[Vwdiesel] ----( The Power Factor )

[Area31 Research Facility]

Interesting story Dan!  This shows how important it is to have such
electrical installations inside non-flamable concrete bunkers.

Rob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Sloan" <dsloan at DRAKE.EDU>
To: "'Roger Brown'" <r.c.brown at ieee.org>; <vwdiesel at audifans.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2005 9:52 AM
Subject: RE: [Vwdiesel] ----( The Power Factor )


> My Grandfather worked as a master electrician in the Montgomery Ward's
> building in Chicago...when that section of the city ran on DC.(somewhere
in
> the late 30's)  The building ran on AC, and there were monster inverters
in
> the basement.  As he told it, one day the mechanical governors failed, and
> the inverters went wild...to the point that they melted down, and fused
the
> cutoff knife switches closed.  The electricians abandoned the room,
quietly
> shut the door, and waited for the inverters to finish self destructing.
> Afterwards, they found most of the walls, ceiling, floor had been coated
> with metal.
>
> -- Dan
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: vwdiesel-bounces at vwfans.com
> > [mailto:vwdiesel-bounces at vwfans.com] On Behalf Of Roger Brown
> > Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 11:57 PM
> > To: vwdiesel at audifans.com
> > Subject: Re: [Vwdiesel] ----( The Power Factor )
> >
> > LBaird119 at aol.com wrote:
> > >   No wonder Edison was hung up on DC!  ;-)
> > >   This stuff is ALL new concepts for me!
> > >      Loren
> >
> > Really interesting reading about Edison (DC) and Tesla (AC)
> > going at it in the early days touting the advantages and
> > disadvantages of the two systems.  My favorite was Edison
> > hiring a Harold Brown (no relation) to design the electric
> > chair and of course it was designed to use that horrible,
> > deadly AC current:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_chair
> >
> > Of course AC won out for the most part in power distribution
> > systems.  However, DC still gets used here and there.  One
> > big transmission line runs from around Portland Oregon down
> > to Sylmar (near Los Angeles) and uses 500KV DC to transmit
> > power.  DC has the big advantage of no power factor or
> > stability issues.  It is not used more commonly due to the
> > cost, which also tends to limit it to long-distance
> > point-point use.  Huge solid state invertors are very, very expensive.
> >
> > --
> >     Roger
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Vwdiesel at vwfans.com
> > http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/vwdiesel
> >
>
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