Static Electricity also known as electrostatic is a common phenomena and its effect has significant and serious consequences in home and industries. It’s very disastrous when steps are not taken to prevent its accumulation and subsequent discharge.

It is not too bad to receive small electric shock at home in dry season but when handling electronics, sensitive components are destroyed; and it’s also responsible for explosion where volatile materials and ESD are present. It is of interest to me to expose the effects and how to prevent it.

Col, Jeananda. (1996) found as follows: When two materials are rubbed together (like a balloon and your hair), one will lose electrons and one will accumulate them. Physicists have ranked materials by the order in which they lose or gain electrons. This ranking is called the triboelectric series.

Static charge is developed when two insulators or non metal for example; hair and comb; fur and silk; carpet and rubber and other combinations based on their rank in the triboelectric series rub against each other and are separated, they accumulates enough charges and electric field is created which when it become too strong, electrical resistance of insulating materials suddenly break down resulting in explosion or damage to electronics if not properly contained. 

Effects of Static Electricity In Operating Room

CCNR/OCIMF. (2010) found as follows:Electrostatic discharge occurs when the electrostatic field becomes too strong and the electrical resistance of an insulating material suddenly breaks down. When breakdown occurs, the gradual flow and charge recombination associated with relaxation is replaced by sudden flow recombination that generates intense local heating (e.g. a spark) that can be a source of ignition if it occurs in a flammable atmosphere. (p.53)

This is a big concern in Operating Room in hospital where volatile anesthetic gases is being used; there is risk of explosion if the floor is not covered with antistatic materials. Not only that, moving equipments attached with trailing conductor to safely discharge any build up of charges. The effect is not only in hospital, it affects electronic components too. When static charges discharge through sensitive electronic components or board, it will damage the board and that is the reason if you are building a device it is important to consider and guide against the possible effects of electrostatic discharge. if not your system wouldn’t work or when you are troubleshooting, it will cause more damages to your equipment.

‘That is why computer technicians and home computer builders have to guard their computers against the deadly ravages of static electricity, as well as take steps to avoid injury to you. A shock that you can’t even feel can seriously damage your homebuilt computer before you’re even finished building it.

Preventing Electrostatic Discharge

Use of antistatic mats/carpets, floor, clothing and footwear: You should remove any static electricity from your body before you start building your projects or working on any sensitive electronics to avoid damaging your electronics and components. The best way to do this is to ground yourself to allow any static electricity built up in your body to flow away into the ground. This is done by wearing a well grounded conductive rubber wrist wrap and working on antistatic mat; the wrist wrap and the mat conduct any static build up to the general mass of earth

Antistatic Coatings on building, use of antistatic rubber castors for trolleys and attach moving equipments with trailing conductor to safely discharge any build up of electrostatic charges.
Note: “Never use antistatic wrist wrap when working on old computer monitors to avoid electrocution.”

Reference:

• CCNR/OCIMF.(2010). Static Electricity. International Safety Guide for Inland Navigation Tank-barges and Terminals, Chapter 3, 51-63. Retrieved from http://www.isgintt.org/files/documents/Chapter_03en_isgintt_062010.pdf
• Col, Jeananda. (1996). Static Electricity. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/physics/Staticelectricity.shtml
• How to build your own computer. Retrieved from http://www.kitchentablecomputers.com/static.php

Voltmeter is an instrument in use to test voltage from voltage source and or potential difference within a circuit. Different voltage source include battery, alternator, solar cells and various transducers. And the transducer may be at the input or at the output of a device or circuit.

The voltmeter could stand alone or as part of a Multimeter. In a Multimeter, we have ohm meter, voltmeter and ammeter together in one test instrument. However, to check a voltage from a voltage source you need to follow this instructions:

How To Use a Voltmeter In Multimeter

1. Switch the knob or button of the Multimeter to Voltage
2. Connect to DC voltage range, or AC voltage range. However, this depends on the voltage source
3. However, consider how much voltage you expect from the source
4. But, choose the higher range of the voltmeter compare to what you expect
5. For DC Voltage, locate the positive and negative connection of the source
6. In fact, positive of the meter is usually red, while negative is usually black.
7. Or, positive has +VE sign and negative has – VE sign respectively
8. Then, find the negative and positive probes of the meter
9. Connect positive probe to positive of the source, and negative probes to negative of the source
10. But for ac voltage source, there is no permanent positive or permanent negative. Therefore, you can connect the positive or negative to any point of the source

A Multimeter, could be digital or analog. Digital Multimeter is easy to use than analog Multimeter, but analog has its on advantage, Obviously, with the digital meter, you can read the value of measure voltage as figure on the display. But analog meter does not display its value as figure, which you have to read the figure the pointer display to.

In order to use voltmeter to measure potential difference within a circuit, locate the two points of interests. Then follow the list 1 to 8 above for DC volt. But for AC volt, follow the how’s 1 to 7 and 9.

How to Test for Continuity | Hunker

A continuity test is a simple way of checking whether a circuit is open or closed, and it can help you identify a bad switch or outlet, as well as assist you in identifying wires in electrical boxes.

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What is continuity testing and why carry out this test?

1. Voltage not getting to where expected

2. High value resistance measurement in a circuit

3. Low output or no output experiences

4. incorrect or improper system functions

5. Lost signal at an input or output.

Electrophoresis technique is a method of separation in clinical laboratories to separate charged molecules from each other and into their constituents’ components. This happen in the presence of electric field. The electric field device is a typical ion exchanger, You can use it to separate many things such as proteins in body fluids for example urine, proteins in erythrocytes such as hemoglobin and Nucleic acids. Typically DNA and RNA just to mention a few.

In fact, many factors are responsible for the output of this procedure and are inherent, external and environmental. Inherent factors include magnitude of charge, charge density, molecular weight, and shapes of the material under investigation. Likewise, external and environmental factors include pH, electric field, viscosity of the solution, and temperature.

However, this process employs the use of electricity to separate charges in the presence of electric fields. The main electrical parameters used in electrophoresis are Voltage and Current or Power. High voltage is responsible to provide the electric field. However, when current pass through a substance with resistance and in this case the buffer, it evolves heat. Therefore, it is important to choose carefully combination of parameters to use for a particular procedure.

Electrophoresis Instrument

A typical instrument comprises of an electrophoresis tank and an electrophoresis power supply. The power supply is usually high voltage source to create the presence of electric field within the solution. The tank is a plastic material with two electrodes of tungsten or constantan. One electrode connects to the negative terminal of the power supply. The other electrode connects to the positive terminal of the high tension power supply. Moreover, the tank serves as container for the buffer and gel.

In electrophoresis, you hold one electrical parameter, current, voltage or power constant, but ideally you keep voltage constant. That is, keeping the voltage steady. But why is this so?

1. Under constant current conditions (velocity of moving charge is directly proportional to current). With constant current, the velocity of the molecules is maintained but generates heat.
2. With constant voltage conditions, the velocity of moving ions slows, but it does not generate heat during the course of the run
3. At constant power conditions, the velocity slows but heating is kept constant

Electric circuits basic study include many topics which include  electric circuits component, electric circuit drawing and Kirchoff’s law, projects. Others are electric circuit simulation software, electric circuit series and parallel, and electric circuit test,

An electric circuit is a means to transport electric power from the source to the load. For electricity to do any useful work, current must flow. Electric current can flow only through conductors and to certain degree in semiconductors. However, insulators will not permit such flow.

An insulator is a material in which electron cannot move easily from one atom to another. Insulators protects against harmful effects of electricity. They have more than four electrons in the valence. Types of insulators include ceramic, glass, plastic, rubber, air, and wood etc.
Atomic structure of insulators:

Electrical conductor materials

A conductor is a material in which electron can move fairly well between atoms. Two metals of the same materials and thickness at different length have different resistance values. The two metals at same length but different thickness exhibits different resistance value. Long wire has more resistance compared to short wire. Thin wire has more resistance than thick wire. A semiconductor is a material such as silicon. Semiconductors are either conductor or insulator materials.

First, there must be a closed path or circuit for current to flow. The closed circuit contains a conductor covered with an insulator, a switch, a source of power (a battery for example) and a load. An example of a load is your appliances. Second, the circuit must have a continuous supply of electrical charges from an electric field such as a battery. Electron (electric current) flows from negative to positive, that is, electron flow.  However, in conventional current flow, electron (electric current) flows from positive to negative. Besides, in calculations, you arrived at the same answer, either you choose, electron flow or conventional current flow. But the best approach is that electron flows from negative to positive.

Electric Circuits Component

Flow of current is determined by applied voltage and resistance (or impedance) in the circuit. Keeping resistance constant, increased voltage produce more current flow; reduced voltage reduces current flow. Keeping voltage constant, increased resistance produce less current flow; reduced resistance increases current flow. You can measure current in a circuit with Ammeter and the unit of current is Ampere. A typical electric circuit controls the working of a hot air sterilizer.

Resistance

Resistance is the property of a material to oppose the movement of electron (current). All electric circuits has inherent resistance. For example, internal resistance from source and resistance in the wire.
Resistor is the name given to a component with pre determined resistance value. Resistance is a characteristic of many electrical appliances called load. Every circuit has certain resistance value
The resistance value of circuit wiring should be minimal to reduce electrical power loss. Some Energy source such as battery has internal resistance and should minimize. You can measure resistance in a circuit with Ohm meter. Unit of resistance is Ohm.

Voltage

In all electric circuits, electrical voltage is the pressure pushing current to flow in an electric circuit. Unit of electrical voltage is V. You can measure voltage in a circuit by voltmeter. A multimeter has different ranges to measure current, resistance and voltage. That is a multimeter, has Ammeter; Ohmmeter, and Voltmeter. Some versatile meter has more values to measure.

Electric Circuits Law

Ohm’s Law

The voltage across a conducting material is directly proportional to the  current through the material, that is, v = Ri, where R (resistance) is the proportionality constant. That is to say, voltage drop or potential difference along a conducting path is directly proportional to the current flowing in the material. Meanwhile, current flowing is a dependent on the resistance of the material.From the slope, you see that when current increase, voltage increases, and when current decreases, voltage also decreases.
With constant voltage, increase resistance, will reduce current. Reduce resistance will increase current. Current (I) = Voltage (V)/Resistance (R). Learn more as we move on to electrical calculations.

Electricity and Magnetism

There is close relationship between electricity and magnetism. You can cause electric current to flow in a coil of wire. This is when you cause a permanent magnet  to move around (or towards) the wire or coil of wire. The  energy of the magnet (magnetic energy) forces electrons in the wire to align in specific ways and produce electricity. The amount of electricity produced depends on the number of turns of wire, the strength of the magnet and how fast you moving the magnet or the coil. In fact, this is the basis of main electric power generators. The two ends of a magnet are North and South pole respectively.Basically, you can’t have so much electricity without magnetism. Electricity and magnetism are not exactly the same but there is a close relationship between them.

When you move a conductor in a magnetic field, you will produce electricity in that conductor. However, you need one of the two materials, (coil of wire or permanent magnet) to keep moving in order to produce the electricity. In fact, there must be a change in the magnetic field of force to produce electricity. Electricity produced depends on the number of turns of coil of wire and the rate of change of magnetic field.

Temporary magnet from electric field

You can make a temporary magnetic field (a temporary magnet) from electricity. When you pass a current through a piece of wire, you have a magnetic field around the conductor. The magnetic field is called ‘magnetic field of current’.  You can increase the strength of the magnet by making the wire into a coil. Likewise, increasing the number of turns of the coil. On the other hand, you can increase the flow of current. This is the basis of all electromagnetic devices such as electric motor, relay, transformer, induction furnaces and solenoid. Using Fleming left hand rule, you can determine the north and south pole of the temporary magnet. Meanwhile, you can make current to flow in a wire from permanent magnet.  

Induced Current from Magnetic Field

There is a direction to which induced current from magnetic field flows. The current will flow of in any of two ways clockwise or anticlockwise. The direction of flows depends on if the magnet move towards the coil of wire or moving away from it. If there is no movement relative to the magnet and coil of wire, there is no induced current.

Any change in the environment of a magnet and a coil of wire, will cause am EMF or voltage to be ‘induced’ in the coil. It does not matter how you produce the change.  You may move the magnet towards or away from the coil. Or you move the coil towards or away from the magnet. You might as well rotate the magnet or the coil. As long there is a movement you induce current.  You can confirm which direction current flows by using a galvanometer or an ammeter. Using Fleming right hand rule, you can determine the direction of flow of current.

Solar and Wind Power System

Wind and solar power systems make use of the following components and materials to set it up. When size those components correctly will produce enough power for your use. You can equally sell excess power to the grid. Listed below are major components for your power project.

• Batteries
• Inverter
• Charge controller
• Voltage controller
• Solar panels
• Receptacles
• Cable and accessories
• Low Voltage Battery Disconnect (LVBD)

Many solar projects fail where they need it most. The reason is not far-fetched. Likewise, most failure arises from improper component sizing or missing parts, Again, some components are very small, yet are crucial to proper function of the system.

Success Factors for wind and solar power systems

1. Enough batteries to maintain the state of charge for a long time and a minimize state of discharge.
2. Large enough solar panels to provide sufficient charging current even at an off-peak period.
3. Correct size charge controller in the voltage and current
4. Voltage controller in system when you don’t need battery
5. Size of cable. Position the battery very close to the solar panels and charge controller as possible to minimize cost because you will need large conductor size for high power output.
6. The secret of successful solar and wind installer is the low voltage battery disconnect they incorporate in the system.
7. Inverter type and sizes. You would not install a square wave inverter where you need a pure sine wave. Otherwise the system would fail because it would not be able to power equipment for which it sufficiently.

In essence, some people think anyone could install solar without sufficient knowledge and skills. Yes! You can learn it and acquire the knowledge and meanwhile, seek support from experienced source when needed.

For some installation, you may include charging the battery by mains grid supplies. This is the case you use the system as a backup Uninterrupted Power  Supplies systems.

For your wind power system, you cannot feed the output of the alternator directly to the load. This is because current and voltage from this system is erratic. Therefore, you need battery to receive charging current from the dynamo, then the battery feeds the inverter which in turn feed the load. You may as well use the voltage from the directly to power low voltage direct current.

 

Electronics Board Assembly is a special job for an electronic technician, most especially in prototyping, or research. Tasks involve in this job include cable assembly, electronic components mounting, and soldering etc. The technician should be able to read and explain electronics assembly drawing, read and take schematic and or circuit diagram. The whole idea is to put the components into the printed circuit board and working correctly. This position also consider knowledge of electrical safety and classes of equipment as important.

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Use of printed circuit board make the job easier and for mass production. This is unlike the past where components are hard wired together. Knowledge of schematic drawing and pcb layout editor is an essential skill for this job. This may not be too much of a priority for contract staff hire for this task but for the technician this is part of personal development curriculum.

Component Electronics Board  Assembly

All electrical and electronic components has different symbol to know one from the other. We use this symbol to know each component in a circuit diagram. For example, transistor is different from a capacitor. Though, some component may look the same but their look in the diagram is not. A power bipolar transistor look like a fixed voltage regulator, a thyristor and a field effect transistors.

The only thing to tell apart by looking is their part number. Further to this, know the difference between passive and active components is important. This is because you take priority to assemble the passive before the active because active components have more threats to damage. The damages in danger of too much heat and electrostatic discharge.

Electronic components pinouts

Pinouts for a part number of a component may be different for the same component of different part number. Take care to insert the right legs in the PCB board before soldering.

The pinouts shown in the picture above display different shape for the same voltage regulator. The same is true for transistors, capacitor, transformer, and integrated circuits (IC). The same thing relates to triac, diodes, opto isolator or optocoupler, etc.

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Many times hobbyist, DIY enthusiasts and even experience technician need help at one time or the other in pursuit of a goal. For the student, hobbyist or DIY enthusiasts, you likely require more explanations and clarity at some points in your electronic projects DIY.

For the experienced technicians, you are pursuing a goal which might be new or existing projects and need to outsource for early accomplishment. This is where we come in to assist.

Printed Circuit Board Projects

Contact Us for your electronic projects DIY schematic and printed circuit board projects. Send us your drafts or tell us more about your project ideas. Then we can discuss the plan together.

Training on PCB Designs

Do you want to use printed circuit boards for your projects and prototypes but you always hand wired your components? It is time to learn to using schematic and PCB editor. It makes your work easier and limits or totally eradicates error. However, error you might have is any committed in your design.

Components for your electronic projects DIY?

Save yourself the problems of wasting time brainstorming alternative methods or equivalent component to use when the actual is not available. Tell us your need and we will help you out. Besides, you might need specialized components which might not even be electronics. Or electronic projects kits, we will assist you to make your plan a success.

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In the first place, you may consider buying pre assembled PCB module for certain work. And all the same need a replacement module for some assignments. We are ready to help you in whatever capacity.

Consequently, we want to assure you are not alone in your journey to success in your endeavor. Specifically for students, hobbyist, technicians and as many as are working on equipment or appliances.  Ask Us today and we are glad to help you.,

 

How is Electricity Produced?

To discuss about producing electricity, we need to know what it is we are talking about. Matter is anything that has weight and occupy a space. Every matter in the normal state is electrically neutral. That is, they have equal number of positive and negative charges in random distribution. When you apply an energy or a force, charge particles (at atomic level) in the matter separates. Negative charges accumulates to one side while positive charges accumulates to the other side. When the charge separates, electricity is produced.

Methods of Producing Electricity

We can produce electricity by any of the following: heat, light and friction. Others are pressure, chemical action, and magnetism.

• Producing Electricity by Magnet. Production of most of our electrical power is  by electromagnetic induction, as done in large-scale power plants. Be it a coal-burning plant, hydroelectric plant, windmill generator or a nuclear plant. Besides, the system uses a spinning turbine with magnets to induce voltage in copper coils of an alternator.

• Electricity from chemical actions. Second most common method is through certain chemical actions and reactions that produce free electrons. This is what happens in a cell and battery.
• Electricity from light. The other method to produce electricity is by light. This method uses photovoltaic cells, where sunlight is directly converts into electricity. Electricity from this is known as solar electricity.
• Electricity by heat. This is not common to produce large-scale electricity. However, it serve useful application for remote needs.  A Peltier device will produce electricity if it’s two faces are at different temperatures. Essentially, heat energy converts into electricity. Meanwhile, thermocouple employ the same principle to generate electricity from heat in simple way.
• Electricity by pressure. You can convert pressure into electrical energy using simple piezoelectric device.
• Electricity  by friction.  You can generate static electricity, by rubbing two or more objects to build up friction,

However, electricity from many of the methods are not useful for large-scale applications. For example, electricity from heat, pressure and friction. Nevertheless, they serve useful purposes in instrumentation along with others in transducers, or sensors, transducers is the same as sensor

Examples of transducers converting to electricity include moving coil microphone, quartz microphone and photodiode. Others are light dependent resistor, thermistor, and thermocouple. Further are pressure sensors, capacitive pressure sensors, and yet many others.