Robots - Interesting Videos

By Steven McFadyen on 4/6/2010 12:46 AM

The robot folding towels post below was interesting enough at the time to post a link.  Recently I’ve come across a couple of other interesting videos which demonstrate the abilities of some rob... read more..


How to refer fault levels across a transformer

By Steven McFadyen on 8/1/2012 12:26 PM

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 side.  While this is easy for some people to... read more..


E-Ink

By Steven McFadyen on 7/6/2010 2:55 AM

Before the technical, some general information. E-ink display are found in a lot of e-readers, some mobile phones and similar devices and the intent is to provide a reading experience closer to that of ... read more..


Magicians of Engineering

By Steven McFadyen on 3/15/2009 8:08 PM

The other day I was reading 'Night of the New Magicians' by Mary Pope Osborn with my son.  The story is about a young boy and girl who travel back in time to the 1889 World's Fair in Paris to find ... read more..


Multimeter

By Steven McFadyen on 2/28/2013 1:04 PM

Multimeters are undoubtedly the most common item of electrical test equipment in use.  Often it is the first piece of equipment people will turn to when trying to visualize and obtain data on an... read more..


HTML Symbol Entities

By Steven McFadyen on 2/6/2013 11:45 AM

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 and ends in a semi-colon (;).  To ... read more..


Cold Fusion (or not?)

By Steven McFadyen on 4/16/2011 11:48 PM

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 after a bit of research I have discovered the are ... read more..


Power Transformers - An Introduction

By Steven McFadyen on 11/29/2012 12:32 PM

One of the fundamental requirements of an alternating current distribution systems it to have the ability to change the magnitude of voltages.  It is more efficient to transmit power at high voltag... read more..


Voltage Levels to IEC 60038

By Steven McFadyen on 1/16/2013 10:33 AM

The standard aims to consolidate AC and traction voltages within the industry and defines the following bands:

  • band 1 - A.C. systems 100 V to 1000 V
  • band 2 - A.C and... read more..


Understanding Circuit Breaker Markings

By Steven McFadyen on 12/12/2012 1:26 PM

IEC 60947 is the circuit breaker standard and covers the marking of breakers in detail. Any manufacturer following this standard should comply with the markings. read more..


What are you reading!

By Steven McFadyen on 1/17/2012 8:49 AM

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 I would create a master post, where it anyone (... read more..


Cable Sizing Tool

By Steven McFadyen on 5/20/2012 6:14 AM

Our cable sizing tool is one of the more popular tools on the site.  The tool enables cables to be sized in compliance with BS 7671 (the IEE Wiring Regulations) and by implication IEC 60364.

... read more..




Thomas Edison

American inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. He was the youngest of seven children and received little formal schooling...

Electromechanical Relays

Electromechanical relays have been the traditional backbone of electrical protection systems.  While over recent years these have been replaced by microprocessor...

ANSI (IEEE) Protective Device Numbering

The widely used United Sates standard ANSI/IEEE C37.2 'Electrical Power System Device Function Numbers, Acronyms, and Contact Designations' deals with...

Cable Sheath and Armour Loss

When sizing cables, the heat generated  by losses within any sheath or armour need to be evaluated. When significant, it becomes a factor to be considered...

Arc Flash Calculations

Working in the vicinity of electrical equipment poses an hazard. In addition to electric shock hazard, fault currents passing through air causes Arc Flash...

Fire Resistant and Fire Retardant Cables

Fire resistant and fire retardant cable sheaths are design to resist combustion and limit the propagation of flames. Low smokes cables have a sheath designed...

UPS Battery Sizing

Various techniques exist to enable the correct selection of batteries for UPS applications.  The procedure described below is one of the more common. ...

Lighting - Lamps

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...

Cost Performance and Time

Often us engineers get so bogged down in equations, using software, producing drawings and writing specifications that this becomes the sole focus.   ...

Post Authorship

In 2011, with the introduction of it’s Panda search ranking algorithms, Google introduced tools for determining the original author of posts.  The intention...

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