Liquid Instruments, an Australian company (there is also a U.S. office near San Diego), is offering a new diagnostic and product development tool that enhances the ability of laboratories and educators to see ever deeper into waveforms of interest. Previous instruments were Moku:Lab and Moku:Go. While these units were robust diagnostic engines, Moku:Pro puts it […]
When to measure conductivity instead of resistivity
Resistivity and its inverse, conductivity, are different from the more familiar metrics, resistance and its inverse, conductance. Resistivity is applicable to types of materials. For example, glass and carbon have specific resistivities whereas a particular carbon resistor of a given length, diameter and temperature has a specific resistance. In a nutshell, resistance is defined as […]
Examining serial protocols with test instruments
There are currently a large number of serial protocols in use. Many oscilloscopes include the capability to decode and display data sent over widely used serial buses. Recently, a blog on the Tektronix website detailed which serial decode packages engineers most commonly configure on the Tektronix scopes they order. The buses that turn out to […]
Noise quantification and measurement
In choosing a way to mitigate electronic noise mitigation, it is necessary first to quantify it and ascertain its source. Thermal, also known as Nyquist or Johnson-Nyquist noise, is basis for many types of noise. It arises in all material objects to the extent that they are conductive. You can observe the effects of this […]
When to use NPN and PNP transistors and FETs
Most bipolar junction transistors and field-effect transistors (FETs) have three terminals. In the BJT symbol, the base lead is perpendicular to and lands at the midpoint of a short line segment representing the semiconductor substrate. The emitter has an arrowhead embedded in the lead, so the remaining lead has to be the collector. If the […]
Difference between arc-fault circuit interrupters and ground-fault circuit interrupters
Arc-fault circuit interrupters (AFCIs) are sometimes confused with similar appearing ground-fault interrupters, GFCIs, which protect against electric shock. Rather than protecting against electric shock, AFCIs protect buildings and occupants from electrical fire. Internal electronics and operating principles of the two devices are entirely different. A GFCI protects the occupant from electric shock by detecting the […]
When a coronagraph comes in handy
You can think of a coronagraph as having the same effect as a total eclipse of the sun where only its outer edge is visible. It is a telescopic attachment designed to block out the direct light from a star. The early coronagraphs were intended to view the corona of the Sun. But a new […]
Working with fiber optic internet connections
Fiber internet service is often called the gold standard of residential internet connections thanks to the fact that a fiber internet connection can easily provide a 10x speedier connection than ordinary coax cable. Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) deployments by Verizon Fios and AT&T Fiber are capable of 4K video conferencing and ultra-fast file uploads. Such connections also […]
Signal jitter and RF receiver sensitivity
Traditional frequency modulation has long been used in broadcast applications, but modern digital communication schemes use various digital versions of FM. Communication parameters for digital communication techniques differ somewhat from those for their analog counterparts. It can be useful to review some of these changes. Perhaps the most basic is communication receiver sensitivity. For purposes […]
Single-sideband modulation and its measurement
The most basic form of amplitude modulation is known as double-sideband AM, so called because mirror-image sidebands are produced above and below the carrier frequency. Early researchers found that they could use simple band-pass filters to eliminate one of the sidebands and even the carrier signal, improving the ratio of information-bearing power to total transmitted […]
