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Japan is odd for another reason. The two “halves” of the country are on different frequencies. I believe the West is at 50 Hz and the East and North is 60 Hz. They have a collection of DC interconnects in the middle of the country to facilitate power sharing across this otherwise intransigent gap. Since the shutdown of Fukushima, those interconnects have been under quite a bit of strain, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

The one negative that most stands out in my mind for the Sony A33 actually has the least to do with its abilities as a camera. The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about shooting with it isn’t whether I’ll be able to bring back the shots I want with it, but rather whether the battery will last long enough to do so. We have no doubt that the Sony A33 will meet the fairly generous shot-life numbers quoted under the CIPA specs (340 shots with the LCD, 270 with the EVF), but in actual practice, with the camera rattling off hundreds of shots in amazingly short order, what most struck me was just how fast I seemed to run out of battery life. It’s quite easy to run through a full battery in just a couple of hours of active shooting, and two batteries should be considered a minimum for a day of serious shooting.

OK … back to the task at hand. Anyone care to comment on how a toaster oven is wired? How about a thermal blanket? None of these use a 12V or 24V switching power supply brick, so how do they do it???

I find it fascinating how the difference has also impacted the very different “styles” of electrical standards, construction, equipment, etc…the US has had to worry about thermal issues in different ways because of the lower voltage, but that also extended to higher voltage equipment as well, and an overall concern regarding fire (particularly in non-residential installations) when at the same time, we had a lot more natural resources piled around so in the US, we focus heavily on metallic enclosure and grounding (and the fact that our neutrals are meaningful when most Euro outlets are non-polar). At the same time, engineers were far more plentiful (and far less expensive) in postwar Europe than in the US, and the electrician:engineer ratio was very different. Likewise, that’s why NEMA and IEC in many ways are so different (NEMA is overbuilt, maintainable, easily specified but expensive and not particularly precise in application, meant for an electrician to be able to come up with the right contactor, etc.) whereas IEC stuff is more resource- and space-efficient but requires specification. Double-insulation is instead the focus in Europe, which doesn’t need any more metal to accomplish.

The Chinese aren’t any more corrupt or corner cutting than any other manufacturing country ….. Since they are 3 1/2 times larger than the US then I’d expect to see 3 1/2 times more corruption and corner cutting …. It’s like CO2 output, yes China puts out more as a nation but per person the US puts out over 3 times more CO2 plus we had a 100 year head start which is why we are more responsible for the Global Warming problem (along with Europe) than China is by a considerable margin …..

I can’t speak for the Model 3 since I don’t know anyone who owns one yet, and Tesla has removed charging rates at 110 volts from their distance calculator.

I’ve done enough research about power capacitors and mains voltage that after I unplug anything, including all the TV’s that I work on, to repeatedly press and/or hold the power button until I’m satisfied that it’s discharged before cracking it open.

Michael Ashbaugh writes technical analysis for MarketWatch and is editor of MarketWatch’s "The Technical Indicator" newsletter.

Although a mains powered heated bed sounds scary for a hobbyist-built 3D printer, there are a number of positives to the design. It would heat up faster, thin down a few parts, and significantly reduce the overall cost of the printer by not requiring another 100 Watts delivered from a 12V power supply. It’s a great idea if it doesn’t burn down the house. Anyone want to help?

This is true in a certain temperature range, I think between 70 and 90% of their nominal power. And in spite of that there are so many lamps with halogen bulbs, which are fitted with dimmer circuits. And you know why? Because the bulbs are very cheap, so nobody cares And they are often used as heating elements: in a professional reflow oven (3000,- euro class) and in laser printers. But in the end I think for the heated print bed you do NOT want a radiative heat source, it complicates the things

Many people do not own their own home and must deal with a landlord, who may feel that providing a high-quality 110 volt receptacle for the car to recharge is the end of their responsibility.

In this case, multiply the number of times you charged the car by 8.9 kWh for a low estimate of electric power consumed. For a better estimate, you need to know what the battery charging losses are. It takes more than 8.9 kWh to charge an 8.9 kWh battery – some of the power gets lost to heat. I can’t find authoritative data, but posters on Tesla forums claiming to have measured this report losses between 10 and 20%. If you assume it’s 15%, then it’ll take 8.9 / (1 – .15) = 10.5 kWh to charge the Niro’s battery.