For the time being, Ampyx Power in the Hague is aiming for heights of on average 450 metres. Maybe jet streams will be the next step.
Hello,
Wouldnt it be nice if all human beings would have a kind of device integrated that would keep track of the negative effects of that person upon the environment. So by the time you are getting older you can adjust your life style to have some extra years on this planet.
If people would have been " designed " to get as old as they get now they surely would have get a set of new teeth at the age of 50.
An institution like marriage dates from the time that one of the pair would pass away before boredom sets in.
Greetings, Eduard
Wouldnt it be nice if all human beings would have a kind of device integrated that would keep track of the negative effects of that person upon the environment. So by the time you are getting older you can adjust your life style to have some extra years on this planet.
If people would have been " designed " to get as old as they get now they surely would have get a set of new teeth at the age of 50.
An institution like marriage dates from the time that one of the pair would pass away before boredom sets in.
Greetings, Eduard
On an audio note, I can think of one company that's a big offender: Omniphonics. I'm sure nobody has heard of them, but they were a little British company that made amplifiers. As it happened, Quested used them as their amplifier supplier for quite a while in a few of their actives, as well as in their systems- this was before MC2 existed. They're a 1u MOSFET amplifier based around the LM391 IC. They actually sound really pretty good, but here's a list of design issues that I can think of:
1) They're running +/- 60V on the LM391, which is 10V higher than it's datasheet rating. Yikes!
2) There isn't a lot of input protection. There are a couple of diode clamps, but that's it. Disconnecting / connecting inputs while the amp is running has a high chance of blowing the LM391.
3) Basically zero EMI filtering on the incoming AC line.
4) Main filter caps are 10,000 uF LCR brand axial caps with very thin leads. The quality of the caps is not awesome, but the big problem is that the leads are prone to shearing. Later versions fixed this using snap-in electrolytics, but those caps were run right on the bleeding edge of their voltage ratings.
5) Wired for pin-3 hot.
6) EXTREMELY prone to grounding loops / ground noise / grounding issues. In fact, I like to call those dangerous "ground lifting" adapter plugs "Omniphonics adapters" for this very reason. Jensen transformers are pretty nice for that reason.
7) All of the screws on the entire chassis are threaded into grooves on the heatsinks (which form the sides of the amplifier). They're a relatively fine screw thread too, and they always strip out.
8) It is a 1U rackmount design with a 1/8" aluminum front panel and too much weight at the back. There's no good way to do rear support on these, and by now most of them have a visibly distorted front panel if they were rackmounted as a result.
All of that said, they're a pretty nice amplifier... when they work. Nice size, fanless, and they really sound pretty good. I may take the time to do some modifications to the three that I have to try and improve their reliability.
1) They're running +/- 60V on the LM391, which is 10V higher than it's datasheet rating. Yikes!
2) There isn't a lot of input protection. There are a couple of diode clamps, but that's it. Disconnecting / connecting inputs while the amp is running has a high chance of blowing the LM391.
3) Basically zero EMI filtering on the incoming AC line.
4) Main filter caps are 10,000 uF LCR brand axial caps with very thin leads. The quality of the caps is not awesome, but the big problem is that the leads are prone to shearing. Later versions fixed this using snap-in electrolytics, but those caps were run right on the bleeding edge of their voltage ratings.
5) Wired for pin-3 hot.
6) EXTREMELY prone to grounding loops / ground noise / grounding issues. In fact, I like to call those dangerous "ground lifting" adapter plugs "Omniphonics adapters" for this very reason. Jensen transformers are pretty nice for that reason.
7) All of the screws on the entire chassis are threaded into grooves on the heatsinks (which form the sides of the amplifier). They're a relatively fine screw thread too, and they always strip out.
8) It is a 1U rackmount design with a 1/8" aluminum front panel and too much weight at the back. There's no good way to do rear support on these, and by now most of them have a visibly distorted front panel if they were rackmounted as a result.
All of that said, they're a pretty nice amplifier... when they work. Nice size, fanless, and they really sound pretty good. I may take the time to do some modifications to the three that I have to try and improve their reliability.
Your question is: How long will it work. Things will fail, network will degrade from lack of maintenance.
I've got one of those. I paid the princely sum of £2.50 plus £2 postage for it s/h.
Never had any problems with it but then I use it as a tweeter amp in an active set up.
There is also a badge-engineered version known as BeyerDynamic Blueprint A150 which was quite popular as a headphone amp.
Jet streams are much higher. Typically 10.000 metres. Steady strong winds West to East.
The Grid is likely to panic and shut down within a few hours. it requires a lot of human intervention to keep it running.
It's very possible Omniphonics got their act together in later models as well. The three that I have are dated 89, 90 and 92, so they're pretty old. They pre-date the footprint series.
I think the footprint series came after Quested switched to using MC2 amplifiers. The three that I have are all badged as Quested and to be fair they've been around the block for a while.
They sound pretty good, but they're a little unstable. On my long list of things to do (so it won't happen for a while) is to design a retrofit board (that would have to be shoehorned into the chassis) with some better input filtering and DC protection. Of course, there are a lot of other amplifiers that would probably benefit from this as well.
They sound pretty good, but they're a little unstable. On my long list of things to do (so it won't happen for a while) is to design a retrofit board (that would have to be shoehorned into the chassis) with some better input filtering and DC protection. Of course, there are a lot of other amplifiers that would probably benefit from this as well.
From where do you pull this ?
I am very interested to know about the parts of automation and human intervention. The facts, not opinions.
If I told you I'd have to shoot you. All I can say is my day job is related to critical national infrastructure.
Now I can only talk for the UK, and all other markets will do thing differently,.
Take a look here and you can see lots of pretty graphs about where the UK gets its power from. Now the national grid, whose job it is to get power to our homes and businesses does not own any power generation equipment. That is held privately and the power is sold to the grid. The job of the grid is to keep UK mains at 50Hz +/-0.2Hz and they do that by controlling the power being delivered.
Controlling the power means waving money under the generators noses. During the day the spot price for electricity can vary hugely and is sometimes negative (they will pay for you to take it). Throughout the day the NG litterally tender for power 'Can I have 1GW extra between 3 and 4pm'. People quote and one offer gets accepted. There is a lot of automation in this, but it still needs people to do a few critical functions and a man to call upone that power when it's actually needed. Edit: And they do actually check when TV programs end as that can cause a huge spike in demand as people put the kettle on. Luckily dinorwig was built to handle that. Dinorwig Power Station - Wikipedia
With no people even with a constant load once the people had vanished it will get dark, solar will cut off and the grid will have a problem without human instruction. It might balance ok with the so-called spinning reserve, but the automation on that is still low. So I'd reckon a load dump would occur on the first night that would cascade through the system and not recover.
But happy to be proved wrong by someone deeper in the guts of this.
Smart grid is a long way off still, despite what politicians might say.
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