Introduction

If you are following the motor laws in some countries, Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) systems are becoming mandatory. In ETC, the toll charges for the vehicle are automatically deducted as soon as the vehicle arrives at the booth. There is no need to pay cash or wait in queue.

This is one brilliant application of RFID or Radio Frequency Identification System. You might have seen other similar applications of RFID like contact-less payment and automatic check-out system in super markets, access control in banks and offices, tracking of goods in warehouses etc.

All these and many other applications are using the RFID Technology.

Also Check: Interfacing Sound Sensor with Arduino

nRF24L01 Transceiver Module

A Look Back at RFID

RFID is short for Radio Frequency Identification. As the name suggests, RFID uses electromagnetic waves in radio frequency to transfer data. A simple RFID System consists of just two components: an RFID Transponder and an RFID Transceiver.

The RFID Transponder is usually a Card, Tag, Key Fob or a Sticker while the RFID Transceiver is a reader / writer device capable of reading and writing data from / to an RFID transponder.

Additionally, the RFID reader has an Antenna to emit high frequency EM Waves. The RFID Tag also contains an Antenna and an IC to store the data. When the RFID Tag comes in proximity of the high frequency EM Waves from the reader antenna, its antenna energizes the IC in the tag.

The IC then acknowledges with the information stored in it with a return radio signal.

A Brief Note on RC522 RFID Module

With all the introduction, let us dive into the important component of this project, the RC522 RFID Module. It is an inexpensive RFID Reader Module based on MFRC522 RFID IC from NXP.

The MFRC522 IC supports a wide variety of RFID Tags like MIFARE 1K, MIFARE 4K, MIFARE Mini and other ISO / IEC 14443 protocol based cards and tags.

It operates at 13.46 MHz frequency and the operating range is up to 50 mm. The MFRC522 IC supports three types of serial communication with the host (Microcontroller like Arduino). They are:

• SPI
• UART
• I²C

Contents of the Kit

The RC522 RFID Reader kit consists of the RC522 RFID Reader Module, RFID card, RFID Key Fob and couple of male headers to solder. Both the RFID Tags i.e., RFID Card and RDIF key fob in the kit are compatible with MIFARE 1K tags (they both have 1 KB of memory).

The RC522 RFID Reader Module consists of the MFRC522 IC, a 27.12 MHz Crystal Oscillator, an Antenna embedded on the PCB and supporting passive components to emit 13.56 MHz electromagnetic field.

An important thing to remember is that the MFRC522 IC operates at a supply voltage of 2.5V to 3.3V but the communication pins are tolerant to 5V. So, the power supply voltage should be 3.3V, but you can connect the data pins to Arduino directly.

Pinout of RC522

The following image shows the pinout of RC522 RFID Reader Module. Even though we are going to use SPI Interface for connecting with Arduino, I showed UART and I²C pins as well.

Terminology

There are two terms often used with MFRC522 RFID Module’s documentation. They are:

• PCD
• PICC

PCD is short for Proximity Coupling Device. It is nothing but the RFID Reader Module based on the MFRC522 IC.

PICC is short for Proximity Integrated Circuit Card is an RFID Card or Tag built using ISO / IEC 14443 Protocol like MIFARE or NTAG.

Arduino RC522 RFID Card Reader Interfaarduino megace

Now that we have seen a little bit about the MFRC522 RFID Reader IC and RC522 RFID Reader Module, let us now proceed with Arduino RC522 RFID Card Reader Interface. As mentioned earlier, MFRC522 supports SPI, UART and I²C interfaces.

But SPI is the fastest of the three with data rates up to 10 Mbit/s. So, in this project we will see how to interface RC522 RFID Module with Arduino using SPI.

Coming to Arduino’s SPI, instead of using software SPI with bit-banging, we will use the hardware SPI. This means that SPI pins in Arduino are fixed (at least for MOSI, MISO and SCK).

The following table shows all the connections between Arduino and RC522 RFID Reader Module.

NOTE: You can configure the RST and SCK pins in Arduino to any Digital IO Pin.

Components Required

• Arduino UNO
• RC522 RFID Module
• RFID Tags (card and key fob in the kit)
• Connecting Wires

Circuit Diagram

The following image shows all the necessary connection between Arduino UNO and RC522 RFID Module.

Testing RC522 RFID Card Reader

After making all the necessary connections, let us now proceed to test the Arduino RC522 RFID Module Interface. First, open the Arduino IDE and make sure that Arduino UNO is selected as the board. Now, go to Tools -> Manage Libraries. . .

Type “rc522” in the search bar and install the library “MFRC522” by GithubCommunity.

Let us now try an example sketch called “DumpInfo”, which reads data from a PICC (like a card or a key fob) and prints it on the serial monitor. Go to File -> Examples -> MFRC522 -> DumpInfo to open the example sketch.

NOTE: I changed the RST Pin to D7 in Arduino UNO.

Compile and upload the sketch to Arduino and open the serial monitor. The RC522 RFID Reader is waiting for an RFID Tag to be detected. So, take the card, which you got in the kit and place it in the proximity of the RFID Reader (close to the antenna).

You have to hold the card in that position for couple of seconds until all the data is printed. Do not take out the card too soon. You will get an error message “Timeout in communication” if you remove the card early. Once all the information is printed, you can take out the card.

The following is a screen shot of serial monitor for DumpInfo sketch.

The first few lines are firmware version of PCD (RFID Reader) and details of the PICC (RFID Tag) like the UID, SAK and type of Card.

After this is the main memory dump of the RFID Tag. Let us now analyze it.

Analyzing the Memory Map of MIFARE Classic 1K Card

The RFID card and the key fob are of type MIFARE 1K, which means the EEPROM in the PICC i.e., the RFID Card or Key Fob is of 1 KB. This 1KB of memory is organized in to 16 Sectors.

Each sector is again divided into 4 Blocks and each Block contains 16 Bytes of memory. So, the total memory is:

In this, the Block 0 i.e., first block in Sector 0 is reserves for Manufacturer Data. It usually contains a 7 Byte UID (Unique ID) or a 4 Byte NUID (Non-Unique ID).

As mentioned earlier, each sector consists of 4 Blocks. In this, the first three blocks are Data Blocks and the fourth block is Sector Trailer. The three data blocks of each sector can be used for storing 16 Bytes of data each.

The last block is each sector is its trailer. It contains two secret keys (Key A and optional Key B) and Access Bits. The Access Bits in the sector trailer determine the access condition (read, write, etc.) for the remining three blocks of the sector.

NOTE: Sector 0 contains only 2 Data Blocks as Block 0 is reserved for manufacturer data and Block 3 is Sector Trailer.

In the next tutorial, I will show you how to write data to PICC i.e., an RFID Tag using RC522 Reader / Writer Module and Arduino. Also, we will make an Access Control project.

Conclusion

A complete beginner’s guide to MFRC522 IC based RC522 RFID Reader Module. You learned about the RC522 Module, how to interface Arduino and RC522 and also how to read the data from an RFID Tag.

The post Interfacing MFRC522 RC522 RFID Reader Module with Arduino appeared first on ElectronicsHub.

In this guide, let us see the answer to this common and popular question. First, we will take a look at the reasons why someone looks to upgrade their laptop’s CPU. Then we will explore the possibilities of the upgrade option.

The Need to Upgrade a Laptop’s CPU

Laptops are excellent computing devices. They offer extreme portability and at the same time, their performance is also very good. There are several people who never used a desktop computer in their whole life. Maybe, they used one in the school library or similar places. But never owned one.

This is because laptops went from being expensive and available only to business people to being affordable and accessible to everyone.

Whether it is a desktop computer or a laptop, their performance doesn’t stay the same over the year. This can be due to more and more sophisticated software or the age of the hardware.

Speaking of hardware, people often look to upgrade their computers down the line after they feel a significant drop in performance. This applies to desktop as well as laptop users.

Things are a little bit easy for desktop users. They can easily upgrade their CPU, GPU, RAM, Hard Disk (SSD), or Power Supply. This is the benefit of DIY PC building.

However, things are a little bit different when we consider laptops.

Can You Upgrade a Laptop’s CPU?

The simple answer is, no. But a slightly confusing answer is, it depends. Let us dig a little bit deeper into this.

In a desktop computer, upgrading a CPU is as simple as taking out the old CPU, and replacing it with a new and pin-compatible (same socket support) CPU.

You might think why not do the same with laptops? First thing, you can if the laptop manufacturer supports it.

If you take a slightly older laptop, their CPUs are not soldered onto the motherboard. Rather, they are installed in a socket, similar to what we see on a desktop motherboard. Of course, the socket and the CPU are designed for laptops.

If this is the case with your laptop, then there is a chance for you to upgrade your laptop’s CPU. Just look for a supported CPU and try to replace it.

When we say “supported CPU”, we mean a socket-compatible CPU from the same manufacturer. If your laptop has a Core i3 for example, then you can replace it with a socket-compatible Core i7 CPU.

Some laptop manufacturers provide a list of compatible CPUs for a laptop. There is also a problem with bios compatibility. Some laptop manufacturers lock their BIOS to a particular CPU. This prevents any sort of upgrades, even if your laptop has a socketed CPU.

This is the case with slightly older laptops. What about the latest laptops? Things are even difficult for modern laptops. In most newer laptops, the manufacturers are soldering the CPU directly on the motherboard.

As a result, it is practically impossible to replace or upgrade the CPU on your laptop. If laptop manufacturers could design their laptops with CPU upgradability in mind, we could simply throw in a newer CPU a couple of years after the laptop’s release and give it a new life.

This means we are using the same electronic device for a couple more years without throwing it in the dustbin or giving it up for recycling. We never know how the logistics behind the “recycling” of electronic devices work, but being unable to upgrade a laptop’s CPU is definitely increasing the amount of e-waste.

How to Improve the Laptop’s Performance?

Are old laptops doomed after they suffer a performance blow? Well, not entirely. While it is very difficult (nearly impossible) to upgrade a laptop’s CPU or GPU, there are a couple of important things that you can upgrade. They are the RAM, Hard Disk, and sometimes the Wireless Card.

To cut costs, laptop manufacturers skip installing two RAM sticks on laptops, even if the laptop’s motherboard has two RAM Slots. As we are getting the laptop for a slightly low price, we also don’t care (usually) if the RAM on the laptop is a single stick or two sticks.

If this is the case with your laptop, then we highly recommend you add that second stick of RAM. This will show a significant performance boost as the CPU now utilizes its  dual-channel RAM capabilities to the full extent.

Another possible RAM upgrade is replacing it with faster RAM. Yes. If the motherboard of your laptop supports faster RAM than that is already present, consider upgrading to that.

We are seeing a trend where laptop manufacturers are soldering the RAM onto the motherboard. If any laptop manufacturer (or a person working with such a company) reads this, please stop doing it.

Coming to the hard disk, most modern laptops are already coming with SSD Storage. So, what sort of upgrade is possible here? Once again, a faster SSD such as a PCIe SSD instead of a SATA SSD will show a terrific improvement in the laptop’s performance.

Finally, the Wi-Fi card. If your laptop has a slower Wi-Fi Module, say a Wi-Fi AC Card, then consider upgrading to a Wi-Fi AX Card.

What about the MacBook?

The answer to this question is very simple. If you own any form of MacBook (Air, Pro, or anything else), then you don’t have anything to upgrade in the future. Apple solders the CPU, RAM, and even the SSD onto the motherboard.

So, pay more to get a fully spec’d model while you are buying one. Or sell the old laptop and buy a new one.

Conclusion

Laptops are one of the mainstream computing devices on the planet. Modern laptops have very good performance figures even for intensive tasks and yet they have the benefit of being portable.

A common question every laptop owner ask is “Can You Upgrade a Laptop’s CPU?”. We have seen the answer to this question in this guide, which is disappointingly no, you cannot upgrade the CPU on a relatively modern laptop.

We also covered a section on the things you can upgrade such as the RAM, SSD, and Wi-Fi card so that your slowing laptop might get a new life.

The post Can You Upgrade a Laptop’s CPU? appeared first on ElectronicsHub.

Well, entertainment is fine but have you ever thought about the safety of your equipment? No wonder…. Similar to other electrical (or) electronic devices even home theatre systems must be safeguarded against dirty electricity, lightning strikes, voltage fluctuations, and power outages. That is where the power managers come into the light. Home theatre power managers are particularly engineered to protect your home theater systems from various power issues. Now your brain might be packed with too many questions. Worry not, we have covered all your concerns, doubts, and questions in this article. 

In this comprehensive article, we will go through various topics that are listed below in the table. Simply have a glance at the contents for your reference. 

Now, getting back into the details, primarily, let’s start with what is a home theater power manager. And Do you need one for your home theater too? 

What is a Home Theatre Power Manager?

A Home Theatre Power Manager is an electronic device that is specifically designed to secure expensive audio, video, and other home theater equipment against tainted energy. This device smoothes electrical fluctuations, filters electrical surges, spikes, and dips, and also eliminates EMI from the incoming power source. Further, it also helps to conserve energy, reduce power expenses, and provide an easy way to operate many components in the home theater system. 

It includes the following features such as

1. The capacity to turn off the components that are not in use. 
2. The ability to schedule when the components have to turn on (or) turn off.
3. The potential to monitor and control the power usage of various components in a home theater system.
4. The efficiency to convert “dirty” power into clean, pure, steady, and noise-free electricity. 

Typically, most of the home theater power manager modules look identical to DVD (or) Blu-ray Players. However, if you flip it around, you will notice multiple separate outlets into which you can plug in various devices easily. These outlets also protect against spikes, surges, noise, and other anomalies that may harm sensitive equipment.

At present, many power managers are equipped with advanced features such as Automatic Voltage Monitoring, which tracks and regulates incoming AC voltage for over-voltage, under-voltage, quick spikes, and so on. If the power manager detects “unsafe” voltage levels, it disconnects the device and reconnects only after safe voltage levels are restored.

Do You Really Need a Home Theater Power Manager?

There is no easy answer to this. However, the decision to choose a home theater power management is completely determined by the needs of your individual and desired level of security and convenience for the home theater system. But genuinely power managers are an excellent investment for any home theater system because of several advantages they provide, including device protection, power stability, noise reduction, and controlled power distribution.

Looking at the other side of the coin, in most cases, a power management system is unnecessary if your home already has an excellent electrical installation with high-quality components and appliances. 

However, if you happen to live in an area where lightning strikes, power fluctuations, or surges occur frequently, then we highly recommend investing in an efficient home theater power manager.

Different Types of Home Theater Power Managers

Typically, home theater power managers are broadly classified into various types based on their features, usage purpose, specifications, etc. Anyways, here is the list of some popular power managers available in the market.

Key Benefits of Investing in a Home Theatre Power Manager

It’s worth it for anyone who is planning to purchase a power manager for their home theater because of its compelling features and benefits. Therefore, we have listed out some of the major advantages of investing in a home theater power manager. 

1. Protection from Dirty Electricity

Usually, minor fluctuations in line voltage do not cause abrupt equipment failure (or) burning, but they do have a significant effect on all appliances, progressively destroying them. When you turn on additional appliances (or) merely the lights, you may have observed your appliances buzzing. This is known as filthy electricity. The home theater power manager removes such a signal and delivers clear sound, resulting in clean electricity. 

2. Surge Protection

Lightning strikes, utility grid fluctuations, and electrical problems can all cause power surges. This is especially true for persons who live in areas prone to lightning strikes, frequent power outages, sudden drops, or whose house wiring is not of high quality.  In this case, surge protection technology in home theater power management protects your equipment from voltage spikes. They direct excess energy away from your equipment, preventing it from being damaged.

3. Noise Reduction

Even though you are confident in the quality of your home’s electricity and have never experienced power fluctuations, you may still hear a humming sound from your speakers. It is because the amplifier detects and broadcasts any low-level noise in the electrical circuitry via the speakers. In this situation, the power conditioner also serves as a filter to improve the sound of your system. However, it is vital to take the time to choose a device because some perform the job too well, and you may miss out on the dynamics of your sound.

4. Equipment Protection

Home theater power management safeguards your pricey audio and visual equipment against power surges, voltage fluctuations, and electrical noise, guaranteeing that your electronics are not damaged. Power managers help to extend the life of your equipment and save you money on costly repairs (or) replacements by preserving it.

5. Environmental Impact

Most home theater power managers nowadays are made of eco-friendly materials and have a good influence on the environment. By carefully monitoring electricity use and avoiding energy waste, this device can help you live a greener lifestyle. Energy conservation minimizes greenhouse gas emissions and encourages sustainability, making your home theater setup more ecologically friendly.

6. Improved Performance

Power managers efficiently filter out electrical noise, increasing the quality of audio and visual transmissions. With this, you can enjoy better sound quality, more precise images, and a more immersive viewing experience with cleaner power.

7. Enhanced Lifespan

Getting the right power management system can help your home theater equipment last longer. Usually, the power managers ensure that devices are turned on and off appropriately, improving durability, reducing wear and tear on the components,  and maintaining the performance of your equipment.

8. Cost Savings

Although the initial investment in a home theater power manager is expensive, it may result in significant cost savings over time. It helps in the reduction of electricity costs by correctly managing power utilization and lowering standby power consumption. This is particularly beneficial for people who have large home theater systems with power-hungry components. You may save money in the long term by optimizing electricity use.

Downsides of Investing in a Home Theatre Power Manager

Along with the advantages one must also consider the drawbacks which are as follows.

1. Pricing

High-quality home theater systems are already expensive, and adding power management to them might be an added cost. Furthermore, the cost of the gadget, particularly complex ones with several functions, may influence your budget. 

2. Compatibility

It is very important to choose a home theater power manager that is compatible with your present equipment. Usually, different components have different power requirements and particular connectivity requirements such as wired and wireless. That’s why verifying compatibility is critical for seamless integration.

3. Limited Outlets

Power managers often come with numerous outlets. However, the outlet number may vary depending on the model you purchase. If your home theater system has a large number of devices, then you need to look for the model that has minimum outlets to accommodate your devices (or) employ power strips in combination with the power manager for extended connectivity. 

4. Maintenance

A home theater power management, like any other electrical equipment, requires frequent maintenance or firmware upgrades to guarantee optimal performance. To optimize the device’s benefits, keep up with maintenance duties, and remain updated about any upgrades or new features.

What to Do While Choosing the Best Home Theatre Power Manager?

There are a few factors to bear in mind while selecting a Home Theatre Power Manager. Firstly, start with checking the type of home theatre system you have like do you have a huge home theater with multiple components (or)  you just have only one component? Well, look over the other factors to consider before purchasing a home theater power manager that is listed below. 

How to Use and Maintain Your Home Theatre Power Manager Properly?

Now, let’s go into the key steps for efficiently operating and maintaining your home theater power manager.

How Do I Get Optimal Performance From My Home Theater Power Manager?

Here are some tips and recommendations to help you get the most out of your home theater power manager.

• Maintenance: Clean the power manager on a regular basis and examine the power cables for damage. To guarantee a safe and dependable connection, replace any worn-out wires.
• Update Firmware: If your power manager includes firmware capabilities, check for updates and apply them on a regular basis to keep your device up to date.
• Modes of Energy Conservation: Use your power manager’s energy-saving modes to decrease power usage during idle or standby times.
• Proper Ventilation: Ensure the power management has adequate ventilation to avoid overheating. Avoid putting it in confined locations (or) obstructing vents.

Home Theatre Power Manager – FAQs

Conclusion

To summarize, purchasing a home theater power management is essential for protecting your precious audio and video equipment, improving performance, and extending the life of your gadgets. A power manager offers a consistent and clean power supply for your home theater system by controlling power and offering surge protection, voltage management, and other sophisticated features.

Choose a power management system that meets your requirements, taking into account variables such as surge protection, voltage regulation, noise filtration, and smart features. Proper installation, frequent maintenance, and troubleshooting may help your power manager work even better. To improve your entertainment experience, upgrade your home theater system with a dependable and efficient power manager.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Home Theatre Power Manager appeared first on ElectronicsHub.

In this guide, we will take a look at a few basics of the GPU scene of modern laptops. After that, we will try to understand the possibilities of a Graphics Card upgrade on a laptop.

Graphics Cards in Laptops

The main job of the original graphical cards was to help the CPU in rendering 3D Graphics. Of course, Graphics Cards even today do the same job. But they are much more powerful and complex than that.

With Graphical Processing Units (it is the actual integrated circuit that is the heart of a graphics card) you can render images, graphics, and videos. You can use it for content creation, gaming, and other similar graphics-intensive tasks.

As laptops are essentially computers that you can carry with you, most modern laptops have very good graphics capabilities. Using a laptop’s GPU, you can play games or encode/decode videos with the comfort of throwing it in your backpack.

Integrated and Discrete Graphics

An important thing to understand about graphics cards in general (or rather the GPUs) is that they can be Integrated or Discrete.

When we say “Integrated Graphics”, we mean the GPU is a part of the CPU and it sits on the same silicon die as the main processor. On the Intel side, such types of CPUs (CPUs with built-in Graphics) are simply known as CPUs with Integrated Graphics.

On the AMD side, the CPUs which have an integrated graphics processor are known as APUs, which is short for Accelerated Processing Units.

We know. The naming is terrible. But the essential thing is that you can get good CPUs from both Intel and AMD that have a decent integrated Graphics Processor. The benefit of such CPUs is that you don’t need a separate graphics card to make the system up and running.

Next, we have Discrete Graphics. As the name suggests, discrete graphics means a separate GPU that has its own silicon and also a special PCB. The name “Graphics Card” comes from the fact that it is a card or board with a GPU on it.

We plug the Graphics Card on the Motherboard in a special high-speed slot known as the PCIe. The two major GPU manufacturers are Nvidia and AMD. At the time of writing this guide, Intel just announced their “ARC” line of graphics cards.

The laptop scene also has a similar story. You can get laptops with integrated or discrete graphics. An important thing to note here is that almost all the laptop CPUs have integrated graphics in them, be it from Intel or AMD. Additionally, some high-end laptops or gaming laptops have additional discrete graphics as well.

Can I Upgrade the Graphics Card in My Laptop?

We have already seen a similar question regarding laptops in a previous guide. In that, we answered the question “Can You Upgrade a Laptop’s CPU?”. The answer to that question was no.

But can I upgrade the Graphics Card in my laptop? Unfortunately, the answer even in this case is also no.

First of all, if the laptop has only the CPU with Integrated Graphics, then there is no way to upgrade the Graphics Card as it is an integrated part of the CPU. As we cannot upgrade the CPU on a laptop, there is no way to upgrade the GPU as well.

What about laptops with discrete Graphics Cards or GPU? The answer is still no. this is because the discrete GPU IC is soldered directly on the laptop’s motherboard. There is no way to replace it or upgrade it.

There are some laptops such as the Dell Alienware M51, which have a separate Graphics Card instead of a soldered GPU. In such cases, there is a chance to upgrade the laptop’s graphics card.

You need to buy a better graphics card and replace the older card. There are a couple of things you need to remember. The upgrade process for this type of Graphics Card swap is very expensive.

Also, you have to check if the motherboard and the BIOS support this upgrade. So, many people avoid going through all this hassle and just buy a new laptop with a better GPU.

What are My Upgrade Options Then?

Does this mean we are stuck with the GPU that we get with the laptop? With most laptops out there, the answer is yes. But there is hope in the form of Thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt is very interesting connectivity that combines PCIe, DisplayPort, and sometimes DC Power all into a single port. With Thunderbolt 3 and 4, the port is a USB Type-C.

Note that not all USB Type-C Ports are Thunderbolt capable. But all Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 Ports use USB Type-C. Look for the “Lightning Bolt” logo around the USB-C Port that indicates a Thunderbolt Port.

It is a little confusing but the important thing here is the PCIe lanes of the Thunderbolt Port. Using a Thunderbolt port, you can essentially transfer data at a very high speed (up to 40Gbps).

So, GPU manufacturers or third-party designers started to take advantage of this port in the form of External GPU or e-GPU. Some manufacturers design enclosures for traditional desktop Graphics Cards so that we can insert them into these enclosures and connect to a Thunderbolt Port.

So, the next important thing to look for is Thunderbolt support in a laptop. If your laptop comes with a Thunderbolt port, then one way to upgrade its Graphics Card or GPU is to use e-GPU over Thunderbolt Port.

Of course, this is a very expensive upgrade as you have to purchase a full desktop Graphics Card and a supporting Thunderbolt enclosure to make this an e-GPU.

Even if you buy a dedicated e-GPU Module, its cost is significantly high. So, the question is, are you willing to spend such a high-end e-GPU Module to upgrade the graphics card on your laptop?

Conclusion

Laptops nowadays are becoming so powerful that the majority of the users are using one to do complex tasks such as gaming, graphic design, 3D Model Rendering, Video Editing and Rendering, etc.

The GPU or Graphics Card of the laptop is the main limiting factor when we compare the performance with a desktop Graphics Card and the performance it delivers. So, many laptop users who use laptops for graphic-intensive tasks feel that their GPU is severely underpowered.

They often wonder “Can I upgrade the Graphics Card in My Laptop?”. Sadly, the straightforward answer is, no, you cannot upgrade the Graphics Card on a Laptop.

We saw the basics of Graphics Cards in laptops. We also saw the reasons why upgrading a GPU on a Laptop is nearly impossible.

Finally, we looked at a possible upgrade option in the form of Thunderbolt Port and e-GPU.

The post Can I Upgrade the Graphics Card in My Laptop? appeared first on ElectronicsHub.

We already covered a great deal about the best Jigsaws you can buy, Jigsaw Safety, and even a comparison between Reciprocating Saw vs Jigsaw. Check those guides for more info on Jigsaws.

What is a Jigsaw?

If you are familiar with a Bandsaw, then the operation of a Jigsaw seems very similar. While a bandsaw is a large tool with a continuous steel band to make precise curve cuts, a Jigsaw is a handheld tool with a thin blade that makes reciprocating movements.

Using the up-and-down motion of the vertical blade in a Jigsaw, you can easily make curved cuts and diagonal cuts. Even a novice in power tools can easily use a Jigsaw. This can be a good beginner tool instead of those big and bulky power tools such as a bandsaw or a table saw.

The primary material that you can use the Jigsaw on is wood. Although, you can make cuts in other materials such as metal, plastic, tiles, etc.

Applications of Jigsaw

The main application of a Jigsaw is to make curved cuts in wood. This is very useful in making furniture, art, or other creative designs. Apart from wood, you can also use Jigsaws on plastic, metal (sheets), tiles, etc.

Due to its thin vertical blade and easy handheld implementation, you can use Jigsaw in small or tight spaces, following the design or curved line.

Jigsaws are also not heavy tools. They weigh very less and hence it becomes very easy to guide them on any complex path.

You can cut very accurate circles of any size using a Jigsaw. With slight experience, you can just freehand through the circle or alternatively use a cutting guide.

Do you need to make holes in wood, sheets, plasterboards, or other similar materials? Then a Jigsaw is a perfect tool for the job. Whether it is for installing electrical outlets or panels or for installing a kitchen sink, Jigsaw can easily make these plunge cuts.

If you notice, all Jigsaws have a pivoting shoe. You can use this shoe to pivot the Jigsaw at an angle up to 45° and make those bevel cuts very easily.

Types of Jigsaws

Let us now take a look at different types of Jigsaws. We can divide these types of Jigsaws based on the type of their input power, reciprocating action of the blade, and type of grip.

Based on Input Power

Corded Electric

The electric variants of Jigsaws are far more popular than the pneumatic types. Even in electric, you have regular corded Jigsaws and battery-operated Cordless Jigsaws.

Most commercial and heavy-duty Jigsaws are available as corded electric. Just plug the cord into a standard electrical outlet and use the Jigsaw for continuous operation.

The electric motors in these types of jigsaws are very robust and can withstand long working hours. You can get a wide range of power ratings with corded electric Jigsaws starting with 400 Watts to more than 1,000 Watts.

Coming to the cost of Corded Electric Jigsaws, you can get a good quality tool from reputed brands for as little as $40 (120V, 5A variant).

Overall, corded electric Jigsaws are very reliable tools with very good performance, low cost, and suitable for longer operations.

Cordless Electric

The advantage of a handheld power tool comes into play with battery-operated devices. This is true for drills, screwdrivers, etc. Even Jigsaws are available as Cordless Battery-operated devices.

Almost all popular brands have cordless jigsaws in their catalog. Newer and less popular brands have a relatively low starting price of $45. But cordless jigsaws from reliable brands also start at $60. You can get even more powerful cordless jigsaws that cost more than $130.

The main advantage of using a cordless jigsaw is well, they don’t need any wires to provide the power. Just insert a fully-charged battery into the tool and start using it.

As there is no power cord, cordless jigsaws give you the benefit of ultra-portability as well as the ability to use in tight or difficult-to-reach places.

The battery voltage ratings of cordless jigsaws start from 12V and can go all the way to 36V. 18V and 20V ratings are very common.

Due to the battery pack, cordless jigsaws tend to be slightly heavier than their corded counterparts. But as the price gap is becoming narrow, several professionals and DIYers are choosing battery-operated jigsaws over corded electric ones.

Pneumatic

It is very rare but there are some pneumatic Jigsaws as well. These tools run on compressed air. The main benefit of these types of jigsaws is that they are significantly more powerful than electric types.

As pneumatic Jigsaws use compressed air to power the “motor”, they run relatively cooler due to the airflow. Also, these tools are very lightweight.

You can find pneumatic jigsaws in high-end professional jobs that need some heavy-duty cutting of tough materials.

Based on Reciprocating Action

Straight Reciprocating

Slightly older Jigsaws are basically of Straight reciprocating type. Some newer but lower-end models are of this type. As the name suggests, in these types of jigsaws, the bladed just reciprocates up and down without any additional movement.

As a result, the cutting actions become slow. But the advantage of Straight Reciprocating Jigsaws is that they are very good for tracking a curve or making turns on the material.

Orbital Reciprocating

If making straight cuts in lumber is your requirement, then choose an Orbital Reciprocating Jigsaw. In these types of Jigsaws, the blades make a slight forward tilt. As a result, it has a forward motion to the stroke. This motion will make faster cuts, especially in straight lines.

But for curved or turns, this type of motion is not useful. So, most modern jigsaws that are of orbital reciprocating type have a setting switch that controls the level of orbital action. A higher setting is suitable for straight cuts while a lower setting is suitable for curved cuts.

Based on Grip Style

Top Handle

The traditional grip style is the top handle grip. In this type, the Jigsaw has a large “D” shaped handle with a finger trigger inside the loop. This grip is easy on hands but as our hand lies at a higher stance, it becomes slightly difficult to operate. Also, the accuracy is slightly on the lower side.

Barrel Grip

This is a rather new type of grip where we hold the jigsaw using a single horizontal handle. The height of our hands is relatively low and as a result, the lateral leverage isn’t that much.

The cutting accuracy with barrel grip is much higher and also the trigger is usually a thumb switch instead of a finger switch.

A Brief Note on Jigsaw Blades

An interesting part about the Jigsaw is its blade. Modern Jigsaw blades have a “T” shape top (a T-shank) so that it easily locks into the reciprocating mechanism without the need for any tool to install it.

The other type of blade option is a Universal Blade or a U-shank that requires a special tool to change the blade from the saw mechanism. These blades are becoming rare day by day as the tool-less T-Shank blade is a popular choice.

Jigsaw Blades have two main characteristics. One is the number of teeth per inch. The other is the direction of the teeth. Depending on these factors, you can get various types of Jigsaw blades.

Apart from the characteristics that we mentioned above, the material of the Jigsaw blade is also important when choosing one. The material decides the durability, stability, and suitability of the Jigsaw for application.

Different Jigsaw Blade Materials

Here is a list of some popular Jigsaw blade materials.

• High-speed Steel Blades
• Carbon Steel Blades
• Bi-metal Blades
• Tungsten Carbide Blades

High-speed Steel Blades

One of the basic blade materials is Steel. It is inexpensive but has an excellent performance with high durability and good resistance to heat. You can use these blades on all materials such as wood, metal, and plastic.

Carbon Steel Blades

The carbon steel blades have a high percentage of carbon. As a result, these blades are significantly stronger than regular steel blades.

As the material of the blade is essentially steel (with carbon), these blades are quite flexible and also become dull very easily. You can use these blades on different types of wood-cutting jobs.

Bi-metal Blades

As the name suggests, these blades have a combination of two metals, usually carbon steel and high-speed steel. The bi-metallic nature of these blades makes them slightly more flexible. They also do not become dull very soon.

Tungsten Carbide Blades

The final blade material on the list is tungsten carbide. These are very durable and often very expensive. Due to tungsten, these blades have very high heat resistance. So, you can use these blades to cut tiles, steel, and other tough materials.

Conclusion

Jigsaw is a versatile power tool that can make straight cuts in lumber or curved cuts in wood, metal, or plastic. In this guide, we saw the basics of Jigsaw and also different types of Jigsaws.

After that, we saw some important information regarding Jigsaw blades.

The post Different Types of Jigsaws appeared first on ElectronicsHub.

We will briefly discuss about the basic operation of a Mouse. After that, we will take a look at different types of computer mouse from current generation as well as the previous generation.

A Brief Note on Computer Mouse

Before the development of operating system with graphical user interface (GUI), keyboard is the only way to interact with a PC. All we had to do was enter a bunch of commands in the terminal (or console) and wait for the result.

The introduction of GUI in Operating Systems and the development of Computer Mouse along with it made things much simpler. You could simply point the cursor anywhere you want on the screen and click.

During its infancy, the Mouse was a simple electromechanical device. It had a couple of buttons for the user to click and a rubber ball to track the movement of the cursor.

With technological improvements, we moved on to Optical Mice that uses some form of light to sense the movement.

Another major change was connectivity of the Mouse. In the olden days, there was a dedicated port on the back of the PC to connect a wired mouse. This is the famous PS/2 Port. The name “Mouse” came from the fact that the wire of the device looks like a tail of a mouse.

With USB, we could plug in the mouse to any USB port on the computer. Next, we have a cordless or wireless mouse, that doesn’t require any cables or wires. You have to use a special USB transceiver or use Bluetooth for wireless connectivity.

Different Types of Computer Mouse

A Computer Mouse is very useful for productivity, gaming, professional, and of course everyday computer tasks. Even if you own and use a laptop, the benefits of a good quality mouse outweigh even the best track pads.

We have several types of Computer Mouse. There is no single way to categorize them so, we thought to put all these types of Computer Mouse based on connectivity, how they sense the movement, and other types.

Based on Connectivity

Wired

A Wired Mouse is that type which uses a wired connection between the mouse and the computer. Some might think that a wired mouse is pretty outdated technology. But that’s not case.

There are very good quality wired mice available in the market that offer excellent performance in terms of precision, tracking, and latency. Speaking of latency, many gamers prefer special gaming mice as they often have very low latency numbers (when we compare to wireless mice).

Apart from having no latency issues, wired mice don’t require a battery to operate as the wired connection provides necessary power to the electronics inside the mouse.

PS/2

Part of the IBM’s Personal System/2 series of PCs, the PS/2 Port is available for keyboard and mouse. It is the most popular wired mouse style before being replaced by the USB.

Even though the PS/2 Port is now a “legacy” connection, some motherboard manufacturers are including this for people who are interested in using a PS/2 Mouse.

USB

The most popular wired Mouse is a USB Mouse. Before USB, we had different ports and connectors for various devices such as mice, keyboard, joystick, printer, modem, etc.

But USB changed it all. We have one Port to connect them all. Most modern wired mice are of USB type. There are several high-end gaming mice that have a USB connection.

Wireless

A Wireless or Cordless Mouse, as the name suggests, doesn’t need any wires to communicate with the PC. The traditional way of using a Wireless Mouse involves a tiny USB Receiver Module, that we have plug into any USB Port on the PC.

This Receiver module and the Wireless Mouse communicate “wirelessly” using RF (Radio Frequency) communication. Several mouse manufacturers use the 2.4GHz frequency for this communication.

But there are wireless mice that use a proprietary wireless protocol for the RF Communication.

As there is no wired connection, you have to use a battery provide necessary power to the Wireless Mouse. Latency is always an issue with anything wireless, including wireless mouse.

Bluetooth

Another popular wireless mouse format is the one that uses Bluetooth for communication instead of RF. As most laptops have Bluetooth built into them (usually a combo Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Card), you don’t need any additional USB receiver modules. Just turn on the Bluetooth Mouse, connect it to a laptop and start using it.

Based on Sensing

Mechanical

For many years, the Mechanical Mouse was the only type of computer mouse available in the market. It has a rubber-coated metal ball that moves a couple of cylindrical rollers inside the mouse.

As we move the mouse around on a desk, the rubber ball moves the rollers and capture the horizontal and vertical movement of the mouse. This information is then relayed to the computer, which then translates it into the movement of the cursor on screen.

Mechanical Mice are heavy and require frequent cleaning of the roller ball. Next generation Mice replaced them but you can still purchase a mechanical mouse even today.

Optical

The drawbacks of mechanical mice such as limited resolution, heavy, need for regular cleaning, etc. led to the development of a reliable Mouse technology.

An Optical Mouse uses an optical sensor (optical scanning system) to track the movement. As there are no moving parts, the longevity of an optical mouse is much more than the mechanical counterparts. They also have a great resolution with the ability to adjust as you need.

All modern mice, be it regular everyday mice or high-end specialty mouse with several buttons and customization, use some form of Optical technology.

Opto-Mechanical

There is a crossover between the mechanical mouse and the optical mouse. Fittingly, these types of Computer Mouse are known as Opto-Mechanical Mouse.

Similar to a mechanical mouse, these mice also have the rubber ball that moves an encoding disc. The “optical” part of the mouse consists of IR (infrared) LEDs and sensors that track the rotation of the disc.

Gyroscopic

This is a special type of mouse that doesn’t need any surface to track its movement. For normal operation, you can use this mouse as a regular Optical Mouse on any surface.

But with Gyroscope Mode, you can operate the mouse midair and wave it around. The mouse’s built-in gyroscope system will detect these movements and convert them to cursor movements.

If you are familiar with LGs Magic Remote, it uses a similar technology where you can wave the remote in midair and the cursor on TV moves around.

Other Mouse Types

Laser Mouse

Earlier optical mice had visible or infrared LEDs as the source of light for the sensor to capture. The problem with these types is that they need a non-reflective surface for the sensor to properly detect the reflected light.

As a result, we often use a mousepad with these kinds of mice. A Laser Mouse is also a type of optical mouse, in the sense that it uses a light source and an image sensor.

But the difference is the light source, which is a laser diode and a high-quality digital image processor (part of the sensor). They are slightly expensive than regular optical mice but offer significant performance and can work on any surface (without mousepad).

Trackball Mouse

This a special type of Mouse that has a trackball on the mouse (usually where we place our thumbs). Without moving the entire mouse around, you can simply use your thumb to move the trackball and thereby move the cursor on the screen.

There are several types of trackball mouse designs. While the trackball near the thumb is more common, other types include a trackball in place of the scroll wheel. Some designs have a big trackball in the center with four buttons surrounding it.

Vertical Mouse

A Vertical Mouse, as the name suggests, has a “vertical” design rather than the traditional “lie on the surface” horizontal design.

From an ergonomic point of view, a vertical mouse puts less strain on your arm, especially the wrist as you position your palm vertically (in a hand-shake stance).

Gaming Mouse

When we talk about gaming mice, we usually mean wired mice to minimize latency. But you can also get good quality wireless gaming mice that often advertise low latency.

Apart from latency, a gaming mouse typically has additional buttons that are programmable. You can control the DPI of the sensor. Some gaming mice have the ability to add or remove weights so that you get a very good grip and balance.

Conclusion

A Computer Mouse might sound like an inexpensive component that you can buy at any local computer store. But if you put more though into it, it is the primary way in which we communicate with the computer.

So, investing in a good quality mouse can benefit you in terms of performance, ergonomics and aesthetics.

Gamers are very particular about their mouse. They need the ability to control the weight, adjust the DPI, and also do not have to worry about latency.

In this guide, we saw the basics of Computer Mouse. After that, we saw different types of computer mouse. We covered all the popular types of computer mouse that we can think of. If you feel we missed something, do let us know in the comments below.

The post Different Types of Computer Mouse appeared first on ElectronicsHub.

In this guide, let us take a closer look at some basics of air tools or pneumatic, their advantages and disadvantages and also different types of air tools.

Overview of Air Tools or Pneumatic Tools?

In a previous guide, we saw different types of air compressors. In that discussion, one of the main and important applications of air compressors (or compressed air) is to run pneumatic tools or air tools.

The compressed air from an air compressor unit will power either an air motor or pistons in pneumatic tools. Speaking of motor, they are different from regular electric motor in the sense that they use air to spin instead of electricity.

Popularity of air tools in industries and workshops comes from the fact that they have excellent power to weight ratio than the electric counterparts. This makes them lightweight and easy to handle.

Even with their lightweight and compact design, pneumatic tools are very powerful and provide very high torque. As they essentially run on compressed air, you can use them for long periods without worrying about heat as the high-pressure air has a cooling effect.

Some other benefits of air tools in general are: you cannot damage the tools either by overloading or stalling, the motor starts instantly and you can easily reverse the direction and they are generally more rugged and durable than electric tools.

There are some downsides to pneumatic tools as well. The first thing is they very loud, like really loud. The quality of the air coming from the air compressor is very important. Any dust or particulates can clog the tools or even cause severe damage.

Hence, large industrial setups use a series of air filters and they must be frequently checked, cleaned or replaced. Speaking of cleaning, maintenance is another issue with air tools. They need regular maintenance with main regards to lubrication.

Another major problem with compressed air and humidity is formation of water droplets (in the compressor units as well as the tools). They need water filters and water traps to prevent water build-up that can clog or damage the system.

How Air Tools Work?

Essentially, we can divide all the air tools into two categories:

• Rotational
• Percussive

In Rotational Air Tools, the power comes from an air motor. When we apply high-pressure air to this motor, it rotates the rotor in a cylinder and it produces a torque that is directly proportional to the air pressure from the compressor. Drills, Ratchets, Wrenches are some examples of rotational powered pneumatic tools.

Vane and Turbine are two common air motor designs. Vane type motors are very popular as we can get very high power from a relatively small motor size. When we couple this motor with a suitable gear system, it can produce high torque.

Coming to Percussive Air Tools, they use reciprocating pistons. When we supply compressed air to these pistons, they propel forward and backward. This produces an oscillation motion, which is suitable for air hammers, reciprocating saws and similar devices.

Different Types of Air Tools (Pneumatic Tools) and Their Uses

While the auto industry relies heavily on air tools such as wrenches, inflators and pain sprayers, there are many other industries/professions that use pneumatic air tools on a regular basis.

Generally, air tools are not portable as they need a continuous supply of compressed air. Hence, pneumatic tools are mostly suitable for garages and workshops with a good air compressor unit and are not generally meant for residential use.

Here are 23 Different Types of Air Tools that are very popular.

• Air Impact Wrench
• Air Ratchet
• Pneumatic Drill
• Pneumatic Screwdriver
• Air Hammer
• Pneumatic Reciprocating Saw
• Brad Nailer
• Framing Nailer
• Pneumatic Riveter
• Pneumatic Staple Gun
• Air-Powered Sander
• Grease Gun
• Caulk Gun
• Siphon Gun
• Needle Scaler
• Sandblaster
• Pneumatic Shears
• Die Grinder
• Pneumatic Blower
• Tire Inflator
• Paint Sprayer
• Automobile Lifts
• Air Bag Jacks

Let us now see briefly about each of these tools one-by-one.

Air Impact Wrench

The first tool that comes to mind when we think of air tools or pneumatic tools is probably the Air Wrench or Impact Wrench. Almost all automotive repair shops, garages and body shops, even small ones, have an air compressor and an impact wrench that runs off of it.

Air Wrenches are very efficient and can remove/fix nuts and bolts very quickly. They have a very high torque and can remove even struck, stubborn and delicate nuts and bolts very easily.

Air Ratchet

Another pneumatic tool that is popular in the auto industry is the Air Ratchet. These tools allow you to quickly fasten and loosen fasteners. An important thing about air ratchets is that they generally have very high but less torque than impact wrenches.

Most air ratchets do not have an internal hammering mechanism. Hence, the operator has to slightly loosen the nut/bolt while loosening or tighten the fastener for its final turn while tightening.

Pneumatic Drill

Next, we have an Air Drill. There tools are very compact, light in weight and can rotate at a very high RPM. The main advantage of a pneumatic drill over a regular drill (corded electric or battery operated cordless) is that there is no problem of overheating.

As a result, you can use it for continuous drilling without giving it any break. Brushed Motor Drills have the problem of sparks due to the carbon brushes in them. This can be a problem in chemical plants. In such places, pneumatic drills (or other air tools for that matter) are very useful.

Pneumatic Screwdriver

The pneumatic screwdriver is slightly smaller than an air drill but the overall ergonomics of the tool are the same. There is a handle with air inlet at the bottom and a drive mechanism that lets you screw and unscrew screws.

Pneumatic Screwdrivers are light in weight and most of them come with torque settings to prevent over-tightening (as it can damage the threads or strip them off completely).

Air Hammer

You might have seen large hammers easily breaking asphalt. These are (air hammers or pneumatic jackhammers. It is a very popular pneumatic tools for demolishing or breaking-up things (big rocks, roads, etc.).

Air Hammers are very power tools that can deliver more than 3,000 beats per minute. Most hammers come with variable throttle and the operator has to extremely skilled as even the smallest trigger can do a lot of damage if it is not handled properly.

Apart from demolishing jobs, we can also use air hammers for shaping metals, carving stones, removing concrete/cement.

Pneumatic Reciprocating Saw

Reciprocating Saw is a very useful tool, especially for carpenters, construction workers and furniture makers. A Pneumatic Reciprocating Saw is not that common among independent carpenters as it needs an air compressor to make it work.

Hence, large furniture makes and construction use pneumatic reciprocating saws to easily cut through drywall, plywood and even small pieces of regular wood (that needs a straight line cut).

With slightly powerful pneumatic reciprocating saw, we can cut through tiles, sheet metal, pipes (steel, copper), fiberglass etc.

Brad Nailer

Air Nailers are an integral part of modern construction, furniture and woodworking industries. You can find all sorts nailers for brad nailing, finishing, framing etc. A Pneumatic Brad Nailer is a light-duty tool that is popular with craftsman and model makers.

Although you can drive nails through thin boards and other delicate material using a Pneumatic Brad Nailer, it struggles with slightly thicker material. Keep in mind that you need to use brad nails with this nailer

Framing Nailer

Another popular air nailer is the pneumatic framing nailer. In fact, when we say nail gun, we usually refer to a framing nailer (either electric or compressed air one). It is a heavy-duty tool for driving larger nails (regular nails) into wood.

The main job of a pneumatic framing nailer is, well, framing (installing trims, building picture frames, installing decks/wood panels, etc.).

Pneumatic Riveter

If you are working with sheet metals, then a pneumatic riveter can be exceptionally useful tool. There are manual rivet guns that are slightly cheaper than a pneumatic riveter but they are slow and needs a lot of effort from the user.

A pneumatic riveter can make this job very easy especially with pop rivets. Apart from sheet metal industry, pneumatic riveters are very popular in automotive industry (assembly as well as repair shops).

Pneumatic Staple Gun

Air Staplers or Pneumatic Staplers are very popular in the upholstery industry. They look very similar to the pneumatic nailers with the handle and magazine. Most pneumatic staple guns can handle standard, large and finish staples.

We can also use pneumatic staplers for making cabinets, working with cardboard panels, laying roofs, drywall etc.

Air-Powered Sander

Pneumatic Sanders make the tedious job of sanding and polishing very easy. Whether you are working with metal or wood, an air sander can do the job faster and the benefit is that it is very lightweight than electric counterparts (less strain on your arm).

A 7-inch sanding disc is very common with pneumatic sanders as they rotate anywhere between 5,000 and 7,000 RPM. Air Sanders are quite common in paint shops and body shops as you can easily blend sheet metal, weld joints, castings etc.

Grease Gun

A grease gun is another stable tool in the automotive world. While manual grease guns do the job for occasional machine and servicing, a pneumatic grease gun is very useful for large garages that work on several vehicles daily.

The pneumatic grease gun looks and operates very similar to a manual unit except the compressed air that powers the pump. You can use a standard grease cartridge with a pneumatic grease gun as well.

Caulk Gun

A major part of construction and plumbing is caulking. Pneumatic caulk guns are very easy to use, inexpensive and reliable. The pressure housing holds the caulk cartridge and as you depress the trigger, the air pressure pushes the caulk from the pressure seal.

Some unit come with a variable valve to adjust the flow rate of the caulk. An important part of pneumatic caulk gun design is venting in the trigger that lets out the housing pressure when we release the trigger.

Needle Scaler

Scaling is an important part of maintaining a metal’s surface from rust, soot and barnacles. A pneumatic needle scaler can clean metal surfaces very efficiently in very less time due to its needle design and reciprocating movement.

Sandblaster

Abrasive Basting or Sandblasting is a way of applying abrasive material on top of a surface. Coating industry extensively uses pneumatic sandblasters. These are specialty machines that contain a closed chamber where a high-pressure sand and air is sprayed on the surface.

Pneumatic Shears

Shears, particularly pneumatic shears are more than just scissors. They can cut through tough sheet metals with ease, thanks to the compressed air. Apart from sheet metal, you can also use pneumatic shears for precision cutting of aluminum and plastic.

They are light in weight and you can use the tool for long and continuous time if necessary.

Die Grinder

Air Die Grinders are small and powerful tools for grinding, sanding and polishing primarily metal but also wood and plastic. You can grind/polish edges of metal/wood very easily with an Air Die Grinder.

Pneumatic Die Grinders are very compact little tools and it usually comes with a good collection of attachments. If not, there are several third-party attachments that you can use with many air die grinders for deburring, finishing and other similar jobs. Note that die grinders generally have very high RPM, usually in the range of 20,000 RPM.

Pneumatic Blower

Perhaps the simplest air tool of all is the pneumatic blower. As the name suggests, it is a simple tool that blow high-pressure air to clean/remove dust, debris and grime from different surfaces and objects.

The thin and long metal tube of a pneumatic blower allows you to clean vehicles and machines and you can also reach tricky places and blow some air.

Tire Inflator

A popular air tool even with general consumers (rather than industrial, workshop users) is a simple tire inflator. There are several ways types of tire inflators, some simple use air pumps to directly inflate tires (car and bikes), balls, mattresses etc.

For heavy workloads and inflating large tires (for trucks and semitrucks), a tire inflator with a dedicated air compressor will be necessary.

Paint Sprayer

Another important application of compressed air is spray painting. One of the simplest paint sprayers is an Air Brush. You can use these sprayers with cars, mural painting, artists, building models and even tee shirt painting. A slightly advanced paint sprayer is a Paint Gun.

This type of paint sprayer has a paint pot at the bottom of the handle and is often used for painting large equipment and surfaces. The Gravity Feed Paint Sprayer is an extremely popular paint gun in the automotive paint industry. A paint reservoir is at the top of the handle and the paint flows through the trigger handle to the nozzle.

Siphon Gun

A Pneumatic Siphon Gun is another type of sprayer that is primarily used with degreasing agents, insecticides, detergent and surface treatment liquids (usually, low-viscosity fluids).

Instead of fluid reservoir or pot, a siphon gun has a pick-up tube that draws-up the fluid, which usually sits in a vessel or bucket. Pest control companies use these air tools frequently to spray insecticides (and pesticides).

Automobile Lifts

Another must have tool for auto repair shops is an automobile lift. It works by combining hydraulics and compressed air. One popular construction style is to embed a large hydraulic cylinder. One end of this cylinder has the piston and column that lifts the vehicle.

The other end of the cylinder is connected to the air compressor after leaving an air gap. When we apply high-pressure air, it moves the hydraulic liquid and therefore the piston and the column. There will be an orifice to restrict the speed at which the piston raises and lowers.

Air Bag Jacks

To change/service car tires, we need to lift the car using jacks. Tire shops (that replace tires, align and balance them) usually use an air bag jack. It consists of a large air bag/bladder with a lift saddle on top.

When we place the air bag jack under the car and align it properly with the car’s frame, the high-pressure air will fill-up the bag and lifts the car. You can easily remove/replace tires of the car.

Conclusion

Air Tools make the job easy and fast, whether it is drilling holes, tighten/loosen nuts/bolts, demolishing roads/building, inflating tires, painting etc. They are also known as Pneumatic Tools as they use compressed air as the source of energy (in contrast to electricity of fuel). We saw the basics of air tools, how they work and also different types of air tools along with their uses.

The post 23 Different Types of Air Tools (Pneumatic Tools) and Their Uses appeared first on ElectronicsHub.

What is MTU Size?

The Maximum Transmission Unit or MTU for short, is the largest data packet size that can be transmitted in the network. We measure MTU Size in Bytes. The value of MTU varies depending on the configuration and characteristics of the network interface.

Technically, the computer calculates the MTU value for an interface based on the maximum size of the data that the network can transmit in the data-link frame. For example, in case of ethernet, the MTU Size is 1500. This number does not include the ethernet header or other overhead but only the data.

If the packet is longer then the maximum MTU Size, then routers cannot transmit this packet on a network interface. What routers usually do in such situations is that they fragment the packets into much smaller packets. We call this process as Fragmentation.

MTU Size Does Matter

In case of MTU, size does matter. A larger MTU value means fewer number of large packets must be transmitted in the network. While this is efficient in terms of network utilization, the problem is larger packets can slow down the transmitting link.

In case of an error and you need to re-transmit the packets and you need to send the entire large packet once again.

While a smaller packet size usually means that you can transmit a greater number of such smaller packets in the network. The problem with small packet sizes is that network need to process the header data more frequently (with each packet).

When to Adjust Your MTU Size?

Chances are you actually never need to adjust the MTU size at all as most high bandwidth network supports a relatively high data throughput. Hence, the maximum theoretical limit in case of ethernet i.e., 1500 will be the default is most cases.

But if for some reason you are facing any network speed issues such as low download and upload speeds than what your ISP Plan subscription offers. In this case, you might want to modify the MTU values in your router’s configuration settings.

How to Find Out MTU and Adjust it?

First, we will see what is the maximum MTU for each network interface of your computer. We will use a Windows machine as a reference but you can find similar settings for other operating systems as well.

To determine the maximum MTU in Windows, open command prompt with administrator rights and enter the following command

netsh interface ipv4 show interface

This will list out all the network interfaces present in your computer, their state (connected to disconnected), their ID Numbers and also the maximum MTU Value.

Now, to set the MTU value, start by subtracting the overhead bytes from the maximum i.e., 28Bytes from 1500 which is 1472. To set this, you can use the following command.

ping www.google.com -f -l 1472

If the packet is too large, you will get a message as “Packet needs to be fragmented but DF set”. In the above command, the URL can be anything that you want to connect to and test the connectivity speed.

You can further decrease the MTU value, say to 1400. Use the same command as previous one but now with MTU value 1400.

Once you get to an optimum value, you will get a reply as “Reply from xxx.xxx.xx.xxx: bytes=xxx time=xms TTL=xxx”.

All the computers in your network must have the same MTU value for an efficient and fragmentation free transmission.

Conclusion

Modern network infrastructure is very robust with support for very high bandwidth communication at crazy high speeds. 99% of the time, you don’t even have to configure the router or any other network configurations as once the system is setup, it will work automatically. But there are some situations where you might face low internet speeds and this might be due to a server issue with your ISP or due to a configuration setting in your router. One such popular settings is MTU Size. We saw what it is, how to determine the maximum possible value for any network interface and also how to adjust it.

The post What is MTU Size? How to Set it? appeared first on ElectronicsHub.

What is Epoch Time?

Let us kick-off with the important question: What is Epoch Time? In the world of computers, Epoch is the starting point (date and time) from which they measure the system time.

Epoch is the zero point for a computer’s time i.e., it represents the 00 hours, 00 minutes and 00 seconds. Different operating systems have different epoch times.

For instance, in UNIX and POSIX based operating systems, the epoch time is 00:00:00 UTC, Thursday 1^st January 1970. Computers based on UNIX measure time by counting the number of seconds that passed (minus the leap seconds) from this point. Hence, this Epoch time is also known as Unix Epoch Time (or simple Epoch Time, Unix Time, POSIX Time).

Developers of Unix Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie are also responsible for setting the epoch date and time as 1^st January, 1970 and 00:00:00.

Need for Epoch

If you observe the epoch time representation, it is just a count of number of seconds starting from Unix Epoch Time. We are essentially using numbers to represent date, day and time.

The main benefit of such representation is that you can easily perform mathematical operations such as addition and subtraction on numbers and effortlessly calculate date and time.

For example, every 60 epoch seconds is equal to 1 actual minute and 3,600 epoch seconds is nothing but an hour in real life.

You can get a clear idea from the following table of count of epoch second and its equivalent time period in real life.

So, if the difference between two epoch counts is, say 10,800, for example, then we can say that 3 hours has passed between those two events.

What is Epoch Time in Other Operating Systems?

Is the Epoch Date and Time same for all the computers in the World? The answer is no. Epoch Time is Operating System dependent and different operating systems have different epoch times. What we saw in the introduction section is just the epoch for UNIX and POSIX systems.

Other operating systems such as Windows, MacOS etc. have respective epoch times. You can take a look at the following table for understanding the epoch times of each major operating system.

Apart from operating system, certain applications also have their own epoch dates. You can take a look some major applications and software along with their epoch date down in the table.

An important point here is that when we say the system counts the number of seconds from the epoch time, it is specific to an operating system. In general, it is actually the number of ‘ticks’ the system counts and each tick is different in different operating systems.

How Effective is Unix Epoch? Problems with Unix Epoch Time

While representing date and time as numbers has its benefits, it also has its problems. In most operating systems, we store the epoch count as a 32-bit signed integer. So, the maximum value it can represent is 2³¹ – 1.

Coming to the Unix Epoch, as it started on 1^st of January, 1970 at 00:00:00, the maximum date and time we can store is 03:14:07 UTC, 19^th January 2038. The next count will cause an integer overflow and rolls back the date and time to 20:45:52 UTC, 13^th December, 1901.

This problem is famously known as the Year 2038 Problem (as it is similar to the Year 2000 Problem).

Many Unix and other major operating systems moved from signed 32-bit integers to signed 64-bit integers to represent the epoch count. But if you have a legacy system that do not support 64-bit computing or an embedded system that cannot be updated, then the problem of Year 2038 is persistent in them.

Conclusion

Representing date and time in computers is an important part of its operation. System Time acts as a point of reference to many tasks and applications in all computing systems. Epoch is the starting point from which a computer system calculates the system time. In Unix, Epoch is 00:00:00 UTC, 1^st of January, 1970. Other operating systems have their own epoch times. This guide answers the important question of what is epoch time and why do we need it. We also saw the epoch time for some popular operating systems and applications.

The post What is Epoch Time? Unix Epoch Time, Advantages, Problems (Year 2038) appeared first on ElectronicsHub.

Introduction

In the World of analog electronics, we come across various signals, some of them are measured by changes in resistance and some of them are with changes in inductance and capacitance.

If we consider the resistance, most of the industrial sensors like temperature, strain, humidity, displacement, liquid level, etc. produces the change in value of the resistance for an equivalent change in the respective quantity. Therefore, there is a need for a signal conditioning for every resistance based sensor.

For example, the simplest device we can think of is the Light Dependent Resistor or LDR. As the name suggests, an LDR is a device, whose resistance changes according to the amount of light falling on it.

Generally, the resistance measurement is divided into three types:

• • Low Resistance Measurement
  • Medium Resistance Measurement
  • High Resistance Measurement

If the resistance measurement is possibly from a few micro ohms to milli ohms, then it is considered as a low resistance measurement. This measurement is actually used for research purpose. If the measurement is from 1 ohm to few hundreds of KΩ is generally referred as a medium resistance measurement. Measurement of normal resistors, potentiometers, thermistors, etc. comes under this category.

And very high resistance measurement is considered from few Mega Ohms to greater than 100 Mega Ohms. For finding the medium value of the resistance different methods are used, but mostly Wheatstone bridge is used.

What is Wheatstone Bridge?

Bridge Networks or Circuits are one of the most popular and popular electrical tools, often used in measurement circuits, transducer circuits, switching circuits and also in oscillators.

The Wheatstone Bridge is one of the most common and simplest bridge network / circuit, which can be used to measure resistance very precisely. But often the Wheatstone Bridge is used with Transducers to measure physical quantities like Temperature, Pressure, Strain etc.

Wheatstone Bridge is used in applications where small changes in resistance are to be measured in sensors. This is used to convert a change in resistance to a change in voltage of a transducer. The combination of this bridge with operational amplifier is used extensively in industries for various transducers and sensors.

For example, the resistance of a Thermistor changes when it is subjected to change in temperature. Likewise, a strain gauge, when subjected to pressure, force or displacement, its resistance changes. Depending on the type of application, the Wheatstone Bridge can be operated either in a Balanced condition or an Unbalanced condition.

A Wheatstone bridge consists of four resistors (R₁, R₂, R₃ and R₄) that are connected in the shape of a diamond with the DC supply source connected across the top and bottom points (C and D in the circuit) of the diamond and the output is taken across the other two ends (A and B in the circuit).

This bridge is used to find the unknown resistance very precisely by comparing it with a known value of resistances. In this bridge, a Null or Balanced condition is used to find the unknown resistance.

For this bridge to be in a Balanced Condition, the output voltage at points A and B must be equal to 0. From the above circuit:

The Bridge is in Balanced Condition if:

 V_OUT = 0 V 
To simplify the analysis of the above circuit, let us redraw it as follows:

Now, for Balanced Condition, the voltage across the resistors R₁ and R₂ is equal. If V₁ is the voltage across R₁ and V₂ is the voltage across R₂, then:

 V₁ = V₂ 
Similarly, the voltage across resistors R₃ (let us call it V₃) and R₄ ( let us call it V₄) are also equal. So,

 V₃ = V₄ 
The ratios of the voltage can be written as:

 V₁ / V₃ = V₂ / V₄ 
From Ohm’s law, we get:

 I₁ R₁ / I₃ R₃ = I₂ R₂ / I₄ R₄ 
Since I₁ = I₃ and I₂ = I₄, we get:

 R₁ / R₃ = R₂ / R₄ 
From the above equation, if we know the values of three resistors, we can easily calculate the resistance of the fourth resistor.

Alternative Way to Calculate Resistors

From the redrawn circuit, if V_IN is the input voltage, then the voltage at point A is:

 V_IN ( R₃ / (R₁ + R₃)) 
Similarly, the voltage at point B is:

 V_IN ( R₄ / (R₂ + R₄)) 
For the Bridge to be Balanced, V_OUT = 0. But we know that  V_OUT = V_A – V_B .

So, in Balanced Bridge Condition,

 V_A = V_B 
Using above equations, we get:

 V_IN ( R₃ / (R₁ + R₃)) = V_IN ( R₄ / (R₂ + R₄)) 
After simple manipulation of the above equation, we get:

 R₁ / R₃ = R₂ / R₄ 
From the above equation, if R₁ is an unknown resistor, its value can be calculated from the known values of R₂, R₃ and R₄. Generally, the unknown value is called as R_X and of the three known resistances, one resistor (mostly R₃ in the above circuit) is usually a variable Resistor called as R_V.

Find Unknown Resistance using Balanced Wheatstone Bridge

In the above circuit, let us assume that R₁ is an unknown resistor. So, let us call it R_X. The resistors R₂ and R₄ have a fixed value. Which means, the ratio R₂ / R₄ is also fixed. Now, from the above calculation, to create a balanced condition, the ratio of resistors must be equal i.e.,

 R_X / R₃ = R₂ / R₄ 
Since the ratio R₂ / R₄ is fixed, we can easily adjust the other known resistor (R₃) to achieve the above condition. Hence, it is important that R₃ is a variable resistor, which we call R_V.

But how do we detect the Balanced Condition? This is where a Galvanometer (an old school Ammeter) can be used. By placing the Galvanometer between the points A and B, we can detect the Balanced Condition.

With R_X placed in the circuit, adjust the R_V until the Galvanometer points to 0. At this point, note down the value of R_V. By using the following formula, we can calculate the unknown resistor R_X.

 R_X = R_V (R₂ / R₄) 

Unbalanced Wheatstone Bridge

If V_OUT in the above circuit is not equal to 0 (V_OUT ≠ 0), the Wheatstone is said to be an Unbalanced Wheatstone Bridge. Usually, the Unbalanced Wheatstone Bridge is often used for measurement of different physical quantities like Pressure, Temperature, Strain etc.

For this to work, the Transducer must be of resistive type i.e., the resistance of the transducer changes appropriately when the quantity it is measuring (temperature, strain, etc.) changes. In place of unknown resistor in the previous resistance calculation example, we can connect the transducer.

Wheatstone Bridge for Temperature Measurement

Let us now see how we can measure temperature using an unbalanced Wheatstone Bridge. The transducer which we are going to use here is called a Thermistor, which is a temperature dependent resistor. Depending on the temperature co-efficient of the thermistor, changes in temperature will either increase or decrease the resistance of the thermistor.

As a result, the output voltage of the Bridge V_OUT will become a non-zero value. This means that the output voltage V_OUT is proportional to the temperature. By calibrating the voltmeter, we can display the temperature in terms of the output voltage.

Wheatstone Bridge for Strain Measurement

One of the most commonly used applications of Wheatstone Bridge is in the Strain Measurement. Strain Gauge is a device whose electrical resistance varies in proportion to the mechanical factors like Pressure, Force or Strain.

Usually, the range of strain gauge resistance is from 30 Ω to 3000 Ω. For a given strain, the resistance change may be only a fraction of the full range. Therefore, to accurately measure the fractional changes of resistance, a Wheatstone Bridge configuration is used.

The circuit below shows a Wheatstone bridge where the unknown resistor is replaced with a strain gauge.

Due to the external force, the resistance of the strain gauge changes and as a result, the bridge becomes unbalanced. The output voltage can be calibrated to display the changes in strain.

One popular configuration of Strain Gauges and Wheatstone Bridge is in Weight Scales. In this, the Strain Gauges are carefully mounted as a single unit called as Load Cells, which is a transducer which converts mechanical force to electrical signal.

Usually, weight scales consist of four load cells, where two strain gauges expand or stretch (tension type) when external force is acting and two strain gauges compress (compression type) when load is placed.

If the strain gauge is either tensed or compressed, then the resistance can increase or decrease. Therefore, this causes unbalancing of the bridge. This produces a voltage indication on voltmeter corresponds to the strain change. If the strain applied on a strain gauge is more, then the voltage difference across the meter terminals is more.  If the strain is zero, then the bridge balances and the meter shows zero reading.

This is about the resistance measurement using a Wheatstone bridge for precise measurement. Due to the fractional measurement of resistance, Wheatstone bridges are mostly used in strain gauge and thermometer measurements.

Applications

1. The Wheatstone Bridge is used for measuring the very low resistance values precisely.
2. Wheatstone bridge along with operational amplifier is used to measure the physical parameters like temperature, strain, light, etc.
3. We can also measure the quantities capacitance, inductance and impedance using the variations on the Wheatstone Bridge.

Conclusion

A beginner’s guide on Wheatstone Bridge. You learned What is a Wheatstone Bridge Circuit, what is the meaning of a Balanced Bridge, how to calculate an unknown resistance using Wheatstone Bridge and also how an Unbalanced Wheatstone Bridge can be used to measure different physical quantities like Temperature and Strain.

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