Choosing the Right MOSFET for Your Circuit for Beginners

[vsage]

I am having an issue with choosing an appropriate MOSFET (N-chan) for my purposes. I intend to use 5V logic to turn on/off a circuit which has roughly 4A flowing through the drain-source when on. However, I am having trouble figuring out how to find the properly-rated MOSFET to do this.

The book I am ordering this part from (Jameco) gives some specifications, such as the package, BVds, Min. On-St. DS current and so forth, but I am unable to discern what these mean. The package part makes sense if you have the figures in the book, but I am not sure what BVds means or what "Min. On-St. DS Current" means. I assume it means "minimum on-state drain-source current", which tells me half of what I want to know, but how can I be sure that it will supply this current when Vgs = 5V? For reference, I was looking at this particular part:

http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/st...&catalogId=10001&productId=210577&pa=210577PS

Yea or nay on being what I want?

 

[AlephZero]

Did you try the "View Technical Documents - Data Sheet (current)" link on that web page? That should tell you everything you need to know.

 

[vsage]

Did you try the "View Technical Documents - Data Sheet (current)" link on that web page? That should tell you everything you need to know.

Hm I suppose you're right with the various plots of Vgs vs. current at various Vds values. Hopefully it all works out!