by John Leeman | Jun 27, 2023
What is an RTD? The RTD has long been the workhorse of the temperature measurement world. Though thermocouples are inexpensive and popular, they often do not have the accuracy or resolution needed for industrial or laboratory processes. While the thermocouple works on... 
by Jonah Bailey | May 30, 2023
What are libraries? The Arduino Integrated Development Environment or Arduino IDE software provides a simple interface to write code, compile it, and upload it to your Arduino compatible microcontroller. While the functions for many basic tasks such as turning pins on... 
by Jackson Copeland | May 16, 2023
How to use a serial terminal Many pieces of field and laboratory equipment, our products included, utilize serial communication to interface with your computer. Serial connections allow you to send commands to an instrument to configure it and receive data back for... 
by John Leeman | Apr 26, 2023
Displacement transducers are everywhere in laboratory and industrial settings. From measuring minute changes in position of the Earth, rock samples in a mechanics laboratory, or positions of thrusters and control surfaces in aerospace. The DCDT (Direct Current... 
by John Leeman | Dec 19, 2022
When looking at highly dimensional data it is easy to become overwhelmed with the possibilities of how you can look at, slice, and analyze the data to actually answer a question from that sea of numbers. Group by is a common operation we need to do and can easily... 
by John Leeman | Dec 12, 2022
The compass is the essential navigation tool pointing explorers, sailors, pilots, and scientists in the right direction since the 11th century. As with any tool, there’s a catch. The compass points to the magnetic North which is not exactly aligned with... 
by John Leeman | Dec 5, 2022
Pandas DataFrames serve us well in many applications, but for data with multiple coordinates or many attributes XArray may be a better fit. In this week’s video we explore how to convert a DataFrame to a DataSet using upper air balloon data as an example. Pandas... 
by John Leeman | Nov 14, 2022
Sharing Python environments is a crucial step in ensuring the reproducibility of your work and making it easy to collaborate with others in your research group. In this MetPy Monday, Unidata helps us understand how to create environment files that let you share your... 
by Jonah Bailey | Feb 1, 2022
Through hole components have been around for a long time – those little bug looking parts on circuit boards with leads coming off and going through the board. Though hole (TH) components have one or more conductive leads, or pins, and those are perfectly matched... 
by Jonah Bailey | Jan 18, 2022
Splicing Two Wires: The ability to electrically and mechanically join two wires together is essential for all types of prototyping, maintenance, and modification of any electrical system. There are several ways to join two wires including wire nuts, Wago connectors,... 
by Jonah Bailey | Jan 4, 2022
Soldering can be quite intimidating – the hot iron, the smoke, the images of burned and destroyed equipment. However, with minimal tooling, and a little practice, anyone can make professional looking solder joints with consistency and ease. We’re going to...