Ah yes, you must have meters! Once I was working on a CB, and hit the transmit button, and noticed the output power was suddenly 15 watts. 5 Watts is all that is legal, and it had just measured 5 watts a few minutes before. Puzzled, I looked over at my DC power supply, and noted that the meter on the front was pegged at over 50 volts! Luckily I reached for the big switch with my right arm, which shielded my face from the explosion that came out of the CB radio about 5 seconds later. Pass transistor failed shorted, you know. -- Lawrence Lile Senior Project Engineer Toastmaster, Inc. Division of Salton, Inc. 573-446-5661 voice 573-446-5676 fax William Chops Westfield Sent by: pic microcontroller discussion list 04/22/2004 01:44 AM Please respond to pic microcontroller discussion list To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU cc: Subject: Re: [EE:] Power Supplies On Wednesday, Apr 21, 2004, at 21:29 US/Pacific, Robert B. wrote: >>> I don't have much $ to blow on a fancy lab bench supply Just how much do you have to spend? For between $50 and $100 you can get a pretty nice bench supply, with meters. I've found my bench supply to be unexpectedly useful; having voltage and current meters is like having an extra two DMMs that are always connected, and can keep you somewhat out of trouble. (see that little pic circuit start to draw an amp of current? Something's wrong!) Also charges batteries, runs hot wire cutters, shows motor run characteristcs, tests LEDs, and zaps NiCds.. http://www.bgmicro.com/prodinfo.asp?prodid=PWR1166 http://www.elexp.com/tst_3003.htm http://www.elexp.com/tst_1802.htm BillW -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics