Microsoft and Razer are working on Xbox keyboard and mouse support | 19mm Momentary Push Button

Converting mains voltage down to 12 or 24VDC to drive a heating element makes no sense. To get 120 watts at 12 volts requires thick wires that can handle 10 amps, whereas at 120V, tiny 1A wires will do. If you’ve ever felt the MOSFET that switches your heated bed on and off, you know it’s working hard to pass that much current. [Makertum] is of the opinion this is a dumb idea. He’s creating a 110 / 230 V, mains-powered heated bed.

First off, I would set the system up more like a safety-critical system. I would have an independent, segregated processor running the heated bed. I would have checks in the system processor and re-checks built into an independent circuit built from discrete analog/digital circuits on the system. I would use two, independent temperature sensors on the board, plus at least one thermal fuse, as well as one overload protection mechanism (most likely a fuse).

While the translucent mirror design isn’t quite as space-efficient as the mirrorless design of an SLD camera, it’s still smaller than that of a traditional SLR, most of which need to provide room for the mirror to swing upward before image capture can commence. That translates to an uncommonly compact body by SLR standards, although it’s still a bit larger than an SLD, especially in terms of body thickness. Unlike SLD cameras, though, the Sony SLT cameras all accept the entire line of standard Alpha-mount lenses, a significant advantage if you already own a large collection of Alpha-mount glass.

If you’re worried about activists using media to promote fear and doubt about science and medicine,you’re in the right place. At Science 2.0, scientists are the journalists. with no political bias or editorial control. But we can’t do it alone so please make a difference.

That’s how you may get some serious, even life-threatening, internal RF burns without noticing anything.

Ive had a few shocks off 220vac but nothing that hospitalized me. But I do distinctly remember a shock recieved by a friend. He had a illegal cb with a zetagi 1kw valve linear amp, it tended to carbon up its changeover contacts and loose quality on ssb so I showed him how to turn it off, isolate it, drain it down and clean them up with contact cleaner. And I kept repeatedly stressing, dont do this without doing the whole isolation things as it will kill otherwise. Well, one day it went bad in the middle of a qso, and this was to some prized russian area, so throwing caution to the wind, he sprays contact cleaner at the relay while mid conversation, while holding a aluminium microphone in other end to talk it up. You guessed it, the valve hv field collapsed into the stream of contact cleaner, threw him across the room and into a wall and his glasses were blown off and twisted by the event. His girlfriend took him to hospital and it took a fortnight before they were happy with his vital signs to declare him fit to leave. All I could say when I visited him was “I bloody told you so” but his girlfriend was up for blaming me “for showing him”, and since then I’ve shied away from showing people things that if they ignore some of my warnings could kill them.

I’ve built a 24 V heated bed for my DIY (as I call it) Mendel 90 XXL printer (400 x 400 mm print area). I use a 24 V 400 W LED power source and – since I already had a 12 V RAMPS – put a 24->12 V DC-DC converter in line with the RAMPS and driving a 24 V heating mat (for cars) via a DC solid state relay. As long as it’s not too cold in the room I get up to 60°C which is helpful for PLA but of course not sufficient for ABS (but I don’t want to breathe these ABS fumes anyway)… I’d rather use a thick cable (in combination with an energy chain) than playing with mains voltage.

Some heaters are a coil of Alloy wire cast in ceramic and then enclosed in a stainless steel tube. Basically a bad inductor, but still having the surge properties of one. Same with big boy halogen bulbs.

Reuben Saltzman is a second-generation home inspector with a passion for his work. Naturally, this blog is all about home inspections and home-related topics in the Twin Cities metro area. In addition to working at Structure Tech, he is also a licensed Truth-In-Sale of Housing Evaluator in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and several other cities.

It must be completely fine, and I actually prefer IEC equipment (that is double-listed) for many applications, but whenever I have visited Europe, the general level of electrical safety (and the way things are wired) has often seemed a lot sketchier. Then again, they benefit from three phase just about everywhere, and their distribution network is nicely balanced. The NEC and life safety codes in general in the US seem comparatively highly conservative but I suppose I don’t particularly mind. Would your experience agree?

Turns out my old GTX670 draws a lot more power than my new GTX1080 and, based on napkin calculations, brought my total power draw a bit too close to my 750W PSU’s limit. (200W CPU doing me no favors…)

Yes, I know that I’m just offloading my energy use to my residential electric service (which is, around here at least, produced mostly by coal or natural gas). Let’s leave that discussion for somewhere else. The impact at the fuel pump is what matters here. Spending eight dollars or less every week to drive to and from the cube farm is incredibly appealing.