Mutchus

Low-cost semiconductor diodes such as 1N914, 1N4148 and 1N400X can be used as temperature sensors in applications where high accuracy is not required. They can be mounted on transistors, power diodes, transformers, heat sinks, rechargeable batteries, crystals, PCB, etc to monitor their temperature. It is highly desirable to use temperature sensors with linear temperature characteristics and the mentioned diodes are best suited for that. To use them as temperature sensors, these diodes first need to be sorted according to their temperature coefficient. (Please refer ‘Signal Diode-Based Fire Alarm’ circuit idea published in February 2013 issue to understand how these diodes can be used as temperature sensors.) This circuit can help quickly sort different diodes based on their temperature coefficient. Circuit and working The circuit diagram of the device for selection of temperature-sensing diodes is shown in Fig. 1. The circuit is built around step-down transformer X1, voltage regulator ...

In the last few years, the available range of operating systems for PCs has increased dramatically. Various free (!) operating systems have been added to the list, such as BeOS, OpenBSD and Linux. These systems are also available in different colours and flavours (versions and distributions). Windows is also no longer simply Windows, because there are now several different versions (Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, XP, Vista and 7). Computer users thus have a large variety of options with regard to the operating system to be used. One problem is that not all hardware works equally well under the various operating systems, and with regard to software, compatibility is far from being universal. In other words, it’s difficult to make a good choice. Switching from one operating system to another - that’s a risky business, isn’t it? Although this may be a bit of an exaggeration, the safest approach is still to install two different operating systems on the same PC, so you can always easily use the ‘o...