1 & 5 Watt Resistors

Thread Starter

Art

Joined Sep 10, 2007
806
Hi Guys,
How is a hobbyist likely to require 1 or 5 Watt resistors?
I have a lot of them, but I've never had to use them, and don't
know how I might use them. I don't want to throw them out and regret it though.

What projects are likely to require them? Power supplies or radio stuff?
 

cjdelphi

Joined Mar 26, 2009
272
Plenty of use for them keep them, they can get expensive them 5watt resistors, are they all random values? or specific groups... probably not all that great if they're all just 1 ohm resistors.
 

Thread Starter

Art

Joined Sep 10, 2007
806
Not random values. I mean heaps of them:

So much so that it takes up a lot of space.
What sort of project would you use them for?
I have make heaps of kits, and designed a lot of digital circuits and never used them.
 

cjdelphi

Joined Mar 26, 2009
272
wow....

I have make heaps of kits, and designed a lot of digital circuits and never used them.

if you make kits and design them it sounds like you have more than just lots of resistors, did you rob an electronic store? lol i bet you got > $10,000 there..... depends on what IC's you also have just sitting in boxes. open an ebay shop?... any Voltage Regulators or DC to DC IC's?....
 

russ_hensel

Joined Jan 11, 2009
825
If you just do signal processing you will not use them much. Power designs do, but less so as we have gone to pwm and similar methods. Low values can be useful as current sense resistors in power supplies and power amps.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
I disagree strongly, but that's OK. I have a full kit of 1/4W resistors, from 1.0 through 10M (over 150 values of resistors) in a 1 Gallon storage bag. Your quantity is much larger, but it could still fit in a banker box and still be highly organized, a much smaller footprint. Beats getting rid of them.

Looking at the labels, what money symbols does OZ use? I see cents (¢), do you use dollars ($) too?
 

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Thread Starter

Art

Joined Sep 10, 2007
806
Yes we have Australian dollars, they were still selling some resistors as singles so they were 6 cents each.
They were just starting to come in with packs of six or eight, so some are already
packed that way, but they are all 1/4 Watt.
 

lmartinez

Joined Mar 8, 2009
224
Nowdays with efficiency in mind, I am not sure why they would be utilized in an electrical circuit. Except as a heater device.....
 

Thread Starter

Art

Joined Sep 10, 2007
806
They're all from DickSmith

www.dse.com.au

how did you get them exactly? liquidation? and are they any other components other than resistors there?
Good pickup there :) It sounds like you are from Australia then.

Yes it's every component that they had in towers, semiconductors resistors, transistors,
caps, trimpots, pots, LEDs, LED displays, thermal fuses, IR LEDs and receivers.

Everything they had in hanging bags or on a shelf in little boxes I did not get
(switches, pushbuttons, PCBs, IC sockets, etc)

Dick smith are converting all of their stores in a way that no longer supports hobby electronics.
They will (store by store) become a comsumer electronics retailer.

I made an offer at the right time that a store was being converted to buy the stocked towers.

I used my first 1/2 Watt resistor last night.
I have a project microcontroller driven web server that is run on 3.3 Volts.
I made an addon circuit for it that wants 5 Volts.
The whole thing is run with a regulated 6 Volt plugpack, and a regulator is used to
provide 3.3 Volts to the web server.
I used a 1R2 1 Watt resistor to connect the addon circuit directly to the
inside terminals of the socket that receives the 6 Volt supply.
I just chose that value because it dimmed an LED backlight in the circuit
to approx the same brightness as if it was being run on 5 Volts.
http://www.freewebs.com/defxev/WIB.htm
I wouldn't have been able to use a 7805 circuit with only a 6 Volt supply.
Art.
 

Thread Starter

Art

Joined Sep 10, 2007
806
Lol, I stumbled onto that one on my own :D it's a cracka.
I've got all the 1/4 Watt resistor values as well, I don't have to try to make them,
and know what I can do with them.

Here's an idea
No sure what the idea is exactly, first thought is mentioned above,
but a better idea is to just send the poor **** enough 1/2 Watt resistors
to allow them to take a couple of days a week off work for a few months.
Better use than I have for them :)
 
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