Electrical Industry Articles and Stories

Emerson says it has introduced the world’s first hybrid panel board designed to serve as a single point of control for both power and fiber communications to serve the burgeoning Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market.

The company’s Appleton PlexPower Fiber Panel is specifically designed for hazardous locations such as petrochemical plants, chemical plants, wastewater treatment centers, pulp/paper facilities, corrosive indoor and outdoor environments and other locales where flammable gases or vapors are present.

Kids. You've got to love the little rug rats. It's so much fun to watch as they scoot around the floor. For years, my wife ran a childcare service from our home.

We also have three grandkids of our own, all of them girls. The oldest is seven (going on 15) and the other two are four-year-old twins.

Don’t look now, but those new light fixtures in your lab, office or cafeteria may be doing a lot more than illuminating the space.

They may also be actively disinfecting your immediate surroundings, suppressing the growth of a wide range of common bacteria, molds, fungi and yeast that can lead to individual and public health risks.

Steel fittings in a variety of formulations have been liquidtight raceway products of choice since the early days of electrical distribution. When these products have been galvanized, a thin zinc coating offers corrosion resistance for use in many outdoor and exterior applications where non-galvanized steel might otherwise rust through. But electrical wiring requires extra protection in more significantly corrosive environments. So, contractors need to consider materials that offer more advanced protection in settings where chemicals, salt spray and other damaging substances are common.

With an average age of 58, according to 2018 National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) figures, electrical contractors might not fall into the “early adopters” category, when it comes to technology use. However, electrical pros are increasingly seeing the value in the range of construction software and other productivity tools now available as mobile device apps.

If you work with electrical processes or electronics, fuses are obviously a part of your life. While circuit breakers are used for many applications, the good old fusible link in its various forms and iterations is still a necessary part of many circuits.

Fuses come in different shapes, sizes, and functions. When choosing a fuse for a circuit, choose carefully. The characteristics vary widely, and you need to use the one for the application you're designing.