Every year divisible by four with remainder one, adventurous geeks hold an outdoor festival in the Netherlands. This year, about 6000 people are expected to attend a long weekend.
Among them will be a group of experimenters who will be testing a 42 volt direct current grid. Specifically, a cluster of tents within the festival will receive approximately 50 × 4 Amperé supplies and 8 × 16 Amperé supplies. Hopefully, this will be run by solar power but there will also be a backup generator. Switching a high load of direct current is more complicated than alternating current and losses around the example MOSFET circuit are expected to be less than 0.2W per junction. Although people are expected to bring together previously untested circuitry, it is hoped that pieces of the project will inspire multiple direct current grids in more permanent locations.
Hopefully, electrocution or voltage drop doesn't halt electrical distribution at the festival.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 02 2017, @03:00PM (1 child)
Correction, my friend: ANY electrical system, AC or DC, that uses one pair of wires has a SINGLE live wire. The other wire is neutral. Touch the live wire and you risk current travelling thru you as the electricity finds an alternate path other than the usual one. Most people call this "ground". Source: Electrical Engineer.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Monday July 03 2017, @05:38PM
Would this be a good place to touch on capacitance as a factor in AC circuits? Higher frequencies exhibit less resistance across a capacitor (or, perhaps, an ungrounded human) than do lower frequencies. Not being (or having consulted with) and electrical engineer, however, I am not the best person to explain this.
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