Bench Talk

In this week's New Tech Tuesday, we'll look at Digilent and Keysight Technologies oscilloscopes for benchtop developers.

Imagine bringing the Swiss Army knife concept into the engineering lab and applying it to development tools. Taking inspiration from Switzerland and its most loved products, a new multifunction lab tool emerges that can replace a number of test and measurement instruments. What does this mean for engineers, hobbyists, and students? Let’s take a look.

Mechanical buttons and switches can present unintended input trouble for embedded electronics projects. There’s an undesired effect known as “bounce.” What is bounce? When you press a button it sometimes does not cleanly change states. There is some electrical noise generated as the button rapidly oscillates between states immediately after a button is pressed but before it settles. Think of it like pulling a mass-spring system downward, letting go, and waiting for it to settle at equilibrium. Switches and buttons oscillate similarly, though the time to settle is measured in milliseconds.