Don Lancaster’s

A new compass sensor

Tech Musings Updated UFO directory

More magnetometer info
"Protecting" your designs
Vacuum forming resources
September, 1996
certainly get lots of helpline calls support circuitry might be found in

I from individuals who are trying

to protect electronic designs with
epoxies, part number grindoffs,
and similar stupid pet tricks.
Well, any time you see a glopped
Magnetometer Update
Since last month’s coverage, I’ve
pinned down a bunch of new info and
a few samples on magnetometers and
fluxgates. Let’s do an update.
HACK14.PDF on www.tinaja.com and
in the useful Magnetic Measurements
Handbook from Magnetic Research.
Magnetic Research also sells wound
cores and working magnetometers.
and ground up project, you can pretty As we’ve seen, Ripke’s Review of Figure two shows us an improved
much rest assured that (A) All of the Fluxgate Magnetometers you’ll find circuit known as a resonant fluxgate.
engineering is incompetent; and (B) in Sensors and Actuators A, volume The op-amp operates open loop as a
The management suffers from acute 33, 1992, pages 129-141 is a real good comparator, generating an output
recto-cranial inversion. technical starting point square wave. This square wave is
Besides being a monumental waste Figure one shows you the winding converted to a current source by the
of time and energy that you should be details on a classic fluxgate sensor. A 56K resistor. The current waveform
spending improving your product and softly saturating tape wound toroidal excites the control winding, driving
developing your design skills, these core is normally used. the core in to and out of saturation.
"protection" schemes simply do not That main or control winding gets That high-turns secondary winding
work. In fact, they will have the exact driven by a low distortion sinewave. gets resonated by the 0.1 microfarad
opposite effect. All your "I’ve got a This sinewave switches (or gates) the capacitor, producing a sinewave. The
secret" stunts are a red-flag invitation core in to or out of saturation. resonant sinewave then gets strongly
for people much smarter than you to Paired orthogonal sine and cosine amplified and converted back to the
spend lots of time and creative effort sense windings tell the strength and output square wave.
cracking your mystery. direction of the external field as it is Operating frequency is determined
All you’re doing here is providing drawn in to and released from the by your drive current, the inductance,
them with free entertainment. core. For signal isolation, the sensing and the time that is required for the
Master Bond resells a selection of is normally carried out at the second core material to unsaturate.
epoxy dissolving chemicals. Besides, harmonic of the drive frequency. Any external magnetic field should
your super secret device either is a Although it is a thoroughly tested bias your core material, causing the
16C54 . Or else it should have long and proven workhorse, this fluxgate positive cycle to get longer and your
ago been replaced by one. involves quite low level noisy analog negative cycle to get shorter. Or vice
In a vastly superior circuit. signals that are tricky to accurately versa with opposite polarity. The net
Every town, no matter how small, interface to any micro. The multiple result is that your duty cycle of the
includes this guild of highly capable precision windings also add greatly output ends up proportional to the
epoxy undoing specialists. Who have to your final cost and complexity. single axis external magnetic field
dedicated their entire lives to Deftly Additional details on the fluxgate that you are sensing with the coil.
Defiling Subterfuge.
Why, they even put that DDS after
their names so you can locate them
easily. These same folks have these SINE SENSE
neat-o X-ray machines that easily let
you snoop into just about anything
electronic or mechanical.
COSINE SENSE

Just like that story about the fur

CORE: Magnetics 50086-2F
lined letter, the key protection secret
CONTROL: 143 turns #30
is to always hide in plain sight. Far SENSE: 1000 turns #35
fewer people of far less competence
will thus be attracted to tracing your
product. Chances are they will blow
their quest anyway.
Always provide a complete, free, CONTROL
and a detailed schematic with all of
your products. And make your source
code available at a fair price. A price Fig. 1 – CLASSIC ANALOG FLUXGATE MAGNETOMETER. An input audio
that is well under the cost of reverse sinewave drives the control input, switching (or "gating") the core in and out of
engineering. Because anything less is saturation and drawing in or releasing an external magnetic field. Weak
sheer insanity. signals at the sense outputs end up proportional to field strength.

Copyright c 1996 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved.
104.1
Tech Musings

The Variable
Permeability Method
56 K A brand new isotropic approach to
digital
output
earth’s field sensing has been newly
0.1 µFd championed by Precision Navigation.
2000 turns on op amp Surprisingly full tech details appear
+ 10 K
an iron-cobalt analog in their patent #4,851,775.
amorphous output
ribbon - The inductance of any winding is
core 10 µFd proportional to the permeability of its
core. Normally, you will want your
permeability to be a constant. One
which is independent of the applied
field or bias currents. Fail to do this
in an audio transformer and you will
Fig. 2 – A RESONANT FLUXGATE MAGNETOMETER. As before, the core get mild to severe distortion.
will get switched in and out of saturation. The output duty cycle varies in One location where a variable or
proportion to the single axis field strength and direction. The high level output nonlinear permeability has been used
square wave is easy to interface to a PIC or other microcontroller. for years is as a swinging inductor in
You might digitally measure this thrown in for good measure. dc power supply filters. A partial air
output duty cycle with a PIC or other For low noise, it is important your gap gets used so that you’ll end up
microcontroller. Alternately, a simple alloy has a low magnetostriction, or with additional inductance (and more
resistor-capacitor lowpass duty cycle change in size with the field strength. filtering) at low currents. And faster
integrator can create a bipolar analog Any core motion dramatically affects response at higher currents.
output voltage which tracks the input the level of the noise floor. A unique new class of MetGlas
field strength for you. Additional details are found in A magnetic materials manufactured by
Additional details on duty cycle Resonant-type amorphous ribbon Allied Signal purposely goes out of
integration circuits and techniques in magnetometer that is driven by an its way to provide you a variable
my CMOS Cookbook. operational amplifier by Takeuchi permeability which changes with the
Resolution and noise can be as low and Harada. Find this in that IEEE applied field strength or bias current.
as one millionth of the earth’s field. Transactions on Magnetics, MAG-20, As figure three shows us, this new
The amorphous ribbon core is made Sept 84, pp 1723-1725. material has a high permeability with
from an alloy of iron, cobalt, silicon, As we’ve seen a time or two low applied fields and a much lower
and boron. Chromium sometimes is before, UMI is a great reprint source. permeability with high fields.
Note particularly the fairly linear
permeability shift with applied field
above and below the bias point I’ve
shown. You can bias to this point by
running some dc current through an
PERMEABILITY overwound sensing coil. The earth’s
magnetic field (or some other mag
source) will add to or remove from
linear sensing range this magnetic bias level. Raising or
An INCREASING field strength lowering the coil’s inductance!
decreases inductance which linearly
INCREASES the output frequency.
You thus end up with a plain old
zero field bias point
set by dc coil current coil whose inductance varies with the
applied field strength. Put this in any
suitable oscillator circuitry, and your
output frequency should follow the
strength and direction of the earth’s
applied field. With proper design, as
much as a 2:1 frequency change can
be caused when you rotate the sensor
strongly strongly
0 east - west through the compass points.
negative positive
TOTAL MAGNETIC FIELD STRENGTH What is really unique here is that a
( sum of external field + bias coil current field ) single ultra cheap solenoid winding
over an ordinary core bar or rod acts
both as a field sensor and the control
Fig. 3 – SPECIAL ISOTROPIC MAGNETIC ALLOYS are newly available. bias setter. The sensing gets done by
Whose permeability varies with field strength. By biasing as shown, a coil can measuring the inductance. And the
be built so its inductance strongly varies with compass orientation. biasing by inputting a dc current.
104.2 Copyright c 1996 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved.
 September, 1996
Note that this is not a fluxgate and
that your core material never really
gets into hard saturation. Instead, you
have a variable permeability sensor Allied Signal
that progressively saturates. Metglas 2705 core
The rest is easy. Place the coil in a
relaxation oscillator. Add some dc
bias and shove the variable frequency
output into your microcontroller. frequency
Figure four shows us one possible output
circuit. Unlike fluxgates, one simple 10 K 74HC14
winding over the magic core material
is all you’ll need. To calibrate your
sensor, rotate it through 360 degrees
or else drive around the block.
The falling slope is chosen for the
following reason: An increasing mag Fig. 4 – THIS ELEGANTLY SIMPLE earth’s field detector using a special
field will decrease the permeability. variable permeability cored coil. The output frequency varies with orientation.
Which in turn decreases inductance. of tiny holes in it that are routed to a
And the decreasing inductance will Vacuum Forming vacuum source.
increase frequency in most oscillator I just received some intriguing new A vacuum then gets applied which
circuits. Thus, your output frequency vacuum forming info, so I thought sucks your sheet down to conform
should linearly track your input field this might make a useful sidebar. with the mold shape. Two stages of
strength on the falling slope. As figure five shows us, vacuum vacuum will sometimes be applied.
An op-amp or comparator can give forming is the process of bending a High volume to get rid of most of the
you better accuracy than the simple plastic sheet. The sheet is first heated trapped air. Then a high pressure to
CMOS Schmitt trigger I have shown to a carefully controlled temperature force an exact match to your mold.
here. Your oscillator circuit must be above its softening point. It is then Finally, the part is cooled and taken
voltage and temperature stable if you draped over a male mold. out of the mold.
are to get useful results. The mold could be made of wood Important vacuum forming uses
Two or three axis operation could or plaster or most anything rigid and are signs, packaging materials, and
get picked up by use of two or three capable of withstanding medium hot theater props. But there should be all
sensors and then positioning them in temperatures. The mold has zillions sorts of custom electronic enclosure
quadrature to each other.
Precision Magnetics offers a wide
variety of sensor solutions suitable
for digital compass, robotics and for
vehicle navigation apps. The coils
themselves measure about 3/16 inch
in diameter by 3/4 inch long. controlled and timed heat source
Their typical dual-axis compass
magnetometer measures a tad over an
inch square, draws a few mils, and thermoplastic sheet to be shaped
sells for $80 or so.
Do remember that any accurate tiny vent
compass measurement must be dead holes
level. To cure this problem, Precision male
Navigation has introduced a Vector die

2XT gimbaled electronic compass

module. Introductory pricing is $100
for this self-levelling unit.
By making use of this exciting new
two-stage vacuum source
isotropic technology, there’s no real evacuates this area
reason why any consumer compass,
nav, or robotics sensor that costs less
than a dollar per axis cannot be built
in large quantities.
Let’s have your thoughts on this. It
would seem that there are all sorts of Fig. 5 – VACUUM FORMING is a process that first heats a plastic sheet and
exciting new possibilities here. Plus a then draws it against a form. This low- to mid-quantity process is fairly cheap
lot of tech venture opportunities. and low tech. Custom electronic enclosures are one app.
Copyright c 1996 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved.
104.3
Tech Musings

VACUUM FORMING RESOURCES

AIN Plastics Delvies Plastics Pitsco SignCraft

249 E Sandford Blvd 133 W Haven Ave 1004 E Adams PO Box 06031
Mt Vernon NY 10550 Salt Lake City UT 84165 Pittsburg KS 66762 Ft Myers FL 33906
(914) 668-6800 (800) 533-5843 (800) 835-0686 (813) 939-4644
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Amherst NH 03031 Minneapolis MN 55416 Skokie IL 60077 Glen Burnie MD 21060
(603) 429-0948 (612) 920-7393 (708) 675-7400 (310) 768-8600
Betterway Books Industrial Education School Shop US Plastics
1507 Dana Avenue 1895 Crooks Rd #135 Box 8623 1390 Neubrecht Rd
Cincinnati OH 45207 Troy MI 48084 Ann Arbor MI 48107 Lima OH 45801
(800) 289-0963 (313) 649-4900 (313) 769-1211 (800) 537-9724
Cinefex Lindsay Publications Sign Business Vacuum Form
Box 20027 PO Box 538 1008 Depot Hill Office Pk 272 Morganhill Drive
Riverside CA 92516 Bradley IL 60915 Broomfield CO 80020 Lake Orion MI 48360
(909) 781-1917 (815) 935-5353 (303) 469-0424 (810) 391-2974

possibilities as well. The process can save a lot by cutting your own from Shop, Signcraft, Sign Business, POP
be cheap and low tech. Especially full sized sheets. & Sign Design, and Cinefex.
when compared against an injection Other sources of low end hobby Bunches more content on amateur
molding. You can easily build your and school vacuum formers include vacuum in general appears in Steve
own machines. Pitsco, Delvies, and IASCO. Outfits Hansen’s Bell Jar. All your usual net
Vacuum forming obviously works who specialize in the school markets search engines will give you dozens
best when there are no undercuts and and who also offer reasonably priced of effective hits on vacuum forming.
when a whole lot of stretching is not injection molding and blow molding And including a not-quite-so-useful
needed. As the sheet stretches, it gets machines, molds, and materials. hit on something that I’ve always
thinner. You can only go so far. Yes, anyone can buy from these suspected: vacuum formed fruitcake.
Let us start off with The Molding low cost sources. They just happen to I’ve got hot links to these sites on
and Casting Handbook by Thurston advertise mostly to the school shop my www.tinaja.com More on plastics
James. This one is mostly on theatric market. Making them hard to find. in general can be located in my file
props. This includes an outstanding Two common plastics suitable for RESBN50.PDF on the new Resouce
chapter on how to build your own vacuum work are Styrene and Vivak. Bin library shelf.
vacuum forming machine and then The latter is sometimes used for clear
use it. From Betterway Books. helicopter canopies. Rigid vinyl and New Tech Lit
There is no real upper limit to acrylic also work fairly well. From Integrated Circuit Systems, a
vacuum forming sizes. Full four by Actually, most any thermoplastic superb data book on a mind-blowing
eight plastic sheets can be formed if will do just fine. So long as it has a collection of music synthesizer chips,
you need big results. reasonable softening temperature. video and audio circuits, multimedia,
Other books on vacuum forming Friendly plastic suppliers include battery chargers, timers, and bunches
are sold by Lindsay Publications both United States Plastics, and AIN more. From Elantec a New Products
A company called, of all things, Plastics. Also check out the folks at Supplement on fast video and comm
Vacuum Form view themselves as the Southern Sign Supply. chips. From Fujitsu, their Wireless
leaders in low cost vacuum forming. Useful magazines here are School Communications Products and Power
Prices on their Hobby-Vac series start Management data book.
at $99. They do cheat a little on this A new book and video catalog on
one, requiring your kitchen oven to NEED HELP? Santa Claus machines, on CAD/CAM
presoften the plastic. And your shop Phone or write all your US Tech and even on ingenious mechanisms
vac for first stage vacuum. A small Musings questions to: from the Society of Manufacturing
hand pump is provided for the final Engineers.
Don Lancaster
forming drawdown. Synergetics
Outer Space Frequency Directory
This one does sheets up to 6 x 9 Box 809-EN is mostly a detailed listing of NASA
inches and, amazingly, can handle up Thatcher, AZ, 85552 and the other satellite related comm
to a 3/16 inch thickness. Prices on (520) 428-4073 channels. From Tiare Pubs.
their fancier commercial machines Speaking of outer space, the fourth
US email: [email protected]
that include heaters and pumps start Web page: www.tinaja.com
edition of that International UFO
at $458. They also retail books and Directory by David Blevins is now
precut plastic sheets. But you can available for $12.50.
104.4 Copyright c 1996 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved.
 September, 1996
new from
NAMES AND NUMBERS
DON LANCASTER
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the next. The big trouble is that they Machine II book. Available per my proven coverage on small scale technical startup
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reference resources, too. Tech help, hot links to
kiddy blocks. Put them together just As usual, most of the mentioned cool sites, consultants. email: [email protected]
right without any glue or support and resources appear in those Vacuum FREE US TECH HELPLINE VISA / MC
you can stand on it. Clearly carrying Forming or in the Names & Numbers SYNERGETICS
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It’s absolutely amazing what you before using my US tech helpline or Thatcher, AZ 85552
( 520 ) 428-4073
can do when you apply modern solid visiting www.tinaja.com ✦
Copyright c 1996 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved.
104.5
Tech Musings

104.6 Copyright c 1996 by Don Lancaster and Synergetics (520) 428-4073 www.tinaja.com All commercial rights and all electronic media rights fully reserved.