The use of transistors for switching things ON and OFF is a key feature of proper hacking. The ability for bipolar transistors to turn things ON and OFF is one of the less known uses while transistors ...

The two types of standard transistors are PNP and NPN which differs in circuit symbols. The layers of semiconductor material used to make the transistor are denoted by the letters. To keep a straight ...

Relays usually are driven using optocouplers, which offer isolation between analog and digital grounds to ensure that switching currents in the relay coils do not affect the noise margin of the ...

We like to pretend that our circuit elements are perfect because, honestly, it makes life easier and it often doesn’t matter much in practice. For a normal design, the fact that a foot of wire has a ...

SparkFun’s latest tutorial shows you how to work with relays. A relay is an electrically operated switch. In this case, they’re using it to switch a 120V AC outlet. The article carries the standard ...