I have modified several commercial solar garden lights over the years. I switch out the LED, solar panel, battery pack and control circuit. The result is a much better overall light. One of my disappointments in using store-bought garden light ...
“Gold-plated” without the gold plating Alright, I admit that the title is a bit over the top. So, what do I mean by it? I mean that: The application of PWM control to a regulator does not significantly degrade the inherent DC accuracy ...
It's important to properly sequence the bias applied to an RF/microwave GaAs FET or a MMIC (monolithic-microwave-IC) amplifier. These devices are extremely sensitive to drain and gate voltage levels as well as to the order in which these biases ...
Voltage transients on low-voltage power lines can sometimes attain amplitudes many times the nominal voltage level. That behavior often calls for protection against the application of improper power levels. The usual way to protect sensitive ...
A simple current source It has long been known that the simple combination of a depletion-mode MOSFET (and before these were available, a JFET) and a resistor made a simple, serviceable current source such as that seen on the right side of Figure ...
Abstract This article describes the use of a load dump protection circuit to prevent accidental overvoltage/reverse-voltage conditions during prototyping. This simple circuit can prevent hours of rework caused by momentary lapses of concentration ...
The isolated AC-to-DC flyback converter is the most commonly used power supply type for home and industrial devices. Fear of the main voltage and complexity of calculations cause electronic beginners and enthusiasts to procrastinate DIY such ...
Recently, we’ve seen Design Ideas for programmable current sources with improved accuracy using the LM3x7 series of three-legged regulators. These designs also take advantage of those classic devices’ built-in anti-overheating features. ...
There’s been interest recently here in the land of Design Ideas (DIs) in a family of simple interface circuits for pulse width modulation (PWM) control of generic voltage regulators (both linear and switching). Members of the family rely on ...
The switching power supply in Figure 1 produces 3.3 V dc from an input voltage of 2.5 to 20 V dc with high efficiency. The circuit operates at an input voltage as low as 1.5 V once it starts from a minimum of 2.5 V dc, allowing the switcher to ...