Bench Talk

The 2014 South by Southwest Festival was this past weekend, and I was able to attend with some of my Mouser colleagues. March 13-15 was the Music Gear Expo, where we set up our booth. We were showcasing our Pro Audio line, which includes Bourns' guitar potentiometers and Neutrik's super-cool silentPlug.

In my role I get to try out lots of cool things. However, some of the favorite things that I get to try out are the most practical. Several years ago the U.S. Congress and the President adopted the Energy Independence and Security Act. The goal of this legislation was an effort to move the country to becoming more environmentally friendly. As a result of this legislation incandescent bulbs would be phased out over time.

I spent most of Saturday at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History for Engineer’s Week. I sat at a table with half a dozen kids at a time, showing them how to connect little DC motors to batteries, and exploring and explaining series and parallel connections for the braver ones. We had several DC motors with a glue stick off center on the shaft of the motor so it would wobble, and velcro attached the motor and battery holder with alligator clip leads to a scrub brush. The result was a giant hex bug popping around on the table. Some kids were very interested in how they could take it further, and others had glazed expressions. For the ones that wanted to go further, I showed them how to connect three 9V batteries in series to feed the motor 27 volts… and it really buzzed. Then I told them we were on the Mars Rover team and had to make sure that even if a lead broke, the rover would still go.

Hello, everyone! My series of posts are going to deal with applications of open source hardware. My goals are to share applications using open source hardware and teach some fundamentals of electronics and software to turn these projects from concept to reality. To make things easy as possible, I will put links to Mouser’s website so you can get parts ordered fast and get to making cool things sooner rather than later.

A decade ago, back when Xilinx’s Virtex®-4 and Spartan™-3, and Altera’s Stratix®-II were new products, it was my job at Texas Instruments (TI) to partner with the leading FPGA manufacturers to produce power management solutions that benefited our joint customers. Multiple power rails, power-up sequencing, tight tolerances, transient response, system reliability, total solution cost, and size – these were all things we were concerned with even then.

Let’s face it: When it comes to communicating, we’re spoiled. We can talk, text, or e-mail nearly anyone we want whenever we want, by simply picking up the phone -- be it wired or wireless. But ham radio can work when nothing else can get through.

Back to the Future 2 is turning out to be more prophetic than we thought. First NIKE announces power laces, and now a viral video from “HUVr Tech” is currently making the rounds claiming to have made the break through we’ve been waiting for for 25 years: A REAL Hoverboard. You can believe it because Christopher Lloyd, Tony Hawk, Terrell Owens and Moby have all endorsed it. And if you can’t trust Moby, who can you trust?

I know there are all kinds of rules against anthropomorphizing the equipment with which you work. It makes you overly attached to it, but I just can’t help it when it comes back with a Fourier Transform like this...

The 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) wrapped up with the usual plethora of product debuts and announcements. Here are some highlights and trends related to power supplies and power management products.

When I lived in Austin, the phrase “Keep Austin Weird” meant to me that Austin was special in a weird, quirky way. And I feel that way about open source, because as a means for expressing one’s self, there’s a project for everything. Seriously, open source hardware is branching into everything from prosthetics, clothing, and drones to dead cats...