Why a Sine Wave?
I received this question by email a few weeks. First thoughts was that it is a product of the mathematics of rotating a straight conductor in a magnetic...
Understanding Circuit Breaker Markings
IEC 60947 is the circuit breaker standard and covers the marking of breakers in detail. Any manufacturer following this standard should comply with the...
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...
Cold Fusion (or not?)
Recently I have seen a few interesting articles on viable cold fusion; the combining of atoms at room like temperatures to create boundless energy. Now...
Motor Starting - Introduction
Motor starting and its associated problems are well-known to many people who have worked on large industrial processes. However, these things are, of course...
DC Component of Asymmetrical Faults
The image (reproduced from IEC 60909) shows a typical fault in an ac system. From the illustration it can seen that there is an initial dc component ...
IEC 60287 Current Capacity of Cables - An Introduction
IEC 60287 "Calculation of the continuous current rating of cables (100% load factor)" is the International Standard which defines the procedures and equations...
What is a rectifier transformer?
I've recently come across this question a couple times browsing the internet. Decided to give a quick answer here. A rectifier transformer is a transformer...
DC Motor Operation
Coils of wire on the rotor carry a d.c. current which generates a magnetic field. A stator magnetic field is created using either permanent magnets or...
Electromechanical Relays
Electromechanical relays have been the traditional backbone of electrical protection systems. While over recent years these have been replaced by microprocessor...