Both watts (W) and volt-amperes (VA) are units of measurement for electrical power. Watts refer to “real power,” while volt-amperes refer to “apparent power.” Usually, electronic products show one or ...

A decade or so ago, I designed a simple circuit that included a quad optoisolator arranged in a full-wave analog-multiplier bridge (Figure 1). It sensed and calculated watts of ac-power consumption ...

Normally when we hear of a Champ guitar amp, we think of a sweet-sounding rig that puts out 6 Watts through an 8-inch speaker. [John Chambers] of Champ Electronics wanted to build a true champion for ...

Analog topologies abound for converting current to voltage, voltage to current, voltage to frequency, and frequency to voltage, among other conversions. Figure 1 joins the flock while singing a ...

Measuring a voltage is pretty easy: just place your multimeter’s probes across the relevant pins and read the value. Probing currents is a bit trickier, since you need to open up the circuit and place ...

I'd like to monitor the amount of power (in watts) going into my speakers. I'm not concerned about over driving them or anything, I'm just curious how much power I'm actually using. I connected a volt ...

You can also read this article online as part of the Article Series: What’s the Difference Between Watts, RMS and More. Both watts (W) and volt-amperes (VA) are units of measurement for electrical ...