The average homeowner probably doesn’t think about the quality of the electrical power coming out of household wall sockets. But that’s not the case for large industrial facilities where capacitive, inductive, and non-linear electrical loads can be large enough to distort the ac waveform. In those cases, electrical power quality becomes an important measurement. Electric […]
Featured
Don’t be confused by line and neutral fusing
It pays to know when the use of a single fuse is less hazardous than fusing both hot and neutral wires. David Norton | TDK-Lambda Americas For many years ac-dc power supplies for the medical market have been safety certified to the IEC 60601-1 medical standard and to the industrial IEC 60950-1 /IEC 62368-1 standards. […]
Common misconceptions about the MOSFET body diode
Engineers who design power circuits around wide-bandgap semiconductors frequently make costly mistakes that relate to the switching behavior of transistors. Julian Styles | GaN Systems We need to face an awkward and embarrassing truth about ourselves in the world of power electronics. I’d like to ask you to try to be completely open and honest […]
How to electrocute yourself in a few easy steps
Here’s a fun project: Pop open an old microwave oven and scavenge the high-voltage transformer powering the cavity magnetron vacuum tube. Then use it to make yourself a Lichtenberg generator. But be sure there’s someone nearby to call an ambulance. Lichtenberg generators are used to create art and abstract objects by burning fractal patterns into […]
Error analysis in temperature sensing with NTC and silicon-based PTC thermistors: Comparing the Ratiometric and Absolute methods
by Hadi Ebrahimi-Darkhaneh, Texas Instruments A thermistor is a resistive device specifically designed to vary resistance with thermal change, and therefore follows Ohm’s law. According to Ohm’s law, a current passing through a resistive component will produce a voltage drop across that component. This voltage is proportional to the magnitude of the component resistance and […]
Prototype design with Arduino in latest “Engineering Big Ideas” series video
Mouser Electronics Inc. and celebrity engineer Grant Imahara today released the second video in the Engineering Big Ideas series, part of Mouser’s award-winning Empowering Innovation Together program. Watch the latest video at https://mou.sr/EIT2019-2. In the second video of the Engineering Big Ideas series, Mouser and Imahara take viewers along to Milan, Italy, for a visit to […]
The Hubble Space Telescope: Part 4
Part 1 looked at the difficult, costly, and lengthy journey from concept to a successful launch. Part 2 looked at the severe problems of the HST discovered after launch, and Part 3 looked at what has been learned from the Hubble “experience.” The final installment of this story looks at the plans for a post-Hubble […]
The Hubble Space Telescope: Part 3
Part 1 looked at the difficult, costly, and lengthy journey from concept to a successful launch. Part 2 looked at the severe problems of the HST discovered after launch. Part 3 of this story looks at what has been learned from the Hubble “experience.” There are many lessons from this expensive disaster turned into spectacular […]
Understanding instrumentation for measuring total harmonic distortion
When discussing total harmonic distortion (THD), the fundamental of the wave in question is known as the first harmonic. Quantifying THD, therefore, begins with the second harmonic. Theoretically, the number of harmonics is limited only by some maximum frequency based on minimum quantum wavelength. In reality, however, we are interested in a relatively small number […]
The Hubble Space Telescope: concept, delay, embarrassment, despair, and finally – jubilation, Part 2
Part 1 looked at the difficult, costly, and lengthy journey from concept to a successful launch. Part 2 looks at the severe problems of the HST discovered after launch. Out of Focus: only the most-obvious problem When Hubble’s lens cover was first pulled back, and the imager saw its “first light,” no one expected picture-perfect […]