PowerSource

Several (all right, all) of the comments on the post, “HP announces sensors for its “Central Nervous System for the Earth” (CeNSE),” raised the question of exactly what is the purpose of having a trillion (literally) sensors out there monitoring the world? I had attempted to gloss over this question by linking to a Wikipedia definition of “The Internet of Things,” but I think it’s worthwhile going into a bit more depth on the concept, if only because of the implications it has for future sensor applications.

The Internet of Things is the networked interconnection of everyday objects – soda cans, shoes, refrigerators, you name it – mostly throu...Read More

HP has taken its MEMs expertise, developed to provide fluid sensors for printer cartridges, and uses it to create accelerometers that are up to 1,000 times more sensitive than today’s commercial products. HP’s Big, Hairy, Audacious Plan is to create the central nervous system  for the Internet of Things which it calls the  "Central Nervous System for the Earth" (CeNSE). The tiny and “exquisitely sensitive” MEMs accelerometers are the first CeNSE sensors to be implemented within the R&D program, but follow-up sensors will include light, temperature, barometric pressure, airflow and humidity.

The first unit to go into the field, pictured...Read More

There’s an emerging market for power supplies in LED lighting and signage. IC vendors are salivating over the huge market for LED bulbs to replace incandescent and CFL bulbs, which will all need their own ac/dc power ICs. But the largest bulb replacement market of all, replacing the 60W light bulb, will have razor-thin profit margins and most likely go straight to Asian manufacturers. A more promising market for US technology companies focusing on high-power LEDs is signage, displays, and industrial lighting.

You may have seen the Mitsubishi screen at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium which is billed as the world’s largest LED video display.

This display uses 22,000 Lambda-TDK power supplies,...Read More

It turns out it’s possible to trademark a color. For example, T-Mobile owns the color magenta. Really.

Here’s an explanation:

“To clarify, companies like T-mobile can only trademark in the industry sector that they are registered in. So T-Mobile has trademarked the color magenta in telecommunications. The blog ...Read More

Various types of pressure film have been around for a long time in electronics. One use is to monitor how well a heat sink, for example, is contacting pcb surface.

Here’s another application: Monitoring the lamination or calendaring process in batteries. Pressurex is a pressure sensing film that, when placed between the lamination platens the film permanently changes color proportionally to the laminating pressure. You pull the film out, look at the color distribution, and get a pretty good idea of the alignment of mating rollers and lamination platens.

Not too many of us are involved in the actual manufacture of batteries, but many of us design with them, and almost all of us use them. From the Pressurex web site, here are how the lamination process plays out in the major battery technologies:

-- Lithium-Manganese Dio...Read More

Do you have a good topic for a technical paper for the 2010 “Designing with LEDs” Workshop to be held March 17 at the Santa Clara Convention Center? We’re looking for papers on power control, thermal management, optics, and lighting control and networking. If so, please fire off an abstract summarizing your paper in 300 words or less and send it along with author information (name, title, company, and contact information) to me at mconner@reedbusiness.com. Deadline to submit is December 4.

The LED Workshop, which is the only event of its kind to focus on the HB LED drive and control electronics as well as thermal management, will be a great place to see and discuss the latest advances in this booming technology, and to network with fellow designers and developers. For more in...Read More

Reader Jim K left a comment on Monday’s post, “Micro-inverters offer one solution for optimizing solar efficiency,” asking for a list of micro-inverter companies. As mentioned, Enphase is the only one that I know of that’s shipping product, but here’s a list of companies which have made announcements at least of their intention to sell micro-inverters:

• ·         Accurate Solar
• ·        

The lead-in to this post is here: Micro-inverters offer one solution for optimizing solar efficiency.

Probably the most well-known micro-inverter company is Enphase, which sells a 200W inverter for about $200 or about $1/W. This compares with a 3kW string inverter for about $2,000 or about $0.66/W.  Enphase suggests that the additional $.33/W is compensated for by the lowered installation labor and investment costs.

...Read More

Power-generating installations of solar photovoltaic panels are changing. Rather than the massive solar farms of the past10-20 years, smaller residential and industrial roof-top installations are gaining favor. These small-scale installations have different characteristics from the solar farms with their acres of arrays of solar panels that all face in the same direction and receive the same amount of sunlight. Solar farms have no obstacles such as neighbors’ trees or utility poles to shade a panel, causing a panel-to-panel variation in power output. On the other hand, residential and industrial installations have some features in common with solar farms: They are subject to dirt and require washing at regular intervals, and have panels that age at slightly different rates, causing variations in panel outputs.

S...Read More

When I saw the headline over at Make magazine, “Eternal flame replaced by LEDs,” I thought I understood immediately what the article would be about. Some monument somewhere which previously had a natural gas flame was “lowering its carbon footprint” by switching to LEDs. Not exactly.

It seems the memorial, located in the Ukraine, was erected after WWII to commemorate the many, many who died there. Natural gas was one of the plentiful commodities under the USSR regime, and for 50 years there was no trouble getting the flame illuminated with its own natural gas line. However, when things started to fall apart in the USSR several years ago, the free natural gas stopped, and it was to...Read More

Cree is inviting folks to submit their photos of lousy lighting. Each month Cree will give away 5 of Cree’s LED-based  LR6 recessed downlights to some lucky winner. Lest you think that’s not a very big give-away, look at the lights’ current price: $98 ea.

Doug Leeper mentioned a while ago that he had bought a Cree LR6 and wa...Read More

In general, batteries are good at storing energy and not so good at charging or discharging rapidly. Supercaps, on the other hand, are excellent at fast charging/discharging, but not so good at storing energy over a period of days or months. Ideally, for energy storage and delivery for the next generation of electric vehicles, you need both characteristics. After all, it takes just 5 minutes to gas (or diesel) up a conventional car. The 4 – 10 hours it takes to re-charge today’s batteries is a sticking point for EVs of the future.

The redox battery (which is shorthand for reduction-oxidation flow battery) offers a novel solution to the problem of charging times: Replace the discharged electrolyte ...Read More

Lest anyone thought the LED-lit, bubble-themed arena design of the Beijing Sports Cube was a fluke, here’s the winning design for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Russia. There are very few details on the design itself, other than, “…the exterior shell of the stadium involves a translucent, crystalline skin which engages with the surrounding landscape during the day, and is illuminated at night.” Sounds like the same infinitely changeable LED-based lighting approach of the Water Cube, and its 496,000 Cree XLamp LEDs in red, green and blue.

Via designboom.

 ...Read More

Here’s another entry into the e-book reader market, following on the heels reports that Barnes & Noble would also be fielding their own Kindle-killer. This most recent entry is from LG Display, and its twist is that it comes with a solar cell to boost outdoor reading time.  LG says, "Exposure to sunlight for about four to five hours would extend the running time of the e-book’s battery by a day without the need for additional charging. This would allow longer outdoor use of the e-book and lessens worries about battery discharging."

LG’s interest in thin-film solar cells is that it us...Read More

In the rush to embrace LEDs as the Great Hope for energy-efficient lighting, it’s easy to forget that LEDs themselves are only part of the design equation: The power control electronics are vital components in ensuring both power efficiency and thermal performance for lighting.

We’re having the lunchtime panel discussion that features many of the significant players in LED power management ICs**. I’d like to lead off with some questions that will both spark a good discussion among the panelists, as well as take advantage of the wide variety of experience and design approaches represented on the panel. For example, a softball question might be, “When designing a triac-dimmable LED light, what are the most important features the driver IC should have?” Or, “Are there any gotchas in driving the LED that will affect the life of the LED or ...Read More