Engineering

So I have a stubborn traffic light at the intersection that leads to my house, it's extremely annoying to deal with everyday. I've read that a Neodymium magnet can produce a high enough magnetic field to make even the most stubborn lights change. I've seen products for sell like Green Light Trigger, now I can buy a magnet off eBay, among other places, at much cheaper prices. So I'm wondering, what power Neo magnet would I need and about how large? I believe the powers range from N24 to N54. Also, these magnets do not hold up well under heat (anything over 175F/ 80C), so I've read. Do you think it would hold up if I stuck it on the inside of my engine bay (on the frame…

Hey, I've just been reading about some promising-looking technology for power generation. It basically consists of large underwater "windmills" that can be placed in areas of high tidal flow. They require no dams and, because they are harnessing moving water as opposed to moving air, they can get a lot more power than a similarly sized windmill. The downsides: the technology is expensive (though still in its infancy, so that will surely go down), they can only be placed in limited locations, and they only generate power when the tides are going in or out, and only peak in mid-flow. The first working plant will be an experimental version currently under construction in…

Simple question: When do you think the United States will completely switch to Ethanol based fuel in cars?

I am always interested in watching the shuttle launches and landings and now we have another foam problem. I understand why the foam is there, but what I don't understand is why they can't add some type of nylon netting over it to keep it from falling off if it breaks its bond. I understand the high forces, tremendous speeds, etc, but I also know that nylon netting (or other material)can be made pretty strong and light. What am I missing. Bee

I have a paddleboat that was thrown out by the previous owner because it has two four inch cuts in the bottom. The cuts are up to half an inch wide. What would be the cheapest, fastest fix?

Hello...I need some reference sites to "Smart antenna array technology"...I tried googling, but i just need a litlle bit more help in narrowing down my search... Thanks in advance.

Does anyone know how to hook up an air tight system to the soda cap so you can suck out the air to a vacuum and then fill it with gas at some where 80 PSI with a Hand Pump

In this case, I go through their specs. Peltier is very effiency, just only 38.44 cm^2 it can yield 882W of energy from heat. In the other hand, solar cells which only absorbs a small portion of the light spectrum, stretching about 1m^2 they can only harness 200 - 400W of energy. While, solar panels are more dear than peltier modules, very much higher in price. SO, i need advices and reasons from all of YOU. "TQ YOU" for our Advanced future

Ok, as some of you know already, I grow carnivorous plants. One particular group I'm very keen on are the tropical pitcher plants, and I've had some success recently with lowland species, who are used to constantly warm temperatures. However, many of the most spectacular (and gigantic, by which I mean "can eat rodents and possibly small monkeys") species are from tropical mountains, where the temperature drops into the 60's and even 50's at night, accompanied by 100% humidity. Of course, because I lack anything resembling a sense of when to stop, I want these, and thus I need a terrarium for them. I can't cool my apartment at night (partly because of my reptiles, p…

I have an appliance that uses 3 AAA batteries, and I have a charger that can only charge 2 or 4 AAA batteries at a time. I need a way of charging all 3 batteries at once using the charger, without overcharging or blowing something up. I could just buy another rechargeable battery and then charge all 4 of them, but i dont want to. I was thinking of maybe shoving something between the contacts of where the missing battery should go so it is a complete circuit, but that will probly blow something up, or overcharge the other batteries. Any ideas anyone?

I have been offered two optional courses I really want to do, but at the sametime been told that I can only choose one. The two courses are: Software engineering (programming) and Networking The thing is I really like them both. Quite good in Newtorking but keen to learn more. Programming; still learning, I like to think I can do it, I think I can. At the same time I want to learn it by all means necessary. It's just that when I was doing my project on programming recently, I was havinng loads of doubts, thinkin; is this for me?, do I consider myself as a coder?. I love programming, I wanna be there coding, I'm doin the best I can. As per Networking, I feel that…

this is a simply odd question that with my knowledge i dont have the proper answer for. my project is for a 69.5 ford maverick. what i would like to do is to mount a hood scoop that will sit beneath the hood until the speed begins to accelerate at which time the scoop will begin to rise out of the hood. i was thinking using the air flow to regulate the height but i am unsure of what i would need to do this. i would much appreciate the help.

I'm somewhere between stages 2 and 3 of my experience with entropy and the 2nd Law of Thermo and could use a bit of a sense check. I've been meditating on the fact that there's no entropy difference between colored balls that are all mixed up vs. ones that are separated according to color. When I extended this to the case of an isolated, rigid chamber containing two segregated ideal gases, I concluded that there isn't a change in entropy when the gases mix. Then I got to thinking about Boltzman's discovery of the relationship S = k*ln(W), which seems to confirm my conclusion because in this case W remains constant as the gases mix (and k is, of course, a constant …

Does anyone else here besides Pseudoswallo and me think that trebuchets are cool? Pseudo, I've only made one, a real lousy thing cobbled out of whatever scraps I could find, with a 5-foot bamboo arm and a bent nail for an axle. But I managed to pitch a large softball into the third yard down, and the neighbors all thought I was nuts. Mission accomplished. I have fantasies about making something better and larger, and dragging it about the neighborhood on hallowe'en dressed like a medeaval corpse collector, pitching fake heads down the street and hollering "bring out your dead".

I have conductive wire(measured resistance), I have new batteries, and yet when I hook the positive end to the negative end of the battery, with my wires, it won't produce current! Grrrr.... Does anybody know how to make this work? BTW, I'm using double A batteries. I need this in order to test an experiment which if it works(the principle this simple, something that's easy, would produce alot of money, but seems to be overlooked by people, but my condition makes things blatantly obvious to me, that are invisible to others), but I have to be able to draw current, before I can power other components of my experiment. Any assistance would be welcomed.

Hello. Would it be possible to create a simulator along the lines of a skydiving simulator, in the shape of a horizontal tunnel...that someone could run and jump into and the wind from below would keep them afloat and their momentum would propel them to the opposite side... flying like superman? Thank You Charles B

Anyone else here interested in ELF/VLF radio at all? it`s a hobby of mine, and wondered if anyone else was into the same thing and would like to share data. I use a modified version of this cct: http://www.auroralchorus.com/bbb4b.htm it works great and is Very easy to build and quite forgiving when it comes to component variance. I`m sure I`m not the ONLY one on this board with E-Fields as a hobby, am I:confused:

So when I first saw toy R/C blimps like these, my first thought was "hehe, cool" and my second was to wonder if it could be modified into a "spy blimp" without too much effort. The idea is to find a wireless camera small enough to be supported, mount it on maybe a 45 degree downward angle underneath (rotating would be ideal, but I know I'm pushing my luck), maybe boost the transmitter significantly beyond the 300 ft. range most of these things seem to have, wait for a calm day, and take a spin around (and above) the neighborhood from the control station at the television. So I guess my question is, does anyone have one of these? How much lift are we talking about (at …

OK I have a '92 Toyota Corrossion that is ready to pack it in and I have a replacement vehicle I am ready to switch the insurance to. Experiments? Here are somes ideas: 1. Replace engine with electric motor and batteries. 2. Replace engine with lawn mower and weed wacker engines. 3. Replace engine with bio-hybrid (2 squirrels and a chipmunk). 4. Add some canola oil, alcohol, and water to the gasoline. Here is what I am thinking. It is overpowered. I am a patient man. If I drive slow and am in no hurry to get up hills will I get more effciency if I have some water in the fuel? The alcohol is to help the water disolve evenly. The canola oil is to help protect th…

Hello. If a magnet can hold 150 lbs of metal, will it repel a magnet with the same force when placing like poles towards each other? Thank you. Charles B

I plan to build a 10-stage dual-branch Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier. The circuit looks as follows, but has more stages: My circuit will use 30 capacitors and 40 diodes. I want to connect it to a center-tapped transformer, each half giving 120 V AC. So, per capacitor, I can obtain appr. 350 V DC and the total output voltage can be 3500 V. I want to use 220 uF/400 V capacitors. This allows for an energy storage of 400 J in the total circuit! I have one problem. If I connect the device to my output transformer, then I expect it to blow out my fuse, due to the enormous initial charge currents. I already built a 3-stage device with 100 uF/400 capacitors…

Hey, I just signed up..this forum is damn cool! Im on a couple of strongman/powerlifting forums (my other hobby) but I cant believe I never though of finding a good science forum given that Ive persued a degree in practically every field (math, physics, bio, ect) but have yet to actually recieve one in any of them....120+ credits and nothing to show for it. Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone knew of a device that consists of a sensor and some kind of object that, when sensed by the sensor, triggers an electrical response. Sort of like a motion detector but instead of responding to motion, it responds to its accompanying object. If there is no exact device out the…

To All: I would like to invite both members and visitors of the ScienceForums.net Engineering Forum to start a discussion on Energy Conversion Systems -- ask questions of interest, share knowledge and experience related to Energy Conversion Systems technical performance analysis, modeling, operation and commercialization issues. Also, everybody is welcome to contribute to the Energy Conversion Systems thread/topic. Thanks, Gordan

I was just curious if anyone here generates some or all of their own electricity through stuff wind turbines, PV cells, or some other means, or even just solar heating. If so, what's your setup? How's it working out? Would you recommend it to others?

I have a solid steel cylinder, an aluminum ring surrounding the cylinder, and a steel ring surrounding that such that all are concentric. I want to put a large static charge on each (in the kV range) such that the alu ring will have a tendency to stay centered concentrically. How do I figure out the repelling force between the alu ring and the inside/outside cylinders? all the force equations I find are for point charges in a field. Also equations to predict when I will run into arcing. Thanks! -speakerguy