This is only a preview of the April 2000 issue of Silicon Chip. You can view 33 of the 96 pages in the full issue, including the advertisments. For full access, purchase the issue for $10.00 or subscribe for access to the latest issues. Items relevant to "A Digital Tachometer For Your Car":
Items relevant to "RoomGuard: A Low-Cost Intruder Alarm":
Articles in this series:
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TRONICSHOWCASELECTRO
MicroZed Computers
GENUINE STAMP PRODUCTS
FROM
Scott Edwards Electronics
microEngineering Labs & others
Easy to learn, easy to use, sophisticated
CPU based controllers & peripherals.
PO Box 634, ARMIDALE 2350
(296 Cook’s Rd)
3990
FULL RANGE $
ELECTROSTATIC
Now you can afford the legendary clarity,
transparency, depth and precision of an
electrostatic speaker.
The new Vass ELS-5 is a full range electrostatic speaker, able to faithfully reproduce
frequencies from 40Hz-20kHz.
• 5 Year Warranty
• Wide range of custom finishes.
• Individually hand built & tested.
Ph (02) 6772 2777 – may time out to
Mobile 0409 036 775 Fax (02) 6772 8987
http://www.microzed.com.au
1/42-44 Garden Bvde, Dingley 3172
Pyramid subwoofer Ph 03 9558 0970 Fax 03 9558 0082
separately available
email: vass<at>hotkey.net.au
Most Credit Cards OK
NEW FROM
QUESTRONIX
DVS5
Video & Audio
Distribution
Amplifier
VGS2
Graphics
Splitter
DVS5 Video & Audio
Distribution Amplifier
Five identical Video and Stereo
outputs plus h/phone & monitor
out. S-Video & Composite versions
available. Professional quality.
VGS2 Graphics Splitter
High resolution 1in/2out VGA
splitter. Comes with 1.5m
HQ cable and 12V supply.
Custom-length HQ VGA
cables also available.
Check our NEW website for latest prices and
MONTHLY SPECIALS
www.questronix.com.au
www.quest.au.com
Email - questav<at>questronix.com.au
Video Processors, Colour Correctors, Stabilisers, TBC's, Converters, etc.
QUESTRONIX
All mail: PO Box 548, Wahroonga NSW 2076
Ph (02) 9477 3596 Fax (02) 9477 3681
Visitors by appointment only
SURPLUS
ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS
at CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP PRICES!
EMC Technologies' internationally
recognised Electromagnetic
Compatibility (EMC) test facilities are fully
accredited for emissions, immunity and
safety standards.
EMC Technologies
Melbourne: (03) 9335 3333
Sydney: (02) 9899 4599
ICs, LCD Displays,Transistors,
Diodes, Leds, Books, Connectors,
Switches, Transformers, Fans,
Relays, Speakers,Terminals,
Resistors, Buzzers, Leads, Knobs,
Batteries, Computer Accs. etc.
FOR A FREE MONTHLY MAILER PLEASE CONTACT
ROCOM
ELECTRONICS
STORE ADDRESS: 56 RENVER ROAD, CLAYTON VIC. 3168
POSTAL ADDRESS: BAG 620 CLAYTON SOUTH, VIC. 3169
PH (03) 9543 7877 FAX (03) 9543 4871
Email: sales<at>rocom.com.au
Do you want YOUR product
or service showcased to
Australasia's most important
electronics marketplace?
CALL ME: RICK WINKLER
on (02) 9979 5644
and let me explain how cost effective the
SILICON CHIP ELECTRONICS SHOWCASE
can be for YOU!
April 2000 59
PRODUCT SHOWCASE
Dual is back!
Jamo Australia has
recently been appointed
the Australian distributor
for the range of Dual turntables, made in Germany.
Dual, founded in 1900, is
celebrating 100 years of
manufacturing.
There are five models
in the DUAL range. The
midi size CS-400 retails
for $349. The ‘standard
width’ turntables start at
$499 retail for the CS-415,
a fully automatic, belt-driven model.
The CS-435, also a fully automatic
belt-driven model, sells for $599.00.
The next model up, the CS-455, is
supplied with an Ortofon cartridge and
will also play ‘78’ records. Available in
Low-cost DMM is
packed with features
gold or silver, it sells for $699.
The CS-505, now in its Mark 4 version, sells for $899 and is also supplied
with an Ortofon cartridge.
For more information, contact Jamo
Australia on (03) 9543 1522.
External case runs IDE drives from parallel port
Jaycar Electronics have recently
introduced a product which allows
any IDE device (hard disk drives,
CD-ROMs, Zip/Jazz drives, etc) to
be run outside the host computer
via its parallel printer port.
While removable drive drawers
for IDE devices have been available
for some time, they require access
to the internals of the computer, not
to mention a spare 5.25-inch drive
bay. This is a similar system, allowing various devices to be fitted, but
the computer does not have to be
opened. All that is required is connection to the parallel printer port
socket on the rear of the computer.
The existing printer cable then
plugs into the rear of the external
IDE box in “pass through” mode.
The box can stand horizontally
or vertically and suits half-height
5.25-inch devices, or 3.5-inch
devices with an optional 5.25 to
3.5 adaptor. It features an easily
removable tray so the device can
be mounted in a matter of seconds. Separate fascias are supplied
suiting both hard disk drives (as
photographed) or with a cut-out
82 Silicon Chip
to suit CD-ROM and other devices
with removable media.
The 270 x 210 x 60mm case has
its own 50 watt universal AC supply
and inbuilt cooling fan and comes
complete with all screws, connecting cables, plugs and sockets – even
down to twin RCA sockets for
CD-ROM audio outputs. A floppy
disk containing appropriate driver
software is also included.
The XC-4572 External IDE Expansion Enclosure sells for $179
and is available through any Jaycar
Electronics store, Jaycar mail orders
(phone 02 9743 5222 or www.jaycar.com.au) or most resellers.
A near-pocket-sized digital multimeter recently introduced by Altronics
Distributors would be a most suitable
choice for anyone
wanting to buy
their first digital
multimeter – and
for the more advanced student,
hobbyist, technician or professional looking
for a meter that
is packed with
features at a low
price.
The Q-1059
multimeter has
all the usual DC and AC ranges –
200mV to 600V DC, 200 to 500V AC,
2mA to 10A DC and five resistance
ranges to 20MΩ.
It also features diode testing, a continuity tester with buzzer, transistor
hFE and a temperature range with
K-type thermocouple supplied suitable for 0-250°C. A “hold” button in the
centre of the rotary selector freezes any
reading currently displayed.
The meter measures 135 x 70 x
35mm and is very comfortable in the
hand with its sculptured case.
Priced at $32.95 it represents very
good value for money, especially considering a thermocouple is supplied.
It is available from Altronics Distributors retail and mail order centre
at 174 Roe St, Perth WA 6000 (Phone
08 9328 1599, website www.altronics.
com.au) or through their authorised
resellers.
Test & measurement
brochure is free
The National Instruments Automated Test & Measurement Solutions brochure describes how test
management software, test programs,
instrument drivers and I/O interfaces
efficiently work together. Also included is information on several I/O inter-
PCB POWER
TRANSFORMERS
CCTV monitoring
system from DSE
The micromark CCTV Camera
System from Dick Smith Electronics is a fully self-contained camera
designed not only for indoor and
outdoor use but day and night
operation. With six infrared LEDs
to improve night-time vision and
a built-in microphone, the system
allows the user to not only watch
what is happening but listen as well.
A wide-angle 92° glass lens gives
a high quality picture. The system
includes the camera itself with a
17m screened cable, fully adjustable
mounting bracket, wall plugs, cable
clips and a 9V DC power adaptor.
Dual IGBT and
MOSFET gate driver
The new WSL2106 driver from
Westcode will drive two IGBTs as a
half bridge or as two independent
switches. The IGBTs are provided with
a ±15V and a 0-15V suppy in standard
version. Saturation of the IGBTs is
monitored and all logic inputs are of
the Schmitt trigger type. Input level
can be selected – 5V for HCMOS or
15V for CMOS. Error feedback can
be activated by the driver or by an
external signal.
For more information contact Westek Industrial Products Pty Ltd, Tel (03)
9369 8802, Fax (03) 9369 8006; website
www.westek.com.au
faces from Nation
al Instruments.
For your free
copy, call National Instruments
Aust on (03) 9879
1566, fax (03) 9879
6277, email info.
australia<at>ni.com
Website is www.ni.com/australia
1VA to 25VA
The system is available through
all Dick Smith Electronics stores,
mail order centre and PowerHouse
stores at a retail price of $199 (Cat.
L-5880). For further information
visit any store or the DSE website,
www.dse.com.au
Manufactured in Australia
Harbuch Electronics Pty Ltd
9/40 Leighton Pl. HORNSBY 2077
Ph (02) 9476-5854 Fx (02) 9476-3231
Power boards with a difference
Two new mains power devices from
PowerQwest will be of interest to
businesses, hobbyists and home users.
First is the Zapcatcher, a heavy-duty
power and telephone line filter intended for computers and peripherals, fax
machines and modems, shop cash
registers and POS terminals, and cordless phone and answering machines,
etc. Built into a 215 x 97 x 37mm case
and fitted with a 1.2m mains lead, it
has four standard 3-pin outlets along
with telephone line input and output
sockets (standard RJ-12 connectors).
The unit is designed to suppress
power line surges and spikes with a
peak rating of 6500A (8 x 20µs). An
indicator neon and LED show normal
operation, with a “strike” LED showing if the internal metal-oxide varistor
protection circuit has been damaged
by excessive surges. Fault conditions
in the power outlet are revealed by
another neon globe. A 10A circuit
breaker is also included to protect
against excessive loading. Maximum
loading is 2400W (10A).
There are also two large toroidal
inductors for mains-borne noise suppression and these give better than
40dB of noise rejection.
Second item is the Teleswitch, a
music muting system which automatically cuts power to any mains-operated device when the phone rings
and reconnects it when the call ends.
Similar in size to the Zapcatcher, it
also has spike suppression built in but
does not have the range of indicators.
Along with the four standard mains
outlets, this also has an IEC outlet
built in.
Only one of the four outlets is cut
off when the phone rings – presumably this would be the amplifier or
other audio source. All four outlets
have surge protection. A 10A thermal
circuit breaker is also included while
phone line connection is via standard
RJ-12 connectors
The Teleswitch is designed to work
with the normal analog phone network. It may not operate with some
PABX or digital phone systems.
The Zapcatcher3 and Teleswitch
are manufactured in New Zealand and
both carry Australian electricity and
Austel approval. They are available
from selected retailers throughout
Australia. Trade enquiries should be
directed to PowerQwest: phone (02)
9979 4811; fax (02) 9979 4833.
April 2000 83
80 minute minidisc and CD-R from TDK
TDK has released
new 80-minute versions
of its popular MiniDisc magneto-optical
recording media and
its audio recordable CD
(CD-R). The MiniDisc is
claimed to be more portable and durable than
either cassette tapes or
CD-R and is considered
to offer sound quality
comparable to CD and DAT.
TDK guarantees that the MiniDisc
is capable of more than one million
re-recordings due to its tough outer
polycarbonate resin coating.
To achieve the 80-minute playing
time, the track pitch was reduced while
still meeting the stringent specifications
of the format.
The 80-Minute
MiniDisk (MD-XG80)
sells for $7.95 at selected
TDK dealers.
The new recordable
CD offers six minutes
more recording time
than a conventional
recordable CD. It is designed specifically for
home recording but contains a pre-formatted table of contents
(TOC) and Serial Copy Management
System (SCMS) which inhibits making
copies from copies.
The CD-RXA80 is compatible with all
existing CD audio recorders. For more
information contact TDK on (02) 8437
0600 or visit www.tdk.com.au
Highly accurate
Hioki power meters
Hioki have introduced two new
“Power HiTesters” ideally suited
for the accurate evaluation of power
drawn by a large range of electrical
and electronic products, not only at
full power but also on stand-by.
They have applications in a wide
range of home, communication and
industrial electronic equipment.
The Hioki 3331 is for single and
3-phase use and can measure power
from as little as 7.5W single phase to
60kW, 3-phase, while the 3332 is for
single phase only and can measure
power from as low as 15mW to 120W.
Both instruments can measure line
voltage as high as 600VAC, line current
as high as 60A and active power, apparent power, reactive power, power factor and phase angle, accepting a wide
range of frequency inputs to 100kHz.
D/A outputs provide waveform data
which can be displayed on waveform
recorders.
For more information contact Nilsen
Technologies, freecall 1800 623 350,
freefax 1800 067 263.
New acquisition systems reduce testing times
The release of three new multi-channel data acquisition systems
from Acqiris promises to reduce test
times for applications that involve
high frequency electronic signals.
The Cougar systems, which are suited
to monitoring signals up to 500MHz
in frequency, deliver an exceptional
measurement throughput, reducing
test times by a factor of up to 10 when
compared to using conventional test
instrumentation (oscilloscopes, transient recorders, data loggers, etc.) or
VXI based test systems.
Typical applications include tele
communications, LIDAR, radar, auto84 Silicon Chip
motive, chemistry, computing, power
measurement, ultrasonics, mechanics,
physics, military and explosive-weapons and ballistics testing.
This Acqiris’ Cougar 2000 system
uses ultra-fast real-time digitiser
technology and offers four full channels each with 2GS/s sampling rate,
500MHz analog bandwidth and long
(up to 16 Mpoints) acquisition memories. Each channel input has a full
front-end buffer/amplifier that can
handle voltage ranges from 50mV
to 5V full scale, with 50Ω and 1MΩ
input loading, variable offset, internal
calibration (that allows 1% voltage
Mitsubishi’s tiny,
bright LCD projector
The new Mitsubishi LVP-X70U Multimedia LCD data projector might only
weigh 3.2kg but it offers a brightness
of 1100 ANSI lumens.
Distorted images caused by projecting images from the wrong angle have
been eradicated with the projector’s
digital keystone correction system. It
corrects the trapezoid effect within a
range of 15°.
High quality images with clear
definition are achieved with the projector’s “Cineview” line-doubler. It
stores the previous and next-image
fields and processes the signals with
extra motion detection to smooth out
horizontal and vertical lines for finer,
sharper moving images.
Mitsubishi claim the projection of
RGB and YMC colour spectra that are
equal to those of CRTs – and all six colours can be manually adjusted. Other
features include a built-in USB mouse
port, a laser pointer built into the
remote control and a long-life lamp.
Recommended retail price of the
projector is $8900 plus sales tax.
For more information contact Mit
subishi Electric on (02) 9684 7777 or
visit their website at www.mitsubishielectric.com.au
measurements), full input protection
and fast recovery from out-of-range
signals. Underneath the Cougar 2000
are the 1000 and 500 systems which
offer four channels with 1GS/s and
500MS/s sampling rates respectively.
The Cougar systems are housed in
small 6U CompactPCI crate (around
one-third the size of a regular benchtop oscilloscope) and come complete
with all necessary software and a highspeed CompactPCI to PCI interface that
boasts an impressive 100 Mbytes/s
transfer rate.
For more information, contact Acqiris Pty Ltd, phone (03) 9877 9322;
fax (03) 9849 0861; website www.
acqiris.com
Video stabiliser fixes jittery pix!
A recently
released Australian-made
video stabiliser is claimed
to be the best
available, offering features
not found on
any other model.
The VCS2 Stabiliser is made in
Australia by a new designer, Bamb! G
(pronounced Bambi-G) and is the first
in a new range of processors.
It has both S-video and composite
video inputs and outputs allowing
high levels of connectivity. Both outputs are available from either input but
if an S-video and composite video are
connected to the inputs, the composite
video signal takes precedence.
More importantly, though, the device stabilises the video signal and removes any non-standard components
in the signal. Conversion is undertaken
in a “perfect filter” – and one of the
features of this type of filter is that the
output signal is a completely standard,
rock-solid waveform. Any non-standard components of the video signal
which may have
been added along
the way – either
deliberately or
accidentally – are
removed, allowing a great deal
of versatility in
its use.
One application of the stabiliser is with video projectors and the
like which often fail to lock properly
on signals from a DVD player or other
device which has had proprietary components added. When fed through the
VCS2 Stabiliser the signal is returned
to standard video and video projectors
work perfectly.
Similarly, DVD signals can be fed
through the VCS2 Stabiliser and into
a VCR, allowing DVDs to be viewed on
any TV set, not just those with video
and audio inputs.
The Bamb! G VCS2 is currently
available from Questronix, Phone (02)
9477 3596, Fax (02) 9477 3681, with
more information on their website,
www.questronix.com.au Trade enquiries should be directed to Bamb!
G via email: bambi_g<at>bigpond.com
VCR springs ’n’ things from DSE
Every now and then, a product
comes along which makes you
think “finally!” We’re sure service
technicians, developers and even
many hobbyists will think exactly
the same about these VCR hardware assortments from Dick Smith
Electronics.
There are seven packs in the range
covering a myriad of the small parts
needed to repair VCRs (and many
other devices).
You’ll find compression springs,
tension springs, washers and circlips, screws . . . all labelled in handy
trays with see-through lids.
No more searching, no more
sorting to find that elusive spring
or washer!
Cat H-1670 pack contains 246
washers, circlips, springs and
screws and sells for $16.80. The
H-1671 pack has washers and
circlips only, selling for $15.50.
The H-1677 pack contains tension
springs and sells for $19.70 while
the H-1678 pack contains compression springs and also sells for $19.70.
Not shown are various drive belts:
Cat H-6016 contains 14 video drive
belts for $10.75; a set of 11 belts
for turntables (yes, that’s audio
turntables!) selling for $29.40 (Cat
H-6018) and the last pack is a set of
10 cassette player belts selling for
$6.70 (Cat H-6015).
The packs are available through
all Dick Smith Electronics stores
and most dealers, or through the
DSE mail order service or website
(www.dse.com.au).
SMART FASTCHARGERS®
2 NEW MODELS WITH OPTIONS
TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS & BUDGET
Now with 240V AC + 12V DC operation
PLUS fully automatic voltage detection
Use these REFLEX® chargers for all your
Nicads and NIMH batteries: Power tools
Torches Radio equip. Mobile phones
Video cameras Field test instruments
RC models incl. indoor flight Laptops
Photographic equip. Toys Others
Rugged, compact and very portable.
Designed for maximum battery capacity
and longest battery life.
AVOIDS THE WELL KNOWN MEMORY EFFECT.
SAVES MONEY & TIME: Restore most Nicads with
memory effect to capacity. Recover batteries with
very low remaining voltage.
CHARGES VERY FAST plus ELIMINATES THE
NEED TO DISCHARGE: charge standard batteries in
minimum 3 min., max. 1 to 4 hrs, depending on mA/h
rating. Partially empty batteries are just topped up.
Batteries always remain cool; this increases the total
battery life and also the battery’s reliability.
DESIGNED AND MADE IN AUSTRALIA
For a FREE, detailed technical description please
Ph (03) 6492 1368; Fax (03) 6492 1329; or
email smartfastchargers<at>bigpond.com
2567 Wilmot Rd., Devonport, TAS 7310
New Jaycar store for
Nth Queensland
Jaycar Electronics has opened a new
store in Townsville, Qld. Gary Johnston, Managing Director of Jaycar, said
that Jaycar was pleased to be a part of
this major administrative, defence and
education-based city.
The full range of Jaycar products
will be available including components, alarm systems, test equipment,
video surveillance, car audio, electrical and electronic tools, wire, cable
and accessories. “Jaycar is known
for its extensive range of electronic
hobbyist kits and these will also be a
feature of the new Townsville store,”
said Mr Johnston.
The store, employing up to five local staff, is located at 177 Ingham Rd,
West End, Townsville. Phone number
SC
is (07) 4772 5022.
April 2000 85
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