I just spent a morning with the PeakTech 1265, the entry-level model of a series of Chinese-made digital storage oscilloscopes . Here is a summary of my findings and some impressions of it. On unpacking, I immediately noticed that the mains power supply is built in, but nevertheless this PeakTech 1265 oscilloscope is very light… A good argument for taking it with you. The large screen size is about standard for this type of instrument.

The Pretzel board is a really useful tool especially when you are starting out with networks. Now however it was time to try out a different type of board. We took a look at the ESP32 which is the more powerful cousin of the ESP8266 with many more peripheral functions built-in...

The printed circuit board (PCB) pooling service from Eurocircuits is supported by a set of online tools that give the user more control over and a better visibility of what exactly will be manufactured and how. The use of these tools is free and does not require placing any orders, and as such they are great for improving a PCB design before deciding to get it manufactured. One of these tools is the Panel Editor, a tool to design, ehm, panels.

If a Quad Flat Package chip got severely damaged – in this case by a heavy mechanical impact – with 5 pins completely broken off, and if the PCB also took a blow, if a replacement chip is not available, if… if… if… then the question raises whether such a board can be repaired? Although many of us would probably write it off, this challenging task is the start situation in an amazing video.

Writing the time every minute – or at any other adjustable interval – into a layer of sand is the star attraction of a cool project developed around an Arduino Uno. This video shows how easy it is to build the well-designed gadget yourself from a kit of parts provided by Elektor. All parts are included.

After the waves made in the wireless world by the ESP8266, we can now expect a tsunami caused by its big brother, the ESP32. Along with a dual-core processor, it has onboard Bluetooth, more RAM, and IO extensions. The ESP32 can be programmed with the Arduino IDE. Later this year, Elektor Magazine will also write about the native development tool IDF. For the time being and for you, Elektor soldered the castellated/edge-plated ESP32 module on a breakout-board which easily fits in all your experiments on breadboards and elsewhere.

Designed by Clemens Valens at Elektor.LABS, the AVR Playground – a playful reference to the Arduino forum known as the Arduino Playground – is a hybrid of an Arduino Uno and a traditional micro-controller development board. It is intended for ‘doing Arduino’ without bad connections and loose wires (although it doesn’t disallow it). It provides an easy way to start learning the microcontroller without having to solder or add other components. 

It’s that time again – Elektor's July & August 2017 edition is now available for purchase! This issue is packed full of things to keep you entertained. You can get your printed copy posted direct to your door for free, with no shipping costs at all.

Huawei is backing an initiative for an AOSP (Android open source project) using ARM-based hardware and the Linaro open source collaborative engineering organization to develop the software. Their common aim: an ARM ecosystem. The new HiKey 960 dev platform from Huawei is now listed on the 96Boards website and will become available through global distribution channels. It is expected to be of interest to mobile developers and product design for markets like digital signage, point of sale (POS) and robotics.

Only available on our Elektor.TV YouTube channel, you can access a wide range of videos, interviews and webinars made by us, for you. We have a variety of videos directly from our lab presented by one of our engineers, so you can see our range of products and get more information about both our products and our associated projects.

Elektor Business Magazine (EBM) offers innovators, electronics engineers and startup companies, essential information and insights into the latest products, research and intelligence from the industry. EBM Edition 3 / 2017 for June & July has a focus on the wide and hot fields of Sensors & Measurement.