Monthly Archives: April 2017

Networked Storage with the Raspberry Pi

With memory going cheap, almost everyone has a plethora of high-capacity hard disks lying around. Networking them makes it super convenient for use, as you can access files from any computer, even if they are remote. However, this can be an expensive proposition, unless you are using a convenient single board computer such as the Raspberry Pi (RBPi).

The RBPi can be used to create a very cheap NAS setup with a few hard drives connected to a network and accessible from anywhere. Apart from the hard drive itself, you will need an RBPi. Although models 1 and 2 may work just fine, they may not be able to provide enough power to operate some hard disk drives. In this context, the RBPi3 offers better support, but you will still be limited to 100 Mbps via its Ethernet, and USB 2.0. However, using a powered USB hub for powering the external hard drives may be another alternative.

You will need to install the operating system for the RBPi on to an 8 GB micro SD card. Use the OpenMediaVault OS, by downloading it from here. Format the SD card to FAT32, and write the image of the downloaded and extracted OS to the SD card.

Now connect peripherals to the RBPi and its power supply. Initially, you will need a keyboard, a monitor, and a local network connection via Ethernet. Power up the RBPi and allow it to complete the initial boot process.

Once completed, you can use the default web interface credentials to sign in—use admin as the username and openmediavault as the password. The login will give you the IP address of the RBPi, and for subsequent log-ins, you will no longer need the monitor and keyboard connected to the RBPi.

At this stage, you can connect the storage devices to the RBPi. On another computer, on the same network, open a web browser and enter the IP address of the RBPi. Enter the same credentials in the web interface that appears, and you will reach the web interface for the OpenMediaVault. This will bring you to the navigation menu.

To get your NAS online, you first need to mount the external drives. In the navigation menu, clicking on File Systems under Storage will allow you to locate your storage drives under the Devices column. Click on one drive to select it and click Mount. Now click Apply to confirm the action. Repeat the steps to mount additional drives.

You will also need to create a shared folder to allow other devices on the network to access the drives. Finally, to allow an external computer on the network share the folders and drives, you must enable SMB/CIFS from Services in the navigation menu. Next, click on the Shares tab and Add the created folders one by one. For each, click Save.

Now that the NAS is up and running, you can access the drives from another computer by mapping them. To access them, the RBPi will ask for login credentials. By default, these are pi as the username and raspberry for the password.

Python Libraries for Machine Learning

Machine learning helps with many practical applications, suitably augmented by deep learning and with extensions of the overall field of artificial intelligence. Many people, with the help of analytics and statistics, are busy navigating the vast universe of deep or machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data. However, they do not really have to qualify as data scientists, as popular machine learning libraries in Python are available.

Machine learning is promoting deep learning and AI for all kinds of machine assists, including driverless cars, better prevention healthcare, and even better movie recommendations.

Theano

A machine-learning group at the Universite de Montreal developed and released Theano a decade ago. In the machine learning community, Theano is one of the most used mathematical compiler for CPUs and GPUs. A 2016 paper describes Theano as a “Python framework for fast computation of mathematical expressions,” and offers a thorough overview of the library.

According to the paper, development of several software packages build on the strengths of Theano, offering higher-level user interface, making them more suitable for specific goals. For instance, expressing training algorithms mathematically and evaluating the architecture of deep learning models using Theano became easier with the development of Keras and Lasagne.

Likewise, a probabilistic programming framework PyMC3, using Theano, derives expressions automatically for gradients. PyMC3 also generates C-codes for fast execution. That people have forked Theano over two-thousand times, it has almost 300 contributors on GitHub, and it garners more than 25,000 commits, is testimony to its popularity.

TensorFlow

Although a newcomer to the world of open source, TensorFlow is a library for numerical computing and uses data flow graphs. In its first year itself, TensorFlow has helped students, artists, engineers, researchers, and many others. According to the Google Developers Blog, TensorFlow has helped with preventing blindness in diabetes, early detection of skin cancer, language translation, and more.

TensorFlow has appeared several times in the most recent Open Source Yearbook. It has been included as a project in the list of top ten open source projects to watch in 2017. In a tour of Google’s 2016 open source releases, an article by Josh Simmons refers to Magenta, a TensorFlow based project.

According to Simmons, Magenta advances the technology in machine intelligence for music and art generation. It also helps build a collaborative community of coders, artists, and researchers dealing with machine learning. According to another researcher, Rachel Roumeliotis, she lists TensorFlow as a language for powering AI as a part of her roundup of Hot programming trends of 2016.

Anyone can learn more about TensorFlow by watching the live stream of recording from the TensorFlow Dev Summit 2017, or by reading the DZone series—TensorFlow on the Edge.

Scikit-Learn

Spotify engineers at okCupid use Scikit-Learn for recommending music, for helping evaluate and improve their matchmaking system, and for exploring phases of new product development at Birchbox. Scikit-Learn is built on Matplotlib, SciPy, and NumPy. It has 800 contributors on GitHub, and garners almost 22,000 commits.

The Scikit-Learn project website offers free tutorials, where one can read about using Scikit-Learn for machine learning. Alternately, they can watch the PyData Chicago 2016 talk given by Sebastian Raschka.

Super Efficient Diamond Batteries from Nuclear Waste

So far, we have been dumping our dangerous nuclear waste into oceans or deep inside the earth, hoping they will stay there. Now, there is a better way out. Scientists are now confident they can use nuclear waste as a source of energy to convert radioactive gas into diamonds of the artificial type, not as jewelry, but to be used as batteries.

Scientists claim the diamonds can generate their own electrical current. As they are made of radioactive material with long half-life, the batteries could potentially provide power for thousands of years. According to Tom Scott, a geochemist from the University of Bristol in the UK, the batteries will simply produce direct current, without emissions, and without requiring any moving parts or maintenance.

The radioactive material, encapsulated within a diamond, will turn the long-term problem of handling nuclear waste into a nuclear powered battery producing a long-term supply of clean energy. As a demonstration of their claims, Scott’s team has developed a prototype diamond battery using an unstable isotope of Nickel-63 as its source of radiation.

The half-life of Nickel-63 is approximately 100 years. That means after 100 years, the prototype battery would still be retaining about 50 percent of its original charge. However, the scientists claim they have an even better source for making these batteries. They want to use the huge quantities of nuclear waste generated and stockpiled by UK.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, the first generation of Magnox nuclear reactors in the UK used graphics blocks to sustain nuclear reactions. However, the graphite blocks turned radioactive and generated an unstable carbon isotope, the Carbon-14.

Although UK had retired the last of these Magnox reactors by 2015, the decades of power generation has left a huge amount of nuclear byproduct as waste—nearly 95,000 tons of radioactive graphics blocks need to be safely stored and monitored.

Additionally, as Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years, UK may have to take care of this dangerous waste for a long, long time. However, it also means this material could be used to make batteries that last an amazingly long time—provided scientists could repurpose them into the diamond structure, just as they did with Nickel-63.

Carbon-14 emits only short-range radiation, one quickly absorbed by any nearby solid material. According to Neil Fox, one of the researchers, although touching or ingesting Carbon-14 would be dangerous, encasing it within diamond would prevent any short-range radiation from escaping. Moreover, diamond would offer the ultimate protection, as it is the hardest substance known to man.

The team presented their ideas at a lecture at the University of Bristol, but has yet to publish their research. The researchers claim that although Carbon-14 batteries would be good for low-power applications, their endurance would be on an entirely different scale.

For instance, an alkaline battery weighing 20 grams has an energy density of 700 Joules/gram, giving a life of 24 hours of continuous usage.

On the other hand, a diamond battery with 1 gram of C-14 will deliver only 15 Joules per day. However, it will continue to produce this level of output for more than 5,730 years—giving a total energy density of 2.7 TeraJoules/gram.

Explosion and Damage Proof High Energy Density Batteries

We seem to spend a major part of our waking life charging batteries of our smartphones, laptops, watches, wearables, and more. Although most of our gadgets work at lightning speeds, one common frustrating weakness lingers on—the batteries. Of course, they have improved tremendously in the last fifty years, yet they have retained characteristics such as being toxic, expensive, bulky, finicky, and most maddeningly, short-lived. The quest for a super battery does not end with smartphones alone, rather it continues with electric cars and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, holding the keys to a greener future.

Mike Zimmerman, a Professor at the Tufts University just outside Boston, and his team have created what they claim is the next generation of the Lithium-ion battery. The main characteristic of this new type of battery is it is safe to power up cars, phones, and other gadgets.

The current breed of Lithium-ion batteries relies on a liquid electrolyte between their positive and negative electrodes. When hit or pierced, the leaking liquid electrolyte makes the battery vulnerable to fire or even explosion. The Galaxy Note 7 phones from Samsung aptly demonstrated this—it had spontaneously exploding batteries that would catch fire as the battery casing caused one of the electrodes to bend, increasing the risk of short circuits.

However, Zimmerman’s battery won’t explode or catch fire even if most of it has been chopped away. Rather, it will continue to power the device. It will endure repeated damage without risk of fire or explosion, thanks to its solid electrolyte.

Besides being the Holy Grail for safe batteries, solid electrolytes can hold more charge for a given volume compared to what the liquid electrolytes can. The solid plastic electrolyte developed by Professor Zimmerman does not allow the formation of dendrites—tendrils of Lithium that originate from the electrodes and spread throughout the electrolyte—that cause the dangerous short-circuits.

Other researchers have been looking at charging times for batteries and trying to speed up the process. Rather than improve the charging times for Lithium-ions, scientists have been experimenting with different types of batteries, and claim to have hit success with batteries made from Aluminum foil.

Although research on Aluminum batteries has continued for years, most prototypes were incapable of withstanding more than a few dozen charges, before they lost their potency. Most cellphones, on the other hand, sustain more than a thousand charge cycles before their capacity deteriorates.

The Aluminum foil batteries can sustain a staggering 7,000 charge cycles. They are also safe—researchers could drill a hole into the battery while it was operating, and unlike a Lithium-ion battery, the Aluminum battery did not explode. However, Aluminum batteries are not yet ready for the market, as they are heavier than Lithium-ion batteries of the same capacity.

The researchers used a solution of Aluminum Trichloride dissolved in an organic solvent containing Chlorine. Although the Aluminum atom has three electrons in its outer shell, the present chemistry utilizes only one of them. Lithium atoms also do the same, as they have only one electron in their outer shell. However, Lithium atoms are only one-third as heavy as the Aluminum atoms.

Raspberry Pi to Displace the Business PC

For a business establishment, maintaining PCs for each of their several hundred employees can be an expensive proposition. It is much simpler and cheaper to have a centralized workstation with several thin clients connecting to it. The ubiquitous single board computer, the Raspberry Pi (RBPi) is a suitable component for use as such a thin client.

As the low cost of the Raspberry Pi makes it a very attractive proposition for use as a thin client computer, Citrix is offering an HDX Ready Pi to replace the regular desktop PC. They are coupling the RBPi with virtual desktops such as the Citrix XenDesktop and the XenApp virtual apps. The combination is an ideal replacement for the traditional desktop PC and its IT refresh cycle.

At the heart of the project are two thin client operating systems, ThinLinX and TLXOS, based on Raspbian, the default OS for the Raspberry Pi. These provide the image for the RBPi and include the client and management software. Citrix is making use of these to instill an HDX SoC Receiver SDK within the securely locked-down Linux OS and the SDK provides full device management for updating firmware, remote configuration, and DHCP, making the RBPi a completely plug-n-play device.

Available fully assembled and ready-to-order from Citrix partners ViewSonic and Micro Center, the HDX Ready Pi thin-clients come preloaded with all the necessary software, power supply, flash storage, VESA mount option, all packaged in a production case. Any IT administrator can deploy these thin-clients in a matter of seconds.

Apart from being just a cheap PC alternative, these RBPI thin-clients offer businesses several new business paradigms. For instance, businesses now need not pay a premium for security and management of all their PCs, and they can expand their number of users to cover the entire organization.

The Citrix HDX Ready Pi is easy to set up. As it is small, distribution is simplified and employees can connect it up to an available display and be productive in a matter of minutes. IT can configure the management software, recognize the HDX Ready Pi in the network, take control of it, and point it automatically to the correct Citrix Storefront server. The user can then run any instant virtual app with desktop access.

As the RBPi thin-clients have no hard disks to fail, there is also no data and time wasted in diagnosing device problems. This eliminates all desk-side support, as any issue can be solved simply by swapping the device.

The low cost of thin-clients also eliminates treating them as trackable financial assets. Businesses can rather consider the Citrix HDX Ready Pi as non-capitalized office expenses, providing a compelling situation to virtualize remote branch offices all over the world.

As there is no provision to store or cache corporate data, businesses can safely distribute the HDX Ready Pi among employees for occasionally working from home over Wi-Fi or for teleworking. Employees can take the device home and use it safely for remote access.

Although the Citrix HDX Ready Pi has a Kensington lock slot, its low cost makes physical security almost a non-issue. Moreover, as the device is purpose-built for Citrix, it can be safely used as a pervasive computing device in an office campus or in public spaces.

Volumio for the Raspberry Pi

When you search for a networked stand-alone audio player with a touch screen, most likely chances are you will only find big consumer grade amplifiers. Those with network support may not have a touch screen or else may be very expensive. Most disappointing will be those having an issue with space and mobility. The best way out of this dilemma is to build one with the famous single board computer, the Raspberry Pi (RBPi).

You must start with an application that works on the RBPi. You can already find good quality DACs on the market. The makers of the application Volumio have used PCM1794A, the DAC from Texas Instruments with good results. As this is a 24-bit device, it can handle sample rates up to 200 KHz, and offers an 8x oversampling filter built-in.

The PCM1794A requires two voltages for proper functioning. It needs the 3.3 V for its digital part and the 5 V for its analog part. Although it seems possible to use the two voltages available on the GPIO expansion connector, the noise present on these voltages precludes their use for the DAC. Another possibility would be use the power supply for the DAC to power the RBPi. However, that is also not advisable, as this would mean degrading the power supply of the DAC. Therefore, the two devices need two distinctly different DC adapters.

For the I/V converter, another voltage is necessary and this has to be a negative voltage. The designers derived the negative voltage using the LM27761 IC, a special switched capacitor low-noise regulated voltage inverter. The IC is extremely small, only 2 x 2 mm, and operates at 2 MHz, introducing very little noise into the circuit.

Both the 5 V and 3.3 V required by the DAC are generated by ultra-low-noise positive linear regulators of the typeTPA7A4700 and TPS7A4901. Voltage dividers made by two resistors fix the output voltage, one pair for the 5 V and the other for the 3.3 V. A Schottky diode protects the input to the power supply against reverse polarity—it drops only 0.3 V from the single power supply of 7-8 V.

The 3.5-inch display goes above the Audio DAC. If necessary, use two standard-size stacking headers to place the display higher to clear the components. This will place the 25-way socket of the display above the Audio DAC PCB.

Performance

Plotting the amplitude of the output as a function of frequency shows the cut-off frequency at about 63.5 KHz. The total harmonic distortion plus noise was measured as a function of frequency with sampling rates of 48, 96, and 192 KHz shows it to be far lower than the acceptable limits—at 0.0007%. Although the RBPi generates several spurious frequencies that are just visible, the level for the fundamental frequencies is very low at -120 dB (1 µV). Those for the second and third harmonics are barely visible.

Various FFT analysis of a 16-bit, 1 KHz full-scale sine wave at different sampling rates shows the harmonic distortion to be far below the acceptable levels— at 0.002%. All these measurements show this tiny board to offer a great audio experience.

QSCR: Using A Wireless Hotspot To Charge Your Phone

Using the smartphone is always a pleasant experience, until the charge runs out. The only option left is to plug the phone into a charging arrangement, usually a mains-operated power supply that connects to the phone by a USB cable. The main disadvantage of this method is it limits the freedom of mobility of the phone until it is charged up again. That leaves people to wonder as to how long before smartphones could be charged wirelessly same as everyone uses Wi-Fi to link to the Internet.

Now, researchers at Disney Research have done the inevitable. They have discovered a method of charging electronic gadgets without using any type of cords or cradles. Not only can you charge a number of electronic devices through Wi-Fi anywhere in your room, you could simultaneously power fans, cellphones, and lights as well.

Quasistatic Cavity Resonance (QSCR), as the Disney researchers have named the technology, has been tested successfully during recent trials. The researchers generated near-field standing magnetic fields within a closed space. Filling a 16-ft. x 16-ft. room, these field waves were able to charge standard electronic gadgets within the room. However, the room needed to have special properties, such as metalized walls, floor, and ceiling.

Within this metal room, the scientists could generate magnetic waves suitable for charging several smartphones, glow a few lamps, and operate fans at the same time. In total, they transmitted about 1.9 KW of power, sufficient to charge about 320 smartphones simultaneously.

The trial has established that the innovative method has the capability to transfer electrical power as easily as Wi-Fi does. According to Alanson Sample, this could help power new applications for small mobile devices such as robots, as they would not need battery replacements or charging wires. Alanson is the principal research scientist and associate lab director at Disney Research.

Although the demonstration used room-scale wireless power, Alanson informs it could easily be scaled up to the size of a warehouse or down to the size of a toy chest.

Although wireless charging is not a new idea, it has always been a long-standing dream for many. In 1890s, Nicola Tesla had already demonstrated wireless lighting systems and proposed ideas of long distance power transmission without wires. However, none of that ever came into existence.

So far, transmitting power wirelessly has been accomplished only for short distances, mostly for charging stands or pads. However, the new technology, QSCR, will help to increase the transmission distance to many times over.

Once the researchers channeled electric power through the metalized walls, ceiling, floor of the room using the Quasistatic Cavity Resonance technique, there was enough uniform and strong magnetic fields inside the room. Receiving coils designed to intercept these magnetic field resonate at the same frequency because of capacitors placed across the coils. The induced currents within these coils can transfer the power at low frequencies to any device containing the receiving coils within the device. Making a room metalized is also not difficult, as it requires only a thin metallic coating on the walls.

RX300 – The Windows 10 Thin Client with the Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi (RBPi) has no hard disk, is stateless, and can work as a desktop terminal, which makes it an ideal candidate for use as a thin client. It connects to the data center for all its applications, sensitive data, memory, and runs a Remote Desktop Protocol such as the Windows Terminal Services.

That makes the RBPi a virtual desktop computing model, as it runs virtualization software, and accesses hard drives in the data center. Thin client computing has thin clients, software services, and backend hardware as its components.

Users can use thin clients as a replacement for a PC to access any virtual desktop or virtualized application. This is a cost-effective way to create a virtual desktop infrastructure. NComputing is using the RBPi as a thin client, named as RX300, to access the Windows 10 desktop.

A central machine runs the NComputing vSpace Pro 10 desktop virtualization software, and streams several Windows desktops, including Windows 10. The virtualization software allows the centrally managed Windows desktop to be run on hundreds of RX300 clients.

According to NComputing, the vCAST streaming technology it uses for full-screen playback can do full HD as local or web video on the RX300s. This precludes the central server from needing a dedicated GPU. Once you buy the RX300, an automatic free subscription to the vSpace Pro 10 technology automatically kicks in, but only for twelve months.

Each RX300 is an RBPi 3 model B with four USB 2 ports. They have full USB redirection and server-side device drivers that offer support for a complete range of peripherals. While running the official Linux-based Raspbian Operating System, each RBPi RX300 runs as a thin client and accesses a virtual Windows 10 desktop.

According to NComputing, the RX300 thin clients are simple to configure and receive updates from the vSpace Pro 10 servers. The CEO of NComputing, Young Song says they selected the RBPi 3 as the base for its thin clients as the board is affordable and portable.

From its vSapce Pro 10, NComputing streams a Windows desktop to a single client. For streaming desktops to several clients simultaneously, vSpace Pro 10 must be running on the Windows Server 2016 or similar. Therefore, the user will also need to purchase appropriate licenses to access the Microsoft clients.

The price per seat of a thin client deployment has now dropped and they are more cost-effective as compared to regular PCs. By using RBPis as thin clients, this claim is a definite reality.

Several industries and enterprises are now switching over to thin clients. They may have different requirements, but all share a few common goals. IT personnel exploring such goals are equivocal about the benefits of thin clients—cost, security, manageability, and scalability.

The term thin client is derived from small computers in networks being clients and not servers. The goal is to limit the capabilities of thin clients to only essential applications. That makes them centrally managed, while not being vulnerable to malware attacks. They also have a longer life cycle, use less power, and are less expensive to purchase.

Dual Function LEDs & Multifunctional Displays

At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, researchers have made dual-function nanorod LEDs that could double as multifunctional displays. The researchers are also working with Dow Electronic Materials in Marlborough, Massachusetts. The LEDs are made of tiny nanorods arrayed in a thin film. They could enable new interactive functions and multitasking devices. The researchers report their advances in the February issue of the journal Science.

According to Moonsub Shim, Professor of materials science and engineering at the University, the new LEDs will enable displays to be much more interactive devices, rather than just displaying information as they do now. This might form the basis of several new and interesting designs for several types of electronic gadgets.

Three types of semiconductor materials make up the tiny nanorods, each of them less than 5 nanometers in diameter. The first type emits and absorbs visible light. The other two semiconductor materials control the amount of charge flowing through the first. This combination allows the LEDs to emit light, while sensing and responding to light falling on it.

By switching between the emitting and detecting modes very quickly, the nanorod LEDs can perform both functions with ease. In fact, they are so fast in switching—three times faster than the standard display rates—the display seems to be permanently on. Because the LEDs are simultaneously detecting and absorbing light as well, a display of such LEDs may be made to respond to light signals in different ways, simply by programming them suitably. For instance, a display could automatically adjust its brightness in response to ambient light conditions. Although a separate light level sensor does this for the present displays, the new display could do it by sensing the ambient light on each pixel.

According to Professor Shim, for someone sitting outside with a tablet, reading will be easier on the eye, as the tablet will adjust its brightness based on ambient light on individual pixels of the display. For instance, the part of the display under a shadow falling across it will be dimmer than the part directly illuminated by sunlight. This will help to maintain a steady contrast.

The researchers were able to program individual pixels adjust their brightness automatically in response to an approaching finger. This response, once integrated into interactive displays, could allow the display to respond to recognizing objects through non-touch gestures.

Writing or drawing with light would also be possible with such displays. This could form the basis of smart whiteboards, tablets, or other such surfaces, on which a laser stylus could write or draw. Moreover, the researchers have discovered the LEDs not only respond to light, they convert it to electricity as well.

They found the LEDs responding to light just as solar cells do. Therefore, apart from enhancing the interaction between users and displays, it is also possible to actually use the displays to harvest light, for instance, to charge the cellphone when it is simply sitting idle, collecting ambient light. That means there is no need of integrating a separate solar cell on the display.

Different Types of Industrial Cables

To wire up different components within electronic gadgets, hook-up and lead wires may be adequate, but the electric industry needs a vast variety of industrial cables to remain connected. Chief among these are power cables to carry high voltages and currents, and cables necessary for industrial automation and process control. Cables may conform to multiple standards such as UL, CSA, and others. Cables often have to transmit power or signal in industrial environments that may harbor the harshest conditions involving physical abuse, high temperature, ozone, chemicals, oil, and other demanding situations.

Challenges and Solutions

With increasing demand from the industry, manufacturers are producing cables for automation and seamless data communication. To support proliferation of mission-critical signal transmission, cable manufacturers offer high quality, high-availability line of industrial cabling and connectivity products.

Seamless Connectivity from the Enterprise to the Sensor

For the most robust and reliable factory networking, manufacturers also offer network switches, I/O modules, and other devices. Users choose their cables from a vast selection of configuration, insulation and jacket materials, shielding options, high-flex capabilities, and other options.

Manufacturers must maintain product consistency for ease of termination and assembly. For instance, precise control of diameters of jacket and insulation along with thickness of concentric wall ensure fast and reliable supplication in automated high-speed equipment.

Shielding

Depending on their use, industrial cables also require highly effective protection from EMI and RFI. There is increasing demand for innovative designs with shielding technology using foil and braid configurations. Manufacturers offer 100% shield coverage improving the protection over a wide range of frequencies. Apart from this, cables also require electrostatic shielding, and sometimes, extra insulation and mechanical strength. Overall, the cable shielding needs to be lightweight, strong, flexible, thin, but extremely effective.

Armoring

For cables requiring maximum physical protection in the harshest of environments, armoring technology is the solution. Armoring offers added advantages such as reduced cost of conduit, easier installation and re-routing, while it provides additional shielding.

Typical armoring of power, instrumentation, and data cables involves interlocking aluminum or steel armor, or continuous corrugated armor of aluminum. Some manufacturers also offer cables with corrugated or smooth protective metal tapes.

Insulation and Jackets

Cable manufacturers offer a large variety of insulation and jacket compounds, often their own formulation. These provide superior performance under different hostile environmental conditions. Cables are typically graded as Class I, II, or III, according to whether they are suitable for hazards differentiated by Division 1 or 2.

For instance, cables suitable for Class I, Division 1 Hazards are used in locations where flammable vapors or gases may exist under normal operating conditions. Cables suitable for Class III, Division 2 Hazards may be used in locations that contain easily ignitable flyings and fibers under abnormal conditions.

Intrinsically Safe

Not all environments need be hostile. Occasionally, under normal or abnormal conditions, equipment and wiring may be incapable of releasing adequate amounts of electrical energy to ignite a susceptible, specific hazardous atmospheric mixture. Manufacturers offer cables with light blue color with approved sealing and separation for use in such situations.

Cable manufacturers offer the most comprehensive line of industrial cabling solutions today. This helps not only for networking on the factory floor or process equipment and devices to their controllers, but also to the control room, and for relaying data between the engineering department, control room, and various office sites or remote manufacturing locations.