Monkeys in charge of the kingdom

I would like to bring your readers’ attention to an appalling state of affairs in our industry. How would most of the service people and hobbyists respond to the fact that most if not all are practising electronics outside the law, in Queensland anyway?

You see in Queensland we have a statutory authority called "The Electrical Workers Board". This official sounding group is the body which determines who can and cannot do electrical work in this state (each state has a similar body). "Fine" you say, "We don’t do electrical work". But you do! You repair equipment and some (many) even make kits. Now this solely industry-protecting monopoly will gladly tell you that this is electrical work and is solely the realm of qualified electrical workers (electricians) and they are fully intent on prosecuting anyone who breaches their rules.

I, for one, am a holder of one of their restricted licences which allows me to legally repair the power cord on a mains-powered item. Sounds good. Well, I can’t build a kit legally, certainly not one with a mains outlet (such as a light chaser). I have been a TAFE-qualified technical officer for 14 years and I have a BOCP which is a federal licence to work on broadcast equipment, including the no-break power supplies, but I can’t build a kit within the law.

It is about time our industry started to lobby our governments to put pressure on these people. It is a fact that as far as knowledge of electricity is concerned, electricians live at the bottom of the food chain! Yet through what is arguably one of the most powerful unions in this country they have our lawmakers bluffed.

There is even an advert on TV up here about electrical safety that says if you spill something in your TV, turn it off and call an electrician! If this is not brought back to some state of sanity, it will not be long before you need to be a licensed electrician to start your car!

All the while if you take a large pay cut and have half your brain removed, you can drag cable around a cottage for four years and become a member of this elite club – it’s an electrical apprenticeship! You might say that I am being too harsh but I have had to repair too many devices to mention, that were left in a state so poor by one of these masters of electricity as to require rewiring (yes, I broke the law).

The general exemption thought to be enjoyed by electrical engineers only covers work done in the course of your practice as an engineer – you can’t build a kit legally either!

"What field do I work in?" Answer: Medical Electronics. Our standards of electrical safety far exceed that of a normal electrical installation.

I hope you will investigate this and maybe we could start some sane discussion in our industry. Please do not publish my name or I may lose my licence.

Name supplied and
withheld at request.
Comment: this is yet another case of over government by people who have no idea of what unintended impact their regulations will have. While quite a few electricians do have some knowledge of electronics, it is fair to say that most would not be able to build the average project described in this magazine, let alone repair any electronic appliance.

Hot wire cutter works well

The article on the hot wire cutter by Leo Simpson in the April 2000 edition was excellent.

Several months ago we needed a small foam cutter. After many hours of searching the WWW (not much info found) I decided to have a try at making one myself. Using the Dick Smith Electronics resistance wire I experimented to find the right current to get the wire to the correct temperature (about 2.5A).

The resulting cutter gets used almost daily and the pieces of foam that it has cut have been sent to all corners of the globe. After reading the April 2000 article on the Glow-Plug Driver circuit, I will build one of these to control the current. At the moment I am using a 12V 4A supply with a couple of 1Ω 10W resistors to achieve the correct series resistance.

Gareth Hassall,
Quest Electronic Developments Pty Ltd.

Class A amplifier has
excellent sound

I’ve just recently built your Class A amplifier design from the July & August 1998 issues. It’s excellent – I’ve never heard an amplifier this good.

I immediately noticed a big improvement in the sound compared to my previous amplifier. It has a more transparent sound with substantially better bass, in part I suspect to the regulated power supply and partly due to less masking of the bass frequencies from the smoother high frequencies. A top design – well done guys.

The whole project cost me about $400 in the end but I hate to think how much a commercial amplifier of this quality would cost.

David Snoswell,
Adelaide.