Power factor correction devices: Can they really reduce your electricity bill? article tells that so-called “Power Saver Devices” (known by different names) are nothing but Power Factor Correction (PFC) devices that would connect to the mains and improve power factor measured by your electricity meter. The so-called “Power Saving” device may be useful for industrial →
30 years of DSP: From a child’s toy to 4G and beyond article tells that this year, as TI celebrates its 30th year in the DSP market, that long-ago question has been answered many times over. Without DSP and the advances it has enabled in audio, graphics, and multimedia processing, there would be no digital →
Do you remember diode-transistor logic? Diode–transistor logic (DTL) was the direct ancestor of transistor–transistor logic. You could easily do OR and AND functions with diodes, and then use transistor for amplifying and implementing NOT function. Perform the XOR/XNOR function with a diode bridge and a transistor article shows you discrete DTL-like circuits that use an →
NASA’s expensive Mars exploration Curiosity rover is finally doing what it was created to do: rove. Following a successful wheel test, the probe moved forward. Photo Gallery: Curiosity Rover Makes First Tracks on Mars article tells that Curiosity beamed back some incredible images of its tracks, which tell scientists that the soil is firm, great →
Every summer we get thunderstorms, with the accompanying lightning. Last summer one ADSL modem and computer Ethernet interface I was using was destroyed by lighting. So I decided that an article on ADSL overvoltage protection would be a good idea. It took some time to get this article ready, but here it is. ADSL overvoltage →
A class-D amplifier or switching amplifier is an electronic amplifier where all power devices (usually MOSFETs) are operated as binary switches. They are either fully on or fully off. The term “class D” is sometimes misunderstood as meaning a “digital” amplifier. While some class D amps may indeed be controlled by digital circuits, the class →
Is electronics heading to be less and less hackable? DIY site iFixit has been keeping tabs on the tech world whilst providing handy self-repair guides for popular electronics. Now the site maintainers have seen trend that electronics products seem to become intentionally harder and harder to fix in recent years. The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, →
UNDERSTANDING, FINDING, & ELIMINATING GROUND LOOPS IN AUDIO & VIDEO SYSTEMS – 2005 Generic Seminar Template is a very good collection of information on ground loop problems on audio and video systems. The writer Bill Whitlock from Jensen Transformers really knows what he is talking about. Here are some fact points picked from document: The →
Have you ever wanted to find out how strong a magnet really was, or how the strength of the magnetic field varied as you changed the distance from the magnet. Devices used to measure the local magnetic field are called magnetometers or gaussmeters. There are commercially available meters for this, but they are usually a →
I bought USB Virtual 7.1 Channel External Sound Card Adapter to build a cheap PC based digital storage oscilloscope. Sound card based oscilloscope is not new to me, I have used it sometimes. There are many free oscilloscope software that you can use. For example “zeitnitz” is a very fine program! Using an external USB →