Reply to: I want one, but why? Heatit

[scooterscot]

I didn't even realise it was a field which was still moving foward these days, with everything being so computer-based.

Perhaps there's something in that statement as to why engineering in the UK has taken a step backwards. It's a real shame.

Stuff I did not hear of 15 year ago:

curved displays, biometric sensors the size of needle, blue / white LEDS, diodes / transistor that can handle current and voltage you'd expect from a clunky RCD (residual current device you have them in the fusebox), in hospitals you now have MRI units than can polarise specific molecules and even radiotherapy that can target individual cells instead of a 'rough area'.

Exciting times in for electronic engineering. I suspect in the not to distant future most folks will have biometric sensors on them in one form or another and be able to monitor the levels of various elements in their body.

[d000hg]

Electronic engineering is exciting.

I didn't even realise it was a field which was still moving foward these days, with everything being so computer-based.

[BrilloPad]

Where is Zeity to explain what this means?

[scooterscot]

An neither does it have to be incredible or expensive. Check out this awesome multifunction simplistic eggcup.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...ref=nav_search

[scooterscot]

This is oddly popular

broken link.

[SueEllen]

heh heh

Got totally suckered in last night for an hour or so.

This is oddly popular

[scooterscot]

Just like to tell you Scooterscot I hate you.

I'm now looking at kickstarter

heh heh

Got totally suckered in last night for an hour or so.

[SueEllen]

Just like to tell you Scooterscot I hate you.

I'm now looking at kickstarter

[scooterscot]

It's a relay then.

There's no magnetic fields in a power-transistor.

[stek]

It's a relay then.

[scooterscot]

Similar sort of principle to how you use a small current to control a much bigger current in a classic single-transistor amplifier?

I should say, yes. But not solid state. The output is far from clean / noisy.

[scooterscot]

Similar sort of principle to how you use a small current to control a much bigger current in a classic single-transistor amplifier?

Is this power-transistor not something that already exists then?

Yes they exist everywhere from train doors to anything that might need a slightly larger current. Goodness modern electronics has come on leaps and bounds since my undergrad years. A circuit board mounted power transistor that could handle currents / voltages of the load of a washing machine did not exist in my day. Is it a clunky big old relay. In fact I'm sure some of us here have a TV when you press the standby button on the remote you hear a !click!, that's the relay switching over 240v to the transformer. Today it's a power-transistor.

It seems to me only thing different on this project is the accessibility. And that's a great thing to get more people involved. The applications would be endless thinking about it. Muscle wires for example, they require more than normal current. But with a package this small you're replacing clunky relays that would normally do the job. So you're at a place to scale down products, I could imagine those electronics woven into fabrics for example.

Electronic engineering is exciting.

[d000hg]

Similar sort of principle to how you use a small current to control a much bigger current in a classic single-transistor amplifier?

Is this power-transistor not something that already exists then?

[scooterscot]

It's a switch for a switch. And being silicon you also have no physical movement. But the principle remains.

A switch be something that transitions from one state to another. From the 'off state' to the 'on state'. Then the current flows. But what if you want to transition much more current?

Difficult to explain now that I try. I know...

It's like this, you and your merry men want to cross a river. So one man makes the jump with a rope. Safely across the other side the rope is used to pull a rope bridge across the river allowing the merry men to cross. That's a power transistor!

[Halo Jones]

What is a power transistor?

Ditto...