Electronics Forum / Electronics / August 2007

I'm looking for small quantities (usually less than ten a year) of a
pre-built and type-approved box of tricks that will take a dry contact
input and switch on or off a standard 240v mains output socket.
Does anyone know of anything that might suit?

Is anybody actually selling power back to the grid? I know there are
green power credit schemes but this appears to only wind back the
meter or give you credit. I am trying to figure out which company
actually gives you hard cash for electricity sold to the grid.  Im

As an "academic" task I'm looking through the options for
microprocessors that are relatively easy to program and dont require
expensive hardware, however the list is endless and the number of
options in both programmers and hardware is vast. At the super simple

Probably not on-topic for here, but since there was so much help with
Google search, thought I would try.
Am having trouble getting some long videos to load, they will buffer
1-3 minutes of video then just sit there, and not download anymore.

I have a creative zen media player with 3 batteries. only trouble is
i
can only charge the batteries in the machine. would it be possible to
hook the plugpack up to the batteries somehow to charge them out of

I'm looking to create a VGA fader - I have a projector that takes a VGA
signal from a PC, but I want to be able to fade that signal down to black
between projections, manually using a slider. I know there are production
items out there but they are in the region of upper hundreds ...

Water-cooled MOSFETs! I've heard these machines have various problems,
but you have to respect the innovation that these engineers have shown.
I don't need to fix this one :-)... but I'd like to hear from anyone
who's successfully hacked the module to use it for another purpose...

ive picked up a swemar generator
model lsw-250 made by leader.
what is it used for, and what does it do?
has anyone used one.

I have a voice recorder that uses 2 AAA batteries.
I only get about 8 hours of recording out of the 2 batteries and I would
like to attach a power supply
by soldering it to the battery terminals. How many volts can I apply to the

I'm repairing the control module for an Ariston clothes washer/dryer,
which has had arcing on one of the contacts on a board edge connector
leading to the motor's stator. The arcing has removed the copper back
to the contact point. What's the best way of restoring the contact?

Expert advise required on GSM/GPRS connection;
I want to send/receive data to/from a balloon carrying some sensor.
Initially balloon will be tight to a rope and will rise gradually in
human control.

I need 80186 and 8051 pods - 4 of the 80186, 2 of the 8051, paying $250 each
for the 80186, $200 each for the 8051
Also paying $175 each for probes for the Fluke 9100 (NOT the skinny 9010
probes, these are the larger flatter probes for the 9100)

If you had to create 1 or 2 new Transformer (live action) robot film
characters,
what would you call each one and what witty or cool abilities,
physical, or artificial intelligence superpower/s, or sentient

I am thinking about building a tracking device, not like GPS, but in a
very short range, like 1 meter or so. It got be cheap, as I'm using it
in some kind of toy. Any one know any type of devices, technology
could help?

KelMar, Inc. was founded in 2003 by Brent D. Crippen and is located in
Palm City, Florida. Mr. Crippen, a former Senior Vice-President of a
major telecommunications company, formed the company after developing
and patenting several products himself. KelMar, under Mr. Crippen's