Air Crash – bad news travels faster than a jet liner With the tragic loss of the Germanwings Airbus A320 last week airlines are scrambling to change their policies with regards to minimum requirement of crew in the cockpit at any one time. Experienced airline pilots are baffled by this. It’s reasonable to expect airlines to allay […]
Looms and the Motorcycle wiring harness We spruce up our wheels, add aftermarket kits, get more horsepower, polish until the paint comes off but the wiring harness is the most neglected part of the motorcycle. What to do, what to do. Schematics and wiring diagrams Motorcycles and automobiles share one thing in common – an almost unreadable […]
Studio Desk – workstations in progress A common request on the forums is for plans to build a recording studio desk for the amateur or professional musician or recording engineer. Whilst there are many desk designs to choose from we have added a list of links which more or less covers the best looking desks and work […]
Top Gear tries to cull The Voice of Reason There has been a lot of fuss about Jeremy Clarkson’s suspension by the BBC recently. Amidst all this, BBC are losing a fair share of revenue in this new venture. Whilst I applaud their stand against an employee whom punched a colleague, Oisin Tymon, over a dinner issue […]
Fuel cells – water, water, everywhere After labouring over rechargeable batteries and believing that just possibly the Lithium Ion cell with all the modern advancements in technology thrown at it may be king we have the fuel cell, in some cases the PEMFC or the use of Polymer Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells. Is this really just genius […]
Rechargeable batteries – Lithium Ion is King Through the years there has been huge progress in the manufacture of lightweight high density batteries. Much of modern day tech is around the Li-ion or Lithium Ion battery with Sony being the first company to commercialise rechargeable Li-ion batteries. Sony was also the first company to have a mass […]
Energy losses – The great DC versus AC debate (Editor’s Note: This article is not written to disprove any theories about AC transmission lines. We need to be a lot more skeptical about talking DC when the advantages and disadvantages of DC and AC were known about more than a century ago. We talk energy efficiency when […]
Gadgets – further exploration needed Forget about gadgets for men, forget about gizmos for women, or kids for that matter – how about some wizardry for dogs? One that caught our eye was the Dual Doggie Pet Leash found on Amazon for about $35. I have tried the two leashes in one hand trick but it didn’t […]
The Modern Steam Engine – Rankine and Schoell There has always been a fascination about steam engines. Kids had them, adults dreamed about them, engineers built them and scientists re-invented them. In some countries they are still indispensable in the transport process. Nintendo may have pushed the steam engine off the popularity charts but the fact is, […]
There has been much written about heat pumps in lieu of solar energy, many believe that the best is to have both. The question here is which do you prefer and how much do you save? In our own research there are many in favour of heat pumps but the question will always remain, how well do […]