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A simple way to test, benchmark, and diagnose USB-C ports — USB4 compatible, up to 20 Gb/s USB-C ports all look the same from the outside, but they don’t always behave the same. Some run slower than they should. Some quietly drop data. Some work fine for a few minutes and then fail under heavy use. The USB-C 20G Loopback Plug is a small, pocket-sized tool that helps you find these problems fast. Plug it into any USB-C port, run a test, and you get clear answers about speed, e

Closing the Loop: A Practical Guide to the Actuonix LAC Board with P-Series Linear Actuators Position-controlling a linear actuator sounds simple until you reach for the soldering iron. A P-series Actuonix unit already knows where it is; the trouble is acting on that knowledge. This is the board that does it for you, and this is how it wires up on the bench. Figure 1 — The Actuonix LAC board, labelled per the datasheet: the X1–X6 connectors and the P1–P3 trim pots (Speed, Lim

A field guide to the Binho I3C Basic Protocol Analyzer for Saleae Logic I3C squeezes dynamic addressing, in-band interrupts, hot-join and 12.5 MHz transfers onto the same two wires as I²C. That power is exactly what makes it painful to debug. Here’s how a logic-analyzer plugin turns raw bus edges back into readable transactions. An I3C capture decoded: raw SCL/SDA edges resolved into a labeled transaction — Start, address, ACK, CCC, payload, Stop. (Illustrative, not bit-acc

“How does an actuator work?” is one of the most common questions in motion design — and a fair one. Linear motion hides a surprising amount of mechanical nuance behind a simple-looking part. This guide breaks down the definition, internal components, and operating principles of an electric linear actuator so you know exactly what is happening inside the housing when one extends and retracts. KEY TAKEAWAYS An actuator converts energy into controlled motion — for electric linea

Better Angles. Better Flow. Better PCBs. Figure 1: Visual comparison of 90°, 45°, and Arc/Fillet trace routing on a PCB Introduction PCB trace routing is far more than connecting dots on a board. Every bend, corner, and curve in a copper trace directly affects signal integrity, manufacturing yield, and long-term reliability. Among the most misunderstood aspects of PCB layout is the treatment of trace angles — specifically, why the industry standard strongly discourages routi

STM32CubeIDE is a powerful Eclipse-based development environment used for building and debugging applications on STM32 ARM microcontrollers. It provides integrated tools for code generation, compilation, and debugging. For advanced debugging scenarios, external debug probes such as PEMicro Cyclone and PEMicro Multilink can be used. These devices extend debugging capabilities through a dedicated Eclipse GDB plugin, enabling seamless integration with STM32CubeIDE. This article