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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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...

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...

Why is electricity so hard to understand?

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...

Understanding Motor Duty Rating

One of the comments on my Motor Starting Series was asking for something on duty cycles. Here it is. As a purchaser of a motor, you have responsibility...

Why a Sine Wave?

I received this question by email a few weeks. First thoughts was that it is a product of the mathematics of rotating a straight conductor in a magnetic...

Induction Motor Equivalent Circuit

Induction motors are frequently used in both industrial and domestic applications. Within the induction motor, an electrical current in the rotor is induced...

How to refer fault levels across a transformer

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...

How to Size Current Transformers

The correct sizing of current transformers is required to ensure satisfactory operation of measuring instruments and protection relays. Several methods...

Frame Leakage Protection

While not as popular as it once was, frame leakage protection does still have some use in some circumstances. In essence frame leakage is an earth fault...

Medium Voltage Switchgear Room Design Guide

Many medium voltage (MV) indoor switchgear rooms exist worldwide. The complexity of these rooms varies considerably depending on location, function and...

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