PowerSource
Technical Editor Margery Conner's PowerSource streams the latest developments in electronic power design and related technologies. Follow Margery on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/margeryc.
Only one week left to submit proposals for Open Hardware Summit
Somehow I missed it when the initial Call for Abstracts went out last month: The deadline for proposals for talks, posters, or a project demo is May 31, 2012. The Open Hardware Summit itself will be held September 27, 2012 at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in New York City. Most of us know what open source software (OS) is, thanks to the phenomenal success of OS projects like Linux and ...... Read More
Comments (0)Flashing LED glasses shed light on future tech applications
Macetech is in the business of coming up with novel uses for LEDs. They were displaying a proof-of-concept pair of LED glasses at Maker Faire last weekend that’s notable for two reasons. The first is that the wearer can see relatively well through the slits in the “glasses”: The LEDs which are so bright to the external viewer are completely blocked by the thin strips they are ...... Read More
Comments (7)Club Jameco wants to help you make money in the kit business
What red-blooded engineer doesn’t fantasize about leaving their day job to create a start-up business? Maybe you’ve fantasized about starting the next electronics kit business – one like Sparkfun or Adafruit, companies that started offering kits or specialized electronic parts, and grew into multi-million dollar businesses. (For more about what it takes to start a kit business ...... Read More
Comments (9)Constant-current wall warts streamline LED driver design for lamps, cabinet lights
Consider the lowly wall wart power adapter. It finds use in millions of electronics devices as a cost- and power-efficient ac-dc voltage-regulated power supply. In effect, designers of electronics have outsourced their product’s ac-dc conversion, voltage regulation, and regulatory compliance to the wall wart. It’s a cost-effective solution for most low-wattage power supply challenges ...... Read More
Comments (10)100W-equivalent LED bulbs make their appearance
Philips was showing off a 100W LED replacement bulb at LightFair last week, which joins the ranks of candidates from GE and Osram Sylvania. Although Philips wasn’t talking about production versions of the bulb, based on their past LED bulb announcements it’s likely it will make its appearance in the fall at retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s with a price range of $50-70. A t ...... Read More
Comments (27)Cree luminaires interface directly with EcoSystem lighting controller
While LED lighting is justifiably touted as being power miserly, it’s really how well they integrate into an intelligent lighting system that allows them a fast ROI/payback time, especially in commercial lighting installations. Cree, although perhaps best known as a LED component manufacturer, also is in the lighting fixture business, and now offers a version of its CR series luminaires and ...... Read More
Comments (1)VCs place their bets on advanced materials in power electronics
EDN doesn’t usually pay that much attention to what the financial backing is behind new companies – we generally leave that to our sister publication EETimes. However, Lux Research recently pointed out there’s a lot of the venture capital going into non-silicon power component start-ups – to the tune of over $200M. According to the report from Lux, “Beyond Silico ...... Read More
Comments (0)Next week’s LightFair (aka LEDFair) promises newest in solid-state lighting
Next week is the lighting industry’s pre-eminent trade show, LightFair, which to be as accurate as possible should change its name to LEDFair. The show fills up the massive Las Vegas Convention Center, and virtually every booth there is showing off LED-based lights. Which is a little strange because as it stands today, LEDs have very little penetration into the general lighting market. Ligh ...... Read More
Comments (2)Power modules vs. discretes: White paper quantifies design cycle times
In recent history the march of power design technology has been towards the use of web-based simulation to ease the design chores of putting together power conversion circuits with discrete components (discrete in the sense that power converter ICs are surrounded with passive components and then placed on a pc board.) There is another trend in power circuits, however, and that is towards modulariz ...... Read More
Comments (5)Intersil’s LCoS pico projector system shrinks size while cutting costs
Microdisplays, including pico projectors, could be the New Big Thing in consumer electronics. A couple of examples of possible incarnations for tiny LED-based handheld projectors include: Micron’s $99 Pop Video for the iPhone/Pod/Touch is basically the same size as the iPhone. Proponents say that sharing pictures and videos will take on a social dimension: Or, if you’re aller ...... Read More
Comments (15)Ambient light sensor mimics human eye in both spectral response, sensitivity
Intelligent lighting systems rely on sensors to adjust a room’s light based on factors such as room occupancy and available natural light. The advantages of intelligent lighting can go well beyond energy savings by enabling a lighting system to deliver not just the needed amount of light, but also the ability to tune the type of light to suit the activity. Occupancy detectors are usually so ...... Read More
Comments (4)LED array holders bring solderless assembly to solid-state lights
LED arrays are gaining traction in the lighting world, where their ability to cram many LED emitters into a single small package makes them attractive for high-intensity lighting. Also referred to as chip-on-board (COB) LEDs, the arrays pack in multiple LED components more closely than can be achieved with individual LED packages, making for a brighter light source as well as a larger emitting sou ...... Read More
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