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Technology
How to Implement Supervised Inputs in Your PCB Circuit Design
Have you ever worked late on a design project and forgot to eat? I was literally starving when I finished off one of my regular design projects. I decided to go for a quick meal at a local eatery. I placed my order and hoped the service would be fast. However, after 45 minutes and no food, I was told that the kitchen has missed my order. I learned my lesson that you can’t expect that your order is being followed just because you placed it. The
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RF Interference Prevention and RF PCB Design in the Internet of Things
Have you ever been to a party where there was so much noise you could barely hear yourself think? I’m a dedicated introvert, but sometimes my friends lure me out to such gatherings with promises that it will be “very relaxed.” They never are, and I don’t seem to learn. It’s times like those that I wish it was socially acceptable to wear noise-canceling headphones to such events. In the world of electronics, the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT)
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Important Considerations in Your Embedded System's Master-Slave Communication Model
It can take a few weeks or months to finish a working prototype of an embedded system. Sometimes I would spend days working on a single part of the project. However, when your boss is looking for updates every day, it can be particularly distracting and hinder your productivity. When I started my design company, I learned not to repeat these mistakes on my team. Like a human, embedded systems come in various shapes and sizes, and more importantly
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The Importance of Compliance Awareness in Circuit and PCB Design
I had an English professor once who was a lot of fun, but man, his requirements for essay writing were brutal. Making a decent grade required a ton of work. I had to check and recheck my paper’s content to make sure that every detail he asked for was painstakingly covered. These tedious rituals, though annoying and painful, helped teach me how to be thorough with my research. This was something that came in handy when I began my career and had to
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Bluetooth Low Energy and the Internet of Things
Did you ever “reinvent yourself” at some time in your life? I did, I went from the nerd in high school who wore cargo shorts and high socks to a less nerdy college student who had regular socks and shorts with the fashionable number of pockets. By the end of college, I had learned “social skills” and was finally ready to enter society as the best, or at least acceptable, version of me. People aren’t the only things that need reinvention, so do
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How to Guarantee Signal Integrity in Your PCB Design for Serial Communication Protocols
During my school days, I was addicted to the popular FIFA PC games series. I could spend hours scoring against the best virtual soccer teams. I was so engrossed in playing the game that I become oblivious to my mom’s voice when she called me to run an errand. It goes without saying that I received a healthy dose of scolding from my mom and was slapped with a 3 months ban on PC gaming. This is a good example of external sources can cause us to
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How to Plan Ahead to Meet PCB Disposal Requirements
When I was a kid and learned to solder, I had a mentor that kept an old coffee can on his soldering bench labeled “Lead Waste - DO NOT THROW IN TRASH.” Wire snippings, solder bits, and the random metal detritus that accumulates on a soldering mat all went in there. Apparently, it got full every few years and he took it to a local electronics recycling place to make sure he wasn’t adding any lead or heavy metals to the environment. I was shocked
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Why You Should Incorporate Digital Input Sampling in Your Embedded System
I particularly enjoy shopping in the supermarket on the weekend. In the grocery section, there are samples of various food products that range from tuna spread to white coffee. While I enjoy hopping from one sample station to another, my 5 year old son shamelessly always asks for a second helping. Sampling in electronics carries a different meaning than leisurely eating a variety of snacks. In an embedded system, digital input signals play an
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Facial Recognition Applications in IoT Wearables
One of the coolest tech things I saw in movies and couldn’t wait to see in the real world was retina scanning. I want to feel like James Bond or some other spy when I unlock my house or go into my office at work. I never thought biometrics could get any cooler than that, but Apple expanded my horizons the other day. The new iPhone X is equipped with state-of-the-art 3D IOT face recognition technology. Using a variety of sensors, they’re now able
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PCB Solutions: Why a Single PCB Standalone Door Access Controllers System Is Not a Secure Design
Editorial credit: Vasin Lee / Shutterstock.com While I don’t crave the latest iPhone X—the one where Apple removed the home button—it sure brought me down memory lane to my first mobile phone. I’ll always have a soft spot for that flip phone, but what I won’t miss is carrying my phone, a digital camera, and an MP3 player with me everywhere I went. Smartphones, which brought these key features—and more—into one device, seem like an inevitable
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Using Grounding to Protect Your PCB from ESD Damage: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites
Altium Audio Bites, giving you bite-sized information that's easy to digest and apply to your everyday design tasks. From our PCB Design Tips & Tricks audio series here is: Using Grounding to Protect Your PCB From ESD Damage. All our audio series are from real PCB designers in the field, detailing their day to day problems and experiences. We hope you can learn from this as much as we have. Give it a listen and let us know what you think in the
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PCB Circuit Design Tips: Standard vs. Specialized Component Selection in PCB Design
As a kid, I was fascinated by hovercrafts. These nearly frictionless vehicles go from land to water without pause and spin 360s on demand like a carnival ride. I knew that the cost of a full-scale build would require mowing every yard in the county, so instead, I started by constructing a homemade radio-controlled model. It worked beautifully on ponds and flat parking lots, but in our hilly corner of the woods, the sleek craft required all of the
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Multilayer PCB Design: Manufacturing Boards for High Voltage PCBs
One of my favorite movies is the original Shrek. It was thrown into the nerd vernacular of my friends and siblings, along with more traditional sources of quotes, like Star Wars. One scene particularly stands out, when Shrek explains to Donkey that ogres, like himself, are complex creatures. “Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.” Donkey points out that not everyone likes onions, but everyone
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High Speed PCB Design Guidelines: An Overview for Getting Started: PCB Design Tips & Tricks - Altium Audio Bites
Altium Audio Bites, giving you bite-sized information that's easy to digest and apply to your everyday design tasks. From our PCB Design Tips & Tricks audio series here is: How Speed PCB Design Guidelines: An Overview for Getting Started. All our audio series are from real PCB designers in the field, detailing their day to day problems and experiences. We hope you can learn from this as much as we have. Give it a listen and let us know what you
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PCB Technology: Considerations for Turning Your Embedded System into a Modbus Remote Terminal Unit
There is a misconception that engineers are terrible dates and hopeless in relationships. While I’m no relationship guru, past experiences have taught me that communication, or the lack off, is one of the main reasons relationships fail. Great communication isn’t talking endlessly to your partner, but rather being attentive to what they have to say, or decoding the hidden meaning of their cold silence. If you have mastered the elusive skill of
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BOM Part Number Management: Why It Should Be Automated
If you’ve ever worked with high voltages or have designed a high voltage circuit, you know that they always require careful planning. In my last job, we had been using a particular high voltage power supply circuit for years. When it was initially designed, the board took longer than usual to complete. While its design required some extra finicking, it was worth the effort. Everything was going well until the larger assembly's design was modified
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Why Designing a High Voltage PCB for Rapid Prototyping Is More Effective Than Rushing to Form Factor
Remember that fable we all were told as kids about the tortoise and the hare? The moral of the story was that slow and steady wins the race. In engineering, this is especially true when it comes to creating a consumer product quickly. However, this practice is rarely the approach we take. I personally experienced this when I rushed the design of a dimmer for the IOT market. In fact, I was making two dimmers. The first dimmer was simpler and used
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