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Old 08-25-14, 11:18 AM   #1
mejunkhound
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What is your agenda ?

What product are you pitching? What is the company? What is your shareholder stake?

This post IS intended to sound like 'Billy Goat Gruff' challenging the TROLL under the bridge.

Do you REALLY believe that big, heavy, costly to produce (both in $$ and environmental first costs), and lossy passive components (LRC) are more effective than power electronics? If you REALLY believe that, maybe the earth IS flat?

Last time I used a RLC filter for harmonics reduction was in the 1980s!

Every thing I have seen you post is total incoherent blather meant only to direct $$ to your own pocket in some way.

Coming onto a primarily DIY site and immediately bashing creative folks as 'polluters' is not a way to make 'friends' <G>

Disclaimer:
I myself DO have an agenda and am willing to share it.
I have designed power electronics for a living ever since FETs were invented and still consult in that area. Have chaired sessions of Applied Power Electronics Conference and Power Electronics Specialist Conference (some specifically dealing with harmonics) and authored a few dozen papers on the subject.

Ever since the invention of MOSFETS and IGBTs, power electronics are more cost effective and environmentally sound than passive components.

Folks who tout misinformation as IcanHas seems to be doing are to me in the same category as those snake charmers who sell overpriced silver plated wire and vacuum tube amplifiers to ignorant audio afficianados.

Currently have a patent in process for a 99.9% efficient solar power tracker. That level of efficiency cannot even be dreamt of with passive components.

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Old 08-25-14, 05:28 PM   #2
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Now don't you feel better now that you've found an excuse to boast about your private life and your accomplishments. Ego is a powerful motivator isn't it? It's always an interesting question if the person is analogous to the dog who is shaking the ego between his teeth, or if the ego is the dog that is shaking the person between his teeth.
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Old 08-25-14, 05:42 PM   #3
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FWIW, look at my previous posts over the past few years, no such ego motive.

The motive for this thread is simply disclosure that I have a vested personal and financial interest in power electronics.

The object of my 'troll attack' has 'contributed' for all of 3 weeks with diatribes about how DIY folks are polluting the power grid. Provided personal information only as disclosure of my motives for questioning "passive harmonic correction". The history is simply to show that for this subject I do know what I'm talking about, at least many other folks think so.
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Old 08-26-14, 12:26 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mejunkhound View Post
What is your agenda ?

What product are you pitching? What is the company? What is your shareholder stake?
I'm not pitching anything. On the other hand, I am not sure about user(s) who advocate and even misrepresent stuff in a hope of getting digital software based stuff specified by claiming its a "must".

Quote:
Do you REALLY believe that big, heavy, costly to produce (both in $$ and environmental first costs), and lossy passive components (LRC) are more effective than power electronics?
More effective at what? There are many applications where passive components are more practical, tough and resilient and dwarfs the often proprietary and fragile power electronics. I do find that power electronics are over specified and completely overlooking their shortcomings.

Semiconductor manufacturing and low environmental cost do not belong together in same sentence. It is the most diverse industry in terms of plethora of extremely toxic chemicals as well as environmentally hazardous stuff. You need to allocate spills and accidental releases into first environmental cost of products.

Here are some semiconductor industry chemicals:
deadly stuff...
Concentrated HF(hydrofluoric acid is the deadliest industrial acid..), arsine gas, phosphine gas, potassium cyanide,silicon tetrachloride,

harmful stuff...
trichloroethylene, tungsten hexafluoride, beryllium oxide, various arsenic, selenium, tellurium, cadmium compounds, , SF6, WF6. Oh and guess which industry used CFC 113 and methyl chloroform LIBERALLY?


Glass is more wear resistant and practically immune from corrosion than both metal and plastic. Yet... Product damage loss per truck load is much greater for products in glass jars than metal cans. The hospitality industry has substantially more expenses in damaged glass and Chinaware than plastic and metal. Why do you suppose that is?

Hint: Failure proneness of power electronics is analogous to glassware/Chinaware. Glassware and power electronics are very delicate and fragile against inevitable roughness and bumps of the real world. Resilience and toughness are very important in the real world.

Quote:
Last time I used a RLC filter for harmonics reduction was in the 1980s!
Don't worry, they're still very much in use. Tuned filters, line reactor. Ironically, they're generally used to clean up after the mess created by power electronics.

Quote:
Ever since the invention of MOSFETS and IGBTs, power electronics are more cost effective and environmentally sound than passive components.
I've had quite a few power adapters fail. Of course, they were all switching type that contains POWER ELECTRONICS. ECM HVAC motors see absurd failure rates in the field. Drive failures in he washers is more common than the "motor burning out", inverter microwave? absurdly high failure rates. power supplies in monitors/TVs frying? usually power electronics. Things likely to have power surge related insurance claims? of course they contain POWER ELECTRONICS.

Pinch wires and crowbar the output of a power inverter or a motor drive? Wrong voltage? Pop crack poof!. Generally consumer market power electronics is a total loss at this point. What gets fried more often, electronic-free condenser fan motor or the power electronics stradded ECM? Of course the latter.


Quote:
Folks who tout misinformation as IcanHas seems to be doing are to me in the same category as those snake charmers who sell overpriced silver plated wire and vacuum tube amplifiers to ignorant audio afficianados.
Most people know that glass will shatter when dropped or bumped in day to day handling.

There's nowhere near as much penetration of knowledge about power electronics and folks tout power electronics like something of modern days and people are generally unaware of their lack of resilience. This dark side is often omitted.

Sure, power electronics don't "wear", but which of this happens more often? A regular light switch suddenly failing or a dimmer getting stuck on maximum setting (shorted power electronics)? That's right, power electronics can't even take the surge current from when the light bulb goes out.

Quote:
Currently have a patent in process for a 99.9% efficient solar power tracker.
What's your point? Patent is an administrative process of submitting some paperwork to the patents office. Even those magnets that clip onto fuel line promising mileage gain have issued patents, which says a lot that simply having a patent doesn't necessarily mean squat. It is not subject to validation unless you're trying to patent a perpetual motion machine. What is the point of bringing this other than trying to show off?

Quote:
That level of efficiency cannot even be dreamt of with passive components.
The available surge and fault current available from photovoltaic is a wagon drawn through a rubber band by a couple of hampsters compared to the grid which easily have a fault current of 10,000A or more.

How much money did you save over a 90% efficient resilient passive technology when there's a transient surge or a mishap and the power electronic component goes poof and you have to buy it again? Those embedded systems power electronics up the wazoo indoor fan ECM motors are a real problem in real life. When it needs service, because of unreasonably fragile power electronics based design goes poof, it pretty much wipes out any chance of saving any money. What about the " carbon foot print" from vehicle that had to drive to your house for the service call? You've got to penalize that against the benefit.

Passive components can take quite a bit of hits and bumps in the real life while power electronics are extremely fragile like a glass wheel that will instantly obliterate from hitting a pothole. What are you going to do? include a warning that wheel with obliterate, therefore do not hit potholes?

Last edited by ICanHas; 08-27-14 at 03:41 AM..
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Old 08-26-14, 04:44 PM   #5
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Thanks for the response. Interesting point of view.
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Old 08-26-14, 07:05 PM   #6
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You can complain about the current series of events in technology all you want. It's not going to change anything. People cried about the telegraph when it came out. People cried about industrial robots when they came of age. People cried about the internet, and electric cars, and cellphones, and flat tv's, and...everything at one time or another.

What happened to these masses of people? They were thrown under the rug, and then the road, and were overrun by imminent progress. Others were simply bulldozed out of the way, written off as casualties. Still others tagged along for the ride, and actually remained to improve things along the way.

I began asking you questions in your radical postings to try to soften the edge of your rantings, as well as to present a different angle on your statements, to try to provoke some rational thought and steer the conversations in a less hardcore direction. Assuming you are knowledgeable in the subjects you preach, most of the answers were blatantly obvious. The answers were trivial in nature concerning the subject.

In all cases, you missed the hint, continuing to blither about supply-side solutions. I am not a big wheel power engineering executive, with an army of eager engineers to do my bidding. Even if I was, I would not be trying to complicate the already kludged power distribution and generation grid with any more harmonic reduction initiatives than I absolutely needed. These devices just add more losses and expense to what is already lossy and expensive enough.

From the manufacturing side, the old-school core and coil, brute force passive devices are much more expensive to produce than their silicon-chip based counterparts. This is one of the big reasons why CRT displays are now an endangered species. When an OEM can sell an LCD screen TV that costs less than a third of the price to make, that weighs a fifth of what the previous generation did, that occupies 10% or less of the volume, that they can sell for the same or higher price, there is no choice in the matter. They make the switch and nail the coffin shut on the old products. To do otherwise would be their demise.

You strike me as a bible salesman, preaching the word every day and shoving bibles in everyone's hands you meet. That's not a bad thing, someone has to do it. But sooner or later, I'm gonna have to slam the door in your face, whether I buy a bible or not. I have better things to do than waste my whole afternoon listening to and arguing with you. Being courteous and trying to understand your point of view can only last so long before it stops working for me.

Last edited by jeff5may; 08-26-14 at 07:10 PM..
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Old 08-26-14, 07:12 PM   #7
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The real irony? He's against power electronics yet he promotes PFC where it offers little benefit. At the large scale, there are ways to do PFC (namely LC filters) without resorting to semiconductors of any kind.
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Old 08-26-14, 07:30 PM   #8
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Like I said, I can't afford a Gigajoule worth of low-pass filter. Maybe Enron should've spent some money in that realm.
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Old 08-26-14, 08:01 PM   #9
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Glad to know it is not just a power electronics bias effecting my opinions and to see a couple of well know mainstays and great contributors to this forum also recognizing a troll chumming the waters <G>

I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and go on ebay tonight and buy a couple of the cheapest Chinese VFDs I can find <G>
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Old 08-27-14, 03:46 AM   #10
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Quote:
The real irony? He's against power electronics yet he promotes PFC where it offers little benefit. At the large scale, there are ways to do PFC (namely LC filters) without resorting to semiconductors of any kind.
Let me assure you I am not selling capacitor-in-box PFC.

Little benefits by who's account? I think you're calling IEEE and IEC "BS".

I'm not just parroting something from Wikipedia or websites of questionable credibility like a self-published website. Like the nlcpr or what was that called. I posted the link to paper which is hosted directly on IEEE site.

Electronic ballasts once made very high levels of harmomics but those high harmonic units are not made for commercial use anymore. Lighting is a substantial portion of total demand in commercial buildings.

Now the dirty power electronics containing computers, CFLs motors combined are starting towards having the same sized foot print in portion of power used in homes. You do have the CHOICE to buy low efficiency or high efficiency products.

If you dislike PFC that much, then another option is advancing Smart meters more. Net metering capability etc are already there and hardware's already there. It's just a matter of integrating harmonics monitoring in " embedded firmware " you like so much and getting PUC to ok it so it becomes legal to add demand and demand distortion charge.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mejunkhound View Post
Glad to know it is not just a power electronics bias effecting my opinions and to see a couple of well know mainstays and great contributors to this forum also recognizing a troll chumming the waters <G>

I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and go on ebay tonight and buy a couple of the cheapest Chinese VFDs I can find <G>
So, is it my bias and you think my account of their failure susceptibility is bunk?


Last edited by ICanHas; 08-27-14 at 04:05 AM..
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