Tips & Tricks

Demystifying Electromagnetics, Part 7 – Solenoids

July 15, 2021

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein, March 11, 1952. Inspired by the great man himself, I was curious if the nail solenoid was powerful enough to pierce, say, a grape (it was a slow day)….

By Robin Bornoff
6 MIN READ
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Demystifying Electromagnetics, Part 6 – Relays

June 28, 2021

Over the last 5 blogs in this series we’ve introduced a set of EM building blocks, fundamental behaviours that hopefully have been demystified by the use of analogy. At last, and not before time, we can get on to an actual application – Relays….

By Robin Bornoff
6 MIN READ
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Demystifying Electromagnetics, Part 5 – Ferromagnetic Cores

June 14, 2021

A coil of wire creates a magnetic field when a current passes through it. The…

By Robin Bornoff
6 MIN READ
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Demystifying Electromagnetics, Part 4 – Inductors

May 26, 2021

Welcome to Part 4 in this blog series that hopes to demystify electromagnetics for those of you who might have a background in mechanical engineering, fluid flow and heat transfer. Ultimately we’ll be getting onto electric motors, generators, induction cooking, levitation, loud speakers etc. etc. but for now some more basics – Inductors….

By Robin Bornoff
8 MIN READ
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Happy Geek Pride Day, but what does the ‘B’ stand for?

May 24, 2021

Can Simcenter Flotherm model Simcenter Flotherm modelling Simcenter Flotherm modelling the Mandelbrot set? Yes, but only on Geek Day….

By Robin Bornoff
4 MIN READ
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Demystifying Electromagnetics, Part 3 – Magnets

April 7, 2021

Why do magnets attract or repel and what’s that got to do with conducting loops of wire? Peter and Petronella Proton help explain….

By Robin Bornoff
9 MIN READ
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Electric Fields without and with a conductor

Demystifying Electromagnetics, Part 2 – Wires

March 12, 2021

Ohm’s Law is just a flow rate, analogous to fluid mass flow. What’s that got to do with EM and what is Temperature and Joule heating anyway?…

By Robin Bornoff
8 MIN READ
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Demystifying Electromagnetics, Part 1 – Fields and Analogies

March 2, 2021

This blog series will strive to demystify (low frequency) EM by way of pictures and analogies, with as few equations as possible, by introducing a series of applications of increasing complexity. In this first blog we’ll and start to look into the electric field with the use of some analogies….

By Robin Bornoff
8 MIN READ
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Trace, plane and thermal via heat spreading

Thermal Influence on Maximum Current Carrying Capacity

January 20, 2021

Superconductors aside, anything that conducts electricity will dissipate heat. The more current that flows, the more heat is dissipated, the hotter things will get. At some point a thermal limit is reached that imposes a maximum current carrying capacity constraint….

By Robin Bornoff
7 MIN READ
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