A fuse is a sacrificial device for the protection the rest of the circuit in an over-current situation. There are situations we need to know with some reasonable confidence what the actual maximum current is for a given fuse without…
I have been travelling quite a bit for the last year or so and have not been able to drive my car as frequently as I would have liked. As a result, I often left my car at the airport…
A while back, I did a teardown on a dual-channel Amrel PPS-2322 programmable power supply, and was quite impressed by its solid construction. Recently, I found another Amrel power supply on eBay and this time it is a single channel…
The latest addition to my lab equipment is a Keithley 230 programmable voltage source which can output up to ±100V. Unlike many of the power supplies and voltage sources I have, the Keithley 230 is capable of operating in all…
I recently picked up a downconverter box on eBay. My original plan was to use the enclosure for another project as it has a very nice aluminum enclosure. Naturally of course, I wanted to take a look at what kind…
Electrophoresis power supplies are commonly found in biology and other life sciences laboratories. These power supplies are usually capable of supplying high voltages and high currents required for gel electrophoresis–a method used for separating DNA, RNA and other protein fragments…
In my previous blog posting, I did a teardown of a LogiMetrics A300/S 2 to 4 GHz Traveling Wave Tube Amplifier (TWTA). After doing the teardown, my focus immediately turned to troubleshooting the unit and hopefully restoring the unit back…
I just picked up a LogiMetrics A300/S 2 GHz to 4 GHz (S band) traveling wave tube amplifier (TWTA) on eBay. I had done an extreme teardown of an HP 493A TWTA a while ago and it was quite fascinating…
Monochromator is one of those things that has always fascinated me. Over the years, I have done quite a few experiments (I, II, III) with an EP200Mmd monochromator and it was a lot of fun. Because monochromators are such highly…
I was doing some experiments which involves switching high voltages (>3 kV) under high current (>30 Amps) load. Although solid state devices such as SCRs (Silicon Controlled Rectifier, or Thyristor) or IGBTs are the ideal candidates for this kind of…
Gyroscopes nowadays are based on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology. They are low cost and extremely miniaturized. A device combing both a three-axis gyroscope and a three-axis accelerometers (sometimes these devices are referred to as 6DOF devices) such as the MPU-6500…
In my previous post, I designed and 3D printed a high voltage connector for my Bertan 225-20R high voltage power supply. The silicone high voltage wire I ordered had finally arrived so I made a couple of cables using the…
In one of my previous posts, I did a teardown of a Bertan 225-20R high voltage power supply, which is capable of outputting 1mA with an adjustable voltage range up to 20 kV. The power supply came with a special…
In my previous post, I did a teardown of my Array 3711A DC electronic load. And as I promised, this time I did some testing with it and also discussed some tips and pitfalls.
I have made many electronic loads in the past. For instance this simple harddrive cooler housed small dummy load, this more sophisticated constant current/constant programmable load and this heavy-duty electronic load that is capable of sinking over 1kW under peak…