The question is commercially. My only experience is with power supplies. I got into a discussion about using these with air conditioners to limit startup current where inverters were unable to take the startup surge. Some have tried it. I thought they might help a little in much the way a long...
There is a discussion with a guy that says his air conditioner fan motor over heated and died because the manufacturer used a 7.5uF instead of the 5uF as stated on the motor. This motor has a run and a start capacitor. I think the cap just opened up or the bearings started to freeze. A friend...
I worked on a friends German orbital pipe cutter yesterday. The control was
going into over current motor fault. The brushes were heating up even with the
motor removed. Brushes had a sticky buildup on the sides. Resolving that did
not correct the problem. Tore it apart further to look for any...
I'm taking a wild shot here. Just installed an Acorn 120 stair lift at my parents home. The problem is there is another Acorn stair lift nearby. Both lift remotes have the same code and both operate at the same time. Opened the remote battery cover and there is a dip switch, 1 is up and 2 is...
Some may be feeling that they are missing the solar power bandwagon and wondering how they can do something actually useful without spending a lot of money. Batteries and grid tie make a system expensive with a long payback. Creating hot water is the most effective way to use a couple of PV...
A friends race car engine has a dry oil sump and he wanted me to built a "babysitter" temperature controller for the tank to keep the temperature up between runs. I bought a cheap PID controller to drive a SSR into two 500W heaters. Initial test was with 4 gallons of oil using factory settings...
Every year parts get smaller and my eyes get worse. Black etched on black is hard to read. It took a LED flashlight at an angle, a magnifying glass and some luck to identify chips. A friend bought a USB microscope for looking at parts for his race car and paid $300. Looked like a solution so...
A friend built a plasma pip cutting machine, pretty impressive device that is over 5 tons and can cut a 26 foot pipe up
to 30 inches in diameter into sections with V cuts ready for welding. I gave him a Torque Systems ferro DC power supply
that had been in storage for 30 years to run the...
I have a friend that manages a BIG weld shop, they can do everything but a N stamp. At two stations next to each
other they are getting sporatic weld porosity. This will last from a few to maybe 15 seconds. The welder has 25
years experience and doesn't have any problem when he works in the...
I'm usually om the electrical threads but I have a question on PEX crimping. I have been unable to make a water tight copper ring PEC crimp on 1/2 inch tubing. Went cheap and bought the vice grip pocket tool. Today I measured the go gauge .718 inches and the tool measures .722 fully closed...
On another thread here was a high speed 50,000 rpm motor and driver from the hobby world. That got me
thinking there are probably lots more things in the hobby world that are comparatively low priced compared
to the industrial world.
One device I have been useing is the TURNIGY 130A Watt Meter...
Things have been slow on this forum for a while so thought I would bring up this topic. Back in the early 60's I was just a little sprout reading Popular Electronics. They had this article about how a cheap (think this was an important parameter) AM loopstick transistor radio would stop...
I saw a circuit the other day that was interesting. It was a standard buck converter with a high side driver except there was a second identical FET in series connected backwards to act as a switch instead of a diode. This was also driven by the high driver through a diode. I thought it was a...
A friend had me look at his old Lincoln gas powered welder that his repair guy can't fix. It has a two pole 120V DC exciter on the end. It went bad when a worker pluggrd in a transformer type battery charger to the 120V DC convenience outlet.
When I first saw it the armature was pulled out...
I'm working on a Leroy Somer MA1326 6KV four pole single phase brushless alternator. I searched the web for technical information and didn't find much. I was told this this would work for about 10 minutes and the lights would then fade. I couldn't get it to produce more than 10 volts.
I...
I have a low power mains operated HID lamp power supply with a problem I am trying to diagnose. My question is what exactly is this diode, Panasonic B2ZAZ0000020. Looks like a standard 4A axial lead high speed diode. No conductivity in either direction, not even a uA till you get to about...
It is time to head off to the camp and I have modified a small chest freezer with a temperature control to use as a refrigerator. Because of the top load and better insulation, these consume less than 100 watt hours a day compared to 1KWH for a normal fridge. Thought this would be great for my...
Just watched an obscure 2004 Paul Devlin documentary called Power Trip about the American AES purchase of the power grid in former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Faced with a post office that wouldn't deliver bills and 80% that wouldn't pay anyway, they gave up after several years and sold to the...
My METCAL RFG-30 wand is now more not working than working. Seems to have a break in the wand. For a while I just kept my scope on. By wathing the trace I could see how far to twist it to make the connection. It looks like if I removed the plastic plug at the iron end and pushed with a split...
I purchased a used ACDC EL-300 Electronic Load to do some testing on a converter. I was a little surprised it didn't have a switch to operate in either constant current or voltage. It works, but from my limited testing acts more like a resistor. There is a 10 pin jumper plug in the back that...
