Top new questions this week:

Remind me, what operation could cause the inductor or the capacitor to explode?

In really early days of electronic school, the teacher used to say something about not unplug power too quickly at an inductor or capacitor and we were used to slowly turn the voltage generator from a …

capacitor inductor safety basic tank

asked by Illegal Immigrant 14 votes answered by JonRB 24 votes

Avoiding DC voltage drop over long distances

I am trying to power my IP camera over a long distance from the power socket (about 10m). The included power adapter, rated for 5V 2A is about 1.5m long. I cut the cable and extended it using a …

dc low-power cables

asked by navigator 9 votes answered by Spehro Pefhany 10 votes

What is the best way to convert 1.8 V to 5 V?

I connected HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor, to single-board computer BeagleBoard-xM. Trigger pin requires 5 V DC. However, control pins of BeagleBoard-xM can provide only 1.8 V DC. What is the best way to …

voltage integrated-circuit level-shifting

asked by dempap 7 votes answered by tcrosley 6 votes

What is output impedance of a pin?

When a datasheet mentions the output impedance of a pin so and so ohms. What exactly does it mean? Can anybody explain through a diagram how does it look like?

microcontroller

asked by Durgaprasad 6 votes answered by Vladimir Cravero 13 votes

Schematics vs PCB designs

I've heard the terms schematics and PCB designs used interchangeably as well as used distinctively. Are these one in the same, or do they represent to different sets of blueprints? If the latter, what …

pcb-design schematics

asked by smeeb 4 votes answered by AKR 15 votes

What exactly is a "Bill of Materials" (BoM)?

My understanding of a BoM is that it's essentially a list of the various components required for an electronic product or module. Does this mean it could be as simple as a spreadsheet? Are there any …

bom

asked by smeeb 4 votes answered by markrages 10 votes

Safety concerns over generic switching power supply units

I'm looking for a more stable power supply for my 3d printer. I've recently come across the following kinds of switching power supplies. They seem to come in all sorts of different sizes and …

power-supply safety mains

asked by tangrs 4 votes answered by Olin Lathrop 1 vote

Greatest hits from previous weeks:

Why does a Tesla car use an AC motor instead of a DC one?

I was just watching a mega factory video and wondered why they use an AC motor which requires a power inverter instead of DC which may be powered directly from their DC battery? Introducing an …

motor automotive

asked by wizzup 27 votes answered by HikeOnPast 39 votes

MOSFET as a Switch - When is it in Saturation?

I have the following circuit hooked up on a breadboard. I vary the gate voltage using a potentiometer. Here is what confuses me: according to wikipedia, the MOSFET is in saturation when V(GS) > …

mosfet

asked by Saad 19 votes answered by mazurnification 13 votes

Can you answer these?

Why is "throughput" called "bandwidth"?

But back in school, I had learned that the "bandwidth" of a communication channel is the frequency of the highest-frequency signal minus that of the lowest-frequency signal that it can carry. Yet in …

communication digital-communications bandwidth

asked by Mehrdad 1 vote

Routing Audio Ground - needed or not?

I'm trying to build a guitar pedal switcher (efectively a box that provides multiple effect loops that can be independently bypassed from a single microprocessor) and while building a working …

audio grounding routing guitar-pedal

asked by CatalinM 1 vote

5V DC over data lines

I am prototyping the below diagram and using the following Common Mode Choke from Murata 50475C (4.7mH DCR 0.7R). When I input a signal on U1 Point B 3Mhz D = 50%, I can see AC coupled signal on U2 …

power-supply

asked by Jay Claro 1 vote