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DISCOVERED
NEW PRODUCTS
Previous list of Discovered New Products
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New product
announcements are made nearly every day.
I subscribe to many trade journals and each is filled with hundreds of
flashy advertisements. But, only a few of those product ads
catch my eye. Since I’m a circuit designer, I especially like
those components that trigger many new application ideas in my mind.
Sometimes it is the smallest products that are the most useful.
Tiny surface mounted components that perform a nice little function
have countless applications. I also like anything that keeps
battery power consumption low. These days you can do many
interesting things with a well-designed circuit powered from just a
few tiny button battery cells. |
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I often discover new products in surplus electronic catalogs.
The surplus companies often buy up stock that came from companies that
went out of business. Bad marketing or bad management may have
killed a perfectly good product idea. Their loss can be your
gain if you can spot the bargain. |
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In this section I will highlight some components or products that have
attracted my attention. Let me know what new products you have
seen that got you excited. |
New Products added May 19, 2007
- Colorado
Video’s Observer IV GPRS, GSM, Remote, Mobile, Wireless,
Internet, snapshot camera
- Colorado Video’s
Lookout-V GPRS, GSM, Remote, Mobile, Wireless, Internet,
snapshot camera
- 5
Watt Infrared LED from Cold Fusion
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CeeLite Electroluminescent Lighting Panels
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Digital Pots from Micro Bridge Replaces Mechanical Pot
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Full Featured Digital AC Wattmeter from Electronic Educational
Devices
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Linear Magnetic Hall Effect Rotary Sensor
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Monolithic Schottky Bridge Rectifiers From Central Semiconductor
Corp.
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Tiny Coin Shaped Thermocouple Thermopile Voltage Generator
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Super Small Memory Cards From SanDisk
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Tiny Piezoelectric Motors from New Scale Technologies
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Ultra Low Power Crystal Oscillator IC from EM Microelectronic
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Ultra Low Voltage Switching Regulator from TI
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Zero Bias Voltage FETs from Advanced Linear Devices
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Colorado Video’s Observer IV GPRS, GSM,
Remote, Mobile, Wireless, Internet, snapshot camera enables you to
get pictures from remote sites or locations with maximum ease. |
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installation makes it ideal for monitoring temporary or distant
sites or mobile assets. |
| The Observer IV is
well suited for monitoring current pictures from mobile assets
such as ferryboats, dredges, busses, railcars, and trucks. The
Observer IV can keep web pages fresh by providing continuously
updated JPG images to your server for your web surfing audience to
view. |
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Colorado Video’s Lookout-V
GPRS, GSM, Remote, Mobile, Wireless, Internet,
snapshot camera enables you to get pictures from remote sites or
locations with maximum ease. |
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| Its simple
installation makes it ideal for monitoring temporary or distant
sites or mobile assets.
The Lookout-V is well suited for
monitoring current pictures from mobile assets such as ferryboats,
dredges, busses, railcars, and trucks. |
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Lookout-V can keep web pages fresh by providing continuously
updated JPG images to your server for your web surfing audience to
view. |
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CeeLite Electroluminescent Lighting Panels |
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LEC
Technology has joined forces with Sylvania to form the CeeLite (http://www.ceelite.com/)
brand of super bright ultra flat lighting panels. These flat
panels, some as large as 36 inches by 72 inches, can launch up to
200 nits of light and can be bent to conform to any smooth
surface. They are ideal for some custom back lit
signs. The panels are powered by an AC voltage of several
hundred volts at about 1KHz. CeeLite does sell a line of
custom AC inverters to power their panels. |
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Ultra Low Voltage Switching Regulator from TI |
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Finding any IC that operates at low voltages is rare.
Finding a switching regular IC that runs down to 0.3 volts is
therefore really a surprise. The TPS61200 (http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tps61200.pdf)
from Texas Instruments was designed to boost the voltage from
single NiMH cells to a higher voltage. With an operating
range that extends down to 0.3v, the device is perfect for
powering something from a single 0.5v solar cell. It has a
maximum average input current of 1.5 amps, which can translate to
an output current of 500ma at 5 volts. I think I might try
using this part to design a 4 cell 4.8v AA NiMH battery charger,
powered by a single large solar cell. |
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Zero Bias Voltage FETs from Advanced Linear Devices |
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Advanced Linear Device (http://www.aldinc.com/)
has been able to carefully fabricate some N and P channel
enhancement mode FETs so they conduct current, even when the
voltage between the gate and source is zero volts. This
feature comes in handy when designing some low voltage amplifiers
and oscillators. I have been able to run a square wave
oscillator using two of their FETs with a supply voltage of only
0.16 volts. |
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Tiny Coin Shaped Thermocouple Thermopile Voltage Generator |
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Life Corporation (http://www.poweredbythermolife.com/corp.htm)
has developed a coin shaped heat to electricity converter. A
5 degree C temperature difference from front to back will generate
an open voltage of 6 volts and will feed 10 micoamps of current
into a 300K load resistance. With a 10 degree C difference,
the power generated increases to about 100 microwatts. The maximum
operating temperature is 100C. At such a temperature difference,
the device should crank out about 1000uw of power. These
devices might be used in energy harvesting applications where warm
objects exist. At 10ua, the device could charge up a 100uF
capacitor in about a minute. The energy stored in the cap
could then be used to power a wireless sensor link, such as Zigbee. |
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Linear Magnetic Hall Effect
Rotary Sensor |
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Melexis (www.melexis.com)
makes some of the best hall sensors on the planet. Their
MLX90316 offers a unique device, which exports a voltage
proportional to the angle of rotation of a nearby magnet, as shown
below. This function might come in handy for some human
interfaces where a knob can adjust the volume of an audio signal
or some other variable with no physical contact with the device.
http://www.melexis.com/ProdMain.aspx?nID=566 |
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Super Small Memory Cards From
SanDisk |
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SanDisk (www.sandisk.com)
is now offering a tiny flash memory card with storage up to 4GB.
Their “Micro SD” cards shown below measure just 0.6” x 0.4.”
These incredibly small memory cards will find their way into all
kinds of applications, which require a compact method to store
data. A 4GB card can store about 1000 MP3 songs. |
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Monolithic Schottky Bridge
Rectifiers From Central Semiconductor Corp. |
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Many power supplies take advantage of the lower voltage drop of a
schottky diode to improve overall efficiency. However,
usually four separate diodes have to be used to form a full bridge
rectifier circuit. Central Semiconductor (www.centralsemi.com)
has now made things easier by packing four schottky diode inside a
monolithic surface mounted bridge rectifier. The small 1 amp
rated device saves circuit board real estate and reduces the total
parts count, which can translate into cost savings.
http://www.centralsemi.com/pdf/CBRHDSH1-40L.pdf
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Digital Pots from Micro Bridge Replaces Mechanical Pot |
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Often a mechanical potentiometer is used to calibrate a circuit,
set the gain of an amplifier or null a voltage offset. These
can often become contaminated or broken. Micro Bridge Technology (www.microbridgetech.com)
has solved this problem by offering a digital “rejustor” device,
which can perform the same function as a mechanical device. |
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Tiny Piezoelectric Motors
from New Scale Technologies |
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These incredibly tiny motors are driven by a small piezoelectric
element, which rotates a tiny treaded lead screw. New
Scale’s (www.squigglemotors.com)
squiggle motors are being used to move small devices, such as auto
focus lenses and micro fluid pumps, with great precision. |
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Ultra Low Power Crystal Oscillator IC from EM Microelectronic |
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When trying to squeeze every last joule of energy from a circuit,
even the power required by a crystal oscillator can be important.
EM Microelectronic (www.emmicroelectronic.com)
has solved this problem with their EM7604 crystal oscillator
control IC, This device draws only 0.25 microamps, when used
with a standard 32.768KHz watch crystal. The IC operates
from 1.2v to 5.5v and over a temperature range of -40C to 125C.
Internal integrated oscillator capacitors keep the part count to a
minimum. You only have to connect a crystal. |
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Full Featured Digital AC
Wattmeter from Electronic Educational Devices |
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Electronic Educational Devices (www.wattsupmeters.com)
has developed a great digital wattmeter. This device is
similar to but better than, the very popular “Watts Out” AC power
meter. You simply plug the device into an AC wall outlet, then
plug the AC load you wish to monitor into the device. This
neat device has more features than you can shake a stick at,
including the ability to record the power line data to a computer,
through its USB connection. PC software is included with the
device. |
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