Transitor as heater

Feb 13, 2014 62 Replies

that,

its

pulse

the

target at

hoping to be just able to wait ~5 time constants or so. I must admit I thought it might be fun to watch the heat leak out of the transistor.

to

the

down to do either ther resistor or transistor as heater. (measure the voltage and current.) I guess there is some beta current error.. I've ordered a bunch of pnp medium power transistors. Beta's in the ~200 range but that drops at low temperature. But the SOT89 packs look great...

I find resistors a lot easier to drive to get a readily traceable heat pulse. Controlling both current and voltage separately is a more difficult proposition. Transistors do like to switch.

Resistors have a nonlinear response of power vs. input voltage and it's more complex to correct for that.

A MOSFET transistor as a current sink from a regulated supply gives you an approximately linear response (exactly linear if you use the sense resistor as a heater too).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

I came to the same conclusion for a transistor heater. I just saw more problems driving it that than the issues of resistor non-ideality. We may each be seeing things that the other missed.

?-)

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