Recent content by SimonH2

Ah, the "wait till there's actual evidence of harm before acting" approach. Yeah, I think this bridge will be safe, I've never had one of my designs collapse before. Sure, don't worry about this DIY reactor in the back garden, I've never had one of mine go wrong before. Don't worry, I've never...

Actually no, a standards compliant plug cannot be inserted upside down in a standards compliant socket - that's part of the standard (indirectly.) Two factors at play : * A plug is rigid, so can't be bent to allow insertion upside down using just the "earth" pin to open the shutter - the...

Fair enough. As an engineer, I too am expected to make evidence based judgements, or present evidence to colleagues who have to make a decision. You seem to be applying the same flawed logic that the vendors of these so called safety covers use - that they prevent a risk. As flameport beat me...

Possible ways to change their minds : 1) Tell them they are opening themselves up to massive personal liability since it is (or should be) well known that both the NHS and Dept. for Education ban them on safety grounds - it's there at the top of the Fatally Flawed website, didn't realise that...

Just because "not BS1363", I'd agree. But when you look at the size/shape of some of the "safety" covers, it's not hard to see how some of them could damage the socket.

There is precedent for considering what might be plugged in. In the past, only a few circuits required RCD protection - one of them being "sockets that might be used for equipment outside", so any socket that could be considered handy for running an extension lead outside. At inspection time...

"The manual says it has to be" is what I got when I questioned why he'd replaced a perfectly sound 13A socket with an FCU. And somewhat annoyed when I insisted he fish it out of the bin and refit it. The manual didn't. Many used to. I have a similar problem.

I think Ericmark has answered this, but it comes down to the power station being on the end of a line with volt drops. They will have been asked to push a given amount of power into the grid, and for this to happen, their output will need to be above the desired voltage at "some point" in the...

"Interesting" I generally agree with much of what he says, it's a pity there's so many mistakes - such as one point where "frequency dropping -> pay industrial users to use more lecky" when it's the other way round. Wrong. Neither voltage nor frequency tell you what power is being drawn -...

They are (supposedly) required to be able to detect it. First line is upper/lower voltage limits. Then upper/lower frequency limits. Then there are measures such as ROCOF & ROCOV (rate of change of frequency/voltage). And something more complex (vector analysis ?) that I think analyses changes...

Pardon ? See below ... Both of which WILL trip any properly designed and configured inverter. That is the whole point of anti-anti-islanding protection - that the inverter will NOT keep running if not connected to a "stiff" grid. I the case cited, at least one inverter didn't meet that...

Better than most of the washing line candidates on sale, but ... This Also very easy to kink or otherwise upset the geometry. You can do that with WF100, but it's a lot more resiliant. It had me at "digital". If it's claimed to be digital coax, them I'm immediately suspicious.

Very unlikely. Cat6 or Cat5e - gigabit all day every day regardless of what else is on your's and the neighbours networks. WiFi - depends on the standard of WiFi, can be in the 10s or 100s of meg, and subject to interference and is shared with everything else. Back to the original question ...

The principle is fairly simple. Have an inpedance between inverter and output, then you can monitor the difference between what the inverter is trying to do and what the mains is holding it to. Then you "simply" try to output at a leading phase angle and higher voltage. I syspect that with some...

I don't have electronics on the rad - just a thermohydraulic actuator (mains at the moment) - they are a wax capsule with a heater element. The electronics shouldn't get that warm unless it's a really bad design. There's actually a relatively poor thermal connection between the valve attachment...