3phase Blog has A New Home - Githuka.com

Well, with time comes a change, and this might be my last post here at 3phase Blog. I have a new domain where there is space for this blog, and its from there that I will continue posting from. The link is http://githuka.com/  Sometimes I will make some changes on my Medium page (https://medium.com/@wilfredgithuka) so in case the above address is not available, you can find updates on Medium too.

I also have a Youtube Channel where I showcase projects am working on

Check it out...

http://www.githuka.com/

https://medium.com/@wilfredgithuka

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjb8HjfnUOCg9ocKSfkIAnQ

3phase Blog is 5 Years Old

Its yet another year here at the 3phase Blog and am excited to be writing for 5 years. Yep, 3phase blog is now 5 years old. So much has changed and I have been busy crossing international borders learning more and more about Electrical Engineering. For those who are asking yes am back to Kenya and am still working at the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway as a Chinese translato and an electrical technician. The experience am getting here is so much that I don't have time to make a post. And am now fluent in Chinese.

Check out the photos below and you will know what am talking about.

Emali Sleeper Factory Under Construction for the SGR Project

Studying more Chinese...

As I had promised last year in China, I have a new domain www.githuka.com where I will move this blog. Don't worry I will not remove the content, but most updates shall be on the new domain. Its still a works in the making so I will make an announcement soon.

I realised that my post on Internal Attachment KenGen Olkaria Geothermal Power Station has been getting some serious readers with tons of emails on how one can secure an attachment there. I must say that I can't guarantee you a space there since am no longer there, but as soon as I get more info I will
publish it here.

So anyway guys, have a good year and take care when working with electricity. SAFETY FIRST [circuit open]

Make History While Building A Railway

Kenya is building her second railway line since independence and the project dubbed The Standard Gauge Railway Project has its own share of critics despite the project being underway.After arriving home from the 1 year in China, I was called upon to translate for the workers on the site and after 1 month and a half its been a great expereince. Never thought I could speak some great Chinese. The project site is called Section 7 at a small town called Emali, some 120km from Nairobi on the Nbi-Mbsa Highway.

I plan to be here for 7months where I will improve my Chinese to complete fluency. Also get to understand the electrical engineering that moves trains on tracks. Also I plan to increase my electrical engineering vocabulary in Chinese from the normal 电力 (Dian Li)- Electrical Engineering to more sophisticated characters and terminologies. All of which I will upload here for all to benefit.

3 Phase Blog is 4 Years Old

Today marks a special occasion as we walk into another new year. Its been now 4 years of writing and experiencing the full dose of Electrical & Electronic Engineering. First of all, Happy New Year to all my frequent and also seldom readers. Thanks for taking time to write a comment I know its not the easiest of things to write a mathematical comment on blogger, but thanks. Also big thanks to all who have sent me emails, I know sometimes I have been late in replying them but thanks.

This new year marks a new turn of events. Since now am in China, updating the blog has been very hard since blogger is blocked here but I have resulted to using the email to publish feature which I will be using now henceforth. As for the close of 2013 I have been very busy mastering Chinese so no time to work on my projects but since now I can speak, lets get back to High Voltage, shall we? :-)

The following are my plans for 2014 which I hope to acheieve with time:

1. 3 Phase Blog gets a custom domain. - Its time I moved out of blogger and into the internet world. I plan to register a custom domain for myself and this blog will ride on it. This also means a new great outlook, coming soon...
2. Chinese Translation - I will also offer a Chinese translation for all my posts to improve my Mandarin, however if there is a contradiction, the English version is superior.(我也将提供一个中国翻译我所有的职位，以提高我的普通话，但是如果有矛盾，以英文版本为优.)
3. More Maths - Its time to dive into some power calculations this year, since I have long done them and I feel its very important.
4. More Pictures - My dSLR will arrive soon (so much for a Chirstmass gift) so I will be able to do an upclose gallery once more.
5. More Modern Engineering

CRT - Cat Residence Tenement

 

The Cathode Ray Tube revolutionised how we saw graphical display and has been around for a good number of years. But due to its high power consumption and bulkiness, the CRT has been replaced with more efficient display technologies like the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) and LED (Light Emitting Diode) and Plasma. The result is a high number of waste CRT tubes lying in warehouses and homes, un-used.

I being a user of the CRT, my old Compaq V570 15 Inch PC screen has been lying around and didnt know what to do with it. In all my electronic experiments, my curious cat has always been watching as I work and the recent cold days in Nairobi have not spared him either. To stop him from sleeping in electical cables when he's bored, I designed the CRT - Cat Residence Tenement. This will see my cat (Patches) get a snoozing home during the day/night. I removed the tube and wires plus cobwebs, cleaned up the corners and laid several layers of cardboard and in the future, include a small blanket.

The Proposed Umeme 1 High Voltage Substation

For a long time I have always wanted to Design, Construct and Commission my own substation so that I can understand to the detail what exactly works in there. Its very rare that a power company or distributor will just allow anyone to access a substation so I came up with the idea of Umeme 1.

Umeme 1 is a virtual substation that will exist only in CAD drawings and here on my blog. I will follow strictly all laid down regulations that guide power engineers to come up with a working substation. On th good side, I will promptly upload the documents like the ESIA, EIA and even testing documents for earthing and grounding.

This project will take up to 2 years or so depending on my research speed after which I plan to compact all documents to publish my findings. The substation will be called UMEME which is a swahili word for electricity and will be located along the Nairobi - Naivasha highway. Feel free to comment and correct me in case you stumble on an error or miscalculation for sag etc.

So there it is, the start of a long project. In this course I hope I will inspire another Power Engineer somewhere to do something out of the ordinary that will change the way to transmit electricity.

Image Credits: http://www.pike.com

Power Grid Board Game Review - Electrical Eng. Game!

One of the most iconic games of the last ten years. It had a stint as the number one game on Board Game Geek. It has close to a dozen awards, nominations, and recommendations. It has had seven expansions and two spinoff games. The green box is a staple in most hobby game stores. It is Power Grid, or Funkenschlag as it is known in Germany.

Designed by Friedemann Friese in 2004, Power Grid is one of the most recognized games in the industry.Power Grid is a 2-6 player game that takes about 2 hours to play. Expect a game to last a little longer if you are playing with new players and if you are playing with five or six players. Each player takes the role of a powerplant company. The goal is to power the most cities with power on the last round of the game. The game takes place in rounds that have five phases each.

These include determining turn order, auctioning power plants, purchasing resources, building cities, and bureaucracy (this includes powering your plant to get money, replacing the lowest or highest power plant in the market [depending on the Step the game is on], and replenishing the resource market). Play continues in this fashion until a player reaches the required number of cities to trigger the end game (this differs based on the number of people that are playing).The first phase is simply determining the turn order for the round.

Unlike most games that have a set clockwise turn order, Power Grid determines who is winning and losing the game based on how many cities each player has. If there is a tie, the player who has the higher-numbered power plant is considered to be in the lead. Turn order is an important part of the game. The player in first place has a disadvantage as he is the last person that is able to buy resources and build cities, but he is the first person to go during the auction phase. This mechanism keeps the game balanced and helps prevent a runaway leader. Not everyone likes the mechanic, but most people do.

Cheap & Durable Raspberry Pi Case

Since the Raspberry Pi was released, there has been a frenzy to make a case for it since the Pi comes as a circuit-board or motherboard only. There have been many individuals who have invested some cool cases for the pi and even some using LEGO bricks to achieve this. Great work.

 However these do not come easy for the pocket, which will not go inline with the whole idea of making the Pi cheap, so I have made one that is a recycle from the many devices that we buy.

Raspberry Pi Basic Setup - Hardware

Since I got my hands on the Raspberry Pi (Model B) its been tinkering and tinkering. As you can see in the image above, I built my own case with the help of JKUAT Arch. colleague of mine who assisted with the dimensions and the white cardboard.
Away from that, today I want to show you the basic hardware that when out together with the Pi will make a successful run.

Electric Outdoor Substation Model Project

Earlier in the year I mentioned that I would embark on a year long project to understand the inner workings on an outdoor electric substation. So here I start after taking some time off to study my Chinese - which in fact has improved.

Now this project will basicaly entail creating a model of each unit that is in a subsytation, link them using wires and perhaps use 240V to simulate the working. To add some salt, I will embeed my ArduinoUNO + Raspberry Pi and a few LEDs to make a SCADA system hopefully controlled from my PC or my phone to shutdown/on the sub-station.
Yeah, I know this sounds crazy but it will require funds plus careful planning and drawings to ascertain the project. I will document everything like it would be in a real life project including the Tendering and delivery of the equipment - all this for learning.

Also I noted that there are specific softwares that are used to design substations, so I hope they have 90 Days trials, this will come in handy.

My Chinese exams are in May (HSK) so incase my english starts to depeceiate significantly, kindly notify me :-) :-)

Here in my country Kenya we are going to the polls on 4th of March so hope there will be peace and no violence, am praying very hard for peace.

Anyway let me start...Have an electrifying week + Peace to all Kenyans

Image Credits: Buildpedia.com