From the monthly archives: December 2011

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

Understanding LV Circuit Breaker Fault Ratings

By Steven McFadyen on 12/18/2011 12:20 PM

I think this post is going to be helpful to several of our readers. While the IEC low voltage circuit breaker Standard [IEC 60947-2, Low voltage switchgear and controlgear - Part 2: Circuit-breakers] ha... read more..


Understanding Motor Duty Rating

By Steven McFadyen on 12/12/2011 8:05 AM

One of the comments on my Motor Starting Series was asking for something on duty cycles. Here it is.

As a... read more..


8 Motor parts and common faults

By Steven McFadyen on 12/6/2011 6:07 AM

Straight forward list of some common motor faults.  If I have missed any other common faults, please take a bit of time to add them in as a comment below. read more..


myElectrical - Cable Sizing Tool Upgrade

By Steven McFadyen on 12/2/2011 4:56 AM

Our IEE cable sizing was wrote a few years ago and had become rough around the edges. I thought it was time to give the tool a service. Unfortunately when I looked under the hood I found cracked cylinde... read more..




How to Check a Circuit is Dead

If you want to check a circuit is dead (not live), you should always use the three point method. First check a known live circuit, then check the dead...

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 ...

Tech Topics/Application Notes - Siemens

There are a lot of interesting two page type notes on various medium voltage topics – switchgear, circuit breakers, bus systems etc. It is on the Siemens...

Voltage Levels – Confused?

I was having a conversation the other day about voltage levels.  While everyone was in agreement that low voltage was 1000 V and less, there was more confusion...

Introduction to Cathodic Protection

If two dissimilar metals are touching and an external conducting path exists, corrosion of one the metals can take place.  Moisture or other materials...

Fault Calculations - Typical Equipment Parameters

A frequent problem in fault calculations is the obtaining of equipment parameters.  While it is always preferable to use the actual parameters of the equipment...

Dielectric loss in cables

Dielectrics (insulating materials for example) when subjected to a varying electric field, will have some energy loss.   The varying electric field causes...

E-Ink

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...

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...

Photovoltaic (PV) - Electrical Calculations

Photovoltaic (PV) cells (sometimes called solar cells) convert solar energy into electrical energy.  Every year more and more PV systems are installed...

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