Electronic communications systems are made up of three basic components: a transmitter, a receiver, and a transmission medium. Use a video game system with a wired controller as an example. The controller is a transmitter, while the console is a receiver, and the wire that connects the two is the transmission medium. This wire is typically made up of copper. The distance from a couch to your tv is relatively short compared to the distance two continents separated by an ocean. For this distance fiber optic cables are used. Instead of electrical signals being transmitted, lasers are used to generate light across fibers of glass.
Until recently, to transmit 1s and 0s the laser would turn the light would be pulsed on from an off state. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado have reversed the process and have successfully generated a series of “dark pulses.”
Any transmission medium will have irregularities which disrupt communications. What the researchers have found is that by sending Dark Pulses they can minimize the irregularities typically found in Fiber.
According to the lead researcher, Richard Mirin of NIST, it will be a few years before this technology makes it into the commercial marketplace.
More information can be found in this article at PhysicsWorld.
In July, I left on a trip that took my friend and I around the world. While traveling, I kept a blog of the trip at trip.cmiyc.com.We visited New Zealand and Australia during winter. After that we spent a week swimming and sunning on beaches in Bali. Then we made some quick stops to Tokyo, Bangkok, and Egypt. In Egypt, we got to ride camels and see the Pryamids. While in London, I met with another friend for a few days before visiting Budapest and Ireland. Pictures can be found on my Picasa Albums. Now that the trip is over, it is time to get back to work. 🙂
This screen shot is an all-layer view of my TLC5940 painter board. The 1st draft featured two TLC5940s, but I decided it made the board too large. Instead, I wanted the ability to mount the painter boards around the LED’s shadow box. This should make routing all the wires much easier.
This pattern is called Row Your Boat. As one of the strips starts to get brighter, a nearby strip will join in the fading. After completing a fade cycle, they start switching colors. There is a random strobe thrown in there as well. The first 10 seconds are with a diffuser (piece of paper), the last 10 seconds are without. The final panel will use a diffuser.
