Photos Latest Purchases Thread: v2.0

Oh now you are getting into another load of fun and games. We kinda already have this in the form of "active" lightning protection.

The world of lightning protection is split into two "sides", those who are adherents to the passive, Faraday cage, Franklin rod type systems (the vast majority) and there are those who support the active lightning protection systems (more popular in France, Spain, and Portugal).

A passive system is fairly straight forward, we apply lightning protection materials to those points of a building that are more likely to be struck in the first place, corners, edges and so on. These conductors can then be supplemented by the addition of vertical rods to provide additional protection over things like roof equipment such as air handling units and solar panels. This is all then linked down to ground level by a series of conductors placed around the perimeter and these connect to an earthing system of either rods or a perimeter ring conductor. It is more of a system that intercepts the lightning at those points that are going to be struck, it does not attract lightning to it.

There used to be another popular passive system type called charge dissipation arrays, but these are rarely seen these days with that technology largely rubbished now.

The other side, the active protection systems used to make use of 2 types of terminal, radioactive tips that used blocks of radioactive metal to charge the air around the terminal (these were generally made illegal in the 80s) and a technology called Early Streamer Emission terminals (ESE). These use a system whereby componentry within the tip of the rod gathers charge from the surrounding air and via a combination of capacitors and spark gaps release an upward leader that is larger, faster moving, and is released earlier than natural ones released from structures prior to a strike thus intercepting the lightning at a greater distance and protecting a larger area - these do claim to attract lightning to them by this upward leader or producing an area of greater charge around them. The problem here is that almost all studies that have been carried out on these and have stood up to review show that an ESE terminal and a plain metal rod behave in exactly the same way as each other. A statement echoed by the international standard for lightning protection - IEC 62305:2024 where part 3, section 5.2.1 - Air termination systems, General states:

"For all types of air terminals only the real physical dimensions of the metal air termination systems shall be used for the determination of the volume protected"

Which pretty much says that whilst active terminals can be used, they behave no better or worse than a plain rod of the same dimensions.

Needless to say this subject gets more than a little political within the lightning protection industry...

 

Radiation and lightning - I think I want that on my epitaph

 

Bit late to party but got elden ring and dlc and fallout 4 on gog so i can play london on my ally this weekend

 

It's pretty cool that earth magic can hit back at air magic.

 

Thankfully they are also the rarest.

Most common is cloud to cloud although these can be quite nasty to electrical systems as they can effectively create a wire equivalent that is running parallel to the ground with a massive current going through it and throwing off all sorts of electromagnetic fields. If those fields then cut through power lines, which also run parallel to the ground, it can induce substantial surge currents in those lines.

next is cloud to ground, the stereotypical strike that everyone thinks of. Can cause direct damage as well as indirect current induction.

Lastly is the ground to cloud strikes. Think of it this way, the earth has the potential for a massive amount more charge than the comparatively small cloud above it. If that charge is released up from a building, it is still current attaching to a point of a structure, lightning doesn't "care" which way the current is flowing for things like resistive heating at the attachment point, or internal sparking and side flashes, only this time the current has the potential to be much higher than what we think of a strike being.

When we talk of test currents that are used for system and component design, the 200 kA currents used with systems that are designed with the highest level of risk mitigation in mind, level 1 systems, these are the ground to cloud ones that we are looking at. Thankfully, there is a 97% chance that a strike will have less current than this.

 

Can't beat a bit of Quatermass

 

9 phantek reverse fan 140mm and 2 normal 140mm fans to replace my Lian-Li infinitys.

 

My 15+ year old Ikea Markus has finally given up the ghost, so I needed a replacement immediately... back to Ikea on a Sunday morning!

GRÖNFJÄLL Office chair with headrest (Ikea photo, not my office)

 

Centauri Carbon FBT Bundle to go along with the rest of my dev gear!

Now I just need TI to stop messing me around and send me my evaluation board! -_-

 

Lots of good food and drinks in Greece.

 

I love Greece! Weather is great, water is warm, the people are wonderful, the food and drink are delicious and ridiculously cheap. Especially outside Athens, so nice. I'd go more often if there was a train route there. Last time I went I had sea legs for two days after the ferry back because the weather was so windy.

 

Note that Elegoo have contributed the CC's profiles to Orcaslicer (open source/multi-platform) if you don't want to use their own slicers (which are both Windows only).

 

I'm a windows slave, so thats fine! It'll be weird moving on from Cura!

 

We have the HP Color Laser 150, which whilst 90% of photos have the paper drtaw tucked in, it (or at least ours) wont print like that... doesnt do auto-duplex though.

 

I've owned one of those for some years, I got fed up with inkjets that aren't ready to do a big bit of kids' homework having been left for a week or 2, and the cost of ink.

I've refilled it using the kit from urefill toner, it has cogs to reset the measuring system and timer to pop in the cartridges.
Initial (not full) set plus one refill has done 6+ years I'd say.
It is BIG brute, and will have to redesign my new desk around it when I remodel the spare room office.

I regret not jumping in a second one locally on Gumtree a few months ago for £80.
I thought about it and it was gone

 

Free Ride by Noraly Schoenmaker and Close to Calm by Nigel Danson.

 

was all set to buy a bluetooth space mouse compact. when i spotted a space pilot pro brand new for less. granted its previous gen and is wired. but it will do for me

 

I love this country and the people as well. The wife and I usually go one a year to Corfu. This time we're in Thessaloniki, very different but same level of great experience. We now see another side of the country and people: a mainland city with almost a million people instead of an island village with about 500 people.

33 degrees is a tad warm, but the wind from the sea makes it bearable.