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

Dangers of Electric Shock

The severity of injury from electrical shock depends on the amount of electrical current and the length of time the current passes through the body. For example, 1/10 of an ampere (amp) of electricity going through the body for just 2 seconds is enough to cause death. The amount of internal current a person can withstand and still be able to control the muscles of the arm and hand can be less than 10 milliamperes (milliamps or mA). Currents above 10 mA can paralyze or “freeze” muscles. When this “freezing” happens, a person is no longer able to release a tool, wire, or other object. In fact, the electrified object may be held even more tightly, resulting in longer exposure to the shocking current. For this reason, hand-held tools that give a shock can be very dangerous. If you can’t let go of the tool, current continues through your body for a longer time, which can lead to respiratory paralysis (the muscles that control breathing cannot move). You stop breathing for a period of time. People have stopped breathing when shocked with currents from voltages as low as 49 volts. Usually, it takes about 30 mA of current to cause respiratory paralysis.