Electronic loads are used to draw power from a source at either a constant current or a constant voltage. This comes in useful for things like battery discharge testing or making sure that PCB you designed can actually power those motors without releasing the all important magic smoke. Another cool thing about electronic loads is that you can do all the testing in your workshop and if nothing catches fire, take it out into the real world.
The MightyWatt is a programmable electronic load that sits on top of an Arduino Uno/Zero/Due. Thanks to the built-in heat-sink and fan you can draw 70W before the FET on the board starts overheating. The included Digital to Analog converter lets you set the desired load characteristics through the Arduino. The board creator, Kaktus has made a C# program which you can run on Windows as a simple user interface for the electronic load. The design is fully open source and you can find the documentation over Kaktus’ blog.
