Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

After a year looking intensively at the metals processing side of mining, I recently spent some time back in bulk material handling.  And after a plant tour not long ago, a colleague new to the business somewhat naively (but accurately) observed, “It’s just moving dirt.” Well, yes, it is, but it’s moving A LOT of dirt, with huge equipment, and exacting quality requirements, in a process that consumes a lot of energy!  And don’t forget that there are big financial penalties for delays and errors, making that simple sounding act of “just moving dirt” a high stakes game that is not so simple after all. So I thought I would take some time to reflect (that’s what we do at the end of each year, right?) on the many areas of mining in which digitization is helping to make bulk material handling just a little easier. Material Movement Once extraction from the earth, millions of tonnes of ore are moved via conveyors, stackers, reclaimers and shiploaders. It is a formidable effort t...

Machine safety is one of the core responsibilities of a machine builder. In fact, across most geographies, it is the machine builder who is held liable when machine safety systems fail. Machine safety is critical in the eyes of industrial end users, government regulators and the machine builders themselves, who depend on a solid safety reputation in order to compete successfully in the marketplace. Vigilance and attention to detail in the area of machine safety represents a critical success factor for OEMs who wish to preserve and grow their business. Although safety is critical, for many OEMs, the process of building safety functions into machines can be complex, expensive and tedious. Therefore, manufacturers of machine safety devices and modules, like Schneider Electric, must design solutions that simplify OEM tasks related to building safety functions into machines. End-to-end safety solutions provide machine builders with coordinated input devices (such as e-stops or light curt...

Servo Motors Servo Motors are simple electric motors which are controlled for specific angular rotation with the help of an additional servomechanism. They are a combination of particular parts which include DC and AC motors. They are used in a closed loop mechanism which registers its position feedback to control its rotational speed. However, nowadays, servo motors consist of large industrial applications for controlling purposes. They are majorly seen in remote-controlled toy cars to monitor the motion. These are also used in CD or DVD players as the motor which moves its tray. Apart from these devices, we see hundreds of servo motors being used in our daily lives. Simple servo motors use DC motors and position them accordingly through a potentiometer. A servo motor moves at high speed, until and unless it is stopped at a designated position or by the controller. These kind of servo motors are favorite in radio-controlled devices such as model aircraft and toy cars. The servo mo...

Field services is an umbrella term that consists of multiple services offered to industry for seamless functioning. Industries that have modern day infrastructure and machinery are more prone to breakdown. To optimise the operations, one needs to have field services in place. While talking about field services , one largely refers to services like: Repair : If equipment is broken or a machine does not perform the required tasks, a service technician makes a field visit to solve the problem, or the machine is sent to the service centre. Maintenance : Maintenance is done to ensure that the parts that can undergo any wear and tear are in place. It is the preventive part of Field Service. In order to prevent any breakdown in the machinery, certain activities are performed such as replacing wear parts and performing inspections. Inspection and servicing on regular intervals help to minimise breakdowns and operational downtime due to any shortcomings in the machine. There are three types...

The world is moving towards a cleaner energy future amid rising investments in renewable energy, which over the long term, will replace the demand for coal and have the potential to impact the global demand for oil. Such phenomenon influences the mid- to long-term strategy and vision of Oil & Gas Majors, due to – including but not limited to – the following elements: Pressure from shareholders, investors, governments and other stakeholders; New emissions regulations and energy policies such as Paris climate accord; Tackling energy security concerns in the context of sustainable development; Talent attraction and retainment, giving the willingness of the younger generation to work for more environmentally friendly companies with longer-term growth potentials; Evolution of urban mobility and rise of fuel-efficient electric vehicles (EVs). To address these external elements and be aligned with the energy market trends, Oil & Gas Majors have started to increase their ex...

Our is the third post in our series on motor management which covers various aspects of motor integration in an electrical network and the industrial process. In the first , the electrical, thermal and mechanical constraints necessary to consider for large motor starting have been presented in detail. In the second post the typical application constraints have been introduced. In this post we will try to answer the question: how to select the right motor starting solution for a concrete application? There are several motor starting solutions that we can compare simply through the next table: By looking on the table we can decide that a variable speed drive is the solution for each case. And this would be right in the principle. However, the final decision will depend on several installation criteria which is related to: Economical interest – the cost of the solution Engineering simplicity – the efforts to evaluate this solution and to commission it Maintenance easiness – wh...

You Should Have the Right to Sue Companies That Violate Your Privacy It is not enough for government to pass laws that protect consumers from corporations that harvest and monetize their personal data. It is also necessary for these laws to have bite, to ensure companies do not ignore them. The best way to do so is to empower ordinary consumers to bring their own lawsuits against the companies that violate their privacy rights. Such “private rights of action” are among EFF’s highest priorities in any data privacy legislation. For example, while there is a lot to like about the new California Consumer Privacy Act (A.B. 375 and S.B. 1121), a significant flaw is its lack of a private right of action (except as to some kinds of data breaches). We will work this year to amend CCPA to add consumer enforcement. The California Attorney General, who has the primary duty to enforce the CCPA, supports consumer enforcement, explaining : The lack of a private right of action, which would ...

Groups Line Up For Meaningful NSA Surveillance Reform Multiple nonprofit organizations and policy think tanks, and one company have recently joined ranks to limit broad NSA surveillance. Though our groups work for many causes— freedom of the press, shared software development, universal access to knowledge, equal justice for all—our voices are responding to the same threat: the possible expansion of Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. On January 5, the Rules Committee for the House of Representatives introduced S. 139. The bill— which you can read here —is the most recent attempt to expand Section 702, a law that the NSA uses to justify the collection of Americans’ electronic communications during foreign intelligence surveillance. The new proposal borrows some of the worst ideas from prior bills meant to reauthorize Section 702, while adding entirely new bad ideas, too. Meaningless Warrant Requirements The new proposal to expand Section 702 fails to protect Americans whose ...

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Key Surveillance Case The Supreme Court announced today that it will not review a lower court’s ruling in United States v. Mohamud , which upheld warrantless surveillance of an American citizen under Section 702  of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. EFF had urged the Court to take up Mohamud because this surveillance violates core Fourth Amendment protections. The Supreme Court’s refusal to get involved here is disappointing. Using Section 702, the government warrantlessly collects billions of communications, including those belonging to a large but unknown number of Americans. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this practice only by creating an unprecedented exception to the Fourth Amendment. This exception allows the government to collect Americans’ communications without a warrant by targeting foreigners outside the United States, known as “ incidental collection .” We wish the Supreme Court had stepped in to fix this misguided r...

How to Assess a Vendor’s Data Security Perhaps you’re an office manager tasked with setting up a new email system for your nonprofit, or maybe you’re a legal secretary for a small firm and you’ve been asked to choose an app for scanning sensitive documents: you might be wondering how you can even begin to assess a tool as “safe enough to use.” This post will help you think about how to approach the problem and select the right vendor. If the company can’t or won’t answer these questions, they are asking you to trust them based on very little evidence: this is not a good sign. As every organization has unique circumstances and needs, we can’t provide definitive software recommendations or provider endorsements. However, we can offer some advice for assessing a software vendor and for gauging their claims of protecting the security and privacy of your clients and your employees. If you are signing up for a service where you will be storing potentially sensitive employee or client ...

In my last 2 blogs , I wrote about several concerns customers are facing with their aging LV and MV switchgear. For the most part, these center around safety, reliability and productivity: Arc chutes of old circuit breakers contain asbestos, adding to safety concerns for maintenance personnel. Replacements parts are very hard (or impossible) to be found and priced as an aftermarket product Plants are exposed to forced outages and loss of production due to poor equipment reliability Employee safety is often in question due to slow opening time, increasing the arc flash hazard Circuit breaker mechanisms have a lot of moving parts, that need lubrication or reconditioning. Low- and medium-voltage switchgear and circuit breakers are beyond their expected useful life. In this blog post, Alison Grimes from the Mesothelioma + Asbestos Awareness Center and I would like to raise awareness about the risks of asbestos and the importance of eliminating asbestos from electrical infrastructu...

New CBP Border Device Search Policy Still Permits Unconstitutional Searches U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a  new policy  on border searches of electronic devices that’s full of loopholes and vague language and that continues to allow agents to violate travelers’ constitutional rights. Although the new policy contains a few improvements over rules first policy  published nine years ago,  overall it doesn’t go nearly far enough to protect the privacy of innocent travelers or to recognize how exceptionally intrusive electronic device searches are. Below is a legal analysis of some of the key features of the new policy. The New Policy Purports to Require Reasonable Suspicion for Forensic Searches, But Contains a Huge Loophole and Has Other Problems CBP’s previous policy permitted agents to search a traveler’s electronic devices at the border without having to show that the...

EFF Supports Stricter Requirements for DNA Collection From Minors When the San Diego police targeted black children for DNA collection without their parents’ knowledge in 2016, it highlighted a critical loophole in California law. Now, State Assemblymember Gonzalez Fletcher has introduced legislation— A.B. 1584 —that would ensure cops cannot stop-and-swab youth without judicial approval or parental consent. EFF strongly supports this move. A.B. 1584 would require law enforcement to obtain a court order, a search warrant, or the written consent of both the minor and their parent or legal guardian before collecting DNA from the minor, except in a few narrow circumstances when DNA collection is already required under existing law. Current California law attempts to place limitations on when law enforcement can collect DNA from children. Existing law states that law enforcement can collect DNA from minors only in extremely limited circumstances: after a youth has been convicted of o...