The occasion lands on the calendar right about the same time that the weather is supposed be clearing up (still waiting on that part…) and we Oregonians can turn our attention to more than just trying to keep our homes from floating away or succumbing to layers of house-eating-moss.

Whatever home improvement project you decide to pursue this spring, 3D will be there to provide support when you need it.

Check out the list below of our past posts on remodeling and DIY projects, and keep an eye out for lots of articles and tips as we celebrate National Home Improvement Month!

3 Things You May Not Know About Your Old House- It’s charming, it’s quaint, it’s a house fire waiting to happen. Wait, what?

SHOWDOWN: LEDs vs. CFLs- We compare the two increasingly popular energy-saving light bulbs to decide which shall emerge victorious!

When You May (Unknowingly) Need an Electrician- What DIY projects are you considering as spring approaches? Some of them may require extra electrical expertise, even though at first glance they seem simple.

New Year’s Resolutions, Electrical Edition- Before you can tackle any improvement projects at all, you’ve got to make sure your house is safe!

3 Simple Ways to Reduce Your Energy Bill- Small-scale improvements that can save big bucks!

How to Label Your Circuit Breakers- All you need is a pen and paper and a friend!

Should You Be Your Own Electrician?- On what occasions is it safe to do your own electrical work? (Hint- there aren’t many.)

Can You Trust Your Electrician?- A list of characteristics your electrical contractor should display… and some things to watch out for.

Smoke Detectors: Hard-Wired vs. Battery-Powered- Which is safer?

Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Detectors: What You Need to Know-  A review of state and federal laws regarding smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. A must-read if you are looking to remodel or to sell or rent your home.

 Electrical Panel Safety Checklist- A download-able checklist to help you evaluate the safety of your electrical panel.

Does Your Electrical Panel Need Changing?- Are you noticing the tell-tale signs of a dangerous electrical panel?

As I research nice normal topics like lightning and static electricity, I sometimes accidentally stumble upon slightly… weirder… things. (Case in point. And another.) And of course, I need to share the weirdness with you. The topic this month is Kirlian photography. On its own it isn’t that weird- it’s a form of photography (surprise) that uses electricity. It’s actually a type of photogram, also known as a contact print, which is a photo taken without a camera by placing objects directly on light-sensitive paper and exposing them to light. In this case the surface on which the object is placed is exposed to electricity. The process was accidentally discovered by Russian inventor Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, thus the title.

The typical process of Kirlian photography involves a metal plate with a sheet of film on top, and the object to be photographed placed on top of that. High voltage is momentarily applied to the plate, onto which the corona discharge is then copied. A corona discharge occurs when a current flows from one electrode to another through a neutral fluid, like air, by ionizing that fluid. The ionization creates a region of plasma around the electrodes. The plasma goes around whatever object is placed on the plate, thus following its shape.

Electricity is such an incredible force to be reckoned with (and harnessed!) that it really is no wonder that so many products claim to use electricity to tap into some mystical alternate dimension or reality. But rest assured that everything about Kirlian photography, at the very least, can be scientifically and rationally explained.

In our monthly roundup we share all of the links about electricity, energy, home improvement, and the construction industry at large that we found particularly interesting over the past month. Enjoy, and feel free to leave your impressions or your own favorite links in the comments section!

Electrical Safety: What You Should Know About Backup Power Systems (via Mike Holt): What are your options for restoring power when bad weather knocks it out?

Would You Pay $60 for a Light Bulb? (via Fox 12): What makes the bulb special is that it shines as bright as a 60-watt bulb, yet uses only 10 watts of power. If it’s used four hours a day, the bulb saves about $8 per year in electricity costs and is expected to last 20 years.

May is National Home Improvement Month! (via Burgin Construction) Some tips from the National Association of the Remodeling Industry on how to plan ahead for your home remodel.

]]> http://3delectrical.com/2012/05/01/monthly-roundup-3/feed/ 0 http://3delectrical.com/2012/04/18/plasma/ http://3delectrical.com/2012/04/18/plasma/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2012 19:00:15 +0000 Sharayah http://3delectrical.com/?p=3066

What is it?

Plasma is a word that can be used to define the liquid in which your blood cells are suspended, the “whey” in curds and whey, a green variety of quartz, or, for our purposes, a highly ionized gas that contains an (approximately) equal number of protons and electrons. Plasma is commonly considered the fourth state of matter, apart from solids, liquids, and gases.

All of the stars in the universe are made of plasma, and lightning, St. Elmo’s Fire, and polar aurorae are all considered “terrestrial plasma”. What we see as “lightning bolts” are actually “striations” (strings, or filaments) of plasma.

Plasma is considered the most common form of matter, which at first seems strange since most of it is not visible, but it comprises about 99% of the universe.

How Does It Relate to Electricity?

To understand what plasma has to do with electricity, we’ve got to understand it’s place in the atmosphere. Did you know that there is an entire portion of the earth’s atmosphere that is made up of plasma?

The earth’s atmosphere is divided into four main sections: the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and the thermosphere. The thermosphere gradually dissipates into the exosphere, also known as “outer space”.

Within the thermosphere, solar radiation causes the air to become ionized (creating the ionosphere). For a little reference, check out this awesome infographic! Ionized air is made up of molecules that have become charged by adding or removing charged particles (electrons or ions). When solar radiation collides with the molecules in the thermosphere, it dislodges the charge particles, which can then float freely for a short time (as free electrons) because of the vast space between molecules at this height, before attaching to a new molecule. When the air is in this state of ionization, it is considered a plasma. Plasma, while similar to gas, is different in that it is a much better conductor of electricity (due to the high volume of charged particles), and it responds to electrical and magnetic fields much more strongly than gases. Electricity is very basically defined as the movement of electrons form one molecule to another, so plasma is suspended in an “in between” state that conducts electricity very, very well.

The ionosphere absorbs the most “energetic” rays from the sun, and reflects radio waves back to earth. When the sun is particularly active, ionization in the thermosphere increases, and the result is aurora borealis and aurora australis.

Check out different types of plasma!

Practical Applications

The practical application of plasma can be seen in neon and fluorescent lighting, arc welding tools, and plasma-screen TVs. The most promising application has yet to come to fruition, however, in the form of fusion.

It’s a cold, dry day and your hair just won’t lay flat. You pull your sweater out of the dryer and it seems to have been consumed by socks.You shuffle across the floor and lean down to pet the cat, and the next thing you know he’s clawing your legs to shreds because you shocked him. You know… static electricity is kind of a jerk!

Static electricity refers to the buildup of an electric charge on an object. The charge stays put (static) until it either gradually seeps to ground, or is quickly neutralized by a discharge.

The world’s largest Van de Graaff generator, generating static electricity on a large scale for demonstration and research.

from MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections

Causes of Static Electricity
The buildup of charge can be instigated by contact between two materials or by applied pressure or heat.

When static charge buildup occurs as a result of contact between two materials, an object with weakly-bound electrons is likely to lose them, and an object with an outer shell that is very sparsely filled with electrons is likely to gain them. This is known as the triboelectric effect. (Probably because “sticky electrons” didn’t sound scientific enough.)

The separation of charge in certain types of materials (particularly certain crystals and ceramics) due to applied mechanical pressure is called the piezoelectric effect. Similar to the piezoelectric effect is the pyroelectric effect, in which charges separate due to applied heat. All piezoelectric materials are also pyroelectric.

One of the most easily recognizable and large-scale examples of static discharge (that is, the “shock” that accompanies the neutralization of the charge buildup) is lightning. The current theory regarding lightning is that the charge inside storm clouds is separated as a result of water molecules rubbing up against each other (the triboelectric effect).

Practical Application
Is static electricity just a funny trick to play on your cat on a cold, dry day, or can we put it to greater use? (Not that harassing your cat is not a great use, it totally is.)

As it turns out, the principles of static electricity are utilized in many unexpected places:

Pollution control- electrostatic precipitators collect charged dirt particles on a plate with the opposite charge. Electrostatic precipitators are used inside smokestacks to prevent pollution from entering the atmosphere.

Xerography- a Xerox machine electrically charges the ink to only stick to certain designated areas of the paper, thus creating the image you want.

Automobile painting- A vehicle is electrically charged, then the paint is given an opposite charge. When sprayed into the paint booth where the car is waiting, the paint adheres evenly to the charged surface.

Are you the proud owner of an old home? For our purposes let’s say an ‘old home’ is anything built before 1970 (no, that doesn’t mean I’m calling you old. Please don’t hurt me…). You were probably quick to make sure that the paint in your home is lead-free and asbestos is absent from the pipes and insulation, but there is still a lot more to your old house than meets the eye. For example:

1. An Outdated Electrical System
Federal Pacific. Pushmatic. Zinsco.
Go to your electrical panel and take a look at the brand- do any of these names sound familiar? If so, you may have a dangerously outdated panel. Federal Pacific distributed millions of panels before 1980, but since then it has been revealed that many of those panels did not test to UL safety standards, yet were distributed anyway. If you’ve got a Federal Pacific panel, it may be a serious accident waiting to happen. Zinsco panels are a similar story- a design flaw causes the connection to the bus bar to become loose, which can result in the breaker contacts fusing together, which in turn will result in the panel’s failure to trip. Failure to trip = serious shock/fire hazard. Pushmatic panels do not have such a dangerous history, but it is recommended that they be replaced because they are well past obsolete. The older a system is, the more likely a failure is. If you think your old house has an outdated electrical panel or wiring, call a professional electrician.

2. Radon
Radon is a naturally occurring gas that has been pinpointed as one of the leading causes of lung cancer in the United States (only smoking causes more lung cancer deaths). It is colorless, odorless, tasteless…. and radioactive. Radon is produced in the soil as the result of the natural decay of uranium, and seeps into your home through cracks in the foundation and other openings. Once in the air in your home, where it becomes trapped, radon can build up to dangerous levels. You can test for radon in your home by yourself, but you will probably need to hire someone else to fix it (it is very fixable).

3.Foundation Cracks
The foundation of an older home can crack due to age (poor soil conditions that cause your home to sink/pull apart over time) or poor craftsmanship, but it needs to be fixed immediately- not only because cracks in the foundation can allow more radon to seep in, but because a sagging/cracking/bowed foundation can lead to a multitude of other problems. Depending on the issue (sometimes the cause of the cracking is unclear), you may need to call in a structural engineer.

All photos from Wikimedia Commons.

Share your $0.02! Have you experienced any of these (or other) problems with your old home? What did you do to fix it? What other issues do you recommend owners of older homes watch out for?

Today’s Electricity in Nature post is about those most enigmatic of creatures, electrical animals!

The majority of animals that use electricity as a means of defense or electrolocation are found underwater, with a few exceptions such as the oriental hornet:

Oriental Hornet

If you get the heebie jeebies just thinking about bees, it’s best to stop reading….. now.

The oriental hornet is sometimes described as a “living solar cell”. The thick yellow stripe across its abdomen (composed of a substance called xanthopterin, say that three times fast) is thought to convert the sunlight into electrical energy, although scientists are still unsure of exactly what biological mechanisms are in place, that this could occur.

Are your heebies officially jeebied?

Electric current has also been discovered within the silk surrounding the pupae and even the comb walls within which the hornets live- the current seems to exist for the purpose of regulating temperature (essentially an electrically-powered incubator!)

There are even indications that the metabolism of the oriental hornet depends more on sunlight than on food. Yes, you heard that right…. photosynthesis, just like a plant.

So, if you weren’t afraid of the buzzy winged insects before…. just ponder electrical sun-powered hornets for a while.

You’re welcome.

Photo credits: CrispGreen, CalFinder

Moving on to some comic relief, let’s discuss the elephantnose fish (whoever named this animal apparently wasn’t having a particularly imaginative day).

Elephantnose Fish

A teeny little guy popular amongst aquarium enthusiasts, the elephantnose fish (I’m going to work that entire word into this post as much as possible) was probably made fun of in fish school, but his gargantuan schnoz hides a sneaky secret: electricity.

A secret: I haz it.

Elephantnose fish have very poor eyesight, and the electricity generated in their “trunk” is used primarily to help them get around and to pick up distortions in the electrical field, which alert the elephantnose fish to the presence of prey (such as bloodworms. Yum.) Adorably, the frequency and strength of the electrical pulse varies according to the fish’s mood, and can even be picked up audibly:

The weak electrical impulses generated by this fish can be made audible by placing two electrodes in the fish tank, which are then hooked up to an audio amplifier or a piezoelectric earbud. The sonar-like clicks that this fish emits can sound like a squeaky door when the fish is excited. (Source)

Check out the video to hear the clicking sound of the elephantnose fish.

Photo credit: Fishtanks and Ponds

And what list of electrical animals would be complete without a little crytpozoology? Let’s talk about that little fellow who is always the life of the party, the Mongolian Death Worm!

Mongolian Death Worm

The existence of the Mongolian Death Worm has never been proven, but anecdotal evidence in Mongolia has been too pervasive to entirely ignore. Described as anywhere from 2 to 5 feet long and mostly resembling a large red chunk of intestine (sorry, I hope you weren’t eating) and sometimes said to have spiked or speared projections at both ends. In addition to the rumor that it spits or sprays a toxic corrosive acid as a defense mechanism, it is said that the worm can emit an electrical discharge that can kill prey from several feet away.

Oh, sorry. Were you planning on sleeping tonight?

Many expeditions have been launched to search for this odd creature, and it seems that nearly all Mongolians know the mythos of the creature despite never having encountered it themselves, yet still there is no physical evidence of the worm. Some researchers think that the reported sightings probably involved normal burrowing reptiles, and the legend grew into something more fantastical over time. A giant red electrically-charged acid-spewing intestine worm? I’ll take electric hornets any day.

Photo credit: io9.com

The before and after of a good wiring job may not sound too exciting, but these photos tell a pretty interesting story!

This job was done by Gary Skou and J Brubaker.

The work space and the previous wiring job, sticking out like a dead insect.

The electrical industry: claustrophobes need not apply.

No need to look up “Unsafe” in the dictionary. We’ve got the definition right here.

The beautiful finished product! Even someone entirely unfamiliar with electrical wiring can recognize the difference.

What your service should look like.

Like what you see? Do you think you may have an electrical hazard that needs a little (or a lot of) TLC? Give us a call!

Piezoelectricity. Until recently, to this writer it had been nothing but a funny word I had never heard of. Now, I know that it’s a cool natural electrical phenomenon. With a funny name.

Piezoelectricity: What is it?

Piezoelectricity is the charge that is produced when mechanical stress is placed on crystals, certain types of ceramics, bone, and other solid materials. It is a reversible state, which in this case means that while an applied mechanical stress (which changes-or deforms- the static shape of the item) increases the voltage of the item,  an applied voltage will cause the static shape to change by a very small amount.

(Image from Wikimedia Commons: change in shape is greatly exaggerated.)

So What Good Is It?

After years spent as nothing more than a lab curiosity, piezoelectricity is now utilized everywhere. A short list is as follows:

• Airbag sensors
• Sonar (applying alternating current causes the material to rapidly change shape, which produces high-frequency sound waves.)
• Cigarette lighters
• Microphones
• Inkjet printers
• Diesel engines
• Fertility treatments
• Surgery (known as piezosurgery)
• Echolocation
• Electric guitars

While piezoelectricity is the result of an action taken on a natural substance, you may be wondering why it is included here if some form of human interaction is necessary in order to make it work. However, according to an article in Nature, a scientific journal:

Piezoelectric effects have been produced in a number of soft tissues, as well as hard, and appear to be associated with the presence of oriented fibrous proteins such as collagen. Thus, piezoelectricity may be a universal property of living tissue, and may play a significant part in several physiological phenomena.

Piezoelectricity is still being studied to fully understand the implications of its natural occurrences.

So there you have it! There are so many amazing natural phenomena occurring right under our noses that have been utilized to make our world an amazing place to live in. Here’s to many more discoveries!

Welcome to the first of what will be a five-part series on Electricity in Nature! Today’s topic is lightning.

We’re all familiar with lightning, though some of us are more afraid of it than others (but not me… no sirree, I’m not scared…), but there is still so much to learn about this incredible natural phenomenon. For example, do you know:

- Why we see lightning during volcanic eruptions?

If you saw photos of the eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull that erupted in 2010, you may have seen lightning within the plumes of smoke and thought that they surely must be photoshopped. Not so!

There is still research being conducted into the definitive cause behind lightning within the smoke plumes of volcanoes, but the general consensus involves, of all things, dust. The idea is that dust/smoke/ash particles carry small charges that become amplified during the chaos of rushing out of a volcano. With every collision of one particle with another, the charges become more and more polarized until lightning is inevitable because the polarization becomes too great for the air to resist the flow of electricity. The lightning neutralizes the charge separation, essentially relieving the tension of polarization.

credit: National Geographic

There is another lesser known type of volcanic lightning, however, which occurs right at the mouth of the volcano and is much less orderly (not the ordinary branching, bolting lightning we’re used to seeing), manifesting as chaotic sparks probably  as the result of a heavy charge within the volcano itself.

- How many different kinds of lightning there are?

The answer to this question depends on who you ask, and what you consider a “kind” of lightning. The typical classifications are as follows:

Cloud-to-cloud (intercloud, which is lightning moving between separate clouds, and intracloud, which is lightning moving within the same cloud).

credit: Squidoo

Cloud-to-ground (Less common but more dangerous than cloud to cloud. If anything on the earth is struck by lightning, it was cloud-to-ground.) Cloud-to-ground lightning is more complex than a simple bolt shooting straight from a cloud, however, and includes charges moving up and down from both the cloud and the ground.

credit: NOAA Photo Library

Cloud-to-sky (Also known as sprites, cloud-to-sky lightning occurs in the upper atmosphere. They lack the hot temperatures of other types of lightning, and usually have a reddish-orange hue.)

credit: Wikipedia Commons

Lightning is also sometimes further specified as:

Ribbon lightning (Successive strokes of lightning are displaced by wind, resulting in a broadened appearance, almost like a double-exposed photo).

credit: Storm Highway

Bead lightning (The decay of the luminosity of the bolt of lightning, resulting in a beaded appearance. This happens very quickly and is difficult to capture.)

credit- meteoros.de

St. Elmo’s Fire This is not actually lightning, but often closely associated with it and seen during electrical storms. St. Elmo’s Fire (not to be confused with ball lightning as it often is) is the result of a gap in electrical charge. It’s made of plasma (ionized air that emits a glow) and, while lightning is the movement of electricity from a charged point, St. Elmo’s Fire is a coronal discharge that sparks up in the place where there is a drastic difference in charge between the air and an object like the mast of a ship or the steeple of a church. St. Elmo’s Fire is the same thing that happens in a fluorescent tube- essentially a continuous spark, glowing blue because of the particular combination of air molecules. It may also take on a purple hue.

St. Elmo’s Fire is very difficult to find accurate images or videos of. Many videos exist that claim to be St. Elmo’s Fire but are actually just static discharge (a frequent occurrence around airplanes in the midst of storms). An easy way to tell the difference is that St. Elmo’s Fire does not look like lightning- instead it emits a steady glow.

credit: meteoros.de

Ball lightning- The most mysterious type of “lightning”, there is some dispute among scientists as to whether ball lightning actually exists. Arc faults along power lines (which appear as large, impossibly bright balls of light) and photographic anomalies are both to blame.  Below is a video claiming to show ball lightning, and it actually matches pretty closely the most common descriptions of ball lightning, but whether it actually is is anyone’s guess.

-Staying safe during a thunderstorm

• Lightning regularly strikes water, so never go swimming or boating during a storm. If you are in the water when a storm begins, get out of the water as fast as you can.

• Lightning strikes will follow anything that conducts electricity, so stay off your landline phone during a storm and turn off/unplug your computers. If lightning strikes your house, even the most powerful of surge protectors will have a hard time protecting your equipment. (Radio waves do not conduct electricity, so as long as your cell phone is not plugged in to an outlet and you are not standing outside during the storm with the metal device held to your face, it is safe to use it. They do not inexplicably “attract” lightning more than any other object with metal in it).

• Lightning does in fact strike twice (the Empire State building is struck 20-25 times a year), so don’t rely on old adages for your safety information.

• If you are caught in a thunderstorm and cannot get inside to safety, crouch low to the ground but do not lay flat. Try to keep as much of your body from touching the ground as possible, because you are in more danger of being injured by currents traveling across the ground after a lightning strike than of being stricken directly by a bolt.

• A flash-to-bang (seeing lightning to hearing thunder) ratio of 5 seconds equals one mile of distance from the lightning. Ten seconds equals 2 miles, etc.

 -Lightning in Mythology

One has only to view an electrical storm themselves to understand why so many people have associated lightning and thunder with deity. A few popular myths and legends about lightning:

• Zeus (Jupiter to the Romans) is the planetary god of thunder, and his primary weapon is the thunderbolt (given to him by the Cyclops).

credit: History King

• The Thunderbird common to North American indigenous cultures is said to create thunder by the beating of its wings, and lightning is made by glowing snakes that it carries or directly from its eyes.

credit: ~elderblossom

• Thor is the Norse hammer-wielding god of thunder.

credit: fornsed.tumblr

Share your $0.02! Have you had any personal encounters with lightning? Have you or anyone you know been struck by lightning, or have you seen lightning phenomena you couldn’t explain? Share your experiences below!