A thin piezoelectric film on a window pane that absorbs street noise and converts it into energy to charge the phone. Pedestrians on the sidewalks, metro escalators that charge autonomous lighting batteries through piezo transducers. Dense streams of cars on busy roads, generating megawatts of electricity, which is enough for entire cities and towns.

Fantasy? Unfortunately, for now, yes, and this may remain. There is a high probability that the hype around the sensational reports about the wonderful prospects of energy generators on piezoelectric elements will soon end. And we will again dream of a safe, renewable and, to be honest, cheap electric energy received with the involvement of other phenomena. After all, the list of physical effects is remarkably long. The phenomenon of piezoelectricity was discovered ...

Low network voltage is a problem typical for households in the private sector. 160-180 volts - this voltage is not enough for most household appliances and fixtures. Even the simplest incandescent lamp at an excessively low voltage no longer shines, but simply “denotes” its filament with a soft crimson color.

First of all, it should be remembered that the electricity supplier must ensure the quality of this electricity at the input, that is, at the border of responsibility between the subscriber and the supplier. In fact, the boundary of responsibility is most often located at the point of connection of the OHL branch to a private house.

Therefore, the question of fundamental importance is: within whose area of ​​responsibility is the problem? If the voltage on the overhead line itself is as low, then the energy supplying organization is responsible for this ...

If the light goes out in the apartment, the sockets are turned off, or the electric stove stops working, then any person who is familiar with electrical engineering goes to the site to check the condition of the circuit breakers in the electrical panel. Most often, troubleshooting is reduced to restarting the machine.

The fact of operation of a modern modular circuit breaker is easily determined: the handle is in the "down" position, a round sign - "zero" is clearly visible on it. To turn it on, simply turn this knob up, then a horizontal line will appear, and we can assume that the mission has been completed.

Many apartments in the post-Soviet space are equipped with guards with automatic machines of a slightly different type. AE series circuit breakers and the like have slightly larger dimensions, are attached to the base with long screws and have an unpleasant property ...

It is better to prepare a sled in the summer, as well as a heating system at home or in a summer house. It is not worth putting off “for later” the solution to this vitally important issue. After all, autumn cold can come suddenly, and it is important that the weather does not take you by surprise.

Homeowners who have gas connected to the house but who have no problems with heating and hot water can close this article and go about their business. This article is for people who want to make the most economical electric heating in the house, but the power allocated to their house (the limit of allowed power) is not enough to connect several heating appliances and other household appliances.

And the purchase of additional electric power from power engineers is not possible due to the unjustifiably high cost or physical absence of excess power due to old transformer substations. What electric heating system is the most ...

After reading this headline, someone might ask, “Why?” Yes, if you simply plug the LED into a power outlet, even turning it on in a certain pattern, it does not have practical value, it will not bring any useful information.

But if you connect the same LED in parallel with a heating element controlled by a temperature regulator, you can visually control the operation of the entire device. Sometimes this indication allows you to get rid of many small problems and troubles.

In the light of what has already been said about the inclusion of LEDs in previous articles, the task seems trivial: just put the limiting resistor of the desired value, and the issue is resolved. But all this is good if you feed the LED with a rectified constant voltage: as the LED was connected in the forward direction, it remained ...

In some cases, for example, in flashlights or home lighting fixtures, it becomes necessary to adjust the brightness of the glow. It would seem that it’s easier: just change the current through the LED, increasing or decreasing the resistance of the limiting resistor. But in this case, a significant part of the energy will be spent on the limiting resistor, which is completely unacceptable with autonomous power supply from batteries or accumulators.

In addition, the color of the LEDs will change: for example, white when the current is lower than the nominal (for most LEDs 20mA) will have a slightly greenish tint. Such a color change in some cases is completely useless.

Imagine that these LEDs illuminate the screen of a TV or computer monitor. In these cases, PWM control is applied (pulse width) ...

It just so happened that the power supply voltage in villages and towns often does not comply with GOST, and, as a rule, in a smaller direction. Instead of 220 Volts laid down by law, we have less than 200 V. in the outlet. And during periods of mass arrivals of summer residents or when the heaters are cool on the street and electric heaters are turned on, the mains voltage drops even more significantly.

In such a situation, it is important to ensure reliable and safe operation of life support systems at home. To do this, you have to use a network voltage stabilizer - a simple and affordable way to maintain the voltage of a home electrical network within the framework of GOST.

However, if you feed from it all the electrical appliances available in the house, then the power of the device should be very large. Such a stabilizer requires space for installation in a dry, heated room, and it is very expensive ...

You can make an excellent LED spotlight yourself, spending only 257 rubles on the filling! Even if you are not familiar with electronics and in life you have not soldered a single printed circuit board with radio components!

This spotlight can be successfully used for landscape illumination of a summer cottage, for accented illumination of a house, for illumination of an object at a distance of 20 - 30 m when using outdoor surveillance cameras ... And much more for what!

But, most importantly, your spotlight will consume only 6 watts of electric power with a stable light output when powered in the voltage range 85 - 256 Volts! Let's get down to business. We really liked the Kreonix STD-JCDR-6W-GU10-COB / WW LED lamp, developed by Russian engineers and manufactured by Kreonix. We tested it and were very pleased with the high brightness of the LED ...

Everyone is familiar with LEDs now: LED lights, LED lamps, ribbons, and much more.Thanks to the efforts of the developers, absolutely exotic devices appeared, for example, a nozzle on a water tap. Outwardly, it is a transparent plastic cylinder: cool water poured - a blue LED lights up inside the nozzle, it has become warmer - yellow has lit up, and even if the water is too hot, the nozzle turns red. The content of the internal filling is unknown, but the fact that LEDs are used as emitting elements is obvious.

The first LED was developed at the University of Illinois back in 1962. In 1990, bright, and later superbright LEDs were born. The LED itself is very similar to a conventional rectifier diode, only when a direct current passes through it, the semiconductor crystal begins to glow ...

At one time, the leadership of our country committed itself to providing each family with a separate apartment. It is clear that before and after that, many different beautiful promises were made, and our state has become completely different. However, they tried sincerely to fulfill the promise about individual apartments. Great hopes in this matter were assigned to the technology of building houses from panels.

Panels are prefabricated reinforced concrete products. At the construction site itself, it remains only to assemble them according to the principle, not far removed from the principle by which children's designers gather.

The technology is really fast, but the same type of panel houses were not the best option for people to live. Low noise insulation, a large level of heat loss, low durability ... But we, in fact, want to talk not about the disadvantages of panel housing ...

Solar panels, although environmentally friendly, are also very expensive. Scientists have found an alternative to them - polymer solar panels. What it is is described in the article.

A person who is at least a little interested in solar energy, perfectly imagines what a solar battery is - a combination of a large number of photocells mounted on any surface.

A solar cell is a semiconductor device that converts the energy of the sun into electric current. Solar cells of "traditional" solar cells are made of silicon. The manufacturing process for such batteries is complex and very expensive. Despite the fact that silicon is a very common element and that the earth’s crust contains about 20% silicon, the transformation process source sand in high purity silicon is very complex and expensive...

Electric networks are usually classified according to a large number of different signs, but with regard to electrical safety they are divided mainly as follows: networks with voltage up to 1000 V and networks with voltage over 1000 V.

It is these thousand volts that appear in the certificate for electrical safety of every electrician, even if he is the chief power engineer of the enterprise or an ordinary electrician who graduated from vocational school yesterday.

And, it seems, everything is clear: low voltage - less danger, one safety requirement; high voltage is very dangerous, the requirements are stricter. But why exactly 1000 volts? Not 1500, not 660, but 1000? And the thing is that AC networks above 1000 V are always networks with isolated neutral. At the same time, networks with voltages up to 1000 V are networks with a grounded neutral ...