Category Archives: Electronics

Quote of the Day Abolition was a pipe dream in 1835 – it was reality 25 year later. — Tom Ricks, defense analyst, quoting his historian wife about how fast things can change in the US. Introduction Back in the … Continue reading →

I often have to model the rise of passive component temperatures with respect to some circuit parameter, like current or voltage. I thought I would present here a typical example of how the temperature of a passive part varies with current. In this case, I am feeding a constant current into the coil and I need to know what temperature rise I should expect with this component. I usually model component temperatures using two curves: a linear curve for low current levels, and a quadratic curve for high current levels. This model has worked reasonably well over the years. Continue reading →

Quote of the Day Innovation has nothing to do with how many R & D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R & D. It's not about … Continue reading →

One of the older gentlemen there was a World War 2 veteran who had worked on radar systems during and after the war. He used to tell me that assembling those systems made him a very good plumber. When I asked what he meant, he said that many of the waveguides were made of copper pipe (Figure 1) that was similar to that used for distributing water within homes in the US. Continue reading →

Quote of the Day Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who cut through argument, debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand and remember. — Michael Korda Introduction I have been talking to contractors who install Fiber-To-The-Home … Continue reading →

I am preparing some customer education material on coaxial cables for customers (Figure 1 shows some coaxial cable examples) and I thought this information was worth documenting here. Our fiber optic products interface to coaxial cables so that service providers can use existing in-home wiring. Continue reading →

Figure 1 shows how the power conversion for this particular ONT is performed. There actually are two power conversion stages involved: (1) 120 V AC to -48 V, and (2) -48 V to 12 V. Two conversion stages were required because no off-the-shelf, 12 V UPS exists that had sufficient battery capacity to meet the customer's backup time requirements. However, a -48 V UPS is available with a large enough battery to meet their needs. This type of problem is common in real-world deployments. Continue reading →