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...
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...
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...
Multimeter
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...
Switchboard - Forms of Internal Separation
IEC 61439 'Low-voltage switchgear and controlgear assemblies', specifies standard arrangements of switchboard (call forms of internal separation). The...
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...
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...
What does N+1 mean?
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...
Useful Motor Technical Information
Sometimes it’s useful to be able to quickly lookup a piece of technical information. This note is a collection of information related to motors, and in...
Hazardous Areas – IEC and NEC/CEC Comparison
Depending where in the world you work, you are likely following one of two standards
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
National...