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Ember Coffee Mug Virtual TeardownVirtual Teardown When I saw the original advertisement for the Ember coffee mug, I was drawn to it like a Seattleite to a Starbucks. I knew that I had to get one and would then inevitably spend my weekend trying to figure out precisely how it works. The Ember travel mug is a $… |
October 1, 2020 at 1:24 PM by Darrell |
Out of the Box and Into the Cloud, for Component Suppliers!You've poured brilliant engineering ideas and tremendous design effort into your products, so they can have valuable features that are useful in broad applications. Yet these are not always well understood by your customers. Your work isn’t finished until the customer "gets it… |
September 9, 2020 at 10:33 AM by Mike Donnelly |
Got Current Spikes? Soft-Saturation Inductors to the Rescue!Design requirements often focus on steady-state performance and operating conditions. Component sizing and ratings selection, if based solely on meeting these objectives, can lead to unexpected and sometimes catastrophic results. Parts may be most severely stressed during transients that occur… |
May 26, 2020 at 7:04 PM by Mike Donnelly |
Managing PWM Waveforms, Part 1 - Data ReductionThis is the first part of a three-part series on special handling of PWM waveforms. The first two parts deal with the large amount of data involved. The last part deals with precise characterization in the presence of switching cycle “noise.” I am honored to post this article, which was… |
February 20, 2020 at 12:05 PM by Mike Donnelly |
Electro-Hydraulic Component Modeling and System SimulationThe PartQuest Explore Team is happy to announce that we’re adding new models to support electro-hydraulic system development. We’ve recently added basic hydraulic elements, such as a pump, valve and cylinder (or linear actuator). We will be adding many more models in the near future, but the… |
February 3, 2020 at 6:56 AM by Mike Donnelly |
Is it a Wire or a Transmission Line?Question: When is a wire or cable a transmission line? Answer: When it is long enough that the propagation delay gives a significant phase shift at frequencies within the bandwidth of the distributed system. In other words, if the delay impacts the dynamics of interaction between the source and… |
January 27, 2020 at 9:25 PM by Mike Donnelly |
Need To Tune-Up Your Network Signal Quality? Now You CAN (FD)!Ever since the CAN specification was released many decades ago, designers have pushed their network configurations beyond the conservative limits of the standard, driven by manufacturablity, customization flexibility and other non-technical reasons. With thorough engineering analysis, including… |
January 27, 2020 at 9:15 PM by Mike Donnelly |
Controlling Motors with the Talon SRXDo you struggle to understand how to use the Talon SRX controller effectively? What is PID and PIDF? How does feedback control work? What is feed-forward control? How are values of P, I, D, & F determined? How is the new Talon SRX "motion profile" feature supposed to be used… |
January 27, 2020 at 8:54 PM by Darrell |
Mechatronics Engineers … Start Your Motors!The PartQuest Explore Team is happy to announce that we’re adding many models to support motor and control systems development. We’ve recently added a new PMSM (Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine) model, and updated our Induction Motor model. We will be adding Stepper and SRM (Switched Reluctance… |
January 27, 2020 at 8:45 PM by Mike Donnelly |
Sensor Modeling and Signal Conditioning Circuit Design for Mechatronic SystemsPartQuest Explore provides a great design platform for sensor signal conditioning circuits, as well as for verifying sensor systems in the context of their external applications. A key feature PartQuest Explore that makes this possible is the ability to create a “just right” model of the sensor… |
January 27, 2020 at 8:25 PM by Mike Donnelly |
Motion Control Design: Frequency Response Modeling of a Flexible StructureA versatile and effective modeling capability is available in our HyperLynx product family. It uses complex-pole fitting to extract simulation-ready models from measured frequency response data. This can be useful in a wide range of engineering design applications, from system level transfer… |
January 27, 2020 at 8:24 PM by Mike Donnelly |
TDFS Part 3 – Impedance Measurement for Switching Converters and Power System Stability AnalysisIn this final installment of my series on TDFS (Time Domain Frequency Sweep) analysis, I’ll focus on measuring impedance vs. frequency. I’ll first demonstrate the method by showing the measurement of input impedance for a switching power converter. Then I’ll extend that method to… |
January 27, 2020 at 8:02 PM by Mike Donnelly |
Solving the Problems with Modeling Fuel CellsThe Problem With Fuel Cell Models Darrell Teegarden www.linkedin.com/in/darrellteegarden Performing a web search for "fuel cell model" returns an encouraging number of hits. When these are pursued, however, it is difficult to find the result that many engineers are looking for -- a… |
January 27, 2020 at 6:55 PM by Darrell |
Need a Power Fairy? You Need Coordinated Electrical and Thermal Design!A colleague of mine, a thermal design engineer, once made a comment that I’ll never forget. I was simulating a power electronics circuit and I placed a scope probe on a transistor model and plotted the power dissipation. Its value was of course changing over time, as the circuit’s… |
January 27, 2020 at 8:13 AM by Mike Donnelly |
Get the Heat Out! … Electronic-Thermal Design ModelingWe have recently added a number of new electro-thermal models to our Component Library. These models represent devices that are either temperature sensing/control elements, or electronic components that dissipate significant power and may require thermal analysis. These models include: Peltier… |
January 21, 2020 at 8:24 PM by Mike Donnelly |
This is the first part of a three-part series on special handling of PWM waveforms. The first two parts deal with the large amount of data involved. The last part deals with precise characterization in the presence of switching cycle “noise.” I am honored to post this article, which was created by one of our talented community members, a modeling and simulation expert and my friend, Norm Elias.
We have recently added a number of new electro-thermal models to our Component Library. These models represent devices that are either temperature sensing/control elements, or electronic components that dissipate significant power and may require thermal analysis. These models include:
In this final installment of my series on TDFS (Time Domain Frequency Sweep) analysis, I’ll focus on measuring impedance vs. frequency. I’ll first demonstrate the method by showing the measurement of input impedance for a switching power converter. Then I’ll extend that method to analyze the “impedance stability” of a distributed power system. Power systems may include many DC to DC converters, some acting as sources and other as loads.
Question: When is a wire or cable a transmission line?
Do you struggle to understand how to use the Talon SRX controller effectively? What is PID and PIDF? How does feedback control work? What is feed-forward control? How are values of P, I, D, & F determined? How is the new Talon SRX "motion profile" feature supposed to be used?
If these are your questions, this blog is for you.
Many of you have asked us to provide an easy way to analyze waveforms in SystemVision Cloud. Well, the wait is over!
Watch this short video to see what you can do with these new Waveform Analysis Tools.
Stability is an essential quality of most practical circuits and systems. A traditional stability metric for closed-loop control systems is gain and phase margin, based-on the open-loop transfer function (OLTF) or frequency response. A special physical measurement technique for obtaining the OLTF of an operating closed-loop system, pioneered by Dean Venable* in the 1980s, involves injecting a small sinusoidal stimulus in series with the loop, and measuring the absolute signal levels at the injection site.
PartQuest Explore provides a family of measurement models that perform “Time Domain Frequency Sweep” (TDFS) analysis. They measure the frequency response of many circuits and systems for which traditional “AC” or frequency-domain simulation is not possible. This includes:
PartQuest Explore is designed to work with the Mentor PADS PCB tools. If you have the PADS PCB tools, you can install an import tool into the schematic capture environment. Using this import tool, you can login with your PartQuest Explore account, from within the schematic environment, browse for your online designs, and import them into a PADS schematic.
For an overview of this capability, visit the PartQuest Explore PADS AMS Cloud page.
In my previous blog, “Mechatronics Engineers … Start Your Motors”, I mentioned that we were working on two additional motor types, a Switched Reluctance Machine (SRM) and a Stepper Motor. I’m now happy to report that they have been added to our component library, under the category Magnetic and Electro-mechanical.
While working from home, a PCB designer may not have access to expensive power supplies to test fairly simple boards. By using low-noise linear voltage regulators, you can create a customizable power supply using 9 different voltages, ranging from 2.5 to 15 V. The power supply is equipped with an AC to DC converter, making it transportable for the do-it-all engineer. With easy access to this adjustable power supply, you do not need gigantic power supplies to complete your testing.
The simulation model of the Adjustable Power Supply is shown below:
We are pleased to announce that PartQuest Explore now supports import of SPICE subcircuits and individual ".model" statements as a way to specify a model for use in the PartQuest Explore Design Analyzer. Simply choose the Create New Component > From SPICE menu when you are editing a design.
Watch this short video to see a demonstration:
Simply right-click and choose "Add Favorite"
Learn how to access:
The PartQuest Explore Team is happy to announce that we’re adding new models to support electro-hydraulic system development. We’ve recently added basic hydraulic elements, such as a pump, valve and cylinder (or linear actuator). We will be adding many more models in the near future, but the examples shown in this blog demonstrate the broad range of electro-hydraulic motion and fluid control systems that are already supported.
Students around the world are using PartQuest Explore circuit simulation in their classwork. And, to everyone’s benefit, they are posting their designs for everyone to view. We invite you to join them!
Many have observed that as a rechargeable battery is discharged the voltage that it supplies drops. Conversely, when it it recharged, the output voltage goes back up. Wouldn't it be nice if you could measure this voltage, as a function of the state-of-charge (SOC), and use it to quickly make an accurate model for the battery? This blog will show you how to do just this with PartQuest Explore.
The PartQuest Explore Team is happy to announce that we’re adding many models to support motor and control systems development. We’ve recently added a new PMSM (Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine) model, and updated our Induction Motor model. We will be adding Stepper and SRM (Switched Reluctance Motor) models in the very near future. Continuous control algorithm blocks that support field oriented control (FOC), such as Clarke and Park transforms, have also been added. Some of these are shown in the design example below.