Editor's Note: Here's another take on the transformerless AC line power supply, which finds use in some well-insulated, low-power devices. Our technical reviewer pointed out that C ac should be an ...

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 ...

Rectifiers and ac-dc power supplies employ large bulk capacitors. During power-up, these capacitors require a large amount of current to charge up, resulting in a large inrush current. This inrush ...

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 ...

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: ...

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 ...

NEMA, Rossyln, Va., has published SG 4-2009, "Alternating Current High-Voltage Circuit Breakers." The standard, which NEMA published under license from IEEE, Piscataway, N.J., was revised by 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 ...