Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

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1500 questions
23
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4 answers

Environmentally sustainable electronics

I am part of my company's work to become more environmentally friendly and sustainable. On a high level for the company that means pursuing ISO certifications (such as ISO 14001) and working according to other standards. But I'm trying to figure out…
Lars Petersson
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5 answers

Difference between Hz and bps

Does Hz and bps mean same? Can a signal be transferred at rate of say Mbps on a channel bandwidth of few Khz?
sk1
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10 answers

Why do consumer ovens use thermostats instead of PID + PWM?

I measured the temp stability of my oven, and it's a really big swing of 10-15c in a saw tooth pattern. Aren't PI(D) controllers with variable output meant to dampen this type of oscillation? I imagine it would even make thermal recovery faster…
Justin Alexander
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5 answers

How to safely ground a switching power supply with floating outputs?

I just received a 120VAC to 5VDC (20A) switching power supply (the kind with a passively ventilated metal casing) for use with a microcontroller project I'm working on (driving long LED strips). I've wired up Line-Neutral-Ground correctly to a…
MartyMacGyver
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7 answers

How did old television screens with a light grey phosphor create the darker contrast parts of the display?

Many old television screens have a very prominent "light grey" color to the glass, I'm guessing from the phosphor, create darker areas if the effect of electrons make the phosphor glow? Is it an illusion due to contrast between the brightly lit and…
Zhro
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23
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8 answers

In which direction do electric signals flow?

We know that electrons move from the negative to positive terminal, and that holes flow in the conventional direction of current - from the positive to negative terminal. I've always assumed that this means that electric signals travel in the…
slebetman
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7 answers

How can I actively provoke data rot on a storage unit?

For a project, I am looking to deliberately provoke data rot on a storage unit (e.g., a hard drive or a flash drive). I understand that most modern OSes and filesystems as well as hardware have countermeasures in place to prevent data corruption.…
ddkk
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5 answers

How can energy "physically" be fed back into the grid?

I have found some similar questions (below), but I am still having issues understanding what is "physically" happening when energy is "fed back into the grid" and the equipment necessary for this. What happens to excess energy fed into the power…
W. Churchill
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23
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4 answers

What is the purpose of a capacitor to ground?

I have here a filtering circuit from a microwave. What is the point of the capacitors to ground. Another answer in a previous question of mine said they were used for filtering however I don't understand why. The inductors by the way are part of a…
user1084113
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6 answers

Why aren't garage door sensors retroflective on one end?

Seems like they should be a transceiver + retroreflector, not transmitter + receiver pair. Is there a cost or safety reason for this?
Tom Mercer
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6 answers

Benchtop power supplies: linear vs switching?

I'm looking into getting a decent benchtop power supply ($150-300) for hobby-level electronic design and testing. I don't want to modify or use a computer ATX supply because I want: Adjustable voltage Adjustable current Low noise/ripple Accuracy 1…
JYelton
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23
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3 answers

What is the meaning of "ΩK" on a wirewound resistor?

Generally I see the letter "K" as "kΩ" and it means 1000Ω on a resistor. On this resistor iswriten 10 ΩK. The image of resistor is this: What is the meaning of 10ΩK? I want to replace it with one of the 10ΩJ resistors I have. Can these resistors…
mehmet
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4 answers

5 V home network

I'm planning on adding multiple IoT devices in my house, and I'm looking for an elegant solution to power them all. They'll all need 5 V, a small number of them (cameras) would draw up to 2 amperes, while most of them would draw less than…
Velimir Tchatchevsky
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23
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14 answers

Is there any reason nowadays to use a neon indicator lamp instead of an LED?

I have a bunch of old neon indicator lamps recovered from old AC devices and used to indicate power status. I wonder: is there any reason nowadays to use the neon lamps instead of LEDs? I see they are still widely available. LEDs are cheaper even…
FarO
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4 answers

Why does the seven segment display have decimal point at the right?

All the seven segment displays I’ve seen so far have their decimal point to the right of the main digit. Why is this so? A decimal point to the left will be able to represent more possible combinations of numbers. A single digit display with a…
Atom
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