Alternating Current Circuits
Alternating current (a.c.) is the backbone of modern electrical power distribution. In this article I’ll be pulling some of the more important concepts...
Frame Leakage Protection
While not as popular as it once was, frame leakage protection does still have some use in some circumstances. In essence frame leakage is an earth fault...
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was born exactly at midnight on July 10, 1856 in the tiny village of Smiljan, Lika in Croatia. In his late teens, Tesla left the village to...
Why is electricity so hard to understand?
It's been a busy few months on different projects or busy couple of decades depending on how I look at it. I can say that on the odd (frequent) occasion...
Star-Delta Motor Starting - Performance
Many questions sent in to the site are in connection with motor starting and in particular star-delta. For all but the simplest application, there is...
How to refer fault levels across a transformer
Over the past year or so I've been involved in on going discussions related to referring fault levels from the secondary of a transformer to the primary...
Three Phase Current - Simple Calculation
The calculation of current in a three phase system has been brought up on our site feedback and is a discussion I seem to get involved in every now and...
Generation of a Sine Wave
A fundamental concept behind the operation of alternating current systems is that voltage and current waveforms will be sinusoidal – a Sine Wave. This...
Maxwell's Equations - Gauss's Electric Field Law
Gauss's Electrical law defines the relation between charge ("Positive" & "Negative") and electric field. The law was initially formulated by Carl Friedrich...
IEC 61439 Verification Methods
The (relatively new) switchgear and control gear standard, IEC 61439 'Low-voltage switchgear and controlgear assemblies' has three methods which can be...