Pickleball paddle noise characterization with CoCo-80X and Post Analyzer, Dec 2023

Pickleball noise is comprised of several interactions, one being the paddle impacting the ball and another being people cheering and shouting. The paddle impact noise is one of the issues the industry has faced, and some paddle manufacturers are claiming quiet noise characteristics of their paddles.

In this opportunity, we used the Crystal Instrument’s CoCo-80X to characterize the noise from several paddles for acoustic comparison. The equipment consisted of three (3) microphones mounted on an arch boom and seven specimens to be tested (including different paddles). The testing was done inside the MD Acoustics, LLC’s anechoic chamber at the facilities in Gilbert, AZ.

MD Acoustics, LLCJanuary 5, 2024Acoustic Testing

CoCo-80X and EDM Post Analyzer usage for measurement and analysis of acoustic properties

Acoustic Consultants are often tasked with analyzing the noise absorption in rooms, studio garages, and storage spaces. The primary challenge in this type of analysis is to find a dynamic signal analyzer with portability, high sampling rate functionality, and complex analysis.

Acoustic Testing at Roam Robotics Using Spider-20E Analyzer

Roam Robotics is a San Francisco-based company expanding human mobility with wearable robotics focused in three areas: recreation support, medical orthotics, and military applications.

Each application requires a thorough investigation to ensure user safety and comfort. Crystal Instruments is proud to provide the four channel Spider-20E dynamic signal analyzer for Roam to perform acoustic testing on their products.

NASA CI-GRS (Ground Recording System) Feedback

NASA’s response to Crystal Instruments addressed items NASA found beneficial, items NASA wanted changed, and items NASA benchmark tested on the prototype units. The Crystal Instruments prototype GRS systems were delivered according to a contractual agreement and performed well when tested for each listed specification with some areas of improvement.

Acoustic Control

Aerospace hardware (i.e., space crafts) require high intensity acoustic level testing, which is usually accomplished inside a RATF (reverberant acoustic test facility). The acoustic noise level inside the RATF at NASA Plum Brook test station can reach 163 dB, which is the highest level among all RATFs around the world.

Jeff Zhao, Ph.D.November 19, 2021Acoustic Testing

EDM 10.0 Release

Crystal Instruments is excited to announce the release of EDM 10.0, the latest software version for all Spider and CoCo products serving advanced and fundamental industries in addition to furthering academic advancements.

Total Harmonic Distortion

Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) is a critical specification for signal analyzers and electronic components. This application note will provide a description of harmonics and harmonic distortion that is both brief and comprehensive.

Eric Carmi - Electrical Manufacturing EngineerSeptember 29, 2021Acoustic Testing

Spectral Flatness

Spectral flatness is a way to quantify the deviation of a passband from being perfectly flat across the frequency spectrum. Like most specifications, the behavior of signals measured in the passband is not ideal and we want to quantify the deviation from the ideal case.

Eric Carmi - Electrical Manufacturing EngineerAugust 28, 2021Acoustic Testing

Daily Acoustic Test and Measurement for 7,000 Laptop Fans with Spider System

A manufacturer of laptop fans was suffering from the results of slow production testing. The testing capacity was limited by testing products with manually operating instruments in a quiet room. Crystal Instruments provided the easy-to-use Spider hardware and EDM software package as a solution to significantly improve their production testing.

Tim Hsiao - Senior Product ManagerJuly 30, 2021Acoustic Testing

Watch how our products are designed and made.

Founded in 1996, Crystal Instruments designs and manufactures instrumentation products for machine vibration monitoring, dynamic measurement, and environmental testing. The products are developed in Silicon Valley and our modern lab in North Carolina. Crystal Instruments products are thoroughly tested on a variety of vibration shakers and environmental chambers in our lab during the design phase to meet the extreme requirements of military and aerospace applications.

Alias Rejection and Alias-free Bandwidth

There are two steps for converting an analog signal into a digital signal – quantization in time (sampling) and quantization of amplitude. Any signal that goes through the sampling process is subject to the effect of aliasing. The common use of the word ‘alias’ is used to describe a false name or identity, which is similar to how the term is used in signal processing.

Watch "This Week at NASA" featuring Crystal Instruments' CI-GRS system for data recording of sonic booms

Crystal InstrumentsMarch 29, 2021Acoustic Testing

Read NASA's Article: Cutting Edge Ground Recorders Selected to Measure Future X-59 Quiet Supersonic Flights

NASA will use the Crystal Instruments Ground Recording System, or CI-GRS for short, to gather data related to sonic booms, and in the future, the X-59’s quiet sonic thumps. A feature of the CI-GRS will be the ability for NASA to install custom software and algorithms tailored to various specialized operations for real-time analysis of sonic thumps. - Read article on NASA website

Crystal InstrumentsMarch 22, 2021Acoustic Testing

EDM 9.1 Release

Crystal Instruments is pleased to announce the release of EDM 9.1, the most reliable and powerful version available from Crystal Instruments.

Spider-20 Rental with Paradise Fireworks

Paradise Fireworks, the only black-powder fireworks manufacturer in Canada, recently rented a Spider-20E signal analyzer for some very unique tests. As a licensed explosion testing site in Canada, Paradise Fireworks was called upon to do some important blast testing for natural gas lines that lie beneath the small structures generally found in residential backyards. The goal of these tests was to define and quantify the dangers associated with having small structures (such as hot tubs and sheds) positioned above the junctions in these gas lines. To do this, Paradise would take pressure measurements from each blast using our high precision Spider-20E signal analyzer hardware in conjunction with our EDM DSA software.

NewsTrevor Ergas - Sales EngineerOctober 28, 2020Acoustic Testing