Working on a small motor driver circuit and I keep seeing designs where two identical MOSFETs are placed in parallel rather than swapping in one higherrated device. I get that it spreads the thermal load across two packages but I'm trying to understand if there's more to it than just heat.

My current setup runs about 8A continuous and I was going to grab a single FET with a 20A rating and call it done. Then I looked at a reference design from a reputable manufacturer and they used two smaller FETs in parallel instead, which made me second guess myself.

A few things I'm not clear on: does paralleling help with gate charge and switching speed at all, or is that actually worse because you're now driving more total gate capacitance? And is there a real risk of one FET hogging current before they thermally balance out, especially during startup or fast switching?

I've checked the Rds(on) specs and they're close but not identical between the two devices I have on hand, which is what got me thinking about this more carefully.

Not trying to overthink a simple motor driver but I'd rather understand the tradeoff before I commit to a layout.

I am making a battery powered robot using a ESP32 microcontroller to control 2 servo motors. This is my battery "management" circuit I've come up with. It is responsible for charging, protection and powering the load. I have bought all the components, wired it up and tested, and it works fine. I'm looking for ways to improve it or to learn about other ways to do it. "It" being on/off control, output to the load, protection and charging.

The idea/circuit is as follows:

• 3s battery pack made of individual 18650 cells.
• Goes through a 3S BMS for protection.
• Charger and load cannot be connected to the batteries/BMS at the same time, otherwise the charger will try to drive the load, which it is not meant to do.
• All grounds are always connected. Rocker switch controls whether battery (BMS) positive terminal is connected to the load or to the charger.
• When connected to the load, it cannot charge.
• When connected to the charger, the load cannot be turned on.
• Load goes to 2 separate buck converters, one making 6v@10A for the servo motors, the other making 5v@1A for the microcontroller.

Questions:

• Overall, is this fine?
• Not a question, but a note. Learned afterwards that even though the BMS lists itself as an all-in-one solution to protect and charge the batteries, it does not charge the batteries, at least not directly. A battery charging device can charge the batteries through the BMS is what it should say.
• While writing this post, I realised that the charger probably could power the load, since the output of the charger would be the same as the 3s battery pack. Only problem would be that it can only supply 2A of current, whereas I need maximum 8A for max load on the servos. Is this true? Could I power the system through the charger, IF the charger could output a high enough current?
• How do other battery powered devices manage this? Other devices can be used and charged at the same time

Side note, when charging the batteries through this system, an led goes on to show that it is charging. After 1.5hrs, it goes off and a different led goes on to show that it is done charging. But then for next hour, it alternates between done charging and charging, in about 20 minute intervals. After an hour has passed, it stays in the charge done state.

first of all my 200mA fuse broke and the 10A fuse still working (checked with continuity) so I decided to check the current using the left connection...in the picture 1 I broke the circuit to measure current and as you can see in the picture 2 the reading is zero .. why is that even though the fuse the left side is working?...how to fix that .

This isn't a common resistor, I was just wondering its resistance, and yes, based on the color code it's supposed to be 0.39Ω, which when measured with multimeter it is that. Orange White Silver.

1.4Ω resistor reading

1.0Ω lead resistance

I am creating a light sensor with a photodiode and OPA381. This little board goes on top of a ADC module for further data analysis.

Now I may need to use a guard ring for the sensitive output of the photodiode. But what is it exactly and how do I design this guard ring? Does it hold a certain voltage level or ground? Any info would be appreciated!

Hey all,

Has anyone here dealt with moisture detection on USB-C ports? I have an outdoor-rated electronic device in design right now, and I'm using the native USB-PD negotiation capability of an STM32. This does a lot but it doesn't give any kind of moisture detection, and I want to avoid energizing the receptacle when it's wet (there will be a cover over the port when not in use, but it's inevitable that someone will get it wet, and electrolytic corrosion would be bad).

Ideas I've had involve using a secondary USB-C protection IC e.g. Infineon EZ-PD but the BOM cost is as much or more than my actual microcontroller.

Another idea is to sense leakage on the CC (or other pins in the USB-C cavity near the power pins) using the CC1/CC2 ADC readings available. Sounds plausible, but I can't find a lot of documentation on how to do this, or whether a small current leakage path will even be detectable. Unclear from the datasheet what the input impedance of the CC1/CC2 analog sense inputs is even.

Any experience or pointers here welcome.

LED par stopped working after a beverage got spilled over it, now I cleaned every pcb and reconnected everything but nothing happend. I measured the dc output of the board but there was none. I tested the resistance of the +\ grnd of where the big capacitors are on, theres none. Can anyone give me tips on how to find the broken part or how to repair it? Thanks a lot

It's about irfb4110 and it's really good on paper but when I look a bit deeper,

EMF and many more things comes to the half bridge driver's build and I am honestly too confused since I dont know kuch of the terms and thanks to the viarety of electronics when you master one you cant really be master in every electronic's aspecs probably or maybe I'm wrong. Just to let yall know I'm not new to electronics but not too advanced neither.

Replacing the battery in my Yamaha sy77 and I noticed this

Hello everyone,

My company asked me to hold a basic electronics course for our employees. I’m planning to start with foundational concepts like current, voltage, power, resistance, capacitors, how to identify components, Ohm's Law, etc.

The audience consists of colleagues from the sales, pre-sales, and customer support departments. In short, people who don't have a background in basic electronics and don't need to dive into deep technical details or complex topics.

If you were attending a course like this, what topics would you want to see covered?
Thanks!

I can't find information about pinout for this touchpad. I want to connect it to an Arduino. Please help me find the +5V, CLK, DATA pins.

Knowing what housing it is or what connector pins it uses is all I need to know. I have tried searching through digikey and connectorbook and havent been able to find it. I believe the pitch is around 2 mm.

I’m troubleshooting a Technics PCM Digital Ensemble PR250 digital piano (early 1990s) that I picked up for free.

The instrument powers on normally and appears to complete its startup sequence without issue.

Symptoms

• Powers on normally
• Display works
• LEDs work
• Buttons respond
• Keyboard responds
• Demo mode starts and plays
• Internal speakers produce very low, distorted audio
• Headphone output has the exact same distortion
• Rear line outputs also have the exact same distortion
• Volume slider has almost no effect until the bottom ~10% of travel, where it mutes

What I’ve already checked

• Cleaned both headphone jacks with contact cleaner
• Cleaned rear audio output jacks
• Cleaned all panel controls and buttons
• Reseated ribbon cables and connectors
• Verified the fault is identical on:
  • internal speakers
  • headphones
  • rear line outputs
• Recorded the line output into a Scarlett interface and confirmed the signal itself is low and distorted (not just the speakers)

Visual inspection

I’ve inspected the major boards:

• Main CPU board
• Sound board
• Power supply
• Amplifier board

I do not see:

• burnt components
• leaking capacitors
• bulged electrolytics
• obvious corrosion
• damaged traces
• previous repair work

The amplifier board uses an STK4172II hybrid amplifier module.

The four large filter capacitors all appear physically normal.

Things that seem to rule out

Because the distortion is present on:

• speakers
• headphones
• line outputs

I’m thinking the fault is probably before the speaker amplifier itself, although I’m not certain.

The piano otherwise behaves normally, so I don’t currently suspect the CPU or ROM.

My question

If this were on your bench, where would you go next?

Would you start with:

• checking the analog supply rails,
• looking for a failed muting circuit,
• bad op-amps,
• dried-out electrolytics,
• or could the STK4172II still produce these symptoms even though the line/headphone outputs are also affected?

I’m comfortable using a multimeter and have basic electronics experience, but I don’t yet have an oscilloscope.

Any guidance on the most logical next measurements would be greatly appreciated.

I purchased this Tektronjx 2246 for around $130. It was working fine but CH2 started having issues. I did a bit of troubleshooting, and it seems the coupling relays are bad, and potentially other things

The thing is though, it seems this board was recapped at one point, and I'm unsure if that is a good enough reason to hold onto it.

The images i have displayed are it attempting to read the 1khrtz square wave on the machine. I should mention CH1 is also buggy.

I thought of trying to build a small AM transmitter, partly to learn and partly to be able to relay a certain station on a frequency which is no longer being broadcast.

What I'm playing with is based on that janky little circuit that's been going round for years and years, based on an audio transformer and a quartz oscillator, taking on board certain pieces of advice I've seen other people given on the matter, and I've got a design on paper.

But that's not the problem. I thought I'd try the most basic version first, just to see. Audio into 8:1300ohm transformer, out to 200KHz oscillator, as per the circuit. Plugged in a 9v battery, tuned my old trusty LW receiver to 200KHz, and... nothing. Nothing at all.

Is there something about that frequency that means it wouldn't work? Or have I maybe got a duff oscillator? Or is the circuit just a practical joke or hazing ritual, like sending the newbie to ask for a long stand?

I want to replace this capacitor. There is a 0 with a line under it, not sure what that means. Could anyone point me to a suitable replacement? Its for a temperature gauge. Looks like it says:

W

620 J

Thanks

The inductor is R15 . I understand that to mean 15microfarads. what is a close enough replacement for it. it is on the power rail of this motherboard. can i move the inductor from next to it and move it over and leave that spae empty to test this? what are my options to see because my spare board has inductors at R25 and 1R15.

Red thing was melted beyond being able to identify any numbers.

The red peice is from the VR1 position, and based on google it would be a varistor?

Its a 12v system but I assume its being knocked down for certain ecu controls

I know ill need more components bit that is the only one with no identifier found.

Any thoughts to what it is exactly?

Thanks

We're a small startup and we're looking to design a high-speed PCB and we have two markets (locally and Europe) that we want to target.

In our own country, we have very high tariffs on imports and exports, so we're in a dilemma. If we manufacture and assemble it locally then it will become too expensive to export. If we manufacture it in China, it will be too expensive to import. If we have to design two layouts then that just increases engineering cost.

Is it just a matter of luck to find two manufacturers with identical stackups or is our only option here to make two different variants?

Hi everyone,

I'm currently trying to repair an old Disney toaster. The toaster itself works fine, but the audio module, which is supposed to play a tune right when the toast pops up, first started sounding distorted/weak and has now stopped working completely.

Here is what I’ve tested so far:

Checked everything visually. No burnt parts as far as I can see.

Speaker: The speaker itself is working. Made clicky noises when I put a batterie on it and resistance measurement was 7.8 Ohm (Supposed 8.0 Ohm).

Sound Board Voltage: Tested DC voltage on the small sound board (where the red/black power wires come in from the main board) while pushing the toaster slider down and also while the toaster pops the toast (that’s where it should play the sound). 0.0V there.

Conclusion so far: Problem is probably that the main board doesn’t supply voltage to the sound chip after toasting the toast.

So my question is what I should test next? Or maybe someone knows what the probable cause is?

Thanks in advance for any tips!

So basically my Tamagotchi 4U hasnt had a sense of time for some years. This is a big problem since Tamagotchis dont hatch without seconds passing in code. I thought ok probably a broken CMOS so i looked inside but idk if this golden thin plate is some weird CMOS? Isnt a CMOS normally at least some MMs thick? I also put a Q-Tip next to the cmos looking thing for size reference. Also i included an image of the whole chip if you find something that might be the culprit for this problem. Also side question: What is the hard weird yellow paste where the power supplying cables are?

Thanks for the help its solved now :)

Apologies I made a dumb post asking about what capacitor that is, only to find out its a resistor. So I measured it and not sure its the problem now so here's a more complicated question:

This temp gauge stopped working entirely, I believe I have narrowed it down to the gauge itself and not any other component in the system. Troubleshooting steps in the manual say if the sender wire is touched to ground it should peg the needle to H, if not it is faulty. This gauge, which I believe is an air core gauge, has 3 terminals on the back: 6v +, ground, and one for the sender (which connects to the thermistor). To bench test it I hooked the + and - terminals to a 6v battery, then connected the sender terminal to ground, the needle did not move a hair. I've inspected the gauge and see no breaks in the coil wiring. The resistor measures at 69 ohms (it is rated for 62 ohm 5%). I did a test to bypass the resister by jumping the leads and the needle spiked, I don't know if that suggests anything though. I admittedly know nothing about electronics, I really want to fix this though as this gauge is unobtanium. Anyone got any ideas?

So im trying to build a personal project basically an earthquake detection device. Most of it is working fine but my reset button and leds are not working in this simulation. Help me out https://wokwi.com/projects/470239454357228545