Monthly Archives: August 2018

What is Open Bionics?

There are people all around the world that may loose limbs for various reasons — wars, illness, and accidents being the three major ones. Artificial limbs do alleviate a part of the loss these folks experience, but often, their high cost means not all can afford a prosthetic limb. Open Bionics is a company making affordable bionic arms, making kids feel like superheroes.

A start-up tech company in the UK, Open-Bionics is changing the way people see prostheses. The 3-D printed prostheses Open Bionics makes are nearly 30-times cheaper than those available in the market are. Their biggest advantages are the myoelectric sensors that attach to the skin for detecting muscle movements. Detection of muscle movement controls the artificial hand in closing and opening fingers.

The bionic arms that Open Bionics makes are custom-built for individual children and require about 40 hours for manufacturing them. As the child grows, a revolutionary socket adjusts to the changing size. As these are small and lightweight, children as young as eight can use the bionic arms with ease.

According to the COO and co-founder of Open Bionics, Samantha Payne, they work with the NHS for creating prosthetics that are affordable and highly functional. These are meant especially for children, and come with removable covers—allowing them to choose whether they want to be Queen Elsa, or an Avenger today.

The company has a royalty-free agreement with Disney. That means they can base the removable covers on the bionic arms on characters from Star Wars, Frozen, Iron Man, and more—this can be life changing for small children, as Samantha Payne assures. For instance, Tilly Lockey, who is testing the latest model from Open Bionics, has a prototype hand themed on Deus Ex, a video game.

Open Bionics builds assistive devices offering people who use them greater freedom and independence. Moreover, as the devices are affordable, it brings bionic technology within the reach of most patients. That is why trials of bionic arms are reaching children as young as eight.

Most available prostheses do not suit young patients, as they are either way too big or very expensive. The 3-D printed bionic limbs from Open Bionics are different as they are custom-built to suit small sizes, and they are affordable. Samantha Payne feels highly satisfied seeing a young child moving their fingers individually for the first time.

Rather than making a drab skin-colored artificial limb, Open Bionics is making their arms belong to the science fiction universe. With themes from Star Wars, Disney, and Marvel, kids feel proud when wearing their prostheses. As these arms are sleek and super stylish, amputee children can identify them with their personalities and that is what makes them and the people at Open Bionics so excited.

At Open Bionics, the task begins with scanning the person’s limb using a tablet. A plan for the design of the prostheses follows, leading to a 3-D printout. The result is a low-cost, multi-grip, and lightweight bionic arm with great control. The royalty-free theme designs make the device hyper-personalized. The presence of nearly 5 million upper-limb amputees worldwide gives an estimate of the market potential for Open Bionics.

How are RS232 and RS485 Different?

When engineers need to connect electronic equipment, they resort to serial interfaces such as the RS-232 and RS-485. Although dozens of other serial data interfaces exist today, most are meant for use in specific applications. A few of them are considered universal, such as I2S, MOST, FLEX, SPI, LIN, CAN and I2C. Other high-speed serial interfaces are also used, including Thunderbolt, HDMI, FireWire, USB, and Ethernet. Despite the proliferation of interfaces, the two legacy interfaces, RS-232 and RS-485, continue to survive, used in several applications.

As a rule, serial interfaces provide a single path for data to be transmitted over a cable or wirelessly. Although some applications do use parallel buses, serial interface alone provides the only practical option for high-speed data movement today over any distance greater than several feet.

RS-232

RS-232 is one of the oldest serial interfaces, originally established in 1962, as a method of connecting a DTE or data terminal equipment such as a teletypewriter to a DCE or data communications equipment. Personal computers earlier had an RS-232 port, commonly called the serial port, to connect to a printer or other peripheral device. Embedded computer development systems still use the port today, as do many scientific instruments, and several industrial control equipment.

Officially, the standard defining the RS-232 serial interface is the EIA/TIA-232-F, with F signifying the most recent update. According to the standard, a logic 1 is defined as a voltage between -3 and -25 V, and a logic 0 as a voltage between +3 and +25 V. The logic 1 is generally termed as a mark, with logic 0 being termed as a space. Any voltage between +3 and -3 V is termed invalid and is rejected, providing a huge noise margin for the interface. The configurations of the receiver and transmitter are both single-ended and referenced to ground or 0 V.

The cable medium in RS-232 can be simple wires in parallel or a twisted pair. According to the standard, the cable length must not exceed 50 feet. However, by reducing the data rate, it is possible to use longer lengths of cable. For a 50-foot cable, the highest data rates in RS-232 are roughly 20 Kbits/s, and matched generator and load impedances are necessary for eliminating reflections and data corruption. Although earlier 25-pin connectors were used, the de-facto standard for RS-232 is the 9-pin DE-9 connector today.

RS-485

The EIA/TIA standards also define the RS-485 interface, now commonly known as TIA-485. This is not only a single device-device interface, but is a complete communication bus used for simple networking of multiple devices.

Rather than a single-ended voltage referenced to the ground, the RS-485 uses differential signaling on two lines. A logic 1 is a voltage level greater than 200 mV, while the logic 0 is a level greater than +200 mV. The maximum cable length for RS485 is about 4000 feet or 1200 m, with typical data rates as 100 Kbits/s. However, compared to the speed of the RS-232 interface, a 20-meter cable in RS-485 can allow a maximum data rate of 5Mbits/s. Industrial control equipment using the RS-485 use the 9-pin DE-9 connector.

Raspberry Pi Controls the Cardboard Dog

This is a project for beginners using the Raspberry Pi (RBPi) single board computer. The RBPi is used to control a servo for turning the head of a cardboard dog away whenever a person is looking at it. This is to mimic a begging dog that seems ashamed of its begging nature.

This project requires the SBC RBPi, its power supply with the 5 V micro-USB cable, a USB keyboard and mouse, a display, and an HDMI cable. For storing the OS, an 8 GB micro SD card is also necessary. Another computer will be necessary to write the OS to the micro SD card and edit the files in it. The official PI camera will help to recognize the faces looking at the dog, and a micro servomotor is required to turning the head.

The RBPi will be controlling the servo through its GPIO pins. The servo has three wires that need to connect to the GPIO pins using female connectors. The camera has a ribbon cable, which goes into the port labeled camera on the RBPi. The HDMI cable goes into its port on the outside of the RBPi, and its other end goes to the HDMI-compatible TV or monitor.

Download and install the latest version of the Raspbian (with Pixel) from the official website of the RBPi. While installing the image on to the micro SD card, the process will destroy all data on the card, so be sure there is nothing of value before you begin.

Once the OS is installed on the micro SD card, insert it into the slot on the reverse side of the RBPi. If the power cord is now plugged into the RBPI socket and the power turned on, there should be some code running on the monitor screen, with the desktop showing up at the end. At this time, right click anywhere on the desktop and select “Create a New File.” Name the file Dog Turn.py, and select it to open with Python 2 IDLE.  Now open IDLE, and paste the code from here into it.

To make the code in the file to work, the RBPi will need additional Python modules to be installed. These are the libopencv-dev, python-opencv, python-dev, and you must use the sudo apt-get install command to download them.

The cardboard dog for this project uses four 9×6 inch cardboard rectangles, and two 6×6 inch squares, which form the main body. A hole at the top of the box allows the servo to go through. Another 5-inch cardboard cube forms the head, and attaches to the servo. Some cardboard legs make the dog look more realistic.

The entire electronic hardware can fit within the body of the dog. It may be necessary to use standoffs to hold the RBPi in place. The camera should look out from one of the eyeholes in the dog head. Fix it in place so that the cable has sufficient play when the servo moves the head. Simply running the python code should be enough to let the dog do its trick. To stop, turn off the power.

What are Current Sense Resistors and how do they work?

Efficiency has become the keyword in global trends in meeting demands for lower carbon-di-oxide emissions. Whether it is the smartening of the electrical supply grid or the electrification of our automobiles, the global trend is driving the need for electronic circuits to become more efficient. Knowing the level of current flowing through the circuit and reaching the load accurately is an important factor in gauging its efficiency for circuit designers and systems operators. This knowledge helps in maximizing operating performances of a battery, hot swapping server units, controlling motor speeds, and many more. Current sense resistors are inexpensive components that provide optimal solutions helping OEMs create more efficient circuit designs for a wide range of applications.

Current sense resistors are components helping to improve system efficiency by reducing losses. They have high measurement accuracy compared to other technologies, and they are ideally suited for helping developers measure currents precisely in automotive, industrial, and computer electronic designs.

Current sense resistors detect and convert current to voltage, using Ohm’s law. According to this law, the product of the current and the resistance value through which it is passing gives the voltage developed across the resistor. As these resistors feature very low resistance values, the voltage drops are equally insignificant, of the order of 10 to 150 mV in specific applications.

Design engineers place the current sense resistor in series with the electrical load, which causes the entire current to be measured to pass through it. As the voltage drop across the resistor is proportional to the current through it, measuring this drop provides an estimate of the load current. Measuring the voltage drop is usually accomplished through various amplifier options such as operational, differential, and instrumentation amplifiers. Selecting the right current sense resistor amplifier for a specific application involves looking at the input common-mode voltage specification. This is the average voltage present at the input terminals of the amplifier.

With the current sense resistor sitting in series with the load, they can directly measure the current. Contrast this with indirect current measurement techniques using coils. Here the voltage is induced across a coil and is proportion to the current. As a series resistor senses current directly, it dissipates power. Therefore, series resistors tend to have very low resistance values.

Current sense resistors also feature a very low temperature coefficient of resistance or TCR. This feature defines its low drift with varying ambient temperature and its long-term stability. These characteristics make temperature dependency of current measurement to be very low, while increasing the accuracy.

However, when using very low ohmic resistors of the surface mount type the resistance of the solder pad and the copper tracks of the printed circuit board can be uncertain and more than the resistance of the current sense resistance itself. This can lead to inaccuracies in the current measurement. In addition, the TCR of the tracks of the PCB can be much higher than that of the series resistor element.

Therefore, it is necessary to use current sense resistors implementing the 4-wire Kelvin principle, as these employ additional leads for measuring current more accurately.

Why Smart Home Tech Adoptions Need Switches

Most modern homes now use connected devices for entertainment, access control, and several other daily tasks. Their rapid increase can be gauged from the growth of the US market for smart homes, which has reached 29 million and is still rising.

The amazing features and efficiencies products related to smart homes offer to households naturally mesmerize consumers. However, this also necessitates engineers keep in mind the physical interfaces. While customer satisfaction is a long-standing effect, the immediate look and feel of the device dictates its price. This implies details are an important aspect, where the choice of every component matters and that includes switches and buttons.

Most people tend to ignore switches and buttons, forgetting they are responsible for driving the technical movement known as smart homes. However, a few important reasons establish engineers designing home products must give them a serious thought.

The connected devices in a smart home depend critically on their hardware designs. These include switches, sensors, screens and other components used on smart televisions, smart thermostat controls, connected door locks, and more. Most importantly, a user’s overall satisfaction comes from the way a product feels or the tactile sensation it generates.

Most of the time, a customer’s first interaction with the control of a product comes from its on/off switch, which a user physically touches. Unless the switch creates a delightful experience, the customer is likely to search for another product that offers a better feeling.

Cameras working on the Internet Protocol are now commonly available in smart homes. The reason for this is easy to figure out, as according to the statistics provided by iControl Networks, there is a burglary happening every 14.1 seconds in the US. With an IP camera installed, a person can monitor the activity at home from a remote location on their smartphones, laptops, or any other smart device. The very presence of IP cameras act as a deterrent to crime, apart from helping the police apprehend criminals, while simply providing a piece of mind to a homeowner.

However, smart cameras need the right switch to power and protect them. Usually, this is a miniature tactile switch, suitable for meeting the shrinking form factors of the device. Often smaller than the small lens display used by these cameras, the switch must be robust enough to prevent intruders from breaking it and rendering the camera useless.

While IP cameras capture images of unwelcome intruders whom people are not suspecting of entering their homes, access controls offer an additional level of security to the majority of consumers concerned with privacy and security in their smart homes. Access controls are usually equipped with internet doorbells with built-in cameras, and smart door locks.

While the camera shows an image of the person at the door, the smart lock allows unlocking the door remotely. This arrangement can be handy if the door has to be opened for the baby sitter or for the teenager who has misplaced his keys. Usually, the smart lock has a miniature switch to set or reset it. This switch has to be small but long lasting, and able to withstand harsh conditions such as humidity and rain.

Sensor Nodes Based on the Raspberry Pi

Building sensor networks is economical if a microcontroller hosts the sensors. However, sometimes the computational power a microcontroller offers is not adequate. For instance, it may be necessary to convert the data to a different format, print a hard copy of the sensor data, or incorporate the data within an application. What you need is a computer that not only has more processing power, but also allows the use of common applications, affords access to peripherals, and permits the use of scripting languages.

Although the use of an inexpensive personal computer would be of great advantage here, using them as sensor nodes in the networks has its own disadvantages. The primary hurdle is most personal computers are built for use as servers or desktop computers, and almost no general-purpose input/output ports are available. Of course, a data collection card added to the personal computer will serve the purpose, but the cost of the computer added to that of the data-collection card makes the cost of the sensor node uneconomical.

Fortunately, single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi (RBPi) provide an easy solution to the above problem. With sufficient processing power and memory, use of standard peripherals, supported programmable I/O ports, and a small form factor, the RBPi is the most suited for building sensor networks economically.

Essentially, the RBPi is a single board computer that runs Linux as its operating system. To get started with the RBPi, you need a few additional things, such as a USB power supply rated at 2 A with a male micro-USB connector, an HDMI monitor, a keyboard, an optional mouse, and most importantly, an SD card to hold the OS.

The most commonly used operating system for the RBPi is the Raspbian image provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation on their download page. Once you have downloaded the image, you will have to unzip it and write it into an SD card. The easiest way to do this with a Windows PC is to use the Win32 Disk Imager software. Those on the Mac OS X or the Linux PC may use the dd command.

Now it is time to boot up your RBPi board. Plug in the SD card holding the new image, plug in the keyboard, mouse, and the monitor. Once all the peripherals are in place, plug in the USB power and turn on the power. When prompted to enter a username and password, use Pi and raspberry respectively, and configure the system to your requirement.

For connecting and experimenting with sensors, you may use expansion boards, but using a simple prototyping board instead is more flexible. Using a Pi Cobble Breakout board or similar allows a simple ribbon cable from the GPIO connector on the RBPi to the prototyping board, with the pins arranged in the same order as those on the RBPi are.

Be careful to make or change connections with the RBPi powered off. Also double-check all connections are rightly connected. The GPIO on the RBPi is not protected against short circuits and high voltages, and is easily damaged.

Intelligence in LED Lighting

Apart from illuminating dark spaces there is much more to LED lighting than otherwise thought of. LEDs can be connected in an intelligent network with a low-voltage IP-based infrastructure, and they become a part of a powerful network of systems. Such a system can cooperatively collect, analyze, manage, control, and respond to specific objectives based on real-time sensor feedback.

The building lit up by these LEDs now behaves as a smart building, offering better operational performance. It responds dynamically to operating issues related to power consumption and cost, increasing efficiency and efficacy. Moreover, such integrated intelligent lighting works smoothly with the other systems in the building.

The major issue confronting LED networks is decoupling from the relatively universal approach of a centralized lighting control. It makes more sense to change over to a solution that caters to the specific requirements of smaller segments across a large area within the building. Moreover, as lighting is a part of the intelligent network, it can integrate with and respond to other components on the network. Such an approach works very well for commercial office buildings, warehouses, healthcare facilities, manufacturing and industrial facilities, and other similar large or multipurpose areas, where a centralized approach will be inefficient and ineffective.

As an example, buildings are very commonly controlled through automated heating, ventilation, and air conditioning−also called the HVAC system. The HVAC has the task of monitoring and adjusting the temperature to make the building suitable for human comfort and machine performance. Moreover, it does this at optimal efficiency and cost. An intelligent LED lighting network connected to the system would allow lighting to synchronize into the same set of objectives. Now, the lighting couples actively and responds to environmental climate control.

This gives the lighting network the intelligence to increase the ability of users to adjust the light within the building to increase human productivity, concentration, positive mood, and well-being. Moreover, by adjusting light synchronized to the natural circadian cycle and adjusting the amount of light required depending on the amount of sunlight filtering through external windows, additional potential advantages can be achieved.

All intelligent LED lighting networks need power, and the key technology behind this is Power over Ethernet (PoE). This brings the equipment and low-voltage cabling necessary to connect the assets of Internet of Things (IoT) to LED fixtures. The success of IP-based infrastructure platforms makes PoE simple and available. Therefore, by using PoE as the arteries of the LED lighting systems for power and control, lighting also becomes a part of the building’s IoT asset.

PoE provides an infrastructure that is less expensive compared to copper cables, while offering a single layer for transferring power and data. Typically, the PoE system architecture consists of the PoE gateways, LED light fixtures, LED lights, smart drivers for LEDs, cable harnesses, sensors, wireless switches and dimmers. In general, PoE gateways are configured to use any one source from unregulated 48 VDC, constant voltage 24 VDC/48 VDC, or constant current.

There may be wireless PoE gateways as well, conforming to IEEE 802 standards. Usually, they run at standard frequencies such as 902 MHz in the North Americas, and at 868 MHz in Europe.

Less Expensive 3D Printing

3-D printing is no longer a new technology. Several design studios use it, along with some home users who make their products using 3-D printers. However, the general opinion is it is expensive, slow, and unable to compete with traditional mass-manufacturing processes. Although considered a revolutionary technology, so far, 3-D printing has remained on the periphery.

Now, a Massachusetts company is trying to prove the general opinion wrong. Desktop Metal is coming out with a 3-D metal printing system so fast, safe, and cheaper than any existing system, they claim it will compete directly with the traditional methods of mass manufacturing. In their Studio System, Desktop Metal presented an office-friendly, fully automated sintering furnace that had fast cycle times and a peak temperature of 1400°C. This allowed it to sinter a wide variety of materials.

On one hand, home users and design studios can afford only cheap ABS plastic printing materials on their desktop printers. On the other, organizations such as Boeing and NASA are going for laser-melted metal printing. Overall, the entire process of 3-D printing is very slow, expensive, and unable to scale up or scale down.

Desktop Metal, out of Massachusetts, is headed by a team among who are some that had first thought of additive manufacturing. They claim to have the right technology and machinery that is going to give the necessary impetus to 3-D printing to make it into big time.

Desktop Metal is claiming it can make metal printing reliable and up to 100 times faster than existing speeds and at 10 times cheaper initial costs. By using a much wider range of alloys, they claim they will incur 20 times cheaper material costs compared to the existing laser technologies. In fact, their machines may be the precursors for large-scale 3-D manufacturing.

In reality, Desktop Metal is presenting two systems. One of them is the Studio System and the other a production system. While the production system is meant for mass manufacturers, the studio system offers rapid, cheap metal prototyping aimed towards engineering groups.

The Studio System from Desktop Metal costs ten times lower than its equivalent laser system. It is also many times more safe and practical to keep in an office. Unlike the laser system, the Studio System does not use hazardous metal powders that are sometimes explosive or dangerous lasers. The Studio System may be placed anywhere in the office, as it does not require specialized ventilation installation, nor does it require operators wearing gas masks.

The metals offered by Desktop Metal are usually in rod form, bound with polymer binding agents, and shipped in cartridges. However, almost anything usable in a Metal Injection Molding system is acceptable to the Studio System. That means a wide variety of metal options including aluminum, bronze, copper, a range of stainless steels, 4140 chromoly steel, titanium, Hiperco 50 magnetic, and more than two hundred other alloys.

When running, the printer prints layers of bound metal parts. These have to go through a de-binding bath to remove most of the binding polymer. The parts can then go into the sintering furnace.

Bluetooth 5.0

Custodians of the Bluetooth standard are a flexible lot, considering the enhancements the popular short-range 2.4 GHz wireless technology has been receiving. The Bluetooth SIG or Special Interest Group has allowed it to evolve in ways not envisioned by the inventors. Their foresight will be allowing this technology to expand beyond three billion shipments beginning next year.

The latest incarnation of the technology is the Bluetooth 5.0. This indicates the seriousness with which SIG wants to entrench Bluetooth as a vital component of the IoT or Internet of Things. By 2025, more than 80 billion connected things will be busy exchanging data across networks wirelessly. According to IDC or the International Data Corporation, Bluetooth will be the governing standard for these networks.

That is understandable, as Bluetooth has its roots in short-range handset communication. It all started in mid 90s at Ericsson, when engineers Sven Mattisson and Jaap Haartsen wanted to get rid of the jumble of wires linking their electronic devices. They devised low-throughput, short-range radio links for exchanging information between handsets, without having to plug in a cable. The Ericsson endeavor turned into an open standard operating in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz band, and several others joined them, including Toshiba, IBM, and Nokia.

Around 1998, the standard was named Bluetooth, after an ancient Scandinavian king. However, performance of Bluetooth 1.0 was below expectations, achieving only 700 kbps under ideal but practical conditions. In addition, manufacturers had their own problems in getting their equipment to interoperate. Subsequent iterations not only added bandwidth but also added 79 1-MHz channels for randomly hopping around to avoid RF interference from other devices on the license-free 2.4 GHz band.

Incorporation into cellphones brought major success to Bluetooth, as the handset started to be center of the personal area networks, linking almost everything electronic to the smartphones. Additions to the firmware stack of Bluetooth optimized its performance to suit specific applications, such as in cars, printers, speakers, and in PCs. By now, Bluetooth was in version 3.0+, with a bandwidth of 3 Mbps. Moreover, by co-locating to an 802.11 channel, Bluetooth was soon competing with Wi-Fi at 24 Mbps.

Bluetooth was able to achieve its biggest breakthrough with version 4.0, also called Bluetooth low energy. This version introduced a second radio using a lightweight stack but interoperable with its elder brother. Now, even compact wireless devices could send a tiny amount of data in a rapid burst, returning to an ultra-low power consumption state of sleep. This mode allowed the devices to operate for long periods from small-capacity batteries.

With Bluetooth 5.0, its low energy part also gets a speed boost to 2 Mbps, which makes things run far more smoothly. Now, IoT sensors can receive over the air updates to keep them protected from hackers. The range has also increased four times. This makes Bluetooth 5.0 viable for the entire house applications such as smart lights, with the throughput dropping to 125 kbps when the range is extended.

To make it competitive to other industrial and smart home networking technologies such as Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Thread, Bluetooth 5.0 now incorporates the Mesh Networking standard.

Choosing a Regulator – Switching or LDO

Unlike AC circuits where a simple transformer can change the incoming voltage to a different level, DC circuits need an active device to change the voltage to the desired level. In general, there are two types of circuits to do this—switching and linear. Switching regulators are highly efficient and work on buck, boost, or buck-boost technology to change the voltage level. On the other hand, linear regulators such as LDOs are ideal for powering very low power devices or applications where the difference between the input and output voltages is small. Compared to switching regulators, linear regulators generate lower noise, are simple and cheap, but inefficient.

Linear Regulators (Low-Dropout Regulators)

Using linear circuits and non-linear techniques, linear regulators regulate the voltage output from the input supply. The resistance of the regulator varies according to the load and this creates a constant output voltage.

Irrespective of their make and design, all linear regulators must have their input voltage at least some minimum amount higher than the desired output voltage. Engineers call this minimum amount as the dropout voltage. An LDO regulator or low-dropout regulator is a DC linear regulator that is able to regulate the output voltage even for very low differences between the input and output voltages.

Therefore, applications that need an input voltage very close to the supply voltage and consume low power are ideal for linear regulators. As the product of the load current and difference of the input and output voltages governs the power dissipated by a linear regulator, a smaller difference means the regulator can handle higher power or allow a higher load current.

Although the linear regulators or low-dropout regulators offer a simple and cheap solution, these devices are notoriously inefficient as they dissipate heat based on the difference between the input voltage and the regulated output voltage. Most low-dropout regulators are low-current devices, offering well-regulate outputs, and require very few external components. They usually come in small packages, have fast transient response, and are highly accurate.

Switching Regulators

Most solutions for power management today require low power consumption under various load conditions, ability to operate in small spaces, offer high reliability, and the capability of withstanding wide input voltages. Therefore, a broad range of applications is moving towards highly efficient, wide input, low quiescent current switching regulators.

Switching regulators work by switching a series element on and off very rapidly. The series element can be either synchronous or non-synchronous FET switches. Usually, an associated inductor stores the input energy temporarily, and releases the energy subsequently to the output circuit at a different voltage level. The duty cycle of the switch determines the amount of charge transferred to the load.

Switching regulators operate efficiently, as their switching element dissipates almost no power, because the element is either switched off or fully conducting. Unlike linear regulators, switching regulators can generate output voltages higher than the input voltage or of the opposite polarity.

Therefore, switching regulators offer wide input and output voltage ranges, integrated series elements, pin-to-pin compatible parts, internal compensation, and light load efficiency modes, while being simple and easy to use.