piclist-bounces@mit.edu wrote:
> Looking at the data sheet, Vgs is the voltage
> differential to turn on the gate, right?  

It's the threshold where the FET just begins to
conduct. You'll want to exceed this to get the
device fully conducting. Note it is defined as
the voltage differential from gate to source.

> So pretty
> much....you can't have the same voltage on both the gate and
> drain to turn it on, just wont work.  Now if I had 5V (or
> anything more than 4.1V) there, with a resistor to ground to
> keep it turned off, that should work.

But it's a p-channel, so you need the gate-source voltage to
be negative, or put another way, the gate must be at a lower
voltage than the source to turn it on.

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