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SILICON
SILIC
CHIP
www.siliconchip.com.au
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD
Editor
Nicholas Vinen
Technical Editor
John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.)
Technical Staff
Ross Tester
Jim Rowe, B.A., B.Sc
Bao Smith, B.Sc
Photography
Ross Tester
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David Maddison B.App.Sc. (Hons 1),
PhD, Grad.Dip.Entr.Innov.
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2 Silicon Chip
Publisher’s Letter
Incat’s world-class really fast ferries
– designed and built in Tasmania
Back in April this year I was fortunate to visit Incat’s
impressive production facilities in Hobart, Tasmania, as
the guest of Gary Johnston, of Jaycar Electronics. This
was actually an extension of a trip with Gary and Dick
Smith to attend the 35th birthday celebration dinner of
the Historical Radio Society in Melbourne where Dick
Smith was the keynote speaker at the event. That was a
most enjoyable experience but the trip to Incat was a truly memorable bonus as
we were given an extensive guided tour by the founder of Incat, Bob Clifford.
While the article starting on page 16 of this issue attempts to describe the
scale of the overall production facilities and gives some dimensions of the
vessels that we saw being built, being on-site gives an entirely different impression. These vessels are huge. For a start, they are 32 metres wide; that’s
over 100 feet in good olde Imperial units. This is the same beam dimension
as ships which comply with the so-called Panamax standard, allowing them
to – just – pass through the Panama Canal!
Even standing outside these ferries really doesn’t drive home just how big
they are. To fully appreciate their size, you have to walk the length of the ship
on the various decks, particularly the one which accommodates the massive
semi-trailers and which allows them to turn around at the end of the deck
and drive back out!
That these vessels are also designed and completely manufactured in little
old Tasmania with a highly skilled and highly motivated workforce is truly
gratifying. It shows that Australian companies really can compete with the
rest of the world, in spite of our high labour costs and distance from the main
markets in Europe.
LEDs are now the overwhelming choice for domestic lighting
If you have not recently visited some newly constructed homes or apartment blocks, you may not have realised how ubiquitous LED lighting in homes
has now become. In virtually every new home, the standard lighting source is
the flush-mounting LED downlight, designed to fit into a 90mm circular cutout in plasterboard ceilings. A typical 4-bedroom home could easily have 60
or more of these downlights. The once popular 12V halogen downlights and
those horrible compact fluorescent lights have gone but so has any other form
of incandescent (halogen or otherwise) and fluorescent lighting too.
This is good from an energy perspective, because it means that the lighting
energy limits in Australian building standards are now fairly meaningless.
People can have as much lighting in their homes as they want, without worrying about energy cost, climate change or any limits placed on them by overbearing government regulations. That is not to say that everything about LED
lighting is good – some of these fittings do generate a lot of interference and
there is no indication when you buy a LED fitting that it might be a problem.
Of course, you need not be confined to downlights for domestic lighting.
There is now a LED equivalent for virtually every conceivable lamp shape and
function with the only notable exception being those lamps exposed to high
temperatures, such as those used in ovens. The only drawback with some LED
lamps is that they may not be suitable for bedrooms and in living and dining
rooms, particularly those that are cool white.
Some people may find their light too bright and harsh. In that case, they
would need to choose warm white for those rooms and even then, probably
need dimmers in each bedroom and living room. And the old faithful dimmers which worked OK with incandescent may not be suitable, as we discuss
in the article starting on page 24 of this issue.
Leo Simpson
siliconchip.com.au
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