GE's Shingijutsu Factory

By Steven McFadyen on 5/12/2010 11:07 PM

GE's latest thinking on product manufacturing is he Shingijutsu philosophy or Lean production system. They have started applying this at the Louisville Appliance Park manufacturing facility. The first a... read more..


Wiki Depreciation

By Steven McFadyen on 3/27/2012 4:06 PM

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. read more..


Introduction to Traction Substations

By Steven McFadyen on 2/26/2012 12:16 PM

Following on from my post on railway electrification voltages, I thought an introduction to traction substation... read more..


Tech Topics/Application Notes - Siemens

By Steven McFadyen on 3/13/2012 6:21 AM

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 US site, so many of he note are IEEE/ANSI ... read more..


Why use catalogues

By Steven McFadyen on 2/8/2012 5:35 AM

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 need to look into catalogues to find what you ne... read more..


Railway Electrification Voltages

By Steven McFadyen on 1/23/2012 11:38 AM

This post is quick introduction and overview to different railway electrification voltages used in answer to a question sent in via email. While there are numerous voltages in use through out the w... read more..


Induction Motor Calculator

By Steven McFadyen on 2/2/2012 1:15 PM

Just added a page to the tools, which will allow you to calculate the synchronous speed, slip and rated torque for an induction motor. Not a particularly complicated calculation, but anything the mak... 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..


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..


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..


Bows and Arrows

By Steven McFadyen on 4/11/2010 11:43 PM

It starts with me reading one of the Horrible History books with my son (Groovy Greeks). Arrows were mentioned which lead to the discussion of the bodkin arrow head. To show him how much work was requir... read more..


Skin Tapping Input

By Steven McFadyen on 3/30/2010 2:13 AM

Tapping your forearm or hand with a finger could soon be the way you interact with gadgets. A new technology created by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University uses 'body acoustics' to turn skin into a... read more..




Capacitor Theory

Capacitors are widely used in electrical engineering for functions such as energy storage, power factor correction, voltage compensation and many others...

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 ...

Microsoft OneNote

A couple of months ago I came Microsoft's OneNote and downloaded the 60 day free trail. Since then I have been using it regularly and now have a full license...

Voltage Levels to IEC 60038

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 1...

Three Phase Current - Simple Calculation

The calculation of current in a three phase system has been brought up on our site feedback and is a discussion I seem to get involved in every now and...

Laplace Transform

Laplace transforms and their inverse are a mathematical technique which allows us to solve differential equations, by primarily using algebraic methods...

How to Size Power Cable Duct

Some colleagues had an issue earlier in the week on sizing conduits to be cast in concrete for some power cables . It became clear that none of us had...

Load Flow Study – how they work

A load flow study is the analysis of an electrical network carried out by an electrical engineer. The purpose is to understand how power flows around...

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...

Switchboard - Forms of Internal Separation

IEC 61439 'Low-voltage switchgear and controlgear assemblies', specifies standard arrangements of switchboard (call forms of internal separation). The...

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