Understanding Thermal Resistance
Contributors:
Alex the Giant
Alex the Giant 
Resources and Going Further
You can do these same calculations for a variety of power parts. For example you can look at the resistance between the drain and source of a mosfet to see how hot it might get at various currents. Or if you have a diode for reverse current protection, you can use the forward voltage drop and current. All these components will generate some amount of heat, but now you can take an educated guess as to how much.
Wanna use your new found skill set? Try out these great tutorials!
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This tutorial will show you how to assemble and use SparkFun's Variable Load board. It can be used to test stability of the power supply under various loads, battery lifetime, safety cutoffs, and other design elements of power supplies under test.
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