if the FET is smoking, it may be permanently on. Firstly, if you don't mind me saying so, you are very new to all this and getting the pinouts on FETs, ICs, transistors etc. wrong is easy to do.
Secondly, inductors are not measured in Watts - lots of other things, yes, Watts, no. They will have a saturation current - personally, that inductor "looks" a bit small - a larger one (still 100uH but with a higher current rating) might be better. Thirdly, I'd really check hard that your 555 is oscillating and on the pin you expect - if its locked on, then that might explain why your FET caught fire (it'd be shorting your input supply to ground through the tiny inductor, which would then cook too). It happens... Check every pin on the 555 is going where you expect. Check the feedback transistor pinout is actually what you expect. Make no assumptions at all about anything being above suspicion. Get another pair of eyes to check your wiring - its easy even for experienced engineers to get "blind" to obvious mistakes (obvious to others, that is). Get a second opinion, and let them check it from the original schematic - don't let them assume anything. If you've never played with a 555 before (the world's most popular IC), trying doing some simple stuff like flashing an LED at 1Hz (lots of schematics out there for that) - boring maybe, but you'll learn an awful lot... Cheers Nick -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
