Easier implementation: Kits for cable testing, wireless products

By Control Engineering Staff -- Control Engineering, 5/6/2008

San Diego, CA, Chandler, AZ and Mountain View, CA – There’s something naturally appealing about a kit. The idea implies that what’s needed is included in the box, and, without too much extra effort or chasing around for stuff, what’s supposed to happen can happen. Separate announcements that follow offer kits for cable testing and implementation of wireless products. 

Unidapt RF Cable tester has an assortment of 30 universal adapters.

RFA-4028-WIFI kit by

RF Connectors

, a division of RF Industries contains a Unidapt RF Cable tester (RFA-4018-20) with an assortment of 30 universal adapters, including male and female MMCX, N, reverse polarity TNC, Reverse Polarity SMA, TNC, BNC, and SMA connector interfaces. By joining two adapters using a universal center included in the kit, coaxial adapters can be made with any combination of the interfaces. The RFA-4018-20 coaxial cable tester, a solid-state continuity checker that measures for opens and shorts, features an LED display that indicates continuity for the shield and center conductor and that checks for shorting across conductor paths. An additional continuity tester is included for testing CAT5/5E/6 straight through or crossover RJ-45, UTP, 10Base-T, 100Base-T, and 1000Base-T EIA/TIA 568A/568/B network cables. The LED display identifies cable pairs and indicates a correctly wired cable; it will identify crossed pairs or incorrectly wired pairs. Kit housing is foam-lined, impact-resistant plastic. 

Microchip Technology

announced availability of

Integration Associates

’ EZLink Development Kit (Microchip part # TDKEZ915) for $240 on the www.microchipdirect.com e-commerce Web site. The kit augments the wireless products from Microchip, by providing wireless customers an option for sub-GHz RF modem development. The EZLink radio module contains an onboard PIC18F2520 8-bit Flash microcontroller and Integration’s IA4421 EZRadio transceiver.

EZLink Development Kit provides a ready-to-use RF module.

The EZLink Development Kit provides a ready-to-use RF module solution through EZRadio technology. A single-chip, low-power solution, the IA4421 is a 434, 868, and 915 MHz multichannel, Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK) transceiver designed to provide the industry’s lowest radio BOM by using only one external component — a crystal. The IA4421 is suitable for low-power, high-performance wireless applications. The kit’s two EZLink radio modules are populated with Microchip’s PIC18F2520 8-bit microcontrollers.
“Microchip is expanding the reach of customers’ wireless designs by offering Integration’s EZLink Development Kit on microchipDirect,” said Steve Caldwell, director of Microchip’s RF Products Division. “The EZLink Development Kit provides our PIC microcontroller customers with an easy-to-use sub-GHz ISM RF modem development environment.” According to Ferenc Mernyei, Integration’s application support director, “Integration is proud to partner with Microchip to meet the market need for generating fast RF prototypes. The EZLink development kit, which consists of the widely used PIC microcontroller and the award-winning IA4421 transceiver, will meet this need for customers throughout the world.”
Microchip customers may create proprietary and standard-based short-range wireless networking solutions using the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) frequency bands from 415 MHz to 2.4GHz. Integration’s EZLink Development Kit joins Microchip’s RF product portfolio of 2.4 GHZ, IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) MRF24J40 transceiver-based products, to provide options for wireless engineers’ sub-GHz networking needs.
– Control Engineering News Desk
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