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Lots of electrical devices still have to be invented

5th June 2015

By: Terry Mackenzie-hoy

  

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I was reading an article about a young man who stayed in a house where they switched the geyser off every morning.

So he had a great idea: he would devise a mechanical finger that could be screwed onto a circuit breaker and would then switch the geyser off and on using a mechanical timer. Now there is a device that does this electrically. It was invented in 1904. Thus, the idea of the young man is so wrong it is incredible.

But there are still a lot of electrical things that have to still be invented. I thought I would list a few of them. They are listed below.

A reliable and easy-to-use computer. My staff do not remember what an XT computer was. Neither do they know it was the successor to the 286. Anyway, the XT was rugged and reliable and never crashed. Okay, it used drop-down menus and there was no Windows but, compared with the Windows-based computers that we have in the office, it was miles better. Compared with the MacBook we have in the office, it was like a kids primer, a book written in some obscure ancient language. It was easy to understand. If we accept that 80% of Africa currently has no access to computers and that this is going to change in the next ten years, then a rugged and reliable easy-to-use computer has a huge market.

Next item. I see that Bosch has an app which links to a laser measuring device. Using a smartphone, one takes a photograph of an area and then, as you use the laser, the dimensions of the area appear on the photograph. This is an astonishing invention. It should be improved to include outdoor geography. Even better, would it not be great if the device scanned automatically?

Next item. An automatic synchronising circuit breaker. When I was in Mozambique, I stayed with some Russian scientists. Yes, vodka, of course. The camp was powered by three diesel generators. The scientists turned the generators on and off in a cycle. When they wanted to stop a generator, they went to the switchboard and opened the circuit breaker. The generator shut down. When they wanted to start a generator, they would close the circuit breaker. The alternator would act as a starter motor and then, when the diesel engine started, there would be a pause and a click and . . . the generator would synchronise. No brains required. Since we are obviously moving into an area where home generation is going to become the norm, this device obviously has its place.

Next. An ultrasonic leak detector for hotel doors. We are, at any time, working on at least one or two hotels, designing the acoustics. Once the hotel is finished, we have to go and check that each hotel guestroom door is properly sealed. To do this, we use a small smoke generator. By viewing the smoke screens, we can see if the seals are in place or not. It takes about five minutes per door. In a 500-room hotel, this is a long time. It would be great if there was a device which could be placed in the room and would generate an ultrasonic noise and, with a receiver, we could easily tell if the room was sealed.

Next: Streetlight poles which are thin. It has always struck me that the streetlight pole has no real function other than to hold the streetlight up in the sky. It is of the necessary robust construction because it has to support the light fitting under high wind conditions. However, the light fitting is not very heavy – 8 kg at the most. So, why not make the pole flexible and thin and make the fitting with a gimbal housing so that no matter how the pole waves about, the fitting is stable. If we reduce the pole section, then the wind loading wall is reduced by the cube of the diameter of the pole. It has got to be a saving. A further thought: why don’t we make the streetlight pole painted glow-in-the-dark?

Well, these are the ideas. You people go out and make them.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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