John Wiltrout's Blog

  • New Gadget - No More TO-220 Finger Burns

    jw0752
    After a conversation with Mark (mcb1) about how I was always burning my fingers testing TO-220 devices, I decided to try to do something about it. The problem is I get excited when an idea comes to me so I take some short cuts and usually do not heat...

  • Experiment to Test Tandem LM395 IC Darlington Modules

    jw0752
    A few days ago I posed the question of whether I could add a second Darlington Power transistor in parallel to a commercial circuit that was poorly designed. The response from all of my mentors on E-14 was accurate and to the point. Amongst the many ...

  • N Ch MOSFET & Zenner Diode Test Adapter

    jw0752
    There are three circumstances that have come together to inspire me to assemble this little test adapter circuit. First of all I like to and I am continually salvaging components from circuit boards. As many of these circuit boards come from equipmen...

  • Auto Power off for Solder Station

    jw0752
    Recently there has been a good discussion on how to monitor Soldering Irons and Stations. I was going to add this post on to the thread that was already in progress but since it was really a comment thread for someone else's build I decided to po...

  • Acronyms Initialisms Abbreviations and Variables

    jw0752
           A while back I started a list of abbreviations and acronyms that were being used in the questions and discussions on the E-14 web site. Since I often found myself not able to understand the context of the sentence...

  • Auxillary Variable Bench Power Converter

    jw0752
    After recently completing a simple regulated 0 to 30 volts DC variable power supply for my bench,  See: "A New Power Supply for John"  I realized that the job was only half finished. What about the times when I would need a second...

  • A Lesson Learned

    jw0752
    This evening I was experimenting with a simple LM339 comparator circuit and a photo transistor. Everything appeared to be working fine but when I attempted to take some voltage readings with my Fluke 177 they were not what I expected. The inputs to t...

  • A New Power Supply for John

    jw0752
                                             &nbs...

  • I Need an Extra Finger

    jw0752
    Since I retired a couple years ago I have returned to my life long interest in electronics. What I have discovered is that I had not kept up with the technology. The manageable, through the hole, components that I was familiar with in the past have b...