Dr. Death and the MOSFETs

So, I was thinking of starting a band, and I think Dr. Death and the MOSFETs would be a pretty awesome name... Not really, it just describes the last couple of days for me.

The Dr. Death part refers to my Thursday morning activities. In just a few short hours I managed to wreck my AM transmitter and killed my radio for good, and the next few hours were spent feverishly researching MOSFETs and trying to create some sample circuits.

My AM transmitter bit the dust when I was trying to fit the assembly into the mint tin I was using. I desoldered a connection to another antenna, and when I was resoldering it to my good antenna, the whole antenna pin, which is connected on the inside of the chip, popped right out. I tried to put it back in, but it was a no-go. I was pretty sure Active Tech would have more, but of course, they don't. Uh oh...

After speaking with Carl, it was clear that my radio was pretty much buggered. By taking off the RF transmitter, I basically made the entire thing so sensitive and erratic that it won't function properly anymore, and I can't properly re-mount it. Fortunately, in my next visit to Value Village, I found a radio that was almost exactly the same. The only difference was that this new radio has a black case and a DC in jack. So, at least I still have a radio.

While speaking with Carl, he pretty much informed me that he wasn't sure how MOSFETs worked, either, which sucked for me, because I couldn't figure the bloody things out, either. I know that a MOSFET is supposed to be able to take a very small signal and amplify it. Nigel suggested a Darlington transmitter would do what I wanted, but a problem arose when I was researching them as well.

The difference between a darlington transistor (or any transistor) and a MOSFET is that a MOSFET is linear, meaning that it uses a ratio to determine the final output. That means hat if there is a very small signal on the gate, the MOSFET will only allow a small amount of the amplified current through as well. That means if you turn down the volume on the radio, the amplification will also be turned down. In a darlington transistor, a certain amount of current is needed to activate the switch, meaning if you turned the radio down, the signal that is amplified would be cut off completely, or would cut in and cut out as the song or speech reached a peak in signal strength.

I found a nice amount of links for MOSFETs, but i just couldn't get anything to work.
MOSFET Basics
MOSFETs
Do You Know Your Transistors From Your FETs and MOSFETs?

Since I couldn't get any of these circuits working, despite my research, I decided today to get back to basics and try to make some regular transistors work, and then work my way up from there. In my research today I found a really great website that explains all kinds of components and projects, and it's actually readable. I'll be posting this on the main blog later on.

The Electronics Club

From this site I was able to create two transistor circuits using a light sensor, which I think will have some application in my later monstrous transformations.

I was going to post images of the circuits, but apparently I can't, because Blogger is having problems...

Doctor Death Strikes again!!!

I'll update this post tomorrow, I suppose.