Read more about the article 10 Great Renewable Energy Videos

10 Great Renewable Energy Videos

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Here we have gathered together a collection of interesting, informative and some slightly offbeat examples of renewable energy. We’ve tried to find a good selection of both power generation and transportation technologies. With all of the resources available for renewable projects at the present time, this has to be one of the most exciting areas of engineering at the moment.

Take a look at the videos and let us know your views and experiences in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

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Read more about the article Do You Need To Measure Brake Noise?

Do You Need To Measure Brake Noise?

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The objective of the brake noise tests was to record the braking events of cars being driven on various types of road and classify those events according to their type (Groan, Creep or Squeal etc) and severity. To do this the customer needed a system capable of working for long periods inside a vehicle in fairly tough conditions (high ambient temperatures, rough road) that was both quick to install and to remove.

On previous tests a system from another supplier had turned out to be unreliable and had failed to cope with the harsh environment. The analysis processing had also proved tedious and time consuming due to the huge amount of data created when testing several vehicles over many days.

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Read more about the article 6 Brilliant Richard Feynman Videos

6 Brilliant Richard Feynman Videos

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I had absolutely no idea that this archive existed on the BBC website and so it was a joy to discover that it did. I have never come across anyone else who has been able to explain scientific principles in a way that makes them so easy to understand as Richard Feynman could. It is rare to find a mind so capable of grasping the most complex aspects of science and yet is also able to reduce them to a form that we mere mortals can understand.

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Read more about the article Buzzing & Flickring: Two New Ways To Keep In Touch

Buzzing & Flickring: Two New Ways To Keep In Touch

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Prosig have recently added two new ways for our readers to keep in touch with new articles on the blog, happenings at Prosig and other interesting information that we find about NVH, noise & vibration measurement and condition monitoring. Now, as well as Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn, we can be found on Google Buzz and Flickr.

For those of you unfamiliar with these sites…

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Read more about the article 10 Videos Featuring Technological Innovation, Inspiration And Invention

10 Videos Featuring Technological Innovation, Inspiration And Invention

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This post is a celebration of everything great in science, technology and engineering. From simple inventions, through future technologies, to one of the greatest human minds in history. All of the following videos are examples of the best there is in technological innovation and invention. The sort of radical thinking that makes one think “Wow!”.

Do you know of any more videos like these? Why not share them by adding a comment with a link in the Leave A Reply box at the bottom of the article. If we have enough we will publish a followup article featuring the best of your suggestions.

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Read more about the article Developing an Algorithm for Tick Detection

Developing an Algorithm for Tick Detection

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An investigation was made of a sample of automotive components where some were exhibiting a high frequency “tick” or rattle during each operating cycle. This feature could be heard above the normal operating noise. The problem this posed was to measure and analyze components in an objective fashion and classify components as “good” or “bad”.

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Read more about the article 10 Educational Mechanical Engineering Videos

10 Educational Mechanical Engineering Videos

We’ve had a good look around YouTube and dug up a great collection of educational mechanical engineering videos. There’s a wide range of information here from simple maths tutorial to explanations of the inner workings of the internal combustion engine. We hope you enjoy watching and if you have any favorites of your own please drop a comment in the box at the bottom of the page.

1. Gas Turbine Animation

Nice animation and explanation of the workings of a gas turbine [Edit: video link changed after first became unavailble]

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Read more about the article Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About GPS But Were Afraid To Ask
Figure 4: Differential GPS (DGPS)

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About GPS But Were Afraid To Ask

As you may know Prosig have recently released a GPS module for their popular P8000 series of data acquisition systems. The GPS module adds the ability to record accurate position information alongside all of the normal measurement channels. This is a highly useful capability and enables an engineer to easily correlate measured results with vehicle position and behaviour at the time. It also makes it simple to extract data based on position on a test track or road course.

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Read more about the article 10 Sites That Every Engineer Should Know About

10 Sites That Every Engineer Should Know About

Here’s another post inspired by an office discussion. We were discussing our favourite engineering based websites and realised the results would make a great blog post. So after a rummage through our bookmarks and a little further debate we’ve come up with our top ten sites. We tried to keep the list balanced so you’ll find a few resource sites, a little bit of fun and one or two sites that aren’t purely engineering sites, but contain valuable knowledge for engineers. Do you have a favourite site that we haven’t included? Why not add a comment below and give your favourites a plug.

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Noise & Vibration Capture with GPS Tracking

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The latest version of the CAN-bus/GPS (8440) module is now available for the Prosig P8012, P8020 and P8048 systems. The CAN-bus/GPS module has been in use in the field for some time now, recording CAN-bus information for display and analysis alongside noise, vibration, temperature and other signals captured by P8000 systems. The DATS software treats all analog and CAN-bus parameters in the same way so any mixture of parameters can be selected for display in real-time and subsequent processing. CAN-bus parameters can also be used to trigger immediate and pre-triggered captures and to stop captures.

The 8440 module now has an option to capture GPS parameters in addition to the other signals. The data capture software now also supports a realtime GPS track overlayed on a map. Velocity and altitude data measured by the GPS system can also be displayed alongside any other measurement channels in realtime displays. The latitude, longitude, altitude and velocity data is  stored with with all the other sensor data captured by the P8000 system and is available to view and process in the resulting datasets. These signals can then be used to classify or select data for further analysis. For example you could choose to process data when the vehicle is on a particular road or a particular section of the track, or if you find an unusual event use the GPS data to give a position and time or the event.

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Prosig launch new PROLOG data acquisition controller

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PROLOG - data acquisition controllerProsig have welcomed 2010 with the official launch of their PROLOG data acquisition controller.

PROLOG is a controller that will allow remote, unattended or standalone operation of a P8000 system. In normal operation a P8000 data acquisition system is connected to a laptop or PC and data is stored, in real-time, on the computers hard drive via the USB 2.0 interface.  This configuration provides a robust, high speed data capture environment. However, there are situations where it is not practical to keep the laptop connected. In some cases the environment may be suitable for the P8000 unit, but not for some of the more fragile components in a laptop. In other situations it may be desirable to have the measurement system in one location, whilst the operator may be positioned some distance away. The PROLOG unit is designed to address both of these requirements.

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Read more about the article 10 Great Fourier Transform Links

10 Great Fourier Transform Links

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Joseph Fourier

Following a discussion in the office about Fourier Transforms we did a little searching on the web. As always, we discovered that the Internet is packed with some great resources on Fourier and his work. So rather than keep all of the information to ourselves we thought we should share it with our readers. We have whittled our list down to 10 links that we think represent the whole range of information from beginners guides to reference pages. So there should be something for everyone whether you’re a grizzled signal processing veteran or a student looking to learn something new. If you have your own favourite Fourier links then please add them to the comments. Maybe we could use them for a future blog post. Or if you have other comments please feel free to add them below.

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Read more about the article Measuring Torsional Crank Shaft Jitter

Measuring Torsional Crank Shaft Jitter

Using Prosig’s P8000 series data acquisition system with DATS signal analysis software, torsional analysis (crank shaft jitter) was performed on an automotive engine attached to an engine dynamometer. The significance of this is that only one tachometer channel was required to identify crank jitter.

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