Success  
Television
Computer

Failures
Electrical Transformers

Television

The History

   Some scientists had researched television’s fundamental principles all over the world about 50 years before television’s appearance to a real world. Combining modulated light and a scanning wheel to reconstruct a scene in line-by-line sweeps was their primary field of research. John Baird in England was a first person who attained transmitting a recognizable image in 1925. Philo T. Farnsworth, from Utah, procured a scanning cathode ray tube patent, and Vladimir Zworykin of RCA invented a superior television camera in 1930. Television has become popular after the World War II (WWII). People started to purchase a television for about $500, and it is almost one-sixth of their annual salary at the time. In 1950, five years after the WWII, rectangular cathode-ray tube was developed by engineers, and the price was cost down to about $200. More people were afford to buy a set of television because of that, and 45 million units were sold in 10 years.

The Mechanism and Direction

   More than 100,000 picture elements (pixels) construct an image on a modern color television screen, and they are arranged in 512 lines in normal television. The image on a screen is changed in infinitesimally short time (every few hundredths of a second). A screen is coated with millions of tiny dots of fluorescent compounds and they emit light that makes the image on the screen when struck by high-speed electrons.

   Today there are plenty of sizes and types of television. Handy size screens, car equipped screens, Movie-style wide screens and flat screens are currently available. Liquid crystal display (LCD) panels that are achieved by cathode ray tubes with power-hungry electron guns are getting popular, and High Definition Television (HDTV) using 1024 scanning lines and digital signals are being introduced to incarnate much sharper picture.

The Reason

    Television has been sold over a few hundred million units worldwide so far. The main reason for this popularity is that everybody is able to know news of the world aurally, visually, instantly, and anytime even if you are not one of the witness of the event or incident. Also, you can enjoy almost all entertainment such as sports, movie, and concert, just staying at home. For educational purpose, people are able to learn the history by images using videotape. For many, television is one of the vital items for their life [1].

Computer

The History

    The world's first electronic, large scale, general-purpose computer, activated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946 is well known ENIAC that invented by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. The ENIAC used thirty separate units, plus power supply and forced-air cooling, weighed over thirty tons, and occupied large rooms. 200 kilowatts of electrical power was consumed by its 19,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, and hundreds of thousands of resistors, capacitors, and inductors.

    Random Access Memory (RAM), which accelerates information retrieving quick and easy was developed by MIT's Whirlwind project based on the ferrite core memories invented by An Wang in 1947. Today's computer's components were developed in 1950s: Central Processing Unit (CPU); operating systems; programming languages, etc.
   
    In 1958 Jack Kilby introduced the integrated circuit (IC). It changed the computer system. Primarily CPU and memory devices took advantage of it. The millions of transistors were mounted on IC to increase the computer performance.

    In 1964 IBM released the System 360, which has unchanged operating system from model to model, for public. Intel released the first microprocessor in 1971, and it proliferated the computer performance more and more in many forms.

    The PC was introduced by IBM in 1981, and it contained Intel microprocessor and Microsoft DOS operating system. Two years later, Macintosh were introduced by Apple Computers, and this was a beginning of the consumer computers revolution in making them more efficient to use.

The Reason

   We can see computers everywhere we go. Without them, engineer jobs would be  the way behind to be completed compare with the today's computer based society. Computer changed and are helping the engineer's tasks very much in designing, calculating, drawing, and communicating.

    The CAD application allows engineers to make a design neat and precise. Programming languages help engineers to calculate huge and complicated system, and  astronomical number of equations in the short time. Engineers are able to save their time, on making a report, convey their ideas or products, and exchange their ideas world wide , using a document software,  internet, and email. Even they may remotely attend the meeting from outside of the meeting room with web system called net meeting

The Direction

    For engineers, computers are absolutely necessary item in their job in today's world. The performance of a computer is being developed in speed of process, the way of application, and the usage, day by day to make our life easy and comfortable. Engineers have to spend their time with computers. A computer will be an item for engineers to make a product faster, safer, and more reliable than today [2].

Transformer Failure

    It is difficult to find the Electrical Engineering failures. There are many electronic device based disasters. But they are mostly installed in mechanical or civil products, such as a cars, planes, buildings. Thus consulting with internet homepages, I found that transformer sometimes causes the disaster, literary they fails. Although the transformer is not the 20^th century's, we introduce it as a representative Electrical Engineering failure.

    Transformer is a device which transfer electric energy from one alternating-current circuit to one or more other circuits. During the transfer, it increases (stepping up) or decreases (stepping down) the voltage. It changes voltage using electromagnetic induction. Since the flux lines of force (known as the magnetic lines of force) are generated and collapse with the current change going through the primary coil, current is induced in secondary coil. You can calculate the secondary voltage by  multiplying the primary voltage by the ratio of the number of turns in the secondary coil to the number of turns in the primary coil.

It is primarily used for two purposes:

·        To raise the voltage from electric generators, therefore, electric power can be transmitted in long range.

·       To reduce the voltage of a circuit to run low voltage devices

The Cause and Result

    One reason why the power transformer fails is overheating. When a transformer gets hot, "thermal fuse" which is a sensitive device against heat opens up. This spoils the transformer function, and makes its life over.

 
    Another reason for the power transformer failure is a continuous heavy current drawing. If the current is being drawn for long time through the unit, excessive heat is built up and damages to the transformer.

            Transformer failure causes the fire in most case, and sometimes it leads explosion.

The Prevention

·        Well ventilate to cool a transformer down.

·        Do not place anything on a transformer.

·        Do not turn on the power of an unit (product) for a long period.

·       Do not use any unnecessary power; ex. using high level of the volume control [3].