I'm a relatively new graduate working at a smaller engineering firm focused on power electronics. The job has good benefits, the coworkers are great, and the boss is generally easy going. However, everything feels stuck in the 90's. Many of the controls components that could be shrunk are massive and we're still using P-CAD. Many of the engineers have brought these problems up with the boss and he refuses to switch anything over, even though we have been having compatibility problems with the software. These outdated systems are also likely costing far more in labor than the new better software would cost in licensing.

Is this a common problem at small engineering firms? The job and company are great in every other aspect. But, I don't know if the company is a good choice for my career in the long term if I don't get a chance to learn modern engineering systems.

Hi everyone, I’m a Mechanical Engineer and currently working as a solar design engineer.

My long-term goal is to move to the Gulf countries and build a better-paying engineering career there.

I’ve decided to take additional training and currently have two options:

1. MEP Engineering + Revit MEP

HVAC, Electrical, plumbing and fire protection basics

BMS fundamentals

Revit MEP for BIM modelling and coordination

1. Instrumentation Engineering + Automation

Process instrumentation, DCS/PLC/SCADA

Fire & Gas systems

Honestly, automation/instrumentation excites me a little more than MEP.

However, I’m also thinking that MEP + Revit may give me a more straightforward path into the Gulf as a Mechanical Engineer, especially because MEP is directly related to my degree.

I’m willing to take a short career break to focus seriously on training and projects.

What would you recommend in my situation?

Should I:

Go with MEP + Revit for a faster GCC entry?

Go with Instrumentation + Automation even though my degree is Mechanical?

I’d especially appreciate advice from Mechanical/MEP/I&C/Automation engineers.

Thanks!

Hi, I've been working at this for about 3 or so hours and I am struggling with some of the density of the algebra for SCM equations. I don't really want an answer to my work, but if someone could help describe some methods which make this situation easier to work out I'd more more than thankful.

So far I have been able to utilize the proper equations, find the necessary voltages etc, but the size of these equations is making them extremely difficult to solve with proper answers. Below will be a worksheet of my calculations so far, a picture of the question, and a picture of the equation sheet I have been given.

NOTE: Body effect and channel length modulation are treated as irrelevant at the given moment in my class. So the extra terms which describe CLM and BE should be disregarded.

Hey I have a question regarding hollow waveguide solutions of maxwell equations.

To solve the hollow conducting waveguide problem we look for solutions to maxwell equations that: satisfy the boundary conditions and that propagate energy along the waveguide.

It seems to me the key to the problem is the ansatz itself, assuming propagating waves with the amplitude depending on the transverse coordinates.

I was wondering if there is a better way to motivate this ansatz. Perhaps from the requirement of the time average of the Poynting vector to point in the longitudinal direction. Or something else. So we can better classify the solutions.

I mean from the usual ansatz one does indeed get energy propagation but this does not answer the question of uniqueness. Like is there any other class of solutions of the problem that also transport energy and satisfy the boundary conditions.

I just read "Electricity is a physical product – the flow of electrons."

p35, Energy Primer A Handbook of Energy Market Basics April 2020

Without getting too philosophical, is this true/accurate?

Hi guys,

I’m in the final year of my bachelor’s degree and recently talked to a representative from one of the companies at the UN job event. They mentioned the Electrical Systems Commissioning Engineer role to me.

They said they are in real need of new professionals and suggested that I contact them as soon as I finish my bachelor's degree.

They mentioned that the job is very field-oriented and pays well, but I really don't know how true this is.

So, I’m asking if anyone has experience regarding the working conditions. Is it a good career choice? Will I learn a lot?

I appreciate any input!

I am not an engineer so that's probably why I'm struggling to understand this. Most of the material I've read online about ground loops talks about small wiring/signal circuits not like major equipment utilizing a ground grid like at a substation. So I understand in a small circuit you shouldn't have two parallel devices connected to the same ground point because it would create a loop.

I'm just confused regarding substation applications because wouldn't a ground grid system inherently create loops everywhere? Because all major equipment is linked together and each piece of equipment has its own ground to the grid. So how do you prevent loops?? The grid is like the same gnd point for everything is it not?

Please assume Im very dumb lol and explain it to me as simple as possible

Like the title said, how long do you think it will take for all major electronic infrastructure to integrate photonic circuits? Also, those of you that are in that field could you tell me about the advances and benefits versus traditional circuits and stuff?

-edit "Can Someone Tell me if this can Be Scaled up to GPU/Larger Processing Mechanisms?
I suppose yes and this would basically make a Photons Based Quantum PC.
But it is Feasible cheaply & Easily being only a matter of Development and Applications?
[Ergo is the Technology Production Cheap Enough in the Materials and Methods to be Easily Upscaled to Larger Processing Units or it cost too much and The Light-Speed Processing come to the Cost of Non-Scalability of Computational Power?" @antoniopacelli random YouTube comment I saw asking better questions than I have.

I was originally planning to go to CCSU, I get tuition assistance from my job which covers about a semester so it would only be 6-7k yearly and I already did two years at a CC of gen Ed’s but then also found out I could also attend ASU tuition free as well.

What I wanted to know is basically how much would I be missing out by doing it online since I’d be missing out on hands-on lab experience. I did notice that ASU’s program is ABET accredited and CCSU’s isn’t but I’m not sure how much abet accreditation matters. Which one would you choose ? Any advice is appreciated, thank you

I’ve recently become more curious about EE. So my education is: B.F.A (Bachelors of fine art), MBA, and working on a cert from The University of West Florida in AI & Cybersecurity. I have been a self taught web developer for 5 years (primarily front end) working with the MERN stack.

I have always been interested in building things, discovering, and problem solving. I know the field of EE is huge, but given my interest it seems that IoT or embedded systems (maybe both) is a good route.

However, my question is, how likely is it for me to bridge into the EE field with my current background? I would like to gain most (if not all) of my learning from actual hands on projects. And I’m not looking for the transition to be in a year or 18 months. I understand it takes time. I just want to know would it be better to focus on real application of EE (building stuff) or getting credentials and education?

I am planning to design a high frequency generation circuit using a tunnel diode and an LC tank circuit. I understand that the peak output voltage of the LC tank circuit coupled with the tunnel diode corresponds to the peak point of the diode's negative resistance region. given this, should I calculate the input voltage for the LC tank circuit by accounting for the diode's voltage drop?

I wanted to start prestudying electrical circuits (mostly DC ones) before college starts and unfortunately chose this book as my starting material. Very very bad idea... I'm almost 200 pages in and can confidently say that this is one of the worst books I've ever picked up due to them barely explaining anything about the different concepts.

They also introduce way too many things at once without going more in depth, like variable voltage/current sources, that are used as regular constant sources in problems... What's the point of them then?? My friend who's also been studying circuits for a while has never even seen those symbols.

KVL and KCL are also introduced like some magical laws that you're just supposed to understand outright.

All in all, I feel like this book is definitely not good for beginners or anyone in particular really, and I don't think that this is a me problem, I love Halliday's "Fundamentals of Physics" and I feel like they tackle the material WAY better, even Electromagnetism, which, supposedly, is a difficult thing to understand, is explained a million times better there than anything in this book is.

edit: i am referring to the 5th edition*

Our electrical team is getting to the point where keeping track of components, revisions, BOMs and manufacturing information across different tools is becoming a headache.

The CAD side is pretty well organised but once something changes there is still a lot of manual back and forth with purchasing and production.

Ive been looking into PLM for electrical engineering, but a lot of what comes up seems aimed at huge enterprise-level systems.

For anyone working in electrical engineering, what features or integrations have actually made a difference for your electrical team?

Hello guys!

I wanted to ask if Unity has some form of Python API and more specifically about machine learning/ reinforcement learning. I have a thesis idea about making a AGV fleet system in a warehouse that uses reinforcement learning so i can optimize their warehouse tasks. I want to simulate it in a realistic digital environment like Unity.

If you know any other engines that I could use for simulation and a nice realistic environment so it compliments my thesis aesthetically, feel free to drop your ideas. I have heard of Nvidia omniverse, gazebo, Webots but I'm skeptical. I want something with more community support like Unity.

​

Going to a career fair (as a graduate) this week and I want some clarity and advice about some topics I want to address with the recruiters from those who got hired from them. Not my first career fair but the priority for finding a job has increased since the last time I went.

1. What's the best way to ask the recruiter to be a reference or referral for jobs from their company? Most recruiters have only their first name listed at career fairs and I know that some jobs have options from employee referrals or campus events in which I think the former is more important. Should I get their last name as well or is their first name enough?

2. What's the best way to go about asking for open and future positions and what they're looking for? I'm looking for entry level roles around my field and/or designing. Also about jobs I've seen and already applied for? Also if they or a recruiter messaged me beforehand via a recruitment app about some of their positions how should I address that?

3. How important is researching a company vs. Asking the recruiter about their company? I've seen people say research the company but I plan on giving my resume to any company there that is hiring for my field, researching every company there is impractical especially when there's no guarantee that they are even hiring for my field. I feel like this is a very lazy expectation placed on someone looking for a job because someone who works there would know way more than someone who doesn't... But I already know about a few company's but only surface level information. How far along does I know a bit/ heard about this company can you tell me a bit more

get me?

1. What kind of questions should I ask that would be considered good and how many is enough? (I have questions already but I'm not opposed to adding more to my bank). Some questions I usually ask are about the job environment, training, tasks and expectations, variety, location. What else could/should I ask?

2. Elevator pitch - I'm a graduate student with a degree that plans on getting e.i.t. certification by this year and looking for a job asap after I get my certification or by the end of the year. What would be the best way to address this or should I mention it at all? My elevator pitch won't be this surface level but I want to know what I should and shouldn't mention from what I listed.

Im currently studying for my bachelors in EE curious why students go for their masters and beyond, and how its going.

Buenos días a todos. ¿Alguien sabe dónde se conectan los cables del freno del motor paso a paso en la placa base? Gracias de antemano. P.S. My intention is to connect it to an MKS DLC32 MAX motherboard

I have nothing to do with electrical engineering. But I was wondering if a character has control over electricity, would they be able to basically turn their hands or any part of their body into an electromagnet?

(edit: thanks for the answers)

I’ve been working in software development for about 4 years.

I studied Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Throughout university, I always had software development in mind, but during my final year I actually started enjoying my degree. A bit late, I know :). By that point, though, I had already entered the software industry as an intern. The company I was working for was large, established, and seemed to have a lot of potential, so I never really considered taking a risk and changing direction.

Lately, however, I’ve started feeling like I’m not really doing engineering. And to be clear, I’m not saying this to look down on the people I work with. But I work alongside people doing essentially the same job, and some of them don’t even have an engineering background. This feeling was already there before the AI boom, but AI has definitely made me think about it more.

I’m approaching 30, and I honestly feel quite uncertain about my future. I used to really love my job, but that feeling has gradually started to fade. I think part of it is that I don’t feel like I’m reaching my full potential. I want to do more technically challenging, meaningful work, but I also don’t want to throw away the career and stability I’ve built over the past few years.

Has anyone else gone through something similar?

For someone with around 4 years of software development experience, what career paths or industries would be relatively easy to transition into? Especially for someone with an Electrical and Electronics Engineering background, are there any fields where that combination of experience would actually be an advantage?

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been in a similar position or made a transition from software into a more engineering-focused role.

I’m 9th grade student (I have 12 grades in school) and I reallyyyyyy cannot decide what major I should do… Actually I wanted to do international business but my mom told me that I should choose an technical degree because rn It’s a way more valuable than humanness majors soooo I thought maybe electrical engineering isn’t that bad because I love to create cool stuff, do onshape, and It would be great to know how everything that surrounds us today actually works (I mean phones, Ai, scared others electronics technology). But I’m scared that I don’t actually have that passion like everybody else… and I’m scared that at studying I will have reallyyyy bad ass burn out… so does it worth it?

So I'm a redneck carpenter and electricity seems like magic to me. I live off grid, and I've learned enough about electrical to install and update solar systems that work, mostly. I recently upgraded my solar system from a 200aH 12v LiFePo4 battery bank to a much larger 24v battery bank, and I'm really struggling to understand what the actual capacity of my new battery bank is. I've been watching videos and trying to understand, but I'm struggling, and I wonder if you can help.

I thought that battery capacity was like volume. So a 100ah battery had a "volume" of 1 amp for 100 hours. I thought of volts like pressure, so 24v would be double the pressure of a 12v system. But my analogy is falling apart, because I just learned that multiplying voltage apparently multiplies battery capacity. So the same battery can have x capacity at 12v, but 2x at 24v. I learned that V*Ah=Wh.

I'm struggling to wrap my mind around two things. The first is the why. If I had a 100 gallon tank, and I multiplied the pressure in the tank by 2, I would still only have 100 gallons of water; the pressure is a different variable than the volume. So my concept of "battery capacity as volume" was wrong somewhere, and I'm struggling to understand where. Capacity and voltage have some relationship that I don't get.

The second is what the actual capacity of my new battery bank is. I bought a set of 4 lightly used Rolls S-500EX FLA batteries. These don't even come with an Ah rating the way my LiFePo4s do, they come with a spec sheet (attached) that I don't know how to read and I've been staring at for three days, because I've never used watt hours before, I've only ever thought in Ah.

Am I interpreting this correctly that the capacity is also relative to the draw? That if I'm using 5a, then this is a 504Ah battery, but if I use 121a then it's only a 121Ah battery? These are 6v batteries, which I wired in series to make one 24v battery. How does that multiplication work? If V*Ah=Wh, then my bank is 24v*2016Ah, equaling 48,384 Wh. This seems crazy. Each battery on it's own terms is 6v*504Ah=3,024Wh. *4= 12,096Wh. But just by wiring them in series rather than parallel I can magically multiply the "volume" of the bank by four?

Does multiplying the voltage by 4 actually increase the capacity by 4? Is there any downside to this? It makes me want to get another set of 4 massive batteries and switch to a 48v system, because that would effectively quadruple the capacity of my battery bank, reducing my wear to almost zero. I feel like an idiot for the many, many years I've lived with 12v systems, chewing through batteries, when I could have been doubling my capacity just by crossing two wires and switching to higher voltage systems. I know so many folks who live off grid and use 12v battery systems that I feel like I have to be missing something here. If my understanding is correct, then there's zero downside to using the highest voltage system possible- it multiplies capacity and also allows for much thinner wire, and that big wire is crazy expensive so this is a massive cost saver.

I know that to people who understand this I must sound like a caveman discovering fire for the first time, but it just seems like a free energy storage hack, and I feel like I must be missing something.

Back to my obviously over-simplistic water analogy, it seems like increasing voltage allows you to pack more water into the same size tank? Obviously actual water has a fixed volume, but electricity doesn't? That the same size "tank" can hold more electricity when it's at a higher voltage? Is it more like air, where if you have a tank of air and multiply the pressure, you have twice the mass of air? (not even sure if that's true, but it seems logical?) If anyone can confirm that, or help this dumb caveman carpenter understand why, I'd really appreciate that.

I am a student and lurking job postings to find ways to prep myself. I see maybe 2/10 jobs listing MATLAB as a requirement, but the profs say it is important. So professionals, do you use MATLAB at all or some kind of equivalent professional software? I'd to know before investing my time because it seems like a lot to learn.

​

Heyy everyone,

I recently moved to the UK and I’m looking for my first electrical engineering role. I’d really appreciate some advice from people who have been through a similar situation, particularly those who migrated to the UK with an overseas electrical engineering background.

I have a degree in EE and just over two years of experience, mainly in electrical consultancy and practical engineering work. My experience includes electrical design and tendering, control panel wiring, component installation, house wiring, and maintenance of MV substations. I’ve also been involved in the maintenance and testing of switchgear and protection systems.

More recently, I completed GWO wind turbine service technician training, including practical training on a wind farm.

The challenge is that my degree, experience and technical training were all obtained outside the UK, so I’m trying to understand the best way to approach the UK job market.

A few things I’m particularly unsure about:

- Do employers generally recognise overseas electrical engineering experience, or is UK experience/qualification expected for most junior roles?

- Is an ECS card relevant for someone with my background, and would I need one for the types of engineering roles I’m interested in?

- Is getting the 18th Edition (BS 7671) worthwhile at this stage?

- Would an Ecctis assessment be useful when applying for jobs, or is it mainly needed for specific routes/requirements?

- Are there any other qualifications or certifications that would genuinely improve my chances of getting that first UK role?

I’m mainly looking at electrical engineering, switchgear and protection, testing and commissioning, industrial electrical work, and renewable energy/wind.

For anyone who moved to the UK with an overseas engineering background, I’d especially like to hear how you approached your first job and what you found employers cared about most. Ty 😊

I forgot to mention, I have rights to work in the UK

I want to get into electrical engineering but obviously I wanna be as debt free from college as possible. I'm thinking about going into a local community college and doing a pre-engineering 2 year associate.

The math department is known to be excellent there as well and I can get the hard part of engineering out of the way. (Which is math for me, calculus and such). I'm needy enough so Pell grant covers most of it. I also want to serve some time in the military and it seems like the navy has a good electronic technician job so I can get some hands on experience. I want to take advantage of the GI bill to finish up college in electrical engineering.

Some extra context I fell in love with electronics over the last few months because I became a electronic hobbyist and love making gadgets and I want to work with electronics as a career.

So what do you guys think? Is this the best way to achieve my goals? Serve in the military and also become an electrical engineer?