Tech Forum Questions

I’m curious about your impression of phased array antenna systems. What is it that you want to do?

Phased arrays are most commonly used in the AM broadcast band through the shortwave spectrum (500 kHz to 30 MHz). These arrays consist of a reference radiator and a number of phased radiators determined by the desired pattern. As frequency increase above 30 MHz different antennas types work better such as YAGI antennas or parabolic ‘dish’ antennas. Usually as the frequency goes higher, phased arrays are not practical.

As to your last question, water and water vapor ABSORBS radio frequency energy. The only frequencies that will penetrate water are in the VLF (very low frequency) band. WWVB (60 kHz) may be able to penetrate water, but this is about the highest frequency that possibly can.

You need to elaborate on your question. BTW, metal is always the best conductor for an antenna system. The efficiency of a system is determined by a number of factors. One primary factor is cable (coaxial) loss as the frequency increases (loss increases).

It sounds like your problem is an impedance mismatch in the speaker system. Maximum power transfer occurs when the source impedance (output of your amplifier) matches the load impedance (speaker). The gauge of the speaker cable may contribute to the problem. The smaller the gauge the higher the IR loss in the wire. And NO... Monster Cable is NOT significantly better and definitely NOT worth the extra cost.

A better solution is an additional amplifier for those ‘other room’ speakers... defining another ZONE. That amplifier should be fed by a low level output from your receiver My guess is that the previous homeowner had a system with an amplifier per zone and a low level signal distribution system to feed the amplifiers. This can get a bit complicated in design but may translate into a more versatile system.

Because you swapped the A/B speaker leads and got the same audio results, the culprit might be speaker-impedance mismatch. Check the output impedance of your A/V receiver and of the low-volume speakers. The receiver manual should specify an impedance, which in most cases comes to, 4, 8, or 16 ohms. If not in the manual, check for a label at the outputs. 

Also, find the impedance of your speakers in the manufacturer's information or on a speaker label.  You want the same impedance at both ends.  A mismatch can cause reduced volume and even distortion. If you want to measure impedance, here's a link to a helpful article: https://www.wikihow.com/Measure-Speaker-Impedance. If all else fails, look for an impedance-matching transformer. More information here: https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/transformer/audio-transformer.html.

Most smart chargers are designed to not put out current if the voltage on the load is too low. This protects the charger against short circuits and any load that isn’t a short but would overheat the charger.

Batteries that have sat that long may or may not be rescuable. The best thing to try is a “dumb” charger with external current limiting. For a car battery, the external current limiter can be a sealed beam or H4 halogen headlamp bulb; the charger should be 6 amp or bigger. For motorcycle batteries, the same rig but with a tail lamp bulb.

Once the battery has some voltage on it, you can switch over to the smart charger. If the battery voltage is above the smart charger’s go/no go threshold, it will charge the battery. A field expedient to the dumb charger and bulb limiter is to use another battery of the same voltage which has charge in it, plus the bulb limiter, across the discharged battery to bring its voltage up. A rescuable battery will have the bulb glow brightly and then gradually dim as the dead battery voltage rises.

Lead acid (PbA) batteries have a high self discharge rate. They will go dead just sitting. They also have a short calendar life, more than 3 years old you can expect to have problems. A smart charger will see the voltage is to low and abort charging. The longer the cell voltage remains below 1.5V the more damage is done shortening their life and capacity. To extend PbA battery life requires a float charger like the 'Battery Tender'.

From the 1.5 to 2 years of storage mentioned I'd say you now have paper weights. A slow trickle charge done with a bench power supply at a low current to about 2V per cell, may bring them up. But how useful they'll be remains to be seen. Then you can hook up your smart charger and see what happens. Don't leave the charging unattended, you can stop it over night by disconnecting one terminal. Some power supplies can be back fed from the battery when turned off. You have to watch out with batteries of unknown condition. Fires can happen. This applies to PbA as well as lithium based batteries. An alarm is useless when there's no one around to take action.

Electrolytic capacitors are polarized and every half cycle of the powerline their polarity will be reversed. Depending on the values and types, they may get hot, or more exciting, blow out their pressure relief attended by a puff of smoke and fumes. In any case, their life is rapidly shortened if reversed. Non polarized caps are available but it all depends on the values needed. Most other capacitors are non-polpoarized and they should work for you.

Mr. Gotts seeks information on employing the reactive property of a capacitor to reduce AC line voltage to 24 volts.

The short answer is “Don’t do it.”

Been there. Done that. Didn’t know any better. In my case, I had a small circuit comprising one vacuum tube having a 12-volt filament drawing 0.15 amperes. Dropping the voltage from 120 volts required a series impedance of 720 ohms. Like you, it occurred to me that the reactive impedance of a capacitor might provide the needed voltage drop, eliminating a large (and hot) series resistor. A capacitor of 3.7 uF at 60 Hz provided the necessary 720-ohm impedance.

The technique worked and nothing blew up. I was lucky. Seventy subsequent years of experience, however, lead me to consider the reasons NOT to use this technique:

• Most importantly, no isolation from the AC line is obtained, so that the possibility of shock hazard always exists. Furthermore, because the reactance of a capacitor varies inversely as the frequency of the applied voltage, and lacking any line-to-load isolation, it follows that any high-frequency line-voltage transients will be coupled through to the load without attenuation.
• The technique does not, in general, work where the characteristics of the load are unknown. If the load is resistive and the current drawn is constant, — as in my vacuum-tube example — the technique works. If the load varies, however, then the voltage across the load will vary accordingly.
• In any application with this technique, phase shift of the load voltage occurs relative to the AC line voltage. This phase shift is unimportant to a resistive load. If, however, the load is inductive or capacitive, this phase shift may produce wild swings in load voltage due to oscillation. Heater control circuits usually employ relays, and relay coils are inductive loads.

One would never use an electrolytic capacitor for this job. Film-dielectric non-polarized motor-start and motor-run capacitors are available with operating voltage ratings suitable for the job. But the off-the-shelf tolerances of such devices is relatively large, running to 6% for motor-run capacitors and 10% for motor-start capacitors. For a 24-volt resistive load supplied through an off-the-shelf motor-run capacitor, the load voltage may be anything from 22 to 25 volts.

A small transformer is less expensive than a motor-start or -run capacitor, it provides safety isolation from the AC line, and the load voltage won’t oscillate.

That is not at all practical. Use a 24 volt transformer from a sprinkler timer or thermostat.

Most aluminum electrolytic capacitors are not suited to having large amounts of AC voltage on them. Also they have to be used in pairs, to handle both polarities of voltage. And yes, you may have them overheat and "rapidly disassemble."

Also the heater cable will not be isolated from the AC line, which may be hazardous under fault conditions. You didn't say how much current you needed at 24VAC, but I assume it might be more than an ampere. My first choice would be a 120:24V transformer. You'd get decent efficiency and isolated power.

Possibly a simple answer might be to configure a small plastic flag attached to a micro switch and positioned somewhere in the air-flow. The switch activation could activate a remote lamp or indicator when the air-flow slows or stops.

As a first thought a current sensor, watching the motor’s current draw, comes to mind. A current sensor is simply a single winding coil that one motor wire passes through. It is a basic transformer and the coil develops a voltage relative to the motor current. They are available commercially or can be salvaged from a junk box transformer.

OK, but that seems to be more bother than it’s worth since all you really need to know is if the fan is running not it’s actual current draw. So now it looks like an air flow switch is the best choice. Don’t go off the deep end here, they are quite simple. Many commercial airflow switches are nothing more than a lightweight paddle connected to a micro switch actuator arm. This is placed in the airflow, the air lifts the paddle and the switch operates. Just be sure the paddle falls freely without airflow and that the airflow raises the paddle high enough that it doesn’t dance or flutter on the air stream.

A common SPDT micro switch offers many options for alarm or indication connections without the fussiness of measuring the current sensor voltage and the circuitry required. Since the micro switch is isolated it could be connected to a line power, low voltage or even an alarm system! Low cost possibilities and reliable operation are unlimited.

No power, clogged duct work or fan assembly, bound up motor, a squirrel in the squirrel cage... all result in no airflow! Not having specific information about your fan or it’s installation, it would seem easy to cobble this together with common, and easy to find items. Hope this solves your problem.

Judging by the current, the fan motor is probably a shaded pole motor. Bad bearings may not alter the current very much, until they freeze up, at which point, you'd have the motor's locked rotor current. I assume you'd like to know about motor trouble before it fails. Since you are able to tell by ear, why not use a cheap intercom to monitor the fan?