Electronics Forum / Basics / July 2007

I'm having some confusion regarding zener diodes which I hope somebody
much brighter on the subject can clarify somewhat, or at least point
me in the right direction!
The basics of diodes has always been "current can only flow one way",

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So with the plethora of micro-controllers out there, which do you
use/prefer and why?
I use PICs pretty much exclusively but I just had a look at ATMELs
range - to be honest, I don't see any reason to change from what I

When I drive from state to state, I notice some balls hanging at above
100m above the ground, on the high voltage power cable between the
towers. I can't figure out the reason for the use,
as the balls would cause wind resistant, making the cable sway.

I would like to interupt a circuit several times a second. The circuit
carries 24vac to a solenoid circuit under ground somewhere.
What I want to do is open and close this circuit several times a second so I
can actuate and un-actuate the solenoid, causing it to buzz.

hi,will join this groop

On the datasheet for the STP80PF55
http://www.st.com/stonline/books/pdf/docs/8177.pdf
I can't make head or tail of figure 6.  What is Vgs?  It can't be 10
volts, the numbers all wrong for that.

I'm not sure this is the right group, but I recently read in
Scientific American that visible or infrared light would be a better
method to use to "talk" from a wired point on a wall to a room full of
computers than current WiFi or any other radio-wave solution. The

Can anyone please answer this, and/or point me to a website
that gives some details ?
What is that yellowish finishing that is usually given to a
steel-based chassis for electronic products ? I assume that it is

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maplin used to sell round, spring loaded , single post connectors that
you could just press down and push a wire in and the spring would hold
it in place.
a bit like a binding post but with hole in post and spring top

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Hi all. I remember posting a question before regarding leaving opamp
inputs open. From what I read, the inputs should be connected to ground
or some voltage source to have some meaningful output.
So, if I used an IC with 4 opamps and only utilized 2 of them, does

I've got a couple dozen Nimh batteries that are starting to show signs
of age. [some are 7yr old 800mAh,  the newest are 2000 mAh & 3-4 yrs
old]
I googled for capacity testers and found a post that said to wire a 1

This is a simple one.  I've got a 0 to 5V square wave that I want to
convert to a 0 to 3.3V square wave.  I tried putting a series resistor
and a 3.3V zener diode to ground.
The wave stays nice and square, but it comes out as 0 to 2.0 volts.  I