When you get the call, “The motor won’t start,” you’d best have a logical and systematic plan in place to approach the problem. “Easter egging” just doesn’t work unless you happen to be very lucky!

A seemingly trivial circuit layout can be problematic because of the higher than usual currents that are common in motor-control circuits. Although the circuits that monitor three legs are slightly ...

Another intriguing issue is whether circuits in the remaining frontal agranular cortex—presumably involved in more ‘cognitive’ aspects of motor control—are organized in the form of primary motor ...

It is often necessary for persons other than licensed electricians to perform minimal electrical work in a commercial or industrial facility. This work must be performed in the same safe manner as all ...

Guest columnist Alfred Hesener, European marketing director at Fairchild Semiconductor, describes how good design of power switches can help reduce losses in motor control circuits. Energy-saving ...

The current-mode or peak-current-regulating switching converter is a familiar, almost dominant, power supply circuit consisting of few parts and is usually designed with “cookbook” procedures from PWM ...

In Part 1 of this two-part series, we presented a 3-phase, 480VAC motor circuit with its associated controls (Figure). We stepped through a logical, systematic approach to troubleshoot the main power ...