Amp Nerd https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html Blog Ground Bounce Means Your Ground Is Not at Zero Volts Switching Noise Is a Layout Problem Before It Is a Filter Problem Picking a Buck Inductor by Value Alone Skips Three Ratings A Linear Regulator Wastes the Voltage It Drops as Heat Dropout Voltage Is Not a Fixed Number on a Regulator Datasheet A Capacitive Load Can Turn a Stable Amplifier into an Oscillator Gain-Bandwidth Product Is a Trade, Not a Bandwidth Promise Slew Rate Is a Separate Limit from Bandwidth—Both Can Bite Rail-to-Rail Rarely Means All the Way to Either Rail An Op-Amp Does Not Start with Its Inputs at the Same Voltage Home The Flyback Spike Comes from Leakage Inductance, Not the Load Magnetizing Current Flows Even When the Secondary Is Open The Turns Ratio Tells You the Ideal Output, Not the Real One Core Loss Does Not Care How Much Current the Load Draws An Inductor Does Not Fail Gracefully When the Core Saturates A Supercapacitor Is Not a Battery That Charges Instantly Rating a Capacitor at Its Working Voltage Is Not Derating X7R and Y5V Share a Package but Not a Temperature Story A Ceramic Capacitor Loses Capacitance the Moment You Bias It An Electrolytic Capacitor Ages While It Sits Doing Nothing A Capacitor’s ESR Is Not a Rounding Error—It Sets the Ripple A Gap in Your Monitoring Data Is Not the Same as Zero Output Swapping a Failed Inverter Is Rarely a Like-for-Like Job Two Connectors That Click Together Are Not Always Compatible A Cable Left Lying on the Roof Will Not Survive the Decade Firefighters Do Not Cut a Ventilation Hole Through an Array Community Solar Does Not Put Power Onto Your Own Wires A Solar Carport Is a Structure First and an Array Second A Solar Water Heater Is Not a Less Useful Solar Panel Micro-Hydro Runs on Head and Flow, Not on How Fast It Looks Adding Wind to Solar Is Not Two Sources on One Wire Furling Is a Turbine Saving Itself, Not a Mechanism Failing A Small Wind Turbine Is Priced by the Tower, Not the Blades A Wind Turbine Stops in a Gale on Purpose, Not From Failure A Retired Solar Module Is Not Ordinary Construction Debris A Ground Fault in an Array Can Hide Behind Another One Insulation Testing Finds the Fault That Has Not Happened Yet A Working Array Can Hide a Fault Only an IV Curve Reveals Commissioning Is a Set of Tests, Not a Handshake and an App A Degradation Claim Needs Evidence You Must Collect Early Your Monitoring App and Your Utility Meter Will Not Agree An Export Limit Does Not Shrink the Array You Can Install An Interconnection Agreement Is a Contract, Not a Formality Moving Circuits Into a Backup Panel Is Rewiring, Not Relabeling Backup Mode and Self-Consumption Mode Fight Over One Battery A Time-of-Use Battery Earns on the Spread, Not the Sunshine Usable Capacity and Warranty Depth Are Two Different Numbers A Battery Gives Back Less Than You Put In, Every Cycle