electronics News - CNX Software - Embedded Systems News

November 3, 2024November 3, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Murata unveils stretchable PCB technology for medical and bio-sensing applications

Many PCB vendors now provide flexible PCB manufacturing services, but Murata goes further with stretchable PCB technology that’s not only bendable but can be twisted and stretched to better fit on the body for bio-sensing and medical applications even on parts such as an elbow. Traditional bio-monitoring sensors have some limitations. For example, they can become unstuck when the body moves, damage the delicate skin of infants and the elderly, data may be distorted due to body movement, and Murata explains “there is a risk of a decline in insulation and the occurrence of ion migration when using a thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer (TPU), known as a stretchable base material, in a high humidity environment”. The company’s stretchable printed circuits ((SPC) are supposed to solve or at least mitigate all those issues. The technology is under development, but Murata still shared some highlights of the technology: Stretchable electrode printing in compliance […]

October 22, 2024October 25, 2024 by Sponsored Post - No Comments

PCBWay’s 7th project design contest – Win prizes for your electronic, mechanical, or STM32 project (Sponsored)

PCBWay has launched its 7th project design contest in collaboration with Mouser with three categories, namely electronic project, mechanical project, and STM32 project. PCBWay’s design contests aim to encourage participants to engage in open-source innovation projects and inspire more people to join the electronics community. This year’s contest is no different and even adds the new STM32 project category to attract even more entrants. There are three phases in PCBWay’s 7th design contest: Project Release – September 2, 2024 – January 19, 2025 Project Review – January 20, 2024 – February 28, 2025 Result Announcement – March 10, 2025 The contest started last month, but you still have plenty of time to enter before January 19, 2025. As noted in the introduction three categories are available. Here are a few more details about these: Electronic project – Everything about electronic design, from simple circuits to advanced MCU and IoT projects, […]

August 26, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Flexduino is an Arduino UNO clone made of a flexible PCB

YouTuber “EDISON SCIENCE CORNER” has designed yet another Arduino UNO clone but with a twist as the board is made out of a flexible PCB. Companies like JLCPCB, PCBWay, and others have been offering flexible PCB manufacturing services for a while, mostly for flat cables or small boards that need to fit around a case, but the Flexduino is a complete Arduino UNO clone made of a flex PCB, and it looks rather cool. The flexible Arduino board does work as shown with the RGB LED and power LED in the photo above and YouTube video below, but its usefulness is rather limited, and some corners had to be cut as for instance there’s no ground plane. Nevertheless, it’s a nice demo of flexible PCB technology. The video on the EDISON SCIENCE CORNER channel provides a short demo, shows how the PCB was designed (EasyEDA), and go through the ordering […]

August 21, 2024August 23, 2024 by Sponsored Post - 3 Comments

ALLPCB – An ideal PCB manufacturer for PCB professionals and businesses (Sponsored)

ALLPCB is an ideal PCB manufacturer for PCB professionals and businesses thanks to additional customization options compared to competitors, monthly discounts for business users, and post-delivery payment options, besides ultra-fast delivery services and quality assurance services. ALLPCB customization options ALLPCB excels at higher specification boards and more complex PCB designs, which is why ALLPCB provides more customized quote options than competitors. Let’s take JLCPCB, one of ALLPCB’s main competitors, as an example starting with “Surface Finish” options for FR-4 material. JLCPCB offers three options, namely HASL (with lead), LeadFree HASL, and ENIG, but ALLPCB offers a total of 12 different surface finish options. That would the the same first three as in JLCPCB, but also OSP, Bare Copper, Immersion Tin, Immersion Silver, Gold Plating, ENEPIG, OSP+ Selective ENIG, Lead-free HASL + Selective ENIG, and Lead-free HASL + Selective Gold Plating ALLPCB also offers a PTH (Plating Through Hole) copper thickness […]

August 19, 2024August 19, 2024 by Debashis Das - No Comments

Toshiba TCKE9 reusable e-fuse features a fixed over-voltage clamp with adjustable overcurrent limit

Toshiba has recently introduced the Toshiba TCKE9 reusable e-fuse (electronic fuse) series, a new lineup of e-fuse ICs that can be used repeatedly, to protect power supply lines from various electrical faults like overcurrent, overvoltage, overtemperature, and short circuits. These new chips integrate various protection features into a single chip which simplifies circuit design and reduces component count compared to how a traditional protection circuit with multiple components is designed. This new line of products offers different ICs with different voltage ratings and adjustable current settings, alongside two reset modes auto-retry and latching. All these features make this e-fuse useful for applications like laptops, wearables, audio/video equipment, and industrial applications like automation systems, robotics, and many other applications. Toshiba TCKE9 reusable e-fuse Specification Input Voltage – 2.7V to 23V (Maximum – 25V) Output Current – 0 to 4.0A (Adjustable overcurrent limit – 0.5A to 4.0A via external resistor) ON Resistance […]

March 25, 2024March 28, 2024 by Sponsored Post - No Comments

PCBWay adds new parameters to its flexible PCB manufacturing services (Sponsored)

PCBWay, one of the most popular PCB manufacturers in China, has been offering flexible PCB manufacturing services for years, but the company has recently added new parameters and special processes to its flexible PCB ordering page. The first change is that customers can now order more complex flexible PCBs with up to 16 layers when using Polyimide Flex base material. PCBWay also added support for “high-frequency (DK<=3.6)” material with a dielectric constant of under 3.6 at 1 MHz as well as “Transparent” and “Translucent” options for PET material in the Polyimide base material section. Additional FPC thickness options have also been introduced with 0.025 and 0.05mm for one-layer boards and 0.08mm for two-layer boards enabling ever-thinner designs. Customers have now more choices when ordering stiffeners – the rigid part of a FlexPCB – with the “TOP Black FR4” and “BOT Black FR4” options with thickness options including 0.2mm, 0.4mm, 0.5mm, […]

February 22, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

$166 Mustool MT13S thermal imager doubles as multimeter

Mustool MT13S 2-In-1 Thermal Imager Multimeter

Mustool MT13S is a relatively inexpensive 2-in-1 thermal imager and multimeter with a 2.8-inch touchscreen display and an IR camera with a 192×192 resolution. Thermal cameras used to be quite expensive, but in recent years, we’ve seen cheaper models such as the HT-102 thermal camera for Android smartphones and M5Stack T-Lite Wi-Fi thermal camera, but those integrate fairly small 32×32 and 32×24 pixels IR arrays, The Mustool MT13S provides a higher resolution 192×192 thermal camera and doubles as a 10,000-count multimeter for about $166 plus shipping on Banggood or around $177 including shipping on Aliexpress. Mustool MT13S specifications: Thermal imaging Sensor – Uncooled focal plane Image capture frequency – 20Hz Thermal imaging resolution – 192 x 192 Display image resolution – 240 x 240 Field of view (FoV) – 50.0(H) × 50(V)/72.1(D) Emissivity – 0.1-0.99 is tunable and 0.95 is the default Temperature Range – -20°C to +550°C Accuracy – […]

January 24, 2024January 23, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

FOSDEM 2024 schedule – Open-source embedded, mobile, IoT, robotics, RISC-V, etc..

FOSDEM – which stands for Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting – is a free-to-participate event where thousands of developers meet in Brussels on the first week-end of February to discuss open-source software & hardware projects. FOSDEM 2024 will take place on February 3-4 with 880 speakers, 818 events, and 66 tracks. Although I won’t attend, I’ve created a virtual schedule like every year with sessions most relevant to the topics covered on CNX Software from the “Embedded, Mobile and Automotive” and “Open Hardware and CAD/CAM” devrooms, but also other devrooms including “FOSS Mobile Devices”, “ Energy: Reimagining this Ecosystem through Open Source”, “RISC-V”, and others. FOSDEM Day 1 – Saturday, February 3, 2024 10:30 – 10:55 – Screen Sharing on Raspberry Pi 5 Using VNC in Weston and Wayland with the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded by Leon Anavi In 2023, embedded Linux developers received eagerly awaited news: […]