Barry Craik

Ohmite Launches Aluminum Housed Wirewound With Flying Leads

Ohmite is expanding it’s popular line of Aluminum housed resistors. The Ohmite ARG series is a high wattage wirewound resistor sealed in an aluminum extrusion. The aluminum housed design is appealing to power engineers for multiple reasons. Key design aspects include a sealed design, flying leads, and heatsinking ability. The ARG series is capable of dissipating 150-400 watts depending on resistor length and is available in 6 sizes. Ohmite offers other aluminum housed resistors and should be considered in high power industrial applications. Ohmite distribution partners can expect to receive the NPI package shortly on the ARG Series.

Thermoelectric Cooler Technology

Thermoelectric Cooler and Thermo Generating Module technology is based on two principles, the Seebeck effect, and the Peltier effect. The first of these shows how we can use a temperature differential to create an electrical charge, and the second, how we can use an electrical charge to create a temperature differential.

When heat is applied to one of the conductors or semiconductors, this creates a flow of heated electrons towards the colder side. This in turn generates a tiny electrical charge, in the microvolts range per kelvin of temperature difference. Connecting devices using this Seebeck principle allows you to maximise the voltage by connecting the devices in series, or to increase the current by placing the devices in parallel with each other.

On the other side of the equation, if you were to instead apply an electrical current through a junction between two conductors, you would also see a transfer of heat passed to the cooler of the components. A typical heat pump using peltier technology uses several junctions in series, some of which gain heat, and others which lose heat as a current is applied.

You will find thermoelectric cooler technology in many places where temperature has to be controlled, from refrigeration units, all the way up to satellites. When used in satellite technology, TECs are used to help maintain a temperature suitable for the satellite’s internal components to still function.

Back down on Earth, thermoelectric coolers are used to help regulate temperatures in refrigeration units, such as those used to carry frozen goods from country to country, or even the freezer rooms in the back of restaurants. In this instance, it is especially important that the TEC’s output temperature is well regulated, as this could determine if the item using the thermoelectric cooler is compliant with a number of food safety standards including ISO9000, and HACCP.

We supply thermoelectric coolers, and thermo generating modules manufactured in Russia by Kryotherm. Click here to view the Kryotherm website, and if you’d like any information or pricing about any of their products, please, give us a call.

 

Announcing Ohmite Ceramic Resistor Division

Ohmite Manufacturing has recently completed the acquisition of the electronic components portion of Kanthal, a part of Sandvik Group based in New York. This provides Ohmite with a new, full line of ceramic non-inductive resistors, plus Maxcap double layer capacitors.

Kanthal’s Globar ceramic resistor products will be combined with Ohmite’s existing A Series and OX/OY Series product lines to form the new Ohmite Ceramic Resistor Division. This new branch of the Heico Companies will remain headquartered in New York, and will concentrate their efforts on higher voltage, and higher current electronic solutions.

These new components will be available on a direct basis from Ohmite, as well as Ohmite’s partner distributors world-wide.

This new acquisition helps consolidate Ohmite’s position as a world leader in power resistor manufacturing, and ensures they can now supply a complete product offering across the three leading solution platforms, including ceramic/composition, thick film, and wirewound construction.

Ohmite’s Director of Sales, Kurt Devlin, issued this statement. “We are excited to have the Kanthar Globar resistor products join the greater Ohmite and ARCOL family. This acquisition rounds out our total solutions offering which is unique in the global resistor market.

EMEA & APAC Sales Director, Darrel Oliver, added, “The added capability of manufacturing ceramic and composition resistors will allow us to better support our design community, and we look forward to continuing to develop outstanding component solutions for our customers.”

Excel & IntegriSign (ePad)

The Basics

When you install IntegriSign, it automatically includes a plug-in for Excel. This appears as a few icons in the Add-Ins menu. The first button is to insert a signature field, the second to begin your signature.

 

Inserting a signature field and starting the signing process will bring up a new window, the authentication screen. Here you can select which of the pages in your Excel spreadsheet the signature should apply to. This basically tells the IntegriSign object which of the pages to check for alterations.

Once this is done, capture the signature normally – add your name in the IntegriSign pop-up box, and then sign on the ePad. After this, if the authenticated page is tampered with, the signature becomes invalid.

Multiple Signatures

If you try to capture multiple signatures onto the same Excel worksheet, you will invalidate the first signature as it detects the alterations made to the page, and recognises it as different to when the signature was captured.

 

Signature Removal

If you do intend to capture several signature onto the same page, or if the page requires regular updating, then you would be best suited to remove the old signature before you apply a new one. This is done in Excel’s Design Mode, accessed using the icon at the top of the page bearing a pencil, ruler, and protractor.

Simply click this icon, then the IntegriSign object, and press Delete. The signature will disappear, and you can place a new one in its place.

Capturing Mulitple Signatures Without Invalidation

If you are using Excel and IntegriSign to track, for example, deliveries, then to prevent invalidation, you should really use a new page for each delivery, with just one signature per page, authenticating each signature to the page it appears on.

I would also recommend that, if you are using this method, you regularly switch to a new Excel spreadsheet, maybe a new spreadsheet each week, or month, depending on how often you need to capture signatures.

Apart from the invalidation issue mentioned above, the other reason to limit the number of signatures in a spreadsheet is because each one makes the file bigger. This in turn means it takes longer to validate the document before signing, and longer for the spreadsheet to load until it becomes more of a drain on your system.

Alternatives

If you are intending on using the ePad for such a purpose, then I would recommend that, instead of using Excel, you use Access. It will take a little work to set up a database, but there are samples included in the IntegriSign install to show how to capture signatures and store them. This will allow for an ongoing, single repository for the signatures you capture.

The other alternative is to use IntegriSign in Excel to convert any signature you capture into a signature string. This will require coding, although it can be done in Excel’s VBA programming environment.

Out of the two though, I would recommend the Access database. It is easier to configure, and can handle a lot more signatures before you start to notice it slowing down.

Molding To A Metric Fit

Davies Molding have once again expanded their production lines to bring them more into line with international standards. This means that they are now offering metric knob sizes for both thermoset and thermoplastic materials.

These come in a number of styles; three-, four-, and five-arm, knurled scalloped, mini clamp and round fluted, for the clamping knobs, and for the control knobs, they come in pointer, skirted, two-shot, and two-shot skirted.

Davies to the Rescue

Elon Musk, billionaire tech entrepreneur, made use of Davies Molding handles in his latest device.  In response to the July crisis that saw children trapped in a cave in Thailand, Musk and his engineering team invented a “kid-size” submarine designed to rescue the boys soccer team from the Thailand cave.  Musk shared pictures of the submarine featuring Davies Molding two-shot pull handles on Twitter (see above).

The two-shot pull handles provide a non-slip grip making them durable for a mission intense as this one.  These handles are molded in the Davies plant with a glass reinforced Nylon substrate and an overmold Thermoplastic Elastomer rubber.

It’s always exciting to see a Davies Molding product in use, especially with a high-profile event as this one.  To read more about Elon Musk’s submarine, please visit @elonmusk on Twitter.

Playing Catch-Up Produces A Winner

TPE-500

Around a year ago Tangio launched its TPE-500 series FSR range. It’s true to say they joined the party a little later than some of their competitors so knew it wasn’t good enough to offer a me-too product. Mark Graham, Tangio’s Head of New Products picks up the story, “I’ve been in resistive force sensing for almost a decade and knew very well its limitations. We’d seen few tangible improvements in the core FSR technology in recent years, which precluded its use in several growth markets and applications. Our plan from the outset was to produce a demonstrably better product.”

Neil Jarvie, Tangio’s VP of Business Development continues, “the market had become fragmented into existing players seemingly unwilling to invest in improvements to the technology, and start-ups with no manufacturing experience promoting lab-scale materials that only increase risk and cost. Disturbingly, we also discovered many manufacturers products didn’t perform anything like their data-sheets. In some cases alarmingly so!”

The development team at Tangio set about dragging the FSR into the 21st century with a clean-sheet approach tackling the key areas; a better FSR ink, state-of-the-art process control, and subtle but intelligent changes to the mechanical structure and materials.

Robin Jeffries, Tangio’s CEO adds, “as we enjoy many collaborative and strategic relationships with key materials and process vendors in the printed electronics space, we called upon them during the development of the TPE-500 series. A notable example is our collaboration with Henkel for the FSR ink, one of the most critical components in the sensor.”

Mark remembers, “when the test data came in from the first prototype builds it was clear we had realised our goals. We were seeing best-in-class performance in multiple critical parameters like humidity & temperature stability, part-to-part repeatability and drift. I also knew we could publish data sheets that our customers could trust!”

Of course, all this comes at a price, right? Actually no, due to exceptionally high manufacturing yield the TPE-500 series is priced to beat competing legacy products. We’d like to think of that as a win/win.

About Tangio Printed Electronics

Tangio, the Printed Electronics division of Sytek Enterprises Inc, is a global leader in the design and manufacture of a wide range of standard and custom touch sensing solutions. From simple high-performance “single point” FSR sensors, through to state-of-the-art 3D multi-touch resistive sensors, capacitive sensors, and other novel innovations in printed electronics. Tangio offers unrivalled levels of integration, enabling customers to add value and reduce costs in their supply chain and get new products to market faster. Tangio’s philosophy of “Affordable Innovation” enables OEM’s and Tiers to deploy next generation HMI solutions in their products today. Tangio is a global company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, with strategically located internal and partner sites in Europe, SE Asia, and India, supporting a rapidly expanding customer base. For more information go to www.tangio.ca

GDPR – New EU Legislation to Protect Your Data

Just like the dragon guarding it’s pile of gold, the EU is once again updating it’s data protection laws with GDPR to help protect your details and data.

In 1998, the EU released the Data Protection Directive, designed to help keep personal and corporate data safe in a world that is becoming more interconnected every day. Merely fifteen years later, the Data Protection Directive was already found to be lacking, and unable to keep up with the changes in technology. As a result, and after four years of deliberations, the EU announced the General Data Protection Regulation (or, GDPR, as catchy acronyms go) would be adopted in April 2016. At the time it was agreed there would be a two-year implementation period, and so the regulation actually comes into effect in May 2018.

The GDPR was designed to help bring data privacy laws from across Europe into sync with each other, to protect citizen data privacy, and to force organisations into redefining their approach to data privacy. The GDPR doesn’t just affect EU-based companies though. Any company that trades with an EU-based entity, whether personal or professional, must respect the GDPR.

If they fail to uphold the General Data Protection Regulation, then companies can be fined up to €20 Million, or 4% of their annual global turnover, as a maximum fine for the most severe breaches – not having customer consent to process their data, for example. There is a tiered plan to the fines, so something with a lesser severity might only be fined 2% of the company’s annual global turnover.

So what counts as customer consent to permit companies to process your data? While it used to be a case of a little checkbox with dubious phrasing in legalese that you checked (or not), now it has to be a bit more explicit. Consent must clear and distinguishable from other matters, and must now be provided in an intelligible and easily accessible form. Any ambiguity could leave your company open to potential fines. It must also be as easy for a customer to remove consent as it is for them to give it.

The GDPR will also introduce an age factor into processing personal data. Now, there needs to be parental consent for sites and businesses to process details of children under the age of 16. There is some proviso in the Regulation that allows member states to alter the age of consent from 16 to 13.

The other aspect of the GDPR that could directly impact your business is an expansion in the roles of Data Protection Officers (DPO). If your company falls into one of three categories, you need a DPO. Outside of these categories, a DPO is not necessary. The three categories are:

  • Public authorities – Government agencies, for example.
  • Organizations that take part in large scale systematic monitoring – such as online behaviour tracking.
  • Organizations that take part in large scale processing of sensitive personal data – ie, credit reference agencies.

 

Metal to Plastic Conversion could save your company money.

Thermoset Plastics from Davies Molding are so advanced that they can be used as an alternative to metal.  They can successfully replace traditional metals whilst improving cost and performance.

The main benefits of using Thermoset Plastics instead of metal are;

  • Heat Resistance
  • Less Weight
  • Dent Resistance
  • Heat Resistance
  • Corrosion Resistance

Thermoset Plastics can withstand heat and pressure for long periods of time without failure, they are resistant to impact and have great electrical insulating properties.  High-temperature capabilities, dimensional stability, chemical resistance and creep-resistance make them a fantastic, cost alternative material for use in all conditions.

The most commonly used materials for metal to plastic replacement are Polyesters and Phenolics.  They can be molded into complex shapes which eliminates the requirement to machine design features, which in turn allows for closer tolerances.

Davies Molding have over 80 years of plastic molding experience, from 3D Modelling and Design, Finite Element Analysis and Mold Flow Simulation right through to 3D Printed Samples, Tooling and Manufacturing they are a force to be reckoned with.  A one-stop shop for Metal to Plastic conversion with a wealth of knowledge.

Why chose Davies Molding?

  • Over 80 years’ experience of supplying plastics to multiple industries
  • Proven Track Record of innovative solutions
  • Scalable tooling as volumes increase
  • Dedicated engineering staff
  • Able to adopt customers’ existing moulds to their presses, minimising change-over costs
  • ISO 9001 Certified
  • Accept blanket orders with scheduled releases

A brochure found at the below link shows the above in greater detail; http://www.daviesmolding.com/Portals/0/Downloads/Custom-Molding-Brochure.pdf

General Davies Molding information can be found at either: https://steadlands.com/ or http://www.daviesmolding.com/

For any enquiries on Davies Molding plastics, whether it be standard parts or custom molding, please email our sales rep Jimmy Craik; [email protected]

Light Up Your Life With American Bright Optoelectronics

Steadlands are proud to announce a new partnership with American Bright Optoelectronics Corporation to bring their high quality LEDs and lighting solutions to both new and existing EMEA customers.

American Bright offers one of the most comprehensive product families of LED packages including SMT, LED lamps, PLCC, segment and dot matrix display and both AC and DC capability. Their innovation and adventurous approach to seek new opportunities make them the first choice of creative, cost-effective indicator and lighting solutions. Their in-house design teams are capable, and ready to help you with everything from concept through to manufacture.

American Bright are a highly qualified company, with over twenty years experience manufacturing lighting solutions for a variety of industries. Most recently, they completed their certifications for providing LED components to vehicle manufacturers, with their LEDs now certified to be used in any aspect of a vehicle’s construction. ISO and QS certification measure the quality of a company’s production, installation and servicing capabilities. American Bright currently holds 17 different certifications, under the ISO, RoHS, and REACH categories.