In an earlier article, I covered Fire Hazard Tests that form an important part of safety testing for electronic/electrical products. We looked at the standards and equipment used for abnormal heat, ...

When your car doesn’t start, often a low or dead battery is the culprit. Unfortunately, most vehicle owners do not check their battery until it fails. As preventative maintenance, the suggested best ...

Disconnecting the battery while the engine is running isn't a valid test for alternator function and may damage sensitive electronic parts. Instead, use a common voltmeter and the following test ...

Craig brought 15 years of automotive journalism experience to the Cars team. A lifelong resident of Michigan, he's as happy with a wrench or welding gun in hand as he is in front of the camera or ...

It seems that everyone is testing IEC61000-4-11 in order to obtain CB certification and international certification (CE marking etc.). The IEC61000-4-11 standard specifies voltage dip, short ...

For over a decade, thousands of users have deployed Permanent Electrical Safety Devices (PESDs) in order to reduce their risks in isolating electrical energy. This innovation greatly reduces the ...

Build a low-cost saturation tester to measure the saturationvoltage of switching transistors accurately in the presence ofhigh switching voltages or noise. In switch-mode power supplies, saturation ...

It seems like [Chris Downing] is always up to something new. If he’s not keeping busy by creating slick portable iterations of previous-gen gaming consoles, he is dreaming up ways to make his modding ...

At the beginning of any chip design, engineers rarely discuss reliability and operation at the extremes of the device's temperature range. If parts have not been properly characterized, failures can ...