T&L Publications

A solid state relay should work well. They don't require very much control current and the internal isolation is good. It should be the random turn on type instead of the voltage zero-crossing type because the current in an inductive load lags voltage. The random turn on type if, I read that right, ...

I don't recall ever trying to follow a formal recipe. I might not mind if I had one of those Star Trek food synthesizers.

---

Well, I cook everything in the microwave oven now. One of my last projects was a slow cooker that specifically heated a quart size polypropylene container, but the way that transfers heat from the hotter surface of the container to the contents was found to adversely affect the flavor of the food, p...

A possibility is to power the display through two resistors for day, and just one of them for night. The extra day resistor that gets paralleled with the night one probably won't have the same value as the night one. That is, going from night to day requires less than double the current that night ...

A possibility is to power the display through two resistors for day, and just one of them for night. The extra day resistor that gets paralleled with the night one probably won't have the same value as the night one. That is, going from night to day requires less than double the current that night r...

I got reminded of my experience with paralleling MOSFETs. I had been reading beforehand that when doing so, separate gate resistors should be used on each one. However, using separate resistors like that caused the MOSFETs to keep failing in my switching power supply project. The solution turned out...

In this case a high-valued gate resistor probably wouldn't hurt since there shouldn't be quick-changing wave forms present on the MOSFET drain. However, if there happened to be rather high voltage transients present on the drain, too little external impedance between the gate and the source could ca...

It seems the power dissipation capability of each MOSFET is being exceeded. A suggestion would be to parallel enough of them to allow each to work within its safe operating area. To dissipate a kilowatt, even for just 50ms, it will probably require several of them in parallel. Some datasheets I've s...

I use temperature control on some personal projects. I use bipolar transistors rather than thermistors. I'm not sure if that could improve your set-up. A p-n silicon diode junction experiences about a 3mV/degF drop in band gap voltage. Before digital thermometers became readily available, I used a d...

I remember going there to get the free monthly battery. I often browsed the racks of parts, and might still have some of their Archer brand components stored away somewhere.

I'm not sure if I have ever seen the insulated nichrome wire out there. One thing is that the copper terminations are easier to connect. Also, it can be an advantage that there are a lot of turns because that gives more broad heat distribution, and less power dissipation per unit length of heater wi...

I have heard of the drill technique. However, space is limited in my place here. I have done 8 twisted pair wires this way. The main one was 400 feet of 30 gauge 200degC magnet wire that I wrapped around a aluminum foil sleeve that a polypropylene microwave container gets dropped into for slow cooki...

Would this be possible, I would like to build a low voltage inverter that would go 0 to 24v ac. I was thinking if I made a variable dc power supply circuit then invert it to AC voltage. Basically My question is if I invert DC to AC would I have to use a step up or step down transformer, and what wo...

making bifilar (twisted pair) magnet wire pieces. I had been thinking of the hard way, but fortunately it occurred to me to use two oat meal canisters and some 6 inch small-diameter sticks (one inch, or a bit less in diameter) to do it. The wire is wound on the first oatmeal canister. Count how many...