Ignition Timing

Timing dynamically is fairly simple and is the best way to time your engine. Static timing is good for a baseline adjustment, but real accuracy requires a timing light. You can get a timing light for about $30 at Wal-Mart, so it's not a big expenditure and is a wise investment. To set timing you will also need a tach/dwell meter.
The first step to setting your timing is to adjust your valves. Valve adjusting is to be done on a stone cold engine and is a topic for another procedure, but John Muir explains well how to do it in his Idiot book. If you have a '78 or later Bus with hydraulic valve lifters, you can skip this step. 

Ignition Coil

I have had second thoughts about adding this page to my website, questioning wether its such a good idea to encourage people to build their own cannons. However, seeing the dangerous methods of ignition that people use, I figure its in the interest of safety for people to use a proper ignition system and trigger their cannons from a safe distance. 

Nitrogen Generators

Principles:

PSA nitrogen generator uses carbon molecular sieve as sorbent, produces nitrogen by making use of
the PSA principle. Under certain pressure, carbon molecular sieve has different oxygen/nitrogen
adsorption capacity, i.e. much more oxygen adsorption capacity than nitrogen adsorption capacity.
PLC controls pneumatic valve on/off to realize two towers alternate adsorption and desorption as per
pressure change, carries out oxygen/nitrogen separation and produces nitrogen with desired purity.

System Flow Chart 

Halogen Lamp

Halogen bulbs are extremely hot compared to a normal light bulb.

Balast

A lighting ballast is a piece of equipment required to control the starting and operating voltages of electrical gas discharge lights. Examples of gas discharge light sources include fluorescent and neon lights and high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps. The term lighting ballast can refer to any component of the circuit intended to limit the flow of current through the light, from a single resistor to more complex devices.

Electronic Balast

In principle, fluorescent lamp controller (often referred to as electronic ballast) is comprised of components that provide high currents with frequencies above 18KHz. Commonly used frequency is 20kHz frequency up to 60KHz.
This application has several advantages, namely:
a. Increase the conversion ratio of electric power to the light produced.
b. No detection of blink of the eye because kedipannya occur at very high frequencies which can not be followed by the speed of the eye.
c. Lightweight electronic ballasts.

But the benefits are redeemed with circuit complexity compared with conventional ballasts. In the electronic ballast, there are 3 different types of commonly used are:
a. Flyback inverter
b. Resonant Current source circuit
c. Voltage source series resonant 

Electric Motor Specification (AC)

AC Voltage & Frequency:           Your choices are...             115 / 120V 60 Hz        115 / 120V is standard residential or commercial voltage for 60Hz power (North America).      208-230 / 240V 60 Hz        These are for 60Hz power (North America).      460 / 480V 60 Hz        These are for 60Hz power (North America).      575 / 600V 60 Hz        These are for 60Hz power (North America).      50 Hz / International Power        International voltage levels, such as those common in Asia and Europe, and includes all 50Hz power.      400 Hz / Aerospace        Motors and other components using 400Hz power are primarily used for aerospace applications.      Other        Unlisted voltage / frequency motor.

Electric Motor Terminology

 

Angular accuracy

The measure of shaft positioning accuracy on a servo or stepping motor.

DC Blocking Capacitor

It is often said that capacitors block DC or equivalently, that a capacitor is an open circuit at DC. But is this true? Actually, no, it is not true. What is true is that the DC steady state current through a capacitor is identically zero. In DC steady state, all circuit voltages and currents are constant. By the fundamental capacitor equation:

Single Phase vs Three Phase Electric Motor

 The big advantage to 3 phase is that motors can be smaller for the same horse power. Just as a single phase AC motor is smaller than a similar DC motor, so a 3 phase motor is smaller than a single phase. Airplanes use electric motors with even more phases where weight is even more important then size. In factories, it is common to have many high loads, and most of them use 3 phase motors and 240 or 480 volts. I once managed a small factory where almost everything was 480 3 phase or pneumatic. We had 3 phase motors ranging from 1/4 horse to 600 horsepower. I wouldn't even want to think about a 120 volt single phase 600 horse motor, or the conductors it would take to supply it. Most of the lighting was 277 volts pulling power from one phase of the 3 phase. The phases were 480 apart, but only 277 above ground. It is also easy to reverse a 3 phase motor, just switch any 2 leads. I even selected a vacuum cleaner that ran on compressed air because we weren't wired up to supply enough single phase 120 volts to run a large shop vac.

Power Line Carrier Communication (PLCC)

The Power line Carrier System enables Power Utilities to reach the remote areas where telephone cables don’t reach. It is fully integrated, voice/data communication system capable of supporting the most demanding Power line networking environment for communication between electricity board sub-stations and locations.

PLCC schematic

Difference Between a Microprocessor & a Microcontroller

All microcomputers contain microprocessors. They are the core of any microcomputer system. Microcontrollers are special-purpose computer systems, usually programmed to perform a single task. As they are computers in and of themselves, microcontrollers will have a microprocessor as part of their system hardware.

Calculating Air Conditioner

Heat Load
The amount of heat generated is known as the heat gain or heat load. Heat is measured in either British Thermal Units (BTU) or Kilowatts (KW). 1KW is equivalent to 3412BTUs.
The heat load depends on a number of factors, by taking into account those that apply in your circumstances and adding them together a reasonably accurate measure of the total heat can be calculated.

 Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning

Coolling System Refrigerator

You'll more quickly understand refrigerator cooling systems if you think of their action as "removing heat from the air in the refrigerator" rather than "cooling the air in the refrigerator." All residential refrigerators work on the same principal for cooling. They all have:

Automatic Defrost Refrigerator

Years ago, all refrigerators had to be defrosted manually. You would turn the refrigerator off, open the door(s), and allow any frost build-up to melt. When the frost had completely melted away, you would turn the refrigerator back on.

Today, all but the smaller, apartment-sized refrigerators are self-defrosting. Self-defrosting means what it implies--though frost continues to accumulate inside the refrigerator, it melts automatically. The self-defrosting system has three functional components: 

 automatic defrost

Hermetic Pump

HERMETIC pumps can operate with:

• Fluid temperatures from -120°C up to +480°C
• System pressures up to 120MPa
• Powers from 1kW up to 640kW

Fuel Pump Works

A fuel pump is used to supply fuel to the fuel injection system or carburetor, depending on the year of the vehicle. Older vehicles use a mechanical pump to deliver low pressure fuel to the carburetor, while fuel injected vehicles require an electric pump capable of the high pressures required to make the system work efficiently. A fuel injection system is more efficient than its predecessor the carburetor and can better operate in extreme conditions, while becoming more dependable at start up.

 electric fuel pump

Wind Turbines

Wind is a form of solar energy. Winds are caused by the uneven heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the irregularities of the earth's surface, and rotation of the earth. Wind flow patterns are modified by the earth's terrain, bodies of water, and vegetation. Humans use this wind flow, or motion energy, for many purposes: sailing, flying a kite, and even generating electricity.
The terms wind energy or wind power describe the process by which the wind is used to generate mechanical power or electricity. Wind turbines convert the kinetic energy in the wind into mechanical power. This mechanical power can be used for specific tasks (such as grinding grain or pumping water) or a generator can convert this mechanical power into electricity.
So how do wind turbines make electricity? Simply stated, a wind turbine works the opposite of a fan. Instead of using electricity to make wind, like a fan, wind turbines use wind to make electricity. The wind turns the blades, which spin a shaft, which connects to a generator and makes electricity. Take a look inside a wind turbine to see the various parts. View the wind turbine animation to see how a wind turbine works.
This aerial view of a wind power plant shows how a group of wind turbines can make electricity for the utility grid. The electricity is sent through transmission and distribution lines to homes, businesses, schools, and so on.

Turbine Meter

How Turbine Flowmeters Work
Turbine flowmeters use the mechanical energy of the fluid to rotate a “pinwheel” (rotor) in the flow stream. Blades on the rotor are angled to transform energy from the flow stream into rotational energy. The rotor shaft spins on bearings. When the fluid moves faster, the rotor spins proportionally faster.

Story Creator Featured Speaker

Amar Gopal Bose's childhood was not beautiful. As a child of Indian descent in the United States, he got a lot of racial sentiments. But, all the treatment it received Amar patiently. He then actually absorbed in his hobby tinkering with electronic equipment. At the age of 13 years, Amar can repair all electronic equipment, especially radio. With that skill, he opened a radio repair business. Tens years later, he became king Bose audio brand. 

Purposes of Grounding

Grounding system has three main purposes:

Overvoltage protection

Lightning, line surges or unintentional contact with higher voltage lines can cause dangerously high voltages to the electrical distribution system wires. Grounding provides an alternative path around the electrical system of your home or workplace minimizes damage from such occurances.

Voltage stabilization

There are many sources of electricity. Every transformer can be considered a separate source. If there were not a common reference point for all these voltage sources it would be extremely difficult to calculate their relationships to each other. The earth is the most omnipresent conductive surface, and so it was adopted in the very beginnings of electrical deistirution systems as a nearly universal standard for all electric systems.

Current path in order to facilitate the operation of overcurrent devices

This purpose of grounding is the most important one to understand. Grounding system provides certain level of safety to humans and property in case of equipment damages.

Grounding operation in electrical distribution network

The main reason why grounding is used in electrical distribution network is the safety: when all metallic parts in electrical equipments are grounded then if the insulation inside the equipments fails there are no dangerous voltages present in the equipment case. Then the live wire touches the grounded case then the circuit is effectively shorted and fuse will immediatly blow. When the fuse is blown then the dangerous voltages are away.
The safety is the primary function of grounding. Grounding systems are designed so that they do provide the necessary safety functions. Grounding also have other functions in some applications but the safety should not be compromised in any case. Grounding is quite often used to provide common ground reference potential for all equipments but the existing building grounding systems might not provide good enough ground potential for all equipments which might lead to ground potential difference and ground loop problems which are common problems in computer networks and audio/video systems.

How electric shock happens

The "hot" wire is at 120 volts or 230 volts (depends on the mains voltage used in your country) and the other wire is neutral or ground. If a person were to touch the neutral wire only, no shock would result simply because there is no voltage on it. If he were to touch the hot wire only, again nothing would happen to him unless some other part of his body were to become grounded. A person is considered to be grounded if he comes in contact with a water pipe, metal conduit, the neutral or ground wire, or stands barefoot on a concrete floor.
In other words, neither wire is a shock hazard unless a person is grounded, and then only the hot is a potential shock hazard. Of course, if a person were to touch both wires at the same time, he would be shocked simply because his body is completing connection between "hot" and "ground" wires.

Metal case safety

Back in the early days, equipment and appliances fitted with the two wire power plug were readily accepted to be safe from shock hazard because the metal housing was not connected to either wire of the line cord (called floating case).
One of the problems with appliances and equipment which have a "floating metal case" is that a shock hazard exists if the case comes into contact with the hot wire. This so called "fault condition" may happen in many ways with some of the more common causes being a "pinched" line cord, failure of installation systems, or movement of components due to shock or vibration which will cause the "hot wire" terminal to touch the case.
Naturally, if for any reason the case does become "live,"then a person touching it may be shocked if he is grounded. If this "hot chassis" is connected to another chassis or instrument by a typical shielded cord, then that chassis or instrument will become hot also. The entire purpose of the present three wire system is to provide a separate ground path which will effectively eliminate any possibility of shock.
If the live wire touches the grounde metal case the ground connection in the case causes that the situation becomes a showrt circuit as drawn in picture below.

Reducing Summer Power Bills Without Spending Money

We've mentioned ways to keep cool without turning on your air conditioner, but when the summer temperatures start busting the 100 degree mark daily, or the humidity makes it feel like you're swimming through a world full of soup, sometimes it's a must. Stay cool with some of these energy saving tips!

Tachometers

1. • 
     Tachometers, in their most basic forms, are devices that measure the speed of an object. Most commonly, they measure the rotation of a mechanism, like the engine shaft in a car. Traditionally, tachometers are dials with a needle pointing to the current speed in RPMs (revolutions per minute). However, with the onset of new reading systems, the use of digital tachometers has risen sharply.
     

     

Contactor or Relay

IEEE Definition
Std 100-1992 "Standard Dictionary of Electrical and Electronic Terms" (Std 100-1992) has many definitions for 'Relay'! Conversely, the Standard's only 'Contactor' definition calls it a 'Load-Switch'! The point is that there is no simple definition.

contactor

relay

Sharp Eco Drums: Save Electricity, Water and Detergent

PT Sharp Indonesia finally go also to the automatic washing machine market. Prime product released is Ecodrum, automatic washing machines that save energy, detergent and water. There are as many as ten variants Ecodrum prepared for the Indonesian market.

Eco-drum washing machines promote the concept of the tube without holes (holeless stainless steel tube). He at once became one of the unique features that exist on this product. With this concept, it is expected this washing machine can save water and detergent usage.