HarveyH42 said:
Here are a few quick pictures. Not sure if they will be of much help. The TO-220 device got hot enough to melt the plastic container I put the electronics in to protect from splashing. Yes, it was on a nice sized heatsink, which I need to remove to get the PCB out.
Wow, thank you! The pictures are very helpful. The TO-220 component unfortunately appears to be a custom job, and I can't find a datasheet for it. I'm assuming it's a high frequency, high power FET of some sort.
I still have a few questions, however: in your picture of the component side of the board, there appears to be another component hidden by the large red capacitor in the upper left corner, probably a resistor? Also, what are the color stripes printed on the inductor that's partly obscured by the same capacitor?
Does the white socket connector have a single wire leading from it? What does it lead to? And the wires soldered to the trace side of the board - they lead to the transducer, I presume?
Thank you so much to everyone who's replied!
It's kind of frustrating knowing enough about electronics to be dangerous, but still missing some of the fact and theory necessary to design many of the projects I want to try. I've picked up a little bit of electronic theory through various projects I've undertaken, but have no formal training. I've found microcontrollers to be a great crutch, since I find it easier to kludge together firmware whose functionality could probably easily be implemented with a few transistors or op-amps by an experienced engineer, but sometimes you don't have the option of using an MC.
And I'm rambling.... I guess what I'm trying to say is,
I really appreciate your helping me to fill the gaps in my knowledge.
Oh yeah, one other thing: what is impedance? I found the wikipedia entry on it rather confusing. It sounds to me like resistance that's generated by a component when an AC waveform is run through it. Is this right, or at least on the right track?