From the monthly archives: October 2011

We are pleased to present below all posts archived in 'October 2011'. If you still can't find what you are looking for, try using the search box.

Tip – Latitude and Longitude on Large Scale Plans

By Steven McFadyen on 10/29/2011 8:26 AM

If you are working on a large plan, get the real coordinates [latitude, longitude] for two or more points and add them to the drawing. That way you can always work out the scale and dimensions.

... read more..


Back to Basics - Ohm’s Law

By Steven McFadyen on 10/21/2011 2:02 PM

Electrical engineering has a multitude of laws and theorems. It is fair to say the Ohm's Law is one of the more widely known; it not the most known. Developed in 1827 by Georg Ohm the law defines the re... read more..


What does N+1 mean?

By Steven McFadyen on 10/19/2011 5:40 AM

The term 'N+1' relates to redundancy and simply means that if you required 'N' items of equipment for something to work, you would have one additional spare item. If any one item of equipment breaks dow... read more..


Always Use PPE

By Steven McFadyen on 10/12/2011 7:25 AM

A lot of our members work in countries where PPE (personal protective equipment) is regulated or they work for companies/organizations which take employee safety seriously. Unfortunately, there are plac... read more..


Welcome back Bottle

By Steven McFadyen on 10/9/2011 2:23 PM

‘Kept looking at a card, y’see? Kept looking at it. Welcome back Bottle. Gods below welcome home.

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Differential protection, the good old days

By Steven McFadyen on 10/3/2011 1:52 PM

This morning I was explaining how differential protection works to a junior engineer. To give him something to read I opened up the NPAG (Network Protection and Automation Guide, by Areva) and turned to... read more..




Surface Treatment – Ladders, Trays and Baskets

Steel ladders, trays and baskets form the backbone of cable containment systems. Often these items need some form of surface treatment to prevent corrosion...

How Electrical Circuits Work

If you have no idea how electrical circuits work, or what people mean then they talk about volts and amps, hopefully I can shed a bit light.  I’m intending...

110 or 230 Volts

I've been considering a blog on the 110 or 230 Volt issue for a while.  While browsing the Internet I came across a great summary by Borat over at  engineering...

Voltage Drop in Installations - Concepts

Problems on achieving maximum voltage drop within an installation come up often. Depending where you live, local regulations will have different limits...

How to Write an Electrical Note

Electrical notes are a collaborative collection of electrical engineering information and educational material. Any registered user can add content. ...

The dc resistance of conductors

This is the first of two posts on the resistance of conductors. In the next post I will look at the ac resistance, including skin effect and we deal with...

Maximum Demand for Buildings

Estimating maximum demand is a topic frequently discussed. Working out how much power to allow for a building can be very subjective . Allowing too much...

Gas Insulated or Air Insulated Switchgear

Various arguments exist around SF6 Gas Insulated (GIS) and Air Insulated (AIS) medium voltage switchgear. Recently we had to change a GIS design to AI...

IEC Document Designation

Often document control is dictated by project requirements, for example a particular organisation may have an existing numbering system. Existing company...

What are you reading!

Reading is a bit of a hobby of mine and I"ve done a few off-topic posts in the past on this. Rather than continue doing the occasional post I thought ...

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