted everything for himself?

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