‘Impossible’ superconduction

A (hobby) electronics engineer needs at least two pieces of equipment to be able to work on an electronic circuit: a multimeter and a soldering iron. Most of us have these by now, but sometimes it is necessary to acquire a new one or obtain an additional multimeter that will come in handy when it is desirable to make multiple measurements simultaneously. The meter from Mastech that we describe here is a mid-range instrument with a price tag of just below 50 euros and also offers a few nice features!

A thermal imaging camera for less than €300, is that something? According to us, this 'HT-02' works very well for the price. Why? That you can read in this review!

Olivier Croiset's idea for an alarm clock with its 2.2" TFT display and available as a kit from Elektor, was designed to be simple to use – a modern design which is also ideal for folks of my mother's generation who get frustrated at times by some of these new-fangled gadgets...

Starting this week, the new Arduino MKR VIDOR 4000 board is available in the Elektor Store. With an Intel 10CL016 FPGA. That’s 16 000 logic elements plus some specialised signal processing embedded multipliers (read: audio and video). The board, at 83 x 25 mm (3.3 x 1 inches) is as full as an egg. In addition to standard GPIOs, there are HDMI, USB, JST and MIPI (Camera) connectors. And let’s not forget the ARM ATSAMD21 32-bit microcontroller!

The point of offering these videos on (de)soldering is to encourage practical experience, conquer the fear of the unknown, and to close the gulf between the keen electronics enthusiast and those miniature components. For example, an interesting faultfinding video with these damned surface mount devices (SMDs)! Some believe they are impossible to handle without specialised tools. For others, changing a BGA has become a boring task. This week, for this episode of Elektor TV, I didn’t find what I wanted, but I hope that what I did find will pique your curiosity.

The word LiDAR, the ‘Li’ meaning ‘light’ indicates a device for optoelectronic echolocation. Instead of radio frequencies, the Lidar transmits a pulsed laser beam, the echo of which allows the determination of the distance of a reflecting obstacle. There is much talk these days of self-driving cars . Cheap Lidars with interesting characteristics are now available to anyone; they permit rapid development beyond the experimental stage.

Help your children dream STEAM! Neither a toy nor a gadget, this WaterColorBot is an attractive educational project, involving girls, kids, adults, and teachers into active robotics and creative making. It not only provides opportunities for young people to build and learn about computer numerical control and to learn how to program a robot. It can be used far beyond that horizon. The WaterColorBot V2.0 is essentially a specialized pen plotter, using watercolors to paintbrush onto paper before your eyes. It dips its brush in water, goes and gets the right color. Standard watercolor paints and paper are used (no specialized supplies required).

Today, a wide variety of designers are interested in PCB services: pro engineers, makers, and even students. Business is booming. Eurocircuit's Managing Partner Dirk Stans talks about his company's high-quality PCB services, its close relationship with Elektor, and the international PCB market.

Microchip announces five new 1.8V temperature sensors, including the industry’s smallest five-channel temperature sensor with standard lead spacing. The EMC181x temperature sensor family also introduces system temperature rate-of-change reporting, a feature that provides advanced warning on how the temperature of a system is fluctuating.

Eurocircuits has now added the PCBA Visualizer to their online eC Smart Tools seamlessly linking PCB Manufacture to PCB Assembly and driving their philosophy of “Right First Time for Manufacture”. It is without a doubt that the PCBA Visualizer brings unparcelled functionality and control to the customer. It allows them to visually check that the selected components physically fit their PCB layout before the manufacturing process starts, thus avoiding lengthy delays or costly remakes.

The compact infrared thermometers of the optris® CSmicro line have been technically improved and now have even wider applications. “The CSmicro is one of our best-sellers, proven especially in the OEM area many times. Our ambition however remains to also continue to develop the classic sensors”, explains Dr. Ulrich Kienitz, CEO of Optris about the latest product update. In addition, the range can now also be used with the Android App “IRmobile” on smartphones and tablets.