The Yocto-Thermocouple and ground loops

By martinm, in Measures, december 30,2016.

From time to time, a customer contacts Yoctopuce support to complain about significant instabilities on measures performed with a Yocto-Thermocouple. Each time, the conclusion is the same: the instabilities are the result of an unwanted ground loop. The Yocto-Thermocouple is not an electrically isolated module: there is no electric separation between the measuring part and the USB part. This has consequences that you must clearly understand. This is what we are going to explain this week.

Logging and retrieving measures without network access

By mvuilleu, in Tiny PC and Measures, december 02,2016.

Even in the Internet of Things era, there are automation and measuring applications that require to work in a completely autonomous way, without any network connection of any kind. Someone asked us recently how to implement such an autonomous data logger using our sensors. The system should not require any network connection but use a USB key to retrieve the data. We are going to cover this example in details and at the same time take this opportunity to test a relatively new mini-computer that we recently discovered...

Measuring outside air quality

By mvuilleu, in Measures, october 21,2016.

There is no magical sensor able to measure air quality in any circumstance: for each environment, you must select the appropriate sensor. We have already presented in this blog some ways to evaluate inside air quality, in particular to detect stale air because of CO2. We also talked about sensors that you can use to detect toxic or foul smelling gases, used in particular in the industry. Today, we address how to measure the quality of outside air, that is, the air that everyone breathes daily.

Calibrating a Yoctopuce sensor

By seb, in Measures and Programming, october 16,2016.

Generally, we always try to use sensors which do not require any calibration. But, in some cases, we cannot work around this step, in particular if you need to compensate an external perturbation. All the Yoctopuce sensors have the possibility to automatically apply a correction to the value returned by the sensor. Let's see how it works.

Accelerometers and gyroscopes: fantasy vs. reality

By mvuilleu, in Measures, september 30,2016.

The widespread use of game controllers and augmented reality tools based on accelerometers and gyroscopes raises many ideas for applications. However, some of these applications are more a fantasy than a reality, as enthusiasm sometimes makes us forget some basic physical principles. So, here is a little reminder to help you avoid cruel deceptions...