Get Into Energy Harvesting with a Design Kit

All it takes is a sensor to be in the energy harvesting development mode with MicroStrain’s Advanced Pioneer Kit. The kit is based on MicroStrain EH-Link a hybrid energy harvesting wireless sensor node. The node collects energy from multiple sources including strain, vibration, thermal gradients, ambient light and electromagnetic fields. 

The Pioneer Kit includes an EH-Link node, USB Base Station with Antenna, Thermal Electric Generator (TEG), Solar Demo Board, 9-V Alkaline Battery, Battery Clip, EH-Link 1000 ohm Tester Board, and 1000 µF Capacitor as well as Node Commander Software and Manuals CD (Windows® XP, Vista, 7).

For more information including how to order the kit (use the Buy tab), click here.

Cypress Semiconductor’s FirstTouch Starter Kit includes Kionix Accelerometer

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation selected the Kionix KXSC7 accelerometer for use in the new CY8CKIT-014 PSoC5 FirstTouch Starter Kit. The kit is based on the PSoC 5 programmable system-on-chip architecture that uses the 32-bit ARM® Cortex-M3 processor.

The KXSC7 series of Tri-axis, 2g-6, analog accelerometers have low-power consumption and several preset internal low-pass filters with an option for user-definable bandwidth if required for the application. 

In addition to the Kionix accelerometer, the starter kit includes a Thermistor, Proximity Sensing, a CapSense® touch-sensing interface, I/O’s, projects and software to allow users to evaluate PSoC5.

For more information and to order Cypress Semiconductor CY8CKIT-014 PSoC5 FirstTouchTM Starter Kit ($49.00), click here.

For more information about Kionix KXSC7 accelerometer, click here.

Customizable Energy Harvesting Development Kit

Microchip and Cymbet have combined forces to offer what is being called the world’s first customizable energy harvesting development kit. The XLP Kit uses Microchip’s PIC24F16KA102 microcontroller with eXtreme Low Power (XLP) technology and Cymbet’s EnerChip EH Eval-08 Energy Harvesting Board.  The EH board converts solar to electrical energy and stores it in an EnerChip solid-state, rechargeable energy-storage device. The kit allows users to evaluate a wide variety of system functions, including ZigBee and proprietary wireless connectivity without designing any hardware.

For more information on the XLP 16-bit Energy Harvesting Development Kit, click here.

Connect Sensors in Point-to-Point Systems Easily with ZMD Dev Tool

Depending on the system, different sensor interfaces are required. For example, in automotive applications, Controller Area Network (CAN) or Local Interconnect Network (LIN) are common networks for communicating sensor data. However, the SAE J2716 SENT (for Single Edge Nibble Transmission) protocol has been developed and companies have started to introduce products that meet it.

 In industrial and commercial sensor interface applications, the IO-Link Consortium’s IO-Link is one of the many protocols for communicating sensor and actuator data. Supported by several automation companies, the field level point-to-point connection system is compatible with existing I/O standards. ZMD AG ZIOL2401 integrated circuit (IC) is a high-voltage line driver for IO-Link and standard I/O applications.

 To make IO Link easier to implement, ZMDI developed both starter kit and a lab kit. Designers can implement serial interfaces and control basic I/O and switching functions with the ZIOL2401 Starter Kit that consists of the ZIOL2401 USB stick, a board with a microcontroller, ZIOL2401 IC and USB interface.

 To develop more complex applications and transfer the results to an existing system, the ZIOL2401 Lab Kit consists of three separate boards: a microcontroller board, a cable-board and the ZIOL2401 prototyping board. Both kits have development software that allows designers to individually program bit-level functions via a graphical interface or use a command-line interface.

 For more information on ZMDI’s IO-Link Master and Device Evaluation Tools, click here.