I arrived home today to find not 1... not 2... but 3 packages on my doorstop! One from Mouser, one from Radio Shack, and one from All Electronics. (Of course, it really isn't Christmas since I had to pay for all this stuff myself... and I knew it was coming... and none of it was wrapped... but still...)
I'll get these boxes opened and prepare to document the Chapter 3 Shopping List... and I apologize that I haven't yet gotten around to documenting my purchases directly from my local Radio Shack... will try to get to that shortly.
I've been away from the book for about a week now (getting back on track tomorrow), but one thing that confused me about this experiment is exactly how the PUT enters it's switched state.
ReplyDeleteI get that at a certain voltage level it switches, and the resistor you put in the middle (I think that's the base lead) lead is what defines this voltage level. What I can't quite figure is how do you know which resistor to pick, and at which exact voltage level the PUT is switching.
I tried to figure this out using my multimeter, but didn't really get anywhere. Maybe I need to read up more on PUTs.
Good questions.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that there are different PUTs with all kinds of different min values for triggering the on/off state.
It's like a little black box... where many are happy just knowing that it works. But there are a lot of us (myself included) who often like to look inside black boxes.
Doh, meant to comment up where you were actually *using* a PUT but oh well, got in the right ballpark ;)
ReplyDeleteYep, I'm guessing maybe the explanation is too convoluted or advanced to be relevant at this point perhaps, and that's why it isn't covered in more detail. Put I'll look into it more and see if I can figure it out. I'm guessing perhaps something on the spec sheet of the PUT might give some good info...cryptic as it may be.