33 Amp 12 Volt Power Supplies

30a_psu_front30a_psu_sticker

These are 12 volt, 33 amp switching power supplies suitable for a range of high current uses. We used them for a public art installation that we were hired to engineer and install and they performed admirably for 3 months. We powered more than 200 feet of WS2812 LED strips with a couple of these power supplies.

The power supply is very clean, here’s a scope trace taken with a load (of LEDs) of about 18 amps.

Visit the product page in the Power Supplies section.

SCR05

Specifications:

  • Output Volts: 12 volts DC (adjustable from 9.5 to 14 volts)
  • Current: 33 amps (maximum)
  • Ripple @ 18 amps: <15 mV
  • Input volts: 120/240 60/50 hz
  • Input Current 6.5A rms
  • Dimensions: 2″ x 4.5″ x 8.5″ 50.8 mm x 114 mm x 215 mm
  • Open Frame (not waterproof)
  • 1.7 lbs
    • By Paul Badger on June 21, 2016.

    New Products: A New Fluxamasynth, the Noisemusick Kit, and some art

    newproducts1We have some new products to announce at Modern Device; the most exciting is the new version 3 of the Fluxamasynth Shield, a 64 voice polyphonic synthesizer for Arduino. We updated the synth to the new SAM2695 chip, much better filters, and a new microphone input. Check it out in the shop.

    fluxsynth3

    Another new feature is an optional 5-pin DIN thu jack and MIDI-compliant optoisolated connection (see variant above).

    noisemusickV31

    The Noisemusick Kit has been around since 2009 or so but recently received some improvements. It is a fun, chaotic square wave generator that is triggered by IR light and your skin’s resistance. It’s a good Learn To Solder project, only $25 in the Music/Sound/Noise section of the shop.

    In the Merchandise section we’ve added two pieces of artwork: a bumper sticker from the OTPC project (to complement our theremin merit badge) and a four color silkscreen poster of an Arduino. More posters coming soon, since we have a silkscreen studio right next door!

    thereminSticker

    arduinoPoster1

    By Shawn on January 17, 2016.

    New Product: BUB III

    BUBIII

    Future Technology Devices International makes many different TTL Serial to USB chips.
    One model, the FT232R, is used in boards like the
    The AdaFruit FTDI friend,
    SparkFun FTDI Basic,
    Modern Device BUB I and
    Modern Device BUB II.
    It’s not the cheapest, smallest, or most functional FTDI chip– just the most popular.

    Presenting the BUB III, designed around the FT231X QFN-20, a 4x4x.075 (mm) chip.

    You’ll notice it has a micro-USB jack, instead of a mini-USB one. Micro-USB jacks have a bad reputation for coming off boards, because they have less surface soldered on the board. We spent a fair amount of time finding a micro-USB jack with extra prongs and adding vias to reinforce the smd pads. Our destructive testing of a few of these boards shows that our efforts to toughen up the boards were successful. The jacks take quite a bit of muscle to break, and we think they will stand up to abuse as well as mini-USB jacks.

    Moving the header to the bottom makes the board even smaller, and saves us time in production.
    Both LEDs are reconfigurable (should you want to reconfigure them) with FTX-prog

    It’s the BUB you love, smaller, slicker and reborn with an all-new brain.

    Be one of the first 6 customers to use coupon code freebubiii and get a free BUB III with your order! (order total must be over $10)

    Go check it out in the shop!

    By Nadya on November 10, 2015.

    New Product: Rigid RGB LED Strips

    rigid_rgbled_threeWe picked up these nice Rigid RGBLED Strips from one of our suppliers for a good price. They contain 30 5050 RGB LEDs which seem to be standard super-bright LEDs, they are 12mm wide and 500mm long with headers every 50mm where they can be cut and soldered. The have nice polarized connectors and six inches of cable on the ends which makes mating them in series simple and quick and easy. Priced low enough that you could afford to take off the LEDs and use them on other projects (.20 ea). The resistors are sized to lend nice balanced white light that is not too cold in color, when powered from 12 volts. The 12V trace which looks to be about 60mils wide is mirrored front and  back for extra current-carrying capability.

    Continue Reading →

    By Britton on October 6, 2015.

    New Product: SMD LCD 117

    SMDLCD117

    The original serial LCD117 was one of two boards that utilized a PIC chip running firmware developed by the late electrical engineer Peter Anderson (KZ3K), who taught in Baltimore, Maryland.

    pha1
    Peter made the firmware freely available before he passed away.
    Both Brian Riley‘s K107 serial board and our LCD117 kit were based on these LCD117 chips.

    We’ve sold several thousand of our through-hole serial LCD117 kits since we designed it in 2008, and received many orders for pre-assembled boards. Looking around the shop, most pre-assembled things are surface mount– it’s easier for everyone that way, as surface mount assembly is much cheaper. With that in mind, we created the SMD LCD117.

    It receives TTL serial (optionally RS232) on one side and and drives an HD44780-compatible LCD, just as the older through-hole LCD117 kit did.

    Solder on the included 3-pin and 16-pin headers and you’re ready to talk to any of our character displays, 3.3v or 5v.
    We’ve also added an inverted logic mode, available via SMD solder jumper, for RS232 support.

    Here’s how easy it is to use with Arduino– plug the RX line into your Arduino TX pin, and:


    void setup() {
    Serial.begin(9600); // 9600 baud is chip comm speed
    Serial.print("?G216"); // set display geometry, 2x16 in this case
    delay(500); // pause to allow LCD EEPROM to program
    }

    void loop() {
    //Serial.print(“?y0?x00”); // cursor to beginning of line 0
    //delay(10);
    Serial.print(“?f”); //clear the screen
    Serial.print(“hello world”);
    delay(1000); // refresh every second
    //
    }

    In this configuration, Arduino Serial.<thing> debug statements print straight to the display!

    Go check it out in the shop

    Oh, one more thing. In honour of the debut of the SMD version, we’re putting the old through-hole LCD117 kits on sale. $8, matching the new SMD boards, while supplies last.

    By Nadya on August 28, 2015.

    Motion Plug code updates

    Seb Madgwick IMU demoDemo by SebMadgwick

    Our Dutch collaborator, Jean-Claude Wippler, recently pointed us to more polished code on GitHub for the MPU9250 (Motion Plug). This board uses the Invensense MPU9250 and includes 3 axis: accelerometers, gyros, and magnetometer. The software was written for something called rpicopter, work that appears to be significant group effort to us.

    Screen shot 2015-04-01 at 2.39.57 PM

    We have simplified the Arduino sketch and turned it into an Arduino library. The library only supports hardware I2C pins on whatever Arduino or Atmega chip you’re using, because it uses 400khz high speed I2C. There are settings for the low-pass filter which only affects the Gyro, as far as we can see. It default is 188Hz (defined in inv_mpu.cpp). The library also supports the Teensy.

    The library outputs Yaw, Pitch, and Roll (standard orientation headings in the flying business) smoothed out in an almost magical way. This comes courtesy of some very fancy math functions.

    “A quaternion is a four-dimensional complex number that can be used to represent the
    orientation of a rigid body or coordinate frame in three-dimensional space.” says Sebastian O.H. Madgwick, who wrote the sensor fusion algorithms which bear his name.

    In any case, all the quaternions are now hidden out of sight (in mpu.cpp), the library works really well, and the Arduino sketch is easier to read and modify.

    By Nadya on March 31, 2015.

    RFM69 Radios

    New Radios!

    The RFM69CW radio module by HopeRF is a compact, powerful radio transceiver module for swapping data packets in the 868 MHz ISM band, using standard and enhanced FSK modulation. The radio is great for sub-compact designs; just 4mm of mounted height from using an SMD precision crystal.

    Though consuming a similar level of power, the RFM69CW receiver section can decode fainter signals than the classic RFM12B, so it has better receive sensitivity. The transmitter section *maximum* output power is +13dBm, considerably higher than the +5dBm of the RFM12B. The current drain at these (adjustable) higher power settings is correspondingly higher though. With the better receiver sensitivity, many applications will not need to use the higher transmit power settings, potentially saving on battery life.

    Compared with the RFM12B, pairs of RFM69 modules will generally have greater range and/or better penetration of walls/ceiling than when using pairs of the classic RFM12B.

    The physical module is compatible with the PCB footprint on all current JeeNodes and JeeLinks. For details of the fast-evolving level of software support, see this Forum topic on the JeeLabs forum.

    Control is via a fast SPI bus with reduced loading on the microcontroller, another nice advantage with the radio. The recommended power supply range of 1.8 < Vdd < 3.6 V can squeeze almost the last energy out of depleting batteries without needing a boost converter.

    An antenna must be connected to RFM69 module – for 868 MHz, an 82-mm (quarter wavelength) wire can be used (not included). Operation without an antenna at the higher transmitter power levels risks permanent damage to the output stages.

    Marking Convention: a yellow spot on the top of the transceiver chip indicates optimized for the 868 MHz ISM band. You can have confidence that you are building your project with a fully functional module!

    Summary:

    • More transmit power than the RFM12B (but more current required).
    • Better sensitivity on receive.
    • An RF signal strength is available
    • Fits the current RF12B footprint
    • The JeeLabs driver fully supports the radio with only one definition change at the top of a sketch.
    • RFM69 and RFM12B radios may be mixed in a JeeNode network and talk to each other.

    For detailed specifications, see HopeRF’s RFM69CW documentation.

    The RFM Board provides convenient signal breakout with an option for connecting to 5V power systems.

    Digital Smarties (The JeeLab Shop) stocks a 868 MHz version of these modules with EU prices. Both Modern Device and Digital Smarties (Jeelab Shop) have the 434 versions.

    Right now we are selling these on RRM12B boards and JeeNode kits.

    By Paul Badger on March 19, 2015.

    Maxbotix Ultrasonic Rangefinder MB1013 (1mm Resolution) Proveout

    A month or so ago we decided to carry the Maxbotix’s line of ultrasonic rangefinders (the MB1010, MB1013, and the MB1200 are the models we have currently stocked).  The MB1013 in particular caught our eye in its claim to have a resolution of 1mm, so we decided to put it to the test. We lashed together a test rig with two panels (of plywood) that are raised and lowered by three drive shafts of 1/32″ threaded rod (pictured below).

    mb1013_mounting

    mb1013_rig

    mb1013_closeup

    The board has two holes in the opposite corners that make mounting to a surface a no-brainer. We quickly proved out the analog output using a 5v power supply and a multimeter, but we wanted the most precise measurement. Opting for the serial (digital) output  reading with an Arduino- both methods are covered in the Maxbotix tutorial. For ease of documentation, we hooked up the Arduino to an LCD driven by our LCD117 board, for an easy three wire interface to the LED. This was just handy way to get feedback without a laptop or desktop. Actually the USB cable in the picture below snakes about 10 ft to the nearest desktop in our shop.

    mb1013_rig_closeup

    Our threaded rod was 32 threads per inch, which is equivalent to 24.4 mm, so one thread represents 32 threads per inch / 25.4 mm per in. or 1.25984 threads per millimeter. This allowed us to index the jig 1.25 turns per unit and not have a lot of error, with an error of .246 threads per 25 turns. In any case we indexed all the way through one inch,

    Our results showed that it does indeed have a 1mm resolution, meaning that 1 1/4 turns did actually correspond with a Maxbotix output of 1mm! Our algorithm kept the readings consistent with the range up until around 620mm – where the sensor’s output started to report smaller values than the measured distance, ending up 8-10mm ahead of where it was supposed to be at 582 mm. Maxbotix cuts off the serial output of the sensor at 300mm (11.8″) so one could speculate that the error in the electronics started to be a factor in the measurement, which lead to Maxbotix to cut off the specification at 300mm.

    mb1013_chart

     

    Check out the raw data here.

    The max range and cone shapes vary from the sensors we have available. They could be used for things like a parking sensor (found in most modern cars), self-navigating robots, or a suit that helps you navigate blind. Maxbotix has done a great job  of taking ultrasonic measuring technology and pushing itas far as they can in accuracy, range and sensing properties (sensing cones) in these very low-cost sensors. Here’s a line up of the models we carry at Modern Device.

    MB1010 LV-MaxSonar®-EZ1 – Least Expensive, good starter ($27.97)

    MB1013 HRLV-MaxSonar®-EZ1 – Highest Resolution (1mm)

    MB1200 XL-MaxSonar®-EZ0 – Longest Range (300in)

    UPDATE: 2/2

    We got in contact with the good people at Maxbotix and showed them our research. They were pleased to see us exhibiting their equipment, and gave us some feedback on our setup…

    First, I reviewed your test setup and thought you did a pretty good job. As such there is a variable that can make a big difference in your testing results. This is the temperature compensation and the location of measurement. Going though a vertical column of air is known to typically have temperature variation from the top vs the bottom. This change in temperature can affect the temperature compensation of the sensor and lead to some inaccuracies. For best accuracy, it is recommended to use a MaxTemp mounted half way between the target and sensor so that you have the most accurate temperature reading. Even one or two degrees c will have an effect on the reported range. 

    You can view more on the MaxTemp at this link http://www.maxbotix.com/Ultrasonic_Sensors/MB7955.htm.

    By Britton on January 28, 2015.

    New Product – ExtraCore MD – Alarmingly tiny Arduino Clone!

    Dustin Andrews created the first ExtraCore Arduino which is the size of a postage stamp. We sold the first batch we had, and by that time, the original was extinct as Dustin had moved on to another job and didn’t want to make more. We decided to respin the board with a few improvements and a smaller chip. The result of our efforts is in the shop  here .

    The ExtraCoreMD, as we’re calling it, is a minuscule form factor Arduino clone, ideal for applications where space and weight need to be kept to a minimum- aircraft, robotics, fashion, wearables. The size of the board is .92″ x .825″ (21mm x 23mm), and it is manufactured on 1.3mm PCB for a sleek height profile of only .09″ (2.2mm). The board is small enough to conceal in jewelry, or DIY musical greeting cards, or wearable tech, if you’re crafty.

    Programming is through our USB BUB or any standard FTDI cable, unlike the first ExtraCore. We also made one non-fatal mistake in the boards, although we are revising them immediately. The labels on the VCC and Vin are just swapped.

    We cooked up a quick example app, just to prove out the board, using 18 pins (all the I/O except RX & TX) LED’s with a basic loop. Keep posted for more experiments using this board.

     

    There are more details on the product page: https://moderndevice.com/product/extracoremd/

    We’re giving away ten of the boards, with orders over ten dollars. Use coupon code EXTRACOREMD.

    By Britton on January 23, 2015.