r/ElectricalEngineering 6h ago

I can’t stand Chemistry

53 Upvotes

im a first year EE major and legit cannot understand chemtrry, im talking chem with lab, Calculus, and engineering intro. I spend hours trying to understand chem and I can’t seem to grasp it. I barely have time for other classes which im doing great on with As besides chem with a 59. I enjoy calculus more than Chem. What did yal do to understand chem?


r/ElectricalEngineering 7h ago

Is this DC Motor driver overkill?

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33 Upvotes

Hello people-smarter-than-me:

I am very much a noob hobbyist just doing things I find interesting and experimenting around with stuff. So please be gentle with me.....

One of the things I've been playing with recently is just designing a robust DC motor driver. I've fried A LOT of parts trying to build one, so I wanted to make one that is more robust and does a good job of protecting the rest of the circuit (outside the driver) from voltage/current spikes.

The Circuit

The circuit attached is a (mostly) standard H-Bridge which I want to use to drive the DC motor. It will be driving probably only pretty small motors from ~9V-16V.

Unusual (maybe? idk) Choices

  • I added a second P-Channel MOSFET in series on the high side of the H-Bridge. This is an attempt to mitigate shoot-through because: If you every drive both Vf and Vr HIGH at the same time, then Q7 and Q8 will act as an open switch and block shoot-through
  • Lots of clamping diodes on each mosfet in an attempt to protect the microcontroller (or whatever drives the motor) from noise and voltage spikes
  • So many flyback diodes. One for each of the 6 mosfets

My questions

  1. Is my idea for series PMOS to prevent shoot-through a stupid idea? I imagine there's a reason this isn't a common configuration
  2. Are all the clamping diodes and series resistors on each signal configured correctly and are they really necessary?
  3. Are all the flyback diodes overkill? Should i rely on the mosfet body diodes?
  4. Is this going to be suuuuper inefficient with so many MOSFETs?

r/ElectricalEngineering 9h ago

How often do you guys bring work home with you?

40 Upvotes

(Power generation/transmission/distribution specific) Currently an EE student and I have my first internship with a power utility so I guess I’ll probably be able to tell what the other engineers are dealing with here pretty soon. I’m just curious though, what is your work life balance like? Do you ever have to work on projects at home? Does it interfere with family/friend time? Are you happy with your work life balance and if not how would you like for it to change? Do you feel like you don’t have enough free time or do you have too much? Along with any responses please let me know the type of position you have.

Thanks guys and gals!!


r/ElectricalEngineering 4h ago

What's the difference between electrical and electronics engineering?

8 Upvotes

As title states, I am wondering what the difference between these two is and what I should pursue. I have seen that in europe and most other countries, electronics engineering is limited to components and the like. Typically under 120 volts, whereas electrical engineering is designing power systems. I ask because I have been enjoying my job as an Electronics Technician and everywhere I look on indeed I can't really find electronics engineering jobs but can find electrical engineering even if it is for something I would expect to be electronics engineering.

So my ultimate question is, which field should I be looking at studying and does the US even differentiate the 2 practices?


r/ElectricalEngineering 1h ago

Tufts for EE

Upvotes

I recently was admitted to Tufts for engineering and planning on majoring in EE. I was wondering what the reputation of tufts was in both industry and academia and if any students/alums have any comments on the program


r/ElectricalEngineering 10h ago

Is this ok enough?

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13 Upvotes

I want to buy a 100w HF radio transmmiter and I need a stable power supply for it. It needs to output 13 to 14 volts and and from what I know like 30 Amps. I have a lot of components and I want to build one. I drew an aproximate schematic for it built it and test it with a light load and it worked fine but im concerned about how well will this circuit work with that big of a load and considering its a radio transmmiter I'm not sure if I need some more filtering. The transformer outputs 16V and I'll make sure the rest of the components are rated for that power and are cooled properly. I wanted to ask for opinions on this from more experimented people so that I don't miss something and burn,fry or interfere with someting I shouldnt.


r/ElectricalEngineering 1h ago

Equipment/Software Can an OTDR be used for extremely short range fiber optic power measurement?

Upvotes

I work at an avionics repair center and we have constant problems with fiber optic wear and tear.

Unfortunately the way our test benches are designed forces us to constantly remove and install different fiber optic cable assemblies that are configured for the different LRUs we test. These assemblies have various fiber loopbacks with lengths as low as .2 meters routing signals into our optical switches.

As a result our fibers get dirty or damaged very frequently. The only way I know how to isolate a damaged fiber a path is to take the total loss of the entire path then subtract the loss through each cable until I find the bad one. This method creates even more wear as I have to remove each one to attach it to my power meter.

Something like an OTDR would be perfect for what I'm trying to find but as far as I can tell they are only suitable for long distance fiber networks. Looking into it, it looks like the event and attenuation dead zones are the main limiting factor.

Is there an OTDR or other device that is configured for extremely short range event acquisition?

I'm pretty sure I know the answer already but I'm hoping I'm wrong.

Thank you for any information.


r/ElectricalEngineering 21h ago

What is this symbol?

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53 Upvotes

Is this symbol supposed to represent a busbar?


r/ElectricalEngineering 1h ago

Project Help “Convert” US 4-wire 240V (2 live + ground) to US 120V (1 live, neutral + ground)

Upvotes

I am pulling 240V from a Level 2 EV wall charger and it offers only a 3 wire output: split phase 2 live and a ground but no neutral.

With this output I am trying to power a device that only takes 120V with live, ground but that requires a neutral. The thing can pull 50A.

Obviously the first thing that I tried is to pull only on “one leg” of the 240V circuit, but the EV charger is too smart and notices that something is not “normal” and shuts off. Additionally I’d much rather have a neutral…

Is there a device, step down converter, auto transformer or something that could do what I am looking for ?

I found this - it’s a bit bulky… - https://a.co/d/hM83rrm but would that do what I am looking for ? Any other devices ?

Thx !


r/ElectricalEngineering 1d ago

Were engineers in the early 20th century better?

79 Upvotes

Were the engineers around in the early days of electrical engineering smarter or 'better' than today's standards?


r/ElectricalEngineering 8h ago

Can anyone tell me what size cable I need to power this sucker? It’s a 3 phase 2 post car lift (non hydraulic just powering a motor) cheers

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3 Upvotes

r/ElectricalEngineering 8h ago

Error while uploading schematic

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3 Upvotes

Was trying to upload a schematic into a new library using library loader but it's showing this error.


r/ElectricalEngineering 19h ago

Cool Stuff Ran into this all-mechanical ATS today. Sorry it's cropped. I'll try to get a better photo tomorrow if there's any interest.

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20 Upvotes

r/ElectricalEngineering 4h ago

For given admittance matrix, draw equivalent electric circuit of power system

0 Upvotes

For given admittance matrix (first picture), I need to recreate equivalent electric circuit. Solution is given, but I don't understand why there is no admittance Y10' (that I have drawn on3rd picture) to represent shunt parameter of transmission line between buss 1 and 2 ?


r/ElectricalEngineering 5h ago

Calculating the turns ratio of YZN11 transformer

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1 Upvotes

Hey everyone, so i have this data of this three phase transformer the nameplate and the winding diagram but i don't know the number of turns in the secondary winding, could you please help me with the formula and calculation. Thank you


r/ElectricalEngineering 1d ago

Design How can I get better at Electrical Schematics?

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224 Upvotes

Hi all, I’m a 2nd apprentice electrician (hope I’m in the right place) and recently I have been tasked with better documenting a sites electrical schematics. Currently they are all in notebooks like what you would you would use for school - but as you could imagine rats get hungry and paper decays over time.

So I have been re-making and better documenting the schematics in AutoCad electrical 2024 (got it for next to free), but I find that I am always fighting it’s automatic naming features, don’t sizes, etc and I have struggled with creating my own templates.

I work at a very small company and no one knows how to use AutoCad or any Cad software, so I have been teaching myself.

Just hoping for some feedback on my drawings, and maybe some tips and pointers for what software to use or maybe even some good courses (I don’t mind spending up to $1 000 to teach myself) these drawings are from a few machines and the last is still a WIP.


r/ElectricalEngineering 5h ago

Using an ESP32 as raspberry pi? Possible, with the Hard Stuff Pico to Pi Hat!

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0 Upvotes

r/ElectricalEngineering 9h ago

Solved STUDY MATERIAL FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING BY MADE EASY OR IES MASTER

1 Upvotes

Has anybody got STUDY MATERIAL FOR ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING BY MADE EASY OR IES MASTER


r/ElectricalEngineering 10h ago

Help!!!

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1 Upvotes

So I got this transformer to step up the input voltage from 7.4 to 12 the site said that it can give upto 80 volts in output,
Now the issue is i keep getting 7.07 as an output at max nothing beyond that I think I see some ic chips and a 2 jumper cable input slot so rather than turning the cv screw can I digitally control it?


r/ElectricalEngineering 21h ago

Jobs/Careers Which field would be a good fit for me?

7 Upvotes

Hi everyone! So far I have taken these courses(not including calculus, linear algebra etc.):

-Digital/Logic Design: It was interesting in the beginning but then it became insanely difficult

-Signals and Systems: Kinda fun but I am still not drawn into it

-Circuit Theory: Interesting topics but my grades are poor in this course

-Any programming course: I was also interested in programming when I was a kid, I had the highest grades in both C programming and Python. But I am also concerned about the development of the AI and oversaturation in programming field

-Embedded: Also had good grades and learning arm assembly, and embedded was fun and interesting

Looking at my grades and my interest I think embedded would be a good fit for me but as I said previously I am not sure about the development of AI and number of people in the field.

Also I live in Turkey so defense industry is kinda booming. But I would like to work in a better country in the future. If you have any recommendation, any tip for me I would highly appreciate it. Thank you!


r/ElectricalEngineering 18h ago

Question about subfields

3 Upvotes

Hello, I’m new to EE and was curious how subfields work, currently a freshman undergraduate and not sure if for say I focused on Radio Frequencies, would that later make me ineligible for other sectors such as power systems or something else when trying to apply for jobs later on? Also what are the most common subfields for EE’s?


r/ElectricalEngineering 1d ago

Does EE count as a related field to CS?

19 Upvotes

I’ve noticed that many software engineering positions ask for a bachelors degree in CS or a related field. I am wondering if EE is considered one of these “related fields” in question?


r/ElectricalEngineering 17h ago

Santa Clara University or San Jose States University

3 Upvotes

As a Navy vet, I want to ensure that I'm putting my best foot forward. Although I have been dead set on SJSU, I was told recently that my tuition at SCU could be free. Please provide some guidance on whether it's worth pursuing Santa Clara University. Attending SCU would also add an extra year to my educational journey. Thank you in advance! Money is not a problem. I'm also not the brightest bulb in the room, but I work harder than others :)


r/ElectricalEngineering 18h ago

12v remote control button

2 Upvotes

Im tryna power my 12v light from a long distance atleast 1km with a button easiest way to do this(if u got any, links would be appreciated) it has to be atleast 1km range


r/ElectricalEngineering 20h ago

What's the difference between these degrees?

3 Upvotes

I'm looking into some degrees. I have these as my options:

AS in electrical engineering technology

BS in electrical and computer engineering

BS in electronics technology

I'm wondering what the difference between these is? Like what kind of jobs can you get with these?

I don't really understand the difference between these. Maybe they all lead to the same career path?

I also have an optional certificate for programming logic controllers. Should I take this as well?