The disclosure is related to pulse width modulating a power signal to a heat resistive element of a transducer. The power signal may be a power output signal of preamplifier. The power signal may be provided to a heat resistive element in a transducer that is operable to read data from or write data to a data storage medium. The pulse width modulated power signal can allow for controlling the heating of the heat resistive element based on a thermal time constant of the heat resistive element and based on adjustable components of the pulse width modulated power signal.