Super Bowl Power Outage

Having watched the Super Bowl last weekend and the 3rd quarter power outage, I was wondering if a capacitor had failed like the one in my heating system I mentioned in the last post. So, that got me to thinking, how many capacitors it took to run all those lights.

So, I looked into it, and each light has a ballast in it and each ballast has a capacitor. It depends upon the lighting system, but many of the lighting capacitors are a metalized polypropylene film type capacitor. These have good self-healing properties. If these were the capacitors used in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, I don’t think they were the cause, as these type capacitors are very hardy and often have discharge resistors as well.

Initially, when I began writing this post, the cause of the outage was not known. Now, however, we know it was a relay that was installed to prevent a power outage. The manufacturer has said the problem was not with the device, but rather how it was used. The trip setting was set too low, for the device to handle the amount of power coming into the building.

Catastrophic Capacitor Failure

A couple of months ago I turned on my heat for the first time this winter.  I was downstairs and the rest of my family was asleep upstairs.  Within a half an hour I could smell something, but I dismissed it as having something to do with it being the first time the heater had been run in about 9 months.  Within an hour, however, I was no longer able to overlook it, as the downstairs filled with smoke. 

Next, I turned off the heater (and by now the smoke alarm) and woke up my wife, as I didn't want to be the only one having all the fun.  She searched around the interior of the house while I went outside and looked around the perimeter and underneath the house, there was nothing burning.  We then opened up the house the in order to dissipate all the smoke.  Now it was reading around 55 degrees on the ground floor of my house and my wife was back upstairs in bed and far warmer than me.  I, on the other hand, would stay up for the next 3 hours (until 3:30am) to ensure that all the smoke was out and that there was nothing creating any more of it. 

When the repairman came in the next couple of days, he discovered that it had been a catastrophic capacitor failure with the motor-start capacitor.  That had been the cause of both the smell and the smoke.  The picture you can see if you go to the Hubpage I wrote about "Catastrophic Failure of a Capacitor" is the actual capacitor that "blew apart".  This event was my inspiration to write this Hubpage.  By the way, the kids slept through the whole thing, oh to be young again.

Sixth Grade Science Project

I recently helped my son do his 6th grade science project. The premise of his project was that capacitors could and eventually would be able to replace traditional batteries and that there would be not only an economic, but an environmental benefit as well. OK, I might have influenced him a little bit on his thesis.

We used Arizona Capacitors, of course, as well as Tepro of Florida resistors on our PC board. We ended up with 6 capacitors and 19,000 uf. Two switches were installed so that he could cut off the main power and show that the LED light bulb was running exclusively from the charged capacitors. The experiment was a success and he was able to run the light bulb (visible to the naked eye) for 4 minutes and 59 seconds, in a dark environment.

I just wanted to say thanks to Richard our head of engineering for his generous help with this project. I guess it's just a matter of time before we see more instances of capacitors acting as batteries in everyday applications.

Philly Cheesesteak Taste Off

At a recent MD&M East (Medical Design & Manufacturing) trade show in Philadelphia where we were displaying Winatic Corp.’s medical magnetics products, we decided that we should try the Philly cheesesteaks at the most popular joints and conduct our own a taste test. We thought if the Food Network can do it, why not us? The two judges consisted of one native Philadelphian and one from out of state.

We started with Geno’s Steaks on the first night. It was very good. The next one was Chickie’s & Pete’s; it would win for atmosphere and is probably known more for their crabs than cheesesteaks. The third restaurant we tried was Tony Luke’s. We went there right before a Phillies game and of course it was packed. It probably had the best location, being right off the highway. Finally, we wrapped it up with the original, Pat’s King of the Steaks. The historical marker gave it away.

We tried the traditional Philly Cheesesteak at each place and I have to admit, every one of them was great and each had their own specific strengths. We would go back to any of them in a heartbeat. They were all better than any cheesesteak sandwich I could hope to find in Florida.

So here is our ranking:

1. Geno’s Steaks
2. Pat’s & Tony Luke’s (Tie)
3. Chickie’s & Pete’s

Again, they were all delicious. It came down to the meat and we thought that Geno’s had the edge in this area.

Blogger Makes it More Difficult

It wasn't that Blogger was easy to use before. We use Twitter and Hubpages far more for our posts than we have ever used Blogger. It is a pain to log on and post, and in a world where events are transpiring at an ever increasing rate it just doesn't move fast enough.

Now, they decided to revamp the entire website. This appears to make it even slower than before. They were, however, nice enough to leave an icon where one could access the old format. This is where this particular post is being generated.

Transformers vs. Transformers

As you may or may not know, Electro Technik Industries, through some of its subsidiaries (Raycom Electronics & Hytronics Corp) manufactures transformers. The type that transmits electrical energy from one circuit to another, not the transformer deemed a living robotic species from the planet Cybertron.

So in order to make it easier and clear up any confusion, here is a list of things our, passive electronic component transformers, do not have or will not do:

1. Your children will not play with our transformers.

2. Our transformers, although brilliant in their own right, will not star in a feature blockbuster movie.

3. Our transformers will not save the Earth from a galactic invasion, but we can save you 15% on your component costs.

4. Our transformer sales will not increase three-fold during the Christmas holiday season (although our fingers are crossed).

5. Our transformers will not befriend Shia LaBeouf.

6. If our transformers change shape, we have a quality problem, not a new weapon to fight evil.

7. Our transformers don't have cool names like Megatron and Optimus Prime, the closest we get is a power transformer.

8. None of our promotional videos are coming out on Blu-Ray.

9. Megan Fox won't fall for one of our engineers (although they have their fingers crossed).

10. We will not be approached about creating a new video game for our product and its subsequent downloadable App.(the closest we get is AutoCAD).

Manufacturing Lead Times

In this world of prolonged recessions many manufacturing companies have tried to offset some of their financial difficulties by decreasing the inventory they carry. While this have help their bottom line by increasing the number of inventory turns, it has far reaching effects on the flexibility that the manufacturing department has and therefore the lead times in which a company may be able to produce a given product.

The companies that limit their inventory are usually very financially savvy, at least in the short term. They are, however, limiting their ability to meet their customers' delivery requirements, especially as an economy exits the recession. Larger public companies tend to be victims of this short term focus where quarterly results rule the day. Their customers become secondary victims as a result.

Smaller private companies often have the flexibility not to get captured in this trap, as they don't answer to Wall Street. Res-net Microwave, Inc. is a great example of this. While many of their larger competitors' lead times have slipped to 10 to 12 weeks and beyond, their lead times for standard products remains just 4 weeks. Perhaps this is not the wisest thing from a financial standpoint, but if your goal is to delight your customers, it is the only this to do.