Robots - Interesting Videos

By Steven McFadyen on 4/6/2010 12:46 AM

The robot folding towels post below was interesting enough at the time to post a link.  Recently I’ve come across a couple of other interesting videos which demonstrate the abilities of some rob... read more..


How to refer fault levels across a transformer

By Steven McFadyen on 8/1/2012 12:26 PM

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 side.  While this is easy for some people to... read more..


E-Ink

By Steven McFadyen on 7/6/2010 2:55 AM

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 to provide a reading experience closer to that of ... read more..


Magicians of Engineering

By Steven McFadyen on 3/15/2009 8:08 PM

The other day I was reading 'Night of the New Magicians' by Mary Pope Osborn with my son.  The story is about a young boy and girl who travel back in time to the 1889 World's Fair in Paris to find ... read more..


Multimeter

By Steven McFadyen on 2/28/2013 1:04 PM

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 trying to visualize and obtain data on an... read more..


HTML Symbol Entities

By Steven McFadyen on 2/6/2013 11:45 AM

HTML supports a variety of entity symbols which can be entered using either numbers or an entity name.  The number or name is preceded by the ‘&’ sign and ends in a semi-colon (;).  To ... read more..


Cold Fusion (or not?)

By Steven McFadyen on 4/16/2011 11:48 PM

Recently I have seen a few interesting articles on viable cold fusion; the combining of atoms at room like temperatures to create boundless energy. Now after a bit of research I have discovered the are ... read more..


Power Transformers - An Introduction

By Steven McFadyen on 11/29/2012 12:32 PM

One of the fundamental requirements of an alternating current distribution systems it to have the ability to change the magnitude of voltages.  It is more efficient to transmit power at high voltag... read more..


Voltage Levels to IEC 60038

By Steven McFadyen on 1/16/2013 10:33 AM

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 1000 V
  • band 2 - A.C and... read more..


Understanding Circuit Breaker Markings

By Steven McFadyen on 12/12/2012 1:26 PM

IEC 60947 is the circuit breaker standard and covers the marking of breakers in detail. Any manufacturer following this standard should comply with the markings. read more..


What are you reading!

By Steven McFadyen on 1/17/2012 8:49 AM

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 I would create a master post, where it anyone (... read more..


Cable Sizing Tool

By Steven McFadyen on 5/20/2012 6:14 AM

Our cable sizing tool is one of the more popular tools on the site.  The tool enables cables to be sized in compliance with BS 7671 (the IEE Wiring Regulations) and by implication IEC 60364.

... read more..




Autonomous Vehicle Challenge

Two driverless and solar power vans have departed from Italy on their way to China via the silk road. During the 13,000 kM trip the vans will drive themselves...

Getting Started with Patents

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...

Lithium Ion Battery

Over recent years the Lithium Ion battery has become popular in applications requiring high power densities with small weight and footprint.  Today Lithium...

International System of Units (SI System)

The International System of Units (abbreviated SI) is the world's most widely used system of units.  The system consists of a set of units and prefixes...

Electromechanical Relays

Electromechanical relays have been the traditional backbone of electrical protection systems.  While over recent years these have been replaced by microprocessor...

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...

Introduction to Current Transformers

Current transformers (CTs) are used to convert high level currents to a smaller more reasonable level for use as inputs to protection relays and metering...

Star-Delta Motor Starting - Performance

Many questions sent in to the site are in connection with motor starting and in particular star-delta.  For all but the simplest application, there is...

Arc Flash Calculations

Working in the vicinity of electrical equipment poses an hazard. In addition to electric shock hazard, fault currents passing through air causes Arc Flash...

Standard Cable & Wire Sizes

IEC 60228 is the International Electrotechnical Commission's international standard on conductors of insulated cables. Among other things, it defines a...

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