a photoblog of what i did today.....

[Pamela]

To answer the other question asked:

A switching power supply is one in which the incoming AC voltage is first converted into DC, then fed to a series of MOSFET switching transistors translate the DC into high freq AC which is then fed into a transformer with the output being returned to DC in more useful voltages.

The advantage of a Switched Mode Power Supply is that is is much more eficient and more versatile, able to provide either AC or DC outputs depending on the circuit involved. It is necessarily more complicted but has far less hysteresis and parasitic power loss than a comparable linear power supply and generates less heat.

That's as simple as I can put it without going all TW.