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PRODUCT SHOWCASE World’s first integrated, portable compactPCI and PXI computer National Instruments have announced the imminent release of the world’s first completely integrated portable computer based on CompactPCI and PXI specifications. The PXI- 1025 MegaPac is intended for field test applications such as in-vehicle instrumentation, portable telecommunications tests and transportation system monitoring. It features compact size, rugged construction and completely integrated functionality with a flat-panel LCD, keyboard, pointing device and CD-ROM drive. It can run standard Windows NT or 98 software. With the wide variety of Comp-actPCI and PXI plug-in modules available, users can customise the PCI- 1025 to meet specific application demands. National Instruments supplies more than thirty different data acquisition, instrumentation, motion control, im- age acquisition, bus interface and industrial communications modules. Unlike other portable systems that use desktop PC mechanics, the PXI-1025 uses rugged Eurocard construction. Users can easily remove or replace controller and peripheral modules without having to remove the computer’s cover. For more information, contact National Instruments Australia, PO Box 466, Ringwood, Vic 3143. Phone (03) 9879 5166, fax (03) 9879 6277, email info.australia<at>natinst.com or via the National Instrument's website, www. natinst.com.au PLA Training from TAFE Hunter Institute of Technology, TAFE NSW’s largest regional education provider, has recently developed an innovative new training program in Programmable Logic Arrays. Programmable logic devices are semiconductor devices capable of synthesizing or copying and creating any logic control circuit. They can also be programmed to clone microprocessor circuits The training program will enable a technician to eliminate the time necessary to implement a circuit design from logic chips that contained only dedicated or pre-wired functions. It will also allow technicians and engineers to modify logic or fine-tune circuit designs without requiring any costly circuit board modifications. With programmable logic knowledge and skills the technician can design and implement working circuits at a considerably lower cost and requiring much less circuit board space than ever before. Hunter Institute of Technology’s training program has been developed by Electronic Engineering teachers Peter Jansen and Gary Brooker through close liaison with industry, who also provided significant technological support for the program. The course is offered in introductory and advanced levels and covers most of the device brands available on the market. It also provides after-training support. Courses for 1999 will commence in March and people wanting more information are invited to phone the course developer Peter Jansen of Hunter Institute ‘s Department of Electrical Engineering on 02 49237525 or email to peter.jansen<at> tafensw.edu.au Inverter for solar power applications Solar Energy Australia have released a high performance, competitively priced 1500 watt sine wave inverter. Intended for medium sized remote power application, the SEAP-24-1K5 inverter has a half hour rating of 1.8kW and a surge rating of 3.9kW. Continuous output is 240V, 6.25A AC, operating from an input of 21-32V DC. It is Y2K compliant, conforms to AS3100 wiring standards and the enclosure is IP20 rated. With a two year warranty, list price is $1995. For further information, contact Solar Energy Australia, 11/24 Stud Rd, Bayswater, Vic 3153. Phone (03) 9720 9399. AUDIO MODULES broadcast quality Manufactured in Australia Harbuch Electronics Pty Ltd 9/40 Leighton Pl. HORNSBY 2077 Ph (02) 9476-5854 Fx (02) 9476-3231 MARCH 1999  75 Help! CSIRO needs Aussie manufacturer The CSIRO Division of Building, Construction & Engineering (DBCE) provides research, consulting and testing services in many facets of the construction, engineering, utilities and transport industries. One of these is the Fire Testing & Assessment group which has developed comprehensive testing facilities, many of which are NATA registered, to undertake a wide range of tests for industry based on International (ISO), Australian (AS1530 etc.), British (BS 476, etc.), American (ASTM, UL, NFPA, FM), IMO and other standards. Most of the fire tests use type K thermocouples (in some cases up to 200 or so) for the test specimen and furnace temperature sensing, and datatakers for temperature recording and logging. Each fire test specimen may have a unique setup and is generally no longer than four hours duration, so there is a need for rapid thermocouple wiring up and disconnection from the datatakers. Some years ago they had some terminal panels constructed, consisting of twenty pairs of spring loaded terminals (similar to the old B&W TV antenna connectors) manufactured from type K Chromel and Alumel rod material and red and yellow plastic. In the near future the CSIRO is building new fire test laboratories and as part of the re-instrumentation want to use similar panels with 50 and 100 pairs of terminals on each. The total quantities are likely to be a thousand of each type, in a “high temperature” (105+°C) plastic. They’d like to hear from any Australian manufacturer that might be interested in assisting. Contact Jim Hooke, CSIRO Division of Building, Construction & Engineering Fire Testing & Assessments, PO Box 310, North Ryde, NSW, 1670. Phone: (02) 9490 5440; Fax: (02) 9490 5528 email: jim.hooke<at>syd.dbce.csiro.au 76  Silicon Chip Mono Surveillance Monitor A 12-inch monochrome monitor intended for video surveillance monitoring is available from Allthings Sales & Services in Perth. Housed in a commercial quality metal case, the mains-powered monitor has an 800 line horizontal resolution to provide crisp, high contrast images from single or multiple switched mono video cameras. There is a BNC video input and a loop-through video output socket together with a high/75 ohm terminating impedance switch, making the monitor suitable for a wide variety of video sources. The monitor weighs 9.4kg and is priced at $193. For more information, contact Allthings Sales & Services, phone (08) 9349 9413, fax (08) 9344 5905, or via their website at www.allthings.com.au 1500W 3-phase SCR for industrial heating The CBM3000 SCR burst power controller has been released by PCS. It is intended for use in industrial heating applications, particularly processes such as the heating of air in ventilation ducts where uniform temperature is required The SCR based unit can switch loads of up to 70 amps per phase and is supplied complete with heatsink, cooling fan and over temperature cut out. Semiconductor protection fuses are also included. Zero volt switching is standard. Temperature fluctuation caused by switching hysteresis is often found in systems using electromechanical contactors. By tightening the dead band of the temperature controller to reduce such fluctuation will result in premature contractor failure due to the excessive cycling. The CBM3000 gives a fast cycle pulse. This results in a near constant heater temperature for any given input which improves heater life by minimising thermal stress. For a data sheet or further information, contact Practical Control Solutions Pty Ltd, P.O Box 1052, Mount Waverly Delivery centre, Mount Waverly, VIC 3149. Phone (03) 9532 0869; Fax (03) 9532 0879. New QSC amplifier: 9kW! QSC’s new Powerlight 9.0PFC amplifier delivers over 1800W per channel into 8Ω and a massive 9kW into 4Ω in bridged-mono mode. Designed primarily to drive 2Ω sub-woofer loads, the amplifier is housed in a 450mm deep 3RU case and weighs 23kg. The amplifier features innovative power supply and output circuitry. Power factor correction (PFC) is said to lower peak AC current requirement by as much as 40% – always a critical issue for high power amplifiers whose extreme demands can easily exceed available supplies. Line and load regulation makes the amplifier’s peak power capacity insensitive to drops in supply voltage. High speed components and large die, N-channel MOSFETs plus a four-tiered DC supply yield efficiency comparable to class-D designs. A data port is included for amplifier monitoring and flow-through cooling with fully variable-speed fans keep heat under control. Special shrouded speaker terminals are used to handle the high power. Retail price is $14,495 (inc tax). QSC is distributed in Australia by Technical Audio Group, 558 Darling St, Balmain NSW 2041. Phone (02) 9810 5300, fax (02) 9810 5355, email sales<at>tag.au.com Micro-power instrumentation amp National’s DAQ Designer goes online Analog devices has released a micro-power instrumentation amplifier which offers superior performance in less space and a lower cost than discrete designs. The AD627 delivers rail-to-rail output swing on dual (+/-18V) and single (+2.2V) supplies. It draws only 85uA maximum and has excellent AC and DC specifications. Low voltage offset (200uV), offset drift (3uV/°C), gain error (0.1%) and gain drift (10ppm/°C) keep DC errors to a minimum. It is well suited to battery-operated applications and offers single resistor gain programming. As supplied, it has a gain of five but with an external resistor can be programmed for gains up to 1000. Much more information on the AD627 can be obtained from the Analog Devices website, www.analog. com or from the local distributors, Hartech Pty Ltd. National Instruments’ DAQ Designer configuration utility is now accessible to system developers at www.natinst.com/daq DAQ Designer Online is an interactive, easy-to-use tool that gives suggestions on how to efficiently build data acquisition systems and which products to use. Visitors to the web site are not required to download any software; they simply use the online utility which analyses the answers to questions about their application. DAQ Designer Online produces a summary report with recommendations on hardware and software. However, if they wish, users can download a personal copy of DAQ Designer from the site. For further information contact National Instruments Australia, PO Box 466, Ringwood, Vic 3134. Phone (03) 9879 5166, fax (03) 9879 6277; email info.australia<at>natinst.com - or visit the website above. Unlike large EPIRBs intended for use in boats and aircraft, the new GME MT310 EPIRB available through Dick Smith Electronics stores is specifically intended for personal use. It is small (155 x 66 x 25mm and 175g), it is low in cost (retails for $269) and it could mean the difference between being rescued or not rescued. Each person aboard an ocean-going yacht, for example, could have one of these attached to their life jacket or even clothing when on deck. The same applies to light plane pilots, remote-area travellers and even bushwalkers. Housed in a tough waterproof case, it is powered by a lithium battery with a storage life of up to ten years. When activated, the radio signal from an EPIRBs (emergency position indicating radio beacon) is received on the aviation and military distress frequencies and by satellite. The GME MT310 EPIRB is available from Dick Smith Electronics stores and dealers throughout Australia, or via mail order from Dick Smith Electronics Direct Link on 1300 366 644. AC Induction Motor Development Kit Hioki colour screen data recorder With a maximum of sixteen analog and sixteen digital channels, the Hioki 8841 Memory Recorder offers very fast sampling - 1MS/s even when simultaneously sampling all channels. Basic memory capacity is 12 bits per analog channel x 5000 kilo words per channel (for 16 analog channels) or x 4 mega words per channel (2 analog channels). It is ideally suited to such tasks as engine characteristic determination, electrical circuit analysis, circuit breaker maintenance, vibration analysis, machine monitoring and protection tasks such as ground fault detection in transmission lines. A 264mm colour TFT screen is provided with full on-screen help displays available. A floppy disc Personal EPIRB drive for storage of data in MS-DOS format and a PC-card slot suitable for SRAM card storage (maximum 32MB) or ATA/hard disc card (maximum 528MB) are also included. An optional MO drive (640MB storage) is available. Interfaces include RS-232 and GP-IB. For further information, contact Nilsen Technologies, 150 Oxford St, Collingwood, Vic 3066. Freecall 1800 623 350, freefax 1800 067 263. US corporations Analog Devics Inc and Applied Microelectronics Inc have an AC induction motor development kit for OEMs, said to easily create variable-speed AC motor control solutions and reduce time-to-market for DSP motor control applications. Using Analaog Devices’ new ADMC331 single-chip DSP motor controller, the MOTIONPRO DSP ADMC331 induction motor demonstration kit is available exclusively through Applied Microelectronics and is priced at $US1850. The kit includes a complete hardware and software system solution including a DSP development board, integrated power electronics, current sensing, techometer and a 1/5HP AC induction motor along with fully documented software, Further information is available through www.analog.com/ motorcontrol SC MARCH 1999  77