Developed by engineers for engineers.

February 2010 Blog Posts (8)

Saving money on lighting with power quality analyzer

Lighting is a major element of operating costs for most facilities. Lighting costs involve both energy and maintenance. A company was considering replacing its existing lighting system and wanted to determine the actual energy consumption of the different products it was considering. The could not be accomplished simply by examining manufacturer's specs because the specs were inconsistent, incomplete and based on different operating conditions. The plant engineers asked the lighting suppliers… Continue

Added by Jerry Fireman on February 27, 2010 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Programmable matter

I love cool research and developments. I love experiments that make me say “Wow!,” even if they may not be realized for many years. One of the most interesting research projects I’ve come across lately comes out of Carnegie Mellon University. The project focuses on the control and manipulation of 3D objects. It can be viewed as the 3-Dimensional display of electronic information, which is a cool idea in itself. One example of this development is known as Claytronics. Seth Goldstein,… Continue

Added by Leslie Langnau on February 25, 2010 at 8:30am — 3 Comments

Condition Monitoring of high voltage cables: Turning information into extra capacity

Increasing demand for power is forcing power utilities to load power cables to their physical limit, and safety and efficiency concerns are making it more and more critical for operators to understand what is happening thermally both inside the cables themselves, and along the cable route.

Real Time Determination of Thermal Conditions along HV Power Cable Systems

During high-load conditions and… Continue

Added by Green DTS on February 24, 2010 at 12:00pm — No Comments

Let’s Go Design in 3D

2D drafting methods are not able to relay the quality and quantity of design information because 2D methods will always rely on human interpretation or visualization skills to interact with a 2D design. This is always difficult for non design staff and almost impossible for computer systems to extract this kind of information, because computers do not have the ability to interpret.…

Continue

Added by Fred Vierheller on February 17, 2010 at 10:51am — 11 Comments

EverGlow Recycles Your Lighting with (non-electrical) Photoluminescent Emergency Lighting

EverGlow manufactures (non-electrical) photoluminescent emergency lighting - code approved exit signs, exit path markings, etc. To learn more, visit www.everglow.us.

Emergency lighting, that lighting which operates when normal lighting fails, is traditionally electrical - using incandescent or fluorescent lamps, LEDs, or other electroluminescent or electrocapacitive lighting technologies. There are two non-electrical lighting technologies…

Continue

Added by Charles V. Barlow on February 14, 2010 at 6:00am — No Comments

Legalistic thinking, no pun intended

By the logic of your law course teacher, there would bne ne need for appeals courts, overrulings and reversals as all decisions were correct. I also doubt whether a case study can capture all the nuances of what goes into a decision. Printed documents omit facial expressions, body language, expressions of suprise or disbelief, and even sarcasm unless a lawyer points them out.

Jack Thornton, MINDFEED® Marcomm
Santa Fe, N.M.

Added by Jack Thornton on February 6, 2010 at 5:53am — 1 Comment

teamwork

You shoulda took a philosophy course,duh..

there's objective and subjective, real and spiritual, ie dualistic thinking which must be recognized and used effectively.

Engineering, mostly real world stuff, depends on psychology, that is, people stuff to get made or become "real." Many mechanically inclined engineers know little about the actual functions of the electronic components included, relying on another engineer to make a design work. The rest of the organization probably…

Continue

Added by Walt Stanish on February 5, 2010 at 1:09pm — No Comments

Non-sequitur

There is no such thing as common sense. When I attended college, several decades ago, I was required to take a course in law, somehow connected to business. I was delighted at the prospect because I had only one experience with a lawyer before, which concerned research for a patent that I applied for when I was a teenager. The course was built around cases that had already been tried and conclusions reached. We students were given the “facts” and based on testimony and evidence given at the… Continue

Added by John R. Gyorki on February 1, 2010 at 8:00am — 7 Comments