View allAll Photos Tagged Generators
Self made dirty visual synthesizer based on a VGA Signal Generator's circuit, modified in order to be audio reactive.
Video & Description:
BN Coach/Generator car #7301. This car is still in Baldwin City, KS at the Midland Railway, but unfortunately, vandals caused thousands of dollars of damage to it, and it has been out of service for a few years.
47402 hurries through Broomfleet with a London King's Cross - Hull service on 12th May 1991.
Olympus OM10 f/5.6 250th/sec Ektachrome 100
A change of pace
A few years ago I talked myself into an invitation to get a special tour of an old hydro power plant that is only a few miles from my house. It happens to be one of the first hydroelectric power stations built in the world, and as you can see by the date of the wall was turned on in 1898.
This is the first of several images I took there, but its also probably one of the best I got. It turned out to be a very challenging shoot. First of all the entire facility is two hundred feet down an open elevator shaft that was dug into the solid rock by the waterfall where this was built. I had to have an engineer with me at all moments and could only go in very specific places. (If you look closely you can see that this is spinning and actually generating electricity at the time I took this) Generators like this actually cast out fields of energy and if me or my tripod were to get to close the electricity could leap out and kill me. So I had to be a good boy and not climb all over the equipment like I wanted to. It was very hard to get the lens into good positions with these limitations. I also was not allowed to bring any lights down, So had to work with the very dark ambient light that was there, mostly open bulbs hanging from the ceiling. And since I'm in a deep dark cave, no windows of course, not any fill at all really. It was also *very loud* so I could not communicate very well with my minder. Given all those restrictions, I am happy with this result.
*****
If you want to geek out a bit about hydro power, read on: As I write these words, this particular power plant is being retrofitted with modern generators, so this old beast is now gone. This in fact was the oldest generator in the plant and even though it was constructed around 1898 was still functioning and putting out power that people in our region use. (Apparently the magnetos were rewound sometime in the 70's and they had to hire experts who could come in and rebuild this in the old school ways. There were I think 6 generators in the cave, but only two I think in the beginning. The man who built the power station had the foresight to use AC power (Westinghouse) rather than Edison's DC power. Edison built a plant at Niagara falls that made DC power but moving the DC power to the customers was very expensive and difficult, and it did not last long. The world chose AC power of course and DC power went away like sony's betamax. After building this power plant, the other challenge was that the power had to be carried by one of the first transmission lines ever built back to Tacoma. (some 45 miles I think) a massive task in its own for the times as they had to clear there way through wild forest. (Some of the key technology in this AC generator was made possible by the inventions of Nikolai Tesla who claimed to get his inventions completely realized in dreams or simultaneous flashes of insight. )
At this power plant they've added more generators about 4 times so they can capture more of the hydroelectric potential. Each time they added new versions the efficiency and capacity just about doubled. So if the first one made x power from x flow of water, the next generation drew 2x (twice as much) water and was twice as efficient. so each generation of new equipment meant quadrupling of energy efficiancy. And that has held true until this day. The most recent generators, are very powerful and effiecient relative to this old equipment. But until this last retro fit that started in 2009, they never replaced any of the old ones. So for the last hundred years are so they have been getting less than half of what could have been gotten from this precious clean resource. Why you wonder? Cheap petrochemicals made it more efficient to just burn more gas or coal rather than spend money to replace the old equipment. That era is coming to an end obviously and hence they are doing this major improvement. One of the reasons this is all of interest to me is that its revealing of how human societies make decisions. Choosing dirty fuels and not facing the hidden costs to health and the environment that when added up probably cost us more than just refitting the hydro power plant earlier. (It should also be noted that hydro power alone could not have given us all our energy needs so we probably would have been burning dirty fuels all along. But not facing real costs never gives us a chance to think about it in the first place. Maybe we would have developed other alternatives.)
So.... just across the mountains from this waterfall, on the eastern side of the Cascade range, is Grand Coulee Damn which still is one of the largest hydro electric power plants in the world. It was built during the depression with federal development money, (so sometimes government does get it right) and even though its only about 40 years later than this place, Grand Coulee generates electricity on a massive scale. (compare the generator above to this: scienceservice.si.edu/pages/010041.htm ) So much electricity, that when the aircraft industry started needing lots of aluminum for all the airplanes they were building because of world war II, They eventually turned to The Pacific Northwest because the amounts of electricity you need to smelt aluminum are vast. And that is why, my friends, Boeing is in the Seattle region today. Cheap electricity. Also of interest, they have since put a whole series of damns on the Columbia river and make lots and lots of power. Guess what the The 'Aluminum Plant' hog of electricity is today? Server Farms. Google, Microsoft and yes Yahoo/flickr all need massive amounts of power to store data, these very words and photos actually. And that is why they are building their server farms up here in the Pacific North West. Lots of relatively cheap electricity for spinning drives and the air conditioning to keep them cool. Server Farms take up more power than the largest Steel foundries. That always blows my mind a bit. So you see, in a strange ways you could never have imagined, this image here in my stream has many hidden meanings. Who could have predicted way back in 1898, that this machine would one day create the energy to preserve the image of itself and help spread those pixels across the world
Camera: Zenza Bronica EC-TL
Lens: 75mm Nikkor f2.8
Film: Ultrafine Extreme 100
Developer: Xtol
Scanner: Epson V600
Photoshop: Curves, Healing Brush (spotting)
Cropping: None
This is my first attempt to build a Flickr "Toy".
Flickr Slideshow Generator allows you to easily get the HTML necessary to insert a custom Flickr Slideshow in your page.
MFZ - Wasteland Scrappers - Station - Power Generator
While Wasteland Scrapper frames run on steam power, the systems on board frequently utilize electronic components. In order to be able to run reliably, a power generator is used to provide the necessary electricity.
Mobile Frame Zero is "a tense, tactical game of giant robot squad battle!". It is a tabletop battle game, akin to Warhammer 40k or Malifaux. Players design and build their own companies of microfig-scale "Mobile Frames" and "Stations".
If you're interested, you can find its webpage here:
and a flickr group dedicated to MFZ builds here:
The Hickok electrical instrument Co.
Cleveland, Ohio
Signal generator Model # 188x
serial # 1-6463
A signal generator, also known variously as function generator, pitch generator, arbitrary waveform generator, digital pattern generator or frequency generator is an electronic device that generates repeating or non-repeating electronic signals (in either the analog or digital domains). They are generally used in designing, testing, troubleshooting, and repairing electronic or electroacoustic devices; though they often have artistic uses as well.
There are many different types of signal generators, with different purposes and applications (and at varying levels of expense); in general, no device is suitable for all possible applications.
Traditionally, signal generators have been embedded hardware units, but since the age of multimedia-PCs, flexible, programmable software tone generators have also been available.
Without the generator the LA53r Artillery Battery would be no more than an expensive parade float. This stout machine boasts an output of 40,000 flargens of pure plasma energy a minute in order to sustain the raw power needed.
Camera: Leica CL
Lens: 40mm/f2 Leitz Summicron-C
Film: Rollei APX 25
Developer: Xtol
Scanner: Epson V600
Photoshop: Curves, Healing Brush (spotting)
Cropping: None
So at last I can reveal the shield generator! However I have a confession: It's only half a shield generator. And at that, the two rings I have built are only finished on one side. It will take many more Bricklink orders to complete. I added some flames to suggest the empire at in the middle of destroying it! I hope you enjoy what I've done so far. I'll be displaying it at a show in Ireland next weekend.
A Julia fractal based on a Circle orbit trap.
Created using the Fractal Science Kit fractal generator. See www.fractalsciencekit.com/ for details.
So at last I can reveal the shield generator! However I have a confession: It's only half a shield generator. And at that, the two rings I have built are only finished on one side. It will take many more Bricklink orders to complete. I added some flames to suggest the empire at in the middle of destroying it! I hope you enjoy what I've done so far. I'll be displaying it at a show in Ireland next weekend.
Inside the Hoover Dam. The peepz at the bottom left give some perspective as to the massive size of these things. The history of this place is amazing. Take the tour if you have the time.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam
Nevada-Arizona
August 17, 2005
Hydroelectric equipment is built to last. This powerful motor and generator set ran machinery inside Adams Power House No. 1 at Niagara Falls for almost 60 years.
Made by Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Canada Science and Technology Museum; Ottawa, Ontario.
So at last I can reveal the shield generator! However I have a confession: It's only half a shield generator. And at that, the two rings I have built are only finished on one side. It will take many more Bricklink orders to complete. I added some flames to suggest the empire at in the middle of destroying it! I hope you enjoy what I've done so far. I'll be displaying it at a show in Ireland next weekend.
CN 2937 has two idler cars and what I believe is a generator on an 8-axle flatcar (QTTX 130561) as it heads west through Beaconsfield. This is CN L351, a dimensional train that does not run very often. The movement is restricted to 25 mph, and the detector at MP 17 of the Kingston sub would indicate the train had 22 axles and was doing 24 mph. The load is bound for Flint, Michigan.
The tops of six hydro-electric generators at Boulder Dam outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, as seen from the viewing platform during the visitor tour.
© Al Andersen Photography, LLC.
All Rights Reserved.
Website: www.alandersen.com