Operational Amplifier
The fundamental component of any analogue computer is the operational amplifier, or op amp. An operational amplifier (often called an op-amp,) is a high...
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...
Introduction to Traction Substations
Following on from my post on railway electrification voltages, I thought an introduction to traction substations would be a good idea. Traction substations...
UPS Sizing - Rules of Thumb
It wasn't so long ago I was telling someone that I don't use rules of thumb as most things are easily calculated anyhow. As it turns out I last week...
How to measure power supply quality
If your are ever called out to troubleshoot something on your electrical system, one of the first things consider is the supply voltage. You want to ensure...
Mobile Phones (Brick to Implant)
The mobile phone was born in 1973. They were the size of a brick and weighed a couple of kg, making them difficult to fit into your pocket. At a few thousand...
Smarter Electrical Distribution
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...
RLC Circuit, Resistor Power Loss - some Modelica experiments
Modelica is an open source (free) software language for modelling complex systems. Having never used it before, I thought I would download a development...
Three Phase Power Simplified
A single phase system is perhaps the most common type of system most people are familiar with. This is what people have in their homes and what appliances...
Wiki Depreciation
We have had the Wiki with us for a long time now, but at last I have decided to say bye bye – more details on why below.