Top 5 Design Tools of the Week

by Melissa Fassbender, Associate Editor, PD&D

     

New 3D Scanner
The Artec Spider is an affordable, precise 3D scanner designed for CAD users.

• It scans with accuracy of up to 30 microns and resolution of up to 100 microns.
• It easily reconstructs thin ridges, sharp edges, and shiny objects.
• It weighs less than a kilo and captures up to 7.5 frames per second.
• It uses one USB port to a connect to a PC and requires no complicated calibration procedures or markers.

The company envisions this scanner on the desk of every engineer, product designer and inventor around the world. So it is light-weight, easy to use, and doesn’t have the limitations of previous 3D scanners which had trouble reconstructing sharp edges and shiny or black objects.

Starter Kit Accelerates Software Development
The DesignWare ARC EM Starter Kit has been designed to accelerate software development.
The starter kit is ready to use out of the box, so you can get a right to writing and debugging code and doing system analysis for ARC EM4 and EM6 processors. The kit is includes:

• A base board with a Xilinx Spartan FPGA module.
• Pre-installed FPGA images of the ARC EM4 and ARC EM6 processors with peripherals.
• A 4-channel 12-bit A/D converter.
• 128 MB DDR3 and 16 MB flash memory.
• USB interface and SD card slot.
• Pushbuttons, DIP switches, lots of connectors (Digilent Pmod Compatible).

The starter kit also incorporates a broad support package.

The HYREL 3D Printer
This 3D printer is brining childhood dreams to life with its ability to print Play-Doh, among other materials (listed below). The HYREL 3D printer uses various interchangeable, hot-swappable, extruders to print:

• Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS)
• Polylactic Acid (PLA)
• Clay, Air-Dry
• Clay, Plasticine

Every HYREL 3D ENGINE model printer comes with the following features standard:

• An 8 x 8 x 8" (200 x 200 x 200 mm) build area.
• Robust, all-metal chassis, powder-coated and anodized for durability and longevity.
• Precision linear slide rails, rated to 20,000 km each before the first manufacturer-suggested lubrication.
• Solid electronics, utilizing a 150 Mhz+ microprocessor.
• CANBUS built into our custom electronics for auto-syncing with the Interchangeable Hot-Swappable Hot-Head Extruders.

Programmable USB2 Controller Hubs
Seven New ICs Also Provide Advanced Battery Charging and I/O Bridging to Multiple Serial Protocols for Designers of PCs, Mobile Devices, Docking Stations, and Monitors
Microchip Technology has announced the expansion of the USB2 Controller Hub portfolio it gained from the recent SMSC acquisition. The 7 new UCH2 ICs across 3 families are the world’s first to provide programmability, enabling the developers of PCs and mobile devices to configure their designs without external memory. Features include:

• Support both USB2 and USB High Speed Interchip (HSIC) connectivity.
• A maximum battery life via low-power modes such as Link Power Management (LPM).

Development Board for Xtrinsic sensors
Newark element14 has announced the launch of its multi MEMS development board for Xtrinsic sensors, a low cost enablement solution that allows designers to easily understand and test the latest sensing technologies with a next generation accelerometer, pressure sensor, and a magnetometer to measure motion, altitude or pressure, detect magnetic fields, and determine physical position.
Key features of the multi MEMS development board for Xtrinsic sensors include:

• Xtrinsic MPL3115 high-precision pressure sensor
• Xtrinsic MAG3110 low-power 3D magnetometer
• Xtrinsic MMA8491Q 3-axis digital accelerometer
• FRDM-KL25Z Freescale Freedom Development Platform:
• ARM Cortex-M0+ MCU, up to 48 MHz
• 128 KB Flash, 16 KB SRAM

Shared from: http://www.pddnet.com/