Notes

Lighting - Lamps

By Steven McFadyen on 5/29/2012 1:28 PM

Lamps are the essential part of any luminaire. These are the light generating components. Since the advent of electrical lighting in the middle of the 19th century, multiple types of lamps have been ... read more..

Voltage Drop in Installations - Concepts

By Steven McFadyen on 9/27/2011 7:50 AM

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

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..

Back to basics - the Watt (or kW)

By Steven McFadyen on 8/4/2011 1:13 AM

When thinking about watts (W) or kilowatt (kW = 1000 W) it can be useful too keep in mind the fundamental ideas behind the unit. Watt is not a pure electrical or mechanical unit, but is a measure of the... read more..

Smarter Electrical Distribution

By Steven McFadyen on 4/24/2011 2:52 AM

The other day I came across an article in Technology Review on the development of a smart transformer. A professor at North Carolina State University is developing a transistor based transformer ca... read more..

Lead us, Warleader

By Steven McFadyen on 3/16/2011 10:56 PM

Delum, who had watched all in silence, his face empty of expression, now spoke in turn. ' "Lead us, Warleader, into glory."'

Reading is something I do regularly and at the moment I'm workin... read more..

New Mail Chimp

By Steven McFadyen on 9/26/2011 6:54 AM

We've been sending out Newsletters on a regular basis for a few weeks now. To do this we have been using Google's Feedburner service. While Feedburner is a fantastic product (and free of cost), to impro... read more..

Paths of Flight

By Steven McFadyen on 11/29/2010 10:26 PM

GE have put together a time-lapse video shown flight take-off and landings at some airports. An interesting view: read more..

Why is electricity so hard to understand?

By Steven McFadyen on 3/1/2011 12:48 AM

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 when trying to explain something (i.e. electricit... read more..

IEEE Winds of Change

By Steven McFadyen on 9/30/2010 3:25 AM

IEEE TV has a part series of videos on wind power and it's implication. For a really good overview to the technologies and issues around wind power, these videos are excellent. Each video is around 10 m... read more..

Getting Started with Patents

By Steven McFadyen on 7/21/2010 11:55 PM

If you have a great idea or invent something the last thing you want is someone to steal the idea. One of the things you can do is protect the intellectual property of on the idea by using patents. read more..

MIT OpenCourseWare

By Steven McFadyen on 7/7/2010 11:41 PM

MIT OpenCourseWare, makes the materials used in teaching all MIT subjects available on the Web, free of charge, to any user in the world. read more..

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Network Theory – Introduction and Review

In electrical engineering, Network Theory is the study of how to solve circuit problems. By analyzing circuits, the engineer looks to determine the various...

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...

UPS - Uninterruptible Power Supply

A UPS is an uninterruptible power supply. It is a device which maintains a continuous supply of electrical power, even in the event of failure of the...

Motor Efficiency Classification

Electric motors are one of the most widely used items of electrical equipment. Improving motor efficiency benefits include, reduced power demand, lower...

HTML Symbol Entities

HTML supports a variety of entity symbols which can be entered using either numbers or an entity name. The number or name is preceded by the ‘&’ sign...

Maxwell's Equations - Introduction

Maxwell's Equations are a set of fundamental relationships, which govern how electric and magnetic fields interact. The equations explain how these fields...

Lighting Design - An Introduction

From the earliest times, humans have found ways to create light. Pre-historic peoples used natural materials (moss, grass, etc.) soaked in animal fat and...

Why use catalogues

I'm a fan of using manufacturers catalogues. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, if your involved in the purchase of equipment, you will likely...

Tips for a better Low Voltage Protection Discrimination Study

Carrying out a protection system discrimination study is critical to ensure the correct functioning of the electrical system in the event of faults. ...

IEC 60287 Current Capacity of Cables - Rated Current

In the previous note we looked at the approach taken by the standard to the sizing of cables and illustrated this with an example. We then looked at one...

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