Get charged up for Taitronics 2015

Electronics enthusiasts from all over the world will soon be swarming to Taitronics 2015 — the 41st Taipei International Electronics Show. The annual event is organised by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), founded in 1970 to help promote foreign trade.

To be held from 6-9 October at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Taiwan, the exhibition last year attracted over 45,000 attendees from 90 different countries. This year’s show promises to be just as exciting, with over 350 exhibitors already signed up to showcase their latest and most innovative products in the following categories:

• Active and passive components
• Electronic components and parts
• Meters and instruments
• LED lighting and applications
• Cells, batteries and power supplies
• Industrial process and automation equipment
• Smart living and consumer electronics
• Broadband products and cloud tech
• Semiconductors (new)
• Electrical energy (new)

Green energy

In order to enhance environmental awareness and lead smart mobile trends, the year’s exhibition theme is ‘Green Electronics, Smart Living’. Clean technology will thus play a significant role for several exhibitors, with lighting company OmniTronix set to showcase its extensive LED range.

The company concentrates on producing high-quality products with first-class technical properties, operating under the understanding that the rising popularity of LEDs does not necessarily translate to a rise in quality. As a result, OmniTronix ensures that its products have achieved ENEC — a European Mark for electrical products that demonstrates compliance with European standards. The company’s range includes electronic ballasts, emergency light insert units, electronic converters for metal halide lamps, LED drivers, electronic transformers for low-voltage halogen lamps, dimmers and complex light-controlling units.

Resistor manufacturer TY-OHM Electronics has similarly become prominent in the clean tech space, with increasing demand for its SMD power chip resistors in Europe as the popularity of green energy increases (in fact, the company has a high demand for all its products, with a production capacity of over 150 million pieces per month). All TY-OHM resistors are RoHS compliant and halogen free, and can be designed according to customers’ specifications. The company also complies with ISO-14001 Environmental Management System requirements in order to improve its environmental performance.

Wire wound machines at the TY-OHM Electronics headquarters, Taiwan.

KS Terminals (KST), a producer of automotive connectors, electrical terminals, tools and machines, is also looking towards a green energy future. Its EV connector VCPGS2A/VCSS2A, for example, is a charging gun for pure and hybrid electric vehicles. The product has recently passed the 5000 N driveover test and been certified by TUV. The company’s other green energy solutions include PV cables, PV connectors and junction boxes.

KST Terminals’ AC charging connector for electric vehicles.

Test and measurement

Electrical safety testing expert Chroma produces a range of LED and EV testing devices, as well as power, battery and video/LCM testing equipment. The company is particularly proud of its solar array simulator, which replicates various sun/cloud conditions for PV inverter testing and thus serves as a more accurate alternative to real solar arrays in unreliable weather conditions. Taitronics will see the company exhibit its Model 63200A and 63600 electronic loads, its Model 66203/66204 power meter and its Model 61800 regenerative grid simulator.

The Chroma Model 66203/66204 power meter.

GW Instek will meanwhile be displaying its wide range of high-precision electronic test and measurement instruments. New in 2015 is the APS-7000 Series programmable AC power source — a series which comprises nine test and measurement functions and provides a user interface similar to that of an AC power meter. The company has additionally released the PSW-Series programmable switching DC power supply — a series of 15 models which allow for the flexible and efficient configuration of voltage and current within the rated power range.

Of course, testing is a vital part of any company’s operations, and the exhibitors are no exception. With a particular focus on the automotive market, KST places a high level of importance on quality assurance (QA) — as such, all its products go through extensive electrical, mechanical and environmental testing, in order to simulate driving conditions. This includes tests for chemicals, salt spray, high-pressure water spray, ozone ageing, rain, temperature, humidity, dust, extreme weather and ageing.

Protection and safety

SFI Electronics will be showcasing its overvoltage protection components, which protect against transient pulse types such as ESD, surge and load dump. Its products include chip surge protection devices, smartphone overvoltage protection devices and network protection devices. The company boasts the use of nanotechnology to develop its multilayer SMD varistors, which is said to bring a higher overvoltage capability to the components.

Varistors of various sizes from SFI Electronics.

EXCEL CELL ELECTRONIC (ECE) will exhibit its array of electromechanical components, with products including switches, terminal blocks, connectors, relays for home appliances and electronic control modules. Following its purchase of Goodsky in 2005, the company has released relays which are both fire retardant and halogen free — features which are particularly important to ECE clients operating in the home appliance sector. If one of the company’s relays happens to short circuit, the resulting high temperature will cause it to melt — rather than burst into flames.

Power supply provider Mean Well will promote its RST-1000 10,000 W AC-DC Power Supply — claimed to be the highest power unit in the industry — which includes short circuit, overload, overvoltage, fan alarm and overtemperature protection. The company will also showcase its GST Level VI Power Adaptors, which are able to work for 24 consecutive hours without getting hot. Mean Well prides itself on having power supplies which comply with international safety certification. If a customer returns a faulty product, the company will repair it and keep a record of the return, in order to ensure that model isn’t constantly developing the same faults.

The Mean Well RST-1000 10,000 W AC-DC Power Supply.

Innovation

Particularly inventive companies will be recognised at Taitronics 2015 with the annual Technology Innovation Awards, which every year honour the outstanding R&D work of electronics manufacturers. SFI Electronics last year won the Gold Innovation Award for its CSPD (Chip Surge Protection Device), a kind of surface-mount surge voltage protector. The device is claimed by the company to have better nonlinear ohm, with higher withstanding peak current, compared to conventional products.

GW Instek also won a Gold Award for its GDS-300/200 Series compact oscilloscopes, with 200/100/70 MHz bandwidth selection and a 1 GSa/s sample rate. Other features include a built-in engineering calculator, SMD resistance coding, colour-coding information and attenuator calculation software.

Also in 2014, a Quality Award was presented to Mean Well for its 600 W waterproof power supply HLG-600/HEP-600. The HEP-600 is an industrial AC/DC power supply capable of operating under humid, dusty, oily and high-vibration environments. Applications for the product include outdoor telecoms equipment, outdoor electronic boards, petroleum-related facilities and EV charging stations.

Workers at Mean Well Taiwan.

It won’t be surprising to learn that the Taitronics exhibitors invest a substantial amount of resources in R&D, with many designing their own manufacturing equipment as well as their own products. For example, Chroma employs 39% of its staff, and spends 15% of its revenue, in the field of R&D. ECE, meanwhile, devotes 70-80% of its engineers and 5% of its annual revenue to the design of its products and production equipment.

It is clear that these companies are at the forefront of the electronics industry, and they make up just a small sample of what you can expect to see at Taitronics. The show is open to the public, and overseas attendees can pre-register online for free entry. For more information on the show, visit https://www.taitronics.tw/.