Hi All,  Just a SAMPLE of this month's articles at www.spectrum.ieee.org

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Summer Fun 

Electronic gadgets to make warm weather and vacations even more enjoyable 

By Michael J. Riezenman & Elizabeth A. Bretz 


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Hot Stuff 

HOME 

Is the sidewalk hot enough to fry eggs? Are the tires cool enough after a
trip to the beach to take a valid pressure reading? Is the metal slide in
the playground too hot for kids in shorts? 

For the inquisitive, questions like these can be easily_and
quickly_answered by an inexpensive noncontact thermometer from Raytek Corp.
(Santa Cruz, Calif.). It determines an object's temperature by measuring
the infrared radiation it emits. Just point the handheld Non-contact
Infrared Thermometer at a target, press its single control button for about
half a second until the reading stabilizes, and release. The temperature
can be read for seven seconds on the thermometer's liquid-crystal display,
after which the instrument turns itself off. 


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After it was aimed at the surface of the coffee, Raytek's US $49.99
infrared thermometer indicated that the coffee had cooled considerably. 
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No need to wipe a probe clean after you submerge it in your swimming pool
if you later decide to dunk it in your coffee. Just point and click to read
temperatures between -18 øC and +200 øC, or 0 øF to 400 sF, changeable by
means of a switch in the battery compartment. The unit has an accuracy of
ñ2.5 percent of reading or ñ2.5 øC, whichever is greater, over most of its
range. The thermometer, which relies on a tiny thermopile to sense
temperature, can help you recognize all sorts of potential problems, from
an overheating air conditioner to a pot of zabaglione getting dangerously
close to the curdling point. 

To minimize errors, the target should be about twice as big as the
thermometer's spot size. In most cases, best results are obtained at
measurement distances of 75-300 mm. 

Noncontact thermometers and thermal imagers are hardly new. What makes
Raytek's new offering worthy of special notice is its low price_US $49.99,
about half the price of the company's older Minitemp model. The thermometer
is sold in Radio Shack stores and by phone (+1 800 843 7422, toll-free in
the United States), but not online, as Catalog No. 22-325. 

Raytek isn't just making toys for ordinary folks. For maintenance
engineers, it has another handheld that looks for trouble in the offing.
The ThermoView Ti30 infrared imager is used to examine plant and field
equipment for hot spots indicative of coming trouble. The imager displays a
TV-like image of whatever it is pointed at on a 3.2-inch liquid-crystal
display. But instead of indicating optical brightness, the image's gray
scale or color palette indicates temperatures across the scene, according
to Fernando Lisboa, Raytek's product manager. The temperature of a small
area at the center of the image, indicated by a crosshatch, is shown
digitally at the edge of the image. 

Because maintenance applications do not need to resolve temperature
differences in the fractional degree range, the Ti30 can use an uncooled
array of infrared sensors as its detection subsystem. This makes the
instrument considerably less expensive than conventional imagers with
thermoelectrically cooled arrays: suggested list price is $9950_well below
the $30 000 price tag of similar imagers. It comes with a power adapter,
rechargeable battery packs, a docking station (for computer communication
and battery recharge), data-management software, other accessories, and two
days of user training. 

The unit's 126-by-120-element focal plane array measures temperatures from
0 to 250 øC (32 to 482 øF) accurate to within ñ2 percent of reading or ñ2
øC, whichever is greater. Measurements are repeatable to within ñ1 percent
of reading or ñ1 øC, whichever is greater. 

For more information, visit the Raytek Web site at http://www.raytek.com/ti30. 


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Ball of Light 

GOLF 

For golfers, the joy of summer, with its long hours of daylight and warm
weather, is, "More hours to play golf!" The trouble is that those
long hours often tempt players to continue a game long past the time when
they can see that tiny white ball arcing toward the 17th green. Enter the
Twilight Tracer from Sun Products. 



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Twilight Tracer looks like a regular white golf ball_until it's hit. Then
two LEDs within flash red, as in this simulation, so the ball's trajectory
can be seen at dusk. 
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The Tracer is a regulation golf ball that literally makes golfers see red.
Red LEDs, that is. The core of the ball contains proprietary circuitry, a
lithium battery, and two red LEDs programmed to flash 7.2 times a second
for about five or six minutes. The flashing begins as soon as the ball is
hit by the club or dropped from a height of about 120 mm. The battery is
good for about 40 hours or 480 strokes. 

The Tracer is the latest flashing item from Sun Products, which makes pet
toys that feature flashing materials. The golf balls are available at golf
and retail shops like Brookstone, or you can order directly from the
company itself at http://www.twilighttracer.com. One Tracer sells for US
$14.95, a package of three is $27.95, and a nine-pack is $69.95. Each
Tracer comes with tees and a carrying bag. 


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Night Rider 

CYCLING 

For children, attaching playing cards to bicycle spokes with clothespins
can make bike riding extra special, to say nothing about noisy. A headlight
makes night riding practical, not least because it alerts oncoming traffic
to the rider's presence. Hokey Spokes add style and safety in 21st century
techno-style_alerting traffic and making the bike more fun to be seen. 



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Hokey Spokes are LED "blades" that attach to bike spokes,
creating light images as the wheel turns. 
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Hokey Spokes are light "blades," as the company calls them, that
contain LEDs and are attached to the spokes of one or both bicycle wheels.
The lights on up to six blades will communicate with each other so that
designs, words, or short messages can be created by the spinning wheels.
The blades rely on infrared signals for communication, and the displays can
remain con-stant or made to change automatically during a ride. 

Users can program their own text messages by beaming them in from PDAs that
use the Palm operating system. Made by Illumination Design Works
(Watertown, Mass.), Hokey Spokes are available in red, yellow, green,
orange, blue, and rainbow versions. 

The more blades used, the brighter the image and the more complete the
image appears at lower speeds. The blades are designed to fit any mountain
or road bicycle with a wheel diameter of at least 610 mm (24 inches). Each
blade retails for US $30 to $40, depending on color. Order directly from
the company at http://www.hokeyspokes.com. 


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Water, Water Everywhere_Not 

GARDENING 

You're sitting under the stands waiting out a rain delay for tonight's
Angels-Mariners baseball game. Then it hits you: your home sprinkler system
was timed to go off, and so it's watering your lawn while the rain does the
same thing. Until now, short of going home, there was nothing you could do
to stop the flood. Thanks to S.Sense from Digital Sun (San Jose, Calif.),
today you can get help from a wireless sensor network that can be
retrofitted to control your existing automatic watering system. 

The unit has two parts: a receiver that fits in the sprinkler's control box
and a sensor-filled spike for your lawn. The receiver acts as a stop/start
mechanism for the timer on your sprinkler system. The spike holds a probe
that continuously monitors soil moisture within a 150-mm radius to
determine when and how much water is needed. Press the probe's plastic cap
and it displays the soil's moisture content. Multiple spikes can be used
with a single receiver. 

Each spike communicates wirelessly with the receiver through a proprietary
mesh network based on a 900-MHz radio and antenna. Functionally similar to
the personal-area network protocol spelled out in the IEEE 802.15.4
standard, S.Sensor's mesh network technology has better battery life than
IEEE 802.15.4 specifies: the spike gets about a year on a single AA
battery. The IEEE standard calls for one year on two AA batteries. 

A screwdriver is generally all that's needed to install the receiver in the
control box, generally with just two wires. Then it's just a matter of
driving the stake into the ground. If the basic starter kit_US $150 for a
single spike and receiver_isn't enough for your lawn's multiple watering
zones, extra probes are $89 each. Additional probes can be used to address
difficult landscapes, controlling sprinklers for different zones. Order
online at http://www.digitalsun.com 

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