A friend once asked about the block of relays pinned to a board behind my car's dash. To him relays were the mysterious little boxes that some cars inexplicably required to operate a horn. More than ...

Many integrated circuits have undocumented features or abilities. This is one of them. The TLC555 output (pin 3) can sink a 100mA load to 1.28V. The open drain transistor reset (pin 7) can sink 100mA ...

Relays usually are driven using optocouplers, which offer isolation between analog and digital grounds to ensure that switching currents in the relay coils do not affect the noise margin of the ...

A motor protection relay safeguards electric motors by detecting thermal stress, phase imbalance, stall, and abnormal ...

In electronic and industrial automation systems, relay modules play a crucial role by allowing low-power control signals to switch high-power devices. Selecting between a 5V relay module and a 12V ...

Differential protection is best understood as a fault control philosophy rather than a component category. The relay itself is secondary to the scheme it enforces. Once a zone is defined, the system ...

What is a relay? What is zero voltage switching? How to create a zero-crossing relay driver with a simple external circuit. A relay is a device that allows for a smaller electronic switch to control a ...

Last column, I wrote about various applications where fire alarm relays could be used to integrate a commercial fire alarm system with other electrical systems at a customer’s site to provide them ...