If you have ever read advanced textbooks or papers about electronics, you may have been surprised to see the use of complex numbers used in the analysis of AC circuits. A complex number has two parts: ...

When working around mains voltages, it can be useful to know whether a given circuit is live or not. While this can be done by direct connection with a multimeter, non-contact methods are available ...

The circuit in Figure 1 provides a low-cost, isolated ac-line monitor that measures ac-line-voltage level and has some other unique capabilities. The analysis of the circuit is straightforward: When ...

Large power supplies that operatefrom ac wall voltage havelarge input-filter capacitors. You mustlimit the inrush current to those capacitors.Otherwise, the supply may tripthe ac circuit breaker, or ...

This is the first of a two-part series on the processes used to find the short circuit current duties of circuit breakers and fuses. In Part 1, we’ll use a simplified power system to illustrate the ...

The battery as we know it today was an invention of Italian chemist and physicist Alessandro Volta. He witnessed electricity splitting water into its constituent elements of oxygen and hydrogen and ...

Churning with voltage and resembling an explosion at the wire factory, the breaker panel exudes mystique. But it's just a big switch, filled with other smaller ­switches, which lead to the switches ...

Multimeters are one of the most fundamental pieces of test equipment in any lab, but they can often do much more than we realize. Let's take a look at the variety of measurements a standard multimeter ...

Bulk capacitors typically require a large amount of current to charge up, resulting in a large inrush current. However, thanks to a unique control algorithm, an innovative inrush-current control ...