At first glance, Quebec and Texas might not seem like the most natural partners. La Belle Province and the Lone Star State dont appear, on the surface, to have much in common, other than a uniquely distinctive culture and outlook, one that often sets them apart from their near neighbors, let alone those from another country. But the two do share a proud aviation history, and each is, today, home to a flourishing aerospace hub: in the Montreal and Dallas-Fort Worth regions, respectively.

There are several companies with a foot in each one, but perhaps none have done so quite as successfully as Bell. Established by Larry Bell in the border city of Buffalo, New York, in 1935, the company made the move to Texas in 1951.

After decades of success as one of the industrys original airframe manufacturers, Bell established its presence in Mirabel on Sept. 29, 1986, following an agreement with the Quebec and Canadian governments for financial support. It was a manufacturing facility at the time, spanning 436,000 square feet (40,500 square meters) on 151 acres of land.

The facility has gradually expanded over the years to now cover over 650,000 square feet alongside Mirabel airport, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of downtown Montreal. Such is the flow of helicopter traffic at the facility that it has its own control tower that looks out over its flight line of 17 helipads and two runways.

Over the past 34 years, more than 5,000 helicopters have rolled off its production lines, and today, it contains the final assembly lines (FALs) for the light single 505 Jet Ranger X, intermediate 407, light twin 429, and medium 412. This represents the entirety of Bells current in-production commercial product line. The facility also performs customization, engineering, type certification flights, support and services, and composite manufacturing.

Its the only site where almost everything is vertically integrated, said Steeve Lavoie, who has been CEO and president of the Mirabel facility since May 2019. From design, to manufacture, production, customization, painting, and delivery, everything can be done here. Its the only [Bell] site that can do all this. We have a broad spectrum of capabilities.

The facility was initially slated to produce variants of the Model 400 TwinRanger (a twin-engine version of the 206L LongRanger), but benefitted from Bells decision to split its helicopter business in 1986. Production of all its commercial lines was to be moved to Mirabel, while the manufacture of its military products would remain in Texas.

The first helicopter assembled at Mirabel was a 206B JetRanger, which was the best-selling light single-engine helicopter in the world at the time. Other notable first builds over the following years included the 206L-3 LongRanger (1987), 212 (1988), and 412 (1989).

Annual production grew above 200 for the first time in 1991, and the following year, Bell secured a huge contract from the Canadian government for 100 CH-146 Griffon helicopters (based on the 412EP) for the Canadian Armed Forces.

In March 1992, the facility recorded its first type certificate approval, with Transport Canada certifying the 230 a light twin-engine aircraft developed from the Bell 222.

The 1,000th Canadian-built Bell helicopter rolled off the Mirabel production line in 1994, and by this point, the facility was producing about one-third of the commercial turbine helicopters being sold worldwide. The year also saw the launch of two new types: the 407 and the 430.

The 407 is a derivative of the 206L-4 LongRanger, bringing that airframe together with the four-bladed soft-in-plane main rotor developed for the U.S. Armys OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. The aircraft was designed, developed, tested and certified in Mirabel; it recorded its first flight at the plant in June 1995, gained certification from Transport Canada in February 1996 (Federal Aviation Administration approval followed later that month); and the first of the type was delivered later in the year. The 407 has proven to be a huge success for Bell, with over 1,500 delivered since 1996.

The 430, a four-bladed evolution of the 230, also went through the various stages of its development in Mirabel, receiving certification from Transport Canada shortly after the 407 in February 1996.

Another notable aircraft developed at the facility was the 427 (a twin-engine aircraft based on the 407), which would later give way to the 429 GlobalRanger. The latter, originally envisioned as a stretched version of the 427, ultimately employed a clean-sheet approach, with a modular airframe concept, extensive use of composites, a large cabin with clamshell doors, advanced rotor blade design, a glass cockpit, and was certified for single pilot instrument flight rules (IFR) operation.

The 429 first flew at Mirabel in February 2007, and received certification from Transport Canada and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in July 2009. The first delivery took place almost immediately following certification, with Air Methods (for Mercy One) taking receipt of the landmark aircraft.

Today, the 429 is one of four types produced at the Mirabel facility, along with the 407GXi and 412EPI (the latest versions of the storied types), and Bells new light single 505 Jet Ranger X.

Bell first revealed the 412EPI at Heli-Expo 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The aircraft features enhanced performance with Pratt & Whitney PT6-9 Twin Pac engines, and has upgraded avionics in the form of the integrated Bell BasiX Pro, which provides single-pilot IFR capabilities and incorporates the Garmin GTN 750 touchscreen navigators with four 10.4-inch (26.4-centimeter) LCD displays. Deliveries of the new variant began in 2013.

Another evolution of the 412 the 412EPX has been launched in partnership with Subaru, and will be the platform for the new utility helicopter for the Japanese Ministry of Defence. The aircraft features a more robust main rotor gearbox dry run capability, an increased internal maximum gross weight, and increased mast torque output below 60 knots.

The 407GXi was announced in 2018, with first deliveries beginning later that year. An evolution of the 407GXP, which provided enhanced hot and high performance, the GXi has upgraded Rolls-Royce M250-C47E/4 engines with dual channel FADEC, providing enhanced redundancy and improved range and fuel consumption. It also features Garmins G1000H NXi integrated flight deck for cutting-edge avionics.

The newest entrant to the Bell production fleet is the 505, which was announced in low-key fashion during the Paris Airshow in June 2013. Powered by a single Safran Helicopter Engines Arrius 2R engine, the 505 fills the void in Bells product line that was created when the Bell 206B JetRanger ceased production in 2010. The 505 has a useful load of 1,500 pounds (680 kilograms), a range of 340 nautical miles (630 kilometers), and has been certified at a maximum cruise speed of 126 knots.

It features the Garmin G1000H integrated avionics suite withdual 10.4-inch displays, and uses the same rotor system as the 206L-4 LongRanger retaining that types autorotational characteristics.

The five-seat aircraft, which aims to build off the legacy of success established by the Bell 206B JetRanger in the lightsingle-engine market segment, was originally to be producted in a brand new 82,000-square-foot facility in Lafayette, Louisiana. However, in May 2016, less than a year after it opened, Bell decided to bring production of the short light single up to Mirabel.

The move came at a time when the general industry downturn had forced Bell to make sweeping cuts to its workforce around the world. There were around 2,200 people working at the facility in Mirabel in 2010, but by 2016, just 900 remained.

I saw people crying [when the 505 production move was announced] because they were so happy to have good news about something, said Francis Tessier, senior manager of manufacturing. But it came with a lot of challenges, because they decided they would transfer the line right away.

The facility was already intimately familiar with the type, having been the base for its development and testing; the 505 had completed its first flight in Mirabel in November 2014, and the aircraft received type certification from Transport Canada in December 2016. This was followed by production certification in February 2017, with the first customer delivery to private operator Scott Urschel, based in Chandler, Arizona in March at HAI Heli-Expo 2017 in Dallas. FAA approval followed in June 2017.

The challenge we were having with the 505 was the [required] pace of production, said Tessier, noting the over 300 letters of intent the aircraft had received before it was certified. We were still in the industrialization phase, in the learning curve, and we had to ramp up pretty fast. Last year we were able to produce an aircraft every 1.5 days. It was amazing to see how we did that in less than two years.

The global 505 fleet passed 20,000 flight hours in August 2019, with more than 215 deliveries completed to customers around the globe.

While all Bells current production helicopters are built in Mirabel, that will change once its upcoming 525 Relentless super medium is certified. Unveiled at Heli-Expo 2012 in Dallas, the 20,500-lb. (9,300-kg) gross weight 525 Relentless will become the first commercial fly-by-wire helicopter when it is certified, competing against the likes of the Airbus H175 and Leonardo AW189 in the super medium category. The engine powering the aircraft the General Electric CT7-2F1 was certified by the FAA in March 2019, but Bell has not released a date for anticipated regulatory approval of the aircraft itself (see p.32).

The Mirabel facility has been involved in the aircrafts development, with the structure designed by its engineers, as well as providing composite parts for the first prototype aircraft and hosting flight tests.

Practical reasons lay behind the decision to locate the 525s production line in Amarillo, Texas, explained Tessier. The 525 doesnt fit in this facility we would have to expand our building to be able to produce it. In Amarillo they have the room for it.

The manufacturing work in Mirabel is split into three divisions: final assembly and flight tests; customization work; and composite creation.

The FALs sit either side of a wide central aisle, with the workflow bringing the aircraft towards the center as they are completed. They are then taken down the aisle to the completions section of the facility next door.

All the different products have different strategies in terms of how they are manufactured, Luc Bachant, director of manufacturing in Mirabel, told Vertical during a recent visit to the facility. The 412, for example, is the only product that still has its structural assembly completed in Mirabel. The aircrafts various components are first spliced together in a large fixture, and then other elements, such as the wiring harness, are installed at each subsequent station. It requires about 4,000 hours of work to bring a basic 412 through the FAL and to complete flight operations at Mirabel, he said a workload that could be doubled with particularly complex completions, such as that required for the Canadian Coast Guards new fleet of seven 412EPIs.

The 505, on the other hand, arrives at the plant in the form of a complete cabin structure from an external supplier. It follows a U-shaped production line, and Bell has the ability to install some kits into the aircraft as it is assembled, making its progress to delivery that much more efficient. Each aircraft typically spends a month on the FAL, said Bachant, with one aircraft finished every 1.5 days.

In terms of manufacturing, Bachant said the biggest challenge was the flow of components from suppliers. The flow of parts sometimes can be an issue because some suppliers have some capacity constraints, especially as the industry is picking up, he said. We have a base of close to 800 different suppliers. When you are creating an aircraft with so many different components, a delay with just one can stop everything.

Customers have the option of having their aircraft completed in Mirabel, which has similar capabilities to Bells completion center in Piney Flats, Tennessee. The company offers kits produced by Textron sister company Able Aerospace, as well those produced by third parties, such as DART Aerospace. These can range from air conditioning, to high skids, float installation, and mission-specific offerings like medical interiors, hoists, and cameras. Mirabels engineers can also create a customized solution to meet a customers requirements.

The facility has extensive paint capabilities, allowing it to provide liveries ranging from the basic one-color finish to intricate designs, completed in one of its five paint booths.

About 40 percent of Bells commercial deliveries are performed in Mirabel, with most of the rest in Piney Flats.

The plants composite work has increased dramatically over the last couple of years, said Bachant, driven by a desire to bring previously outsourced work in-house, and a general growth in the market.

Typically people know the site here for the assembly of the commercial products, but they might not know that the composite center is close to half the operations we do here internally, he said.

The team now makes over 600 composite parts, ranging from vertical fins, to the 429s cabin, to the 525s beany the disc that sits on the center of the main rotor head.

While the vast majority of Bells military work is completed in Texas, Canadian programs are managed in Mirabel.

In 2019, Bell began work on a major new project to upgrade and extend the operating life of the Canadian Armed Forces 85 CH-146 Griffons, known as the Griffon Limited Life Extension (GLLE) program. The Griffons, which entered service with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) between 1995 and 1997, provide a number of functions as a multi-purpose utility helicopter, providing tactical troop transport, reconnaissance, escort and surveillance, casualty evacuation, disaster relief, special operations aviation support, and search-and-rescue. In terms of aircraft numbers, the Griffons represent about 60 percent of the Canadian Department of National Defences rotary-winged fleet.

Under the GLLE program, the aircraft will receive upgraded avionics, engines, and sensor systems, with the aim of keeping the aircraft operating until at least 2031. Bell is currently in the definition phase of the program, which could ultimately be worth about $800 million. According to Francis LeBlanc, director for global fleet services at Bell, the company is working in conjunction with the Canadian government to develop a solution, with three prototypes expected within three years.

Itll be a new Bell 412 heavily based on the EPI/EPX model, said LeBLanc. Itll be an EPI base with some of the EPX features and added military equipment, such as a defense suite, satcoms and other things.

The company already supports the CH-146 fleet, which is spread over 10 bases, as part of a $100 million-a-year contract. This support spans program management, engineering, parts, and maintenance.

A high-profile military acquisition south of the border could also provide a huge boost to production in Mirabel; Bells submission for the U.S. Navys new helicopter trainer is the 407GXi, which received FAA certification for IFR flight (a Navy requirement) in August 2019. The Navy is expected to soon announce the award of the contract for 130 aircraft, with the entire fleet to be delivered by 2023. As commercially-based aircraft, they would be initially produced in Mirabel, before being shipped for final completion in Ozark, Alabama.

At the time of Verticals visit at the end of November, Bell was clearing space in its production line to accommodate the anticipated contract award first deliveries by the end of 2020 necessitated the advance planning, said Bachant.

We have contingency plans to make sure when we win it, we are going to be ready to deliver, he said.

The draft request for proposals for another military rotary-wing training program the Canadian Future Aircrew Training (FAcT) program is due later in 2020, and Bell plans to submit the Bell 429 for this. While currently undefined, the program is likely to require more than 20 aircraft.

When Mitch Snyder unveiled the FCX-001 concept aircraft at Heli-Expo 2017 in Dallas, it wasnt to reveal an aircraft that would be rolling off Bells production line any time soon it was to give an idea of the companys roadmap for technological development. It was also a clear announcement of Bells renewed focus on innovation.

The mockup at the show included a fan-driven anti-torque system, hybridized propulsion, morphing main rotor blade tips, an extensive use of glass in the fuselage, gull-wing doors, and the use of augmented reality in the cockpit to control the aircraft.

The announcement of the FCX accompanied the launch of parallel innovation teams in Mirabel and Fort Worth. The two largely work on the same projects, with the division of responsibilities driven by which location has the best match in terms of skills, capability and external funding.

The team in Mirabel has quickly grown from four to 30 people over the last three years. Based in a large open-plan mezzanine that overlooks the final assembly lines on the production floor, the team also works across two secretive labs surrounded by frosted panels (a third lab is being completed). Vertical was allowed entry to one of them during our visit. Two large islands were in the center of room; each one was topped by an unmanned technology demonstrator, with a group of workers gathered around one Bells Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) multicopter making adjustments. At the far end of the room, two 3D printing machines were busily working away; one making plastic parts, the other composites.

They run seven days a week, 24 hours a day, said Michel Dion, manager of innovation at Mirabel. Here, theres people working every day on unmanned vehicles.

But developing unmanned aircraft is just one aspect of the extremely broad mandate for the innovation team, which takes on projects as varied as air taxis, new propulsion systems, advanced flight controls and energy harvesting.

When Mitch unveiled the FCX at HAI, he talked about six things: energy management, advanced anti-torque, advanced fly by wire, autonomous flight and situational awareness, alternate propulsion system, and morphing rotor blades, said Dion. So FCX basically drove the scope of the work that we do. And now were taking those work packages and making sure that also they can support the Nexus and APT programs.

The development of the Nexus, Bells futuristic hybrid-powered air taxi, has been led by the team in Fort Worth, but the team in Mirabel has also been involved. Last year, they built a full-scale version of one of the aircrafts six ducted fans to evaluate its aerodynamic and acoustic performance in a customized wind tunnel at the National Research Councils aerospace facility in Ottawa, Ontario.

If we want to have air taxis in the future being part of our transportation system, social acceptance will be key, and external noise will obviously be a part of that, said Dion, adding that the results of the tests are still being evaluated.

The Mirabel team is also working with Nexus partner Thales on flight controls as part of a five-year government-supported technology demonstration program (TDP).

The TDP is funding various threads of research that see Bell working with 17 partners, from suppliers such as Pratt & Whitney Canada and CMC to universities and research centers. One of these threads is energy management more specifically, Bell is looking into energy harvesting.

When we have an aircraft that is vibrating and were trying to kill the vibration with [vibration control systems], were just basically dissipating free energy in the air, explained Dion. So can we go and harvest that energy back into the batteries?

Exploration of advanced anti-torque and alternative propulsion systems is also being performed under the TDP.

In addition to the various technology elements for larger aircraft, the Mirabel innovation team has been working on smaller unmanned programs: APT and HYDRA (Hybrid Drive Train Research Aircraft).

It has led Bells efforts with the latter an electric 12-motor 55-lb. (25-kg) ring-wing aircraft designed to test and develop electric and distributed propulsion systems. Like APT, HYDRA has the ability to takeoff and land vertically, and transition to airplane mode for forward flight.

Weve been flying in high-wind conditions, just to push the aircraft to its maximum in terms of controllability, and it performed really well, said Dion. The testing will never be complete. Its a research aircraft well always make updates and upgrades to it, for new technologies or to try new configurations of motors and blades.

With such a focus on new and exciting forms of future flight, how does the team balance developing technology for conventional rotorcraft versus newer forms of vertical lift?

Were trying as much as possible to develop technologies in such a way that we could retrofit [them] back into a helicopter program, said Dion. We will continue to make helicopters into the future there will always be missions for which the helicopter is the best solution. I think Nexus or APT are not replacing the helicopter, theyre just an addition to what exists today. They are basically two new transportation systems that we are developing.

For years, Bell has prided itself on the level of its customer support and services. Its product support team sits on the second floor of its facility in Mirabel, and these rooms are staffed 24/7. Youre not getting a voicemail and someone calls you back two days later, you should be getting somebody on the phone right away, said Jason Moir, regional sales manager, Canada. Its very much a family mentality so when customers call, they know who they are getting, [and] theyre on a first-name basis. . . . When you have that familiarity with someone, when youre looking for information, it makes the problem that much easier to solve.

In addition to the centrally-located expertise for customers to contact at the end of the phone, Bell has customer service engineers (CSEs) located regionally around the world.

Support and services has always been our strength, said Moir. The bar has been set by Bell for years in terms of industry standards. We continue to keep that mentality and focus.

The vast experience of the customer support team is reflected throughout the facility. Although Bachant has been with Bell for almost 10 years, he said he is considered new in terms of longevity at Mirabel. People tend to stay a long time which is a good sign! The average seniority in the plant is 21 years, he said, with many people having been there since it opened its doors in 1986. This number is trending down, however, as the staff numbers begin to grow with new hires.

Today, there are about 1,200 employees at the plant, following a hiring surge in 2019. Lavoie said he expects that to continue into 2020, at a rate of about 15 to 20 percent.

A growth in demand is fueling the need for this, he added. The demand is picking up on many models, he said, highlighting the 407 and 429 in particular, with Asia and the U.S. driving this trend.

With that in mind, Bell has accelerated the 407 and 429 production lines, and plans to build 70 407s and 40 429s in 2020.

In an aerospace hub like the Montreal region, Bell is somewhat spoiled in terms of the resources at its fingertips, with nearby schools and universities producing aerospace specialists, and a huge pool of existing aviation specialists working at neighboring companies such as Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney Canada, CAE, Rolls-Royce and Thales. But it also means Bell has serious competition for talent.

Over the coming years, Lavoie hopes to increase Bells brand awareness within the region and across Canada to highlight the capabilities and achievements of the Mirabel facility.

We are in the process of launching a marketing plan to rebrand and reintroduce Bell to the Canadian and Quebec market, said Lavoie. The history of Bell Mirabel is not well known by the average population, and this is something we are working on.

As well as potentially opening up new business opportunities, he said it would also be useful in helping to attract new talent. The facilitys appeal will be enhanced with the potential addition of new products that will guarantee its success into the future.

In a speech at the Canadian Aerospace Summit in Ottawa, Ontario, in November 2016 just over a year after he became Bells president, Snyder said Mirabel would be the base for flight test, certification and final assembly for Bells next new commercial helicopter program.

Lavoie said the strong working relationship the company had built with Transport Canada, having now certified several aircraft with the agency over the years, is part of the appeal for attracting future work from its parent company. And the facilitys broad range of capabilities and expertise make him confident of future growth at the company.

We are very capable and we have a wide range of skillsets here that makes it attractive for Bell to bring new products to Mirabel, he said. We are rethinking the future of vertical lift, and the role of Mirabel is very present in this.

See the original post here:
Thirty years of evolution for Bell in Mirabel - Vertical Magazine

The HVAC industry is not known for its quick rate of change, but when change comes, it shifts the industry dramatically. The introduction of scroll technology, SEER requirements that transformed system efficiency, smart Wi-Fi thermostats that changed how we interact with our systems, and the looming technician shortage that is helping us talk up our profession in new ways, have all been industry-changers. The next transformation of HVAC is the introduction of technology that helps home heating and coolingboth new installations and existing systemsbecome smart.

Emerson Commercial and Residential Solutions Sensi Predict is one of those products: a 10-sensor system to analyze a non-communicating HVAC system, and search for potential or existing problems.

Smart maintenance systems like Sensi Predict use sensors to proactively analyze HVAC system performance and bring vital information to help extend system life. More than 40 percent of newly installed residential systems are not installed correctly, Emerson reports.

With smart maintenance, sensors installed with the system verify system performance and confirm that the installation was done right to ensure maximum efficiency and performance. Homeowners enjoy peace of mind that their system performance has been checked and confirmed, and contractors avoid callbacks and build their reputation.

Craig Johnson, President of Residential Solutions for Emerson Commercial and Residential Solutions, said Sensi Predict is retrofitable to existing systems, or it can be added to a new, non-communicating system during installation.

Were essentially making a traditional system smart. One of the challenges we face as an industry and its not just found in Emerson studies. The EnergyStar.gov website indicates roughly half of all new HVAC system installations are not installed according to manufacturer specifications, which can result in a callback for the contractor which is certainly not productive, and is not good for their brand or reputation; or it could be a situation where it doesnt perform as intended or expected for the homeowner and the homeowner may not even be aware of that for the life of the system; which could affect efficiency and system-wide as well, Johnson said.

From a new equipment standpoint, we know many of our OEM partners are looking at how they can integrate more and more smart technologies into their new systems, but given the average lifecycle of systems, it takes 15 years for products to turn over, Johnson continued. And even if all systems were converted to this new technology, it would still take some time. And clearly today, only the premium systems tend to have that capability, which are a relatively small percentage of installs going in today.

There is never a good time for a homeowner to experience a heating and cooling system failure, and yet Emerson sources report that more than 70 percent of home systems are inefficient or headed for a breakdown. With smart maintenance capabilities, homeowners and contractors can be alerted to 80 percent of failures before they occur. Regular reports and system alerts help contractors proactively respond to homeowner needs, and aids with scheduling and reducing overtime. Homeowners know that their system is being monitored 24/7 and that they can save on repairs by getting the service they need to prevent catastrophic system failure.

Its difficult if not impossible to predict the time required for a residential service call. With smart maintenance, contractors will know exactly what system issue they will be addressing. This allows contractors to head out to the jobsite with the right tools and replacement parts. And after the repair is made, the system report lets the homeowner know their system is up and running at peak efficiency.

Contractors have been challenged to maintain homeowner relationships and secure referrals. With regular reports going to their customers from Emerson and SENSI Predict, contractors can stay top of mind with homeowners. And, the Sensi reports serve as proactive outreach to customers, and help to establish goodwill.

With Sensi Predict, there is a diagnostic function the contractor or technician will run before they leave the jobsite, Johnson explained. We run our analytics, and we can tell the technician and send an email to the homeowner acknowledging and verifying that the system is properly commissioned at the time of installation.

Johnson said early testing of Sensi Predict involved working with contractors who were interested in how they could improve the efficiency of their maintenance agreement business, which is a significant part of many contractors business models.

With smart maintenance, contractors will know exactly what system issue they will be addressing. This allows contractors to head out to the jobsite with the right tools and replacement parts.

However the attrition rates of maintenance agreements are fairly high; about one third each year are cancelled, he said. We also know that many of those maintenance plans are largely inefficient and ineffective both for them and the homeowner, because it requires one or two non-productive truck rolls each year to do a basic inspection or clean and check. Also, oftentimes theyre done doing the offseason when systems arent running, so you dont necessarily identify fault codes. If theres not a need for heating and cooling, rarely is there a need for both at the same time. So because of that, those maintenance calls/service calls are not that productive.

Johnson said Emerson continued testing to design a technology to provide 24/7 equipment monitoring and provide homeowners a monthly report on system performance, energy consumption and identify fault codes to both homeowner and contractor. They were successful.

If there is a critical fault code that requires service, we generate a work proposal that goes to the contractor and homeowner, and a service call is scheduled. So the only time a contractor would visit the home is if there is a service requirement, so they have a fully productive truck roll. Theres better transparency between homeowner and contractor identifying whats wrong with the system, what repair is necessary, and verify and validate the repair was completed, he said.

System Shut-off Mystery SolvedSam Troyer, president, Comfort Zone, Cape Coral,Fla. said Sensi Predict helped his team solve a mystery related to a customers HVAC system.

The customer said the air conditioner serving the master bedroom would occasionally stop at two oclock in the morning. They could hear the thermostat clicking, but nothing was happening, and it was getting warm inside the room. The temperature would go up four or five degrees, enough to wake them up in the middle of the night; and then it would just come back on again, Troyer recounts.

This was happening very, very infrequently. We went out two or three times to try and duplicate the problem, but we could never find anything. It was happening so infrequently, and at such a bad time of the day, it was impossible to diagnose. We went into all the wiring, and made sure all the connections were good and cycled it over and over and over and just could never duplicate anything. So talking with the homeowner I said, I think weve got a pretty good solution for you, if you want to try this Sensi Predict.

He was hesitant, but Troyer convinced him to try it.

That night, at 1:30 in the morning, the blower motor didnt start, and threw an alert code for us. I was able to call him the next morning to say, Hey, we found your problem. Well send the guy out with the part. Hell put it right in his truck and get it changed out for you. So that was a really cool story on how you can basically have a technician monitoring the system, and anytime something goes wrong, he charts all his data and sends it right to you, Troyer said.

Troyer said Sensi Predict allows Comfort Zone to provide information to the home owner multiple times throughout the year.

Once a month theyre going to get an email with a performance report that says how their equipments doing, rather than the standard service model, which is us coming out, taking a brief snapshot in time of the time that were actually there, two times a year and then who knows, the time between visits is six months. Who knows what goes on in that time in between?

As long as theres an internet connection, the information it provides us and the ability that it gives us to diagnose and make sure the systems are operating properly provides a lot of benefits to the consumer, Troyer said.

Troyer offered one final thought, related to how he wants to take service to a higher level of caring:

One of the main things that drives what I want to do, is to find ways we take away some of the pain points that our customers experience, just from the realities of living in Southwest Florida. We have some of the highest amount of lightning of anyone in the country down here. We get a lot of power surges, we get a lot of electrical failures. We obviously live in a climate where living without air conditioning is very difficult. A lot of our clients can be elderly, where living without air conditioning can pose health risks as well. So all these things roll into a plan, Troyer said.

When I look forward, and think of how I can take away some of these issues for them, thats where technology like the Sensi Predict comes into my planning, to say, theres a possibility if we can incorporate this into a large percentage of our clients systems, we can alleviate a lot of these problems that happen, by being able to be more responsive.

Advance Knowledge Prior to Service CallsTravis Smith is one of the most entrepreneurial HVAC business owner youll ever meet. He owns and operates Sky Heating and Ductless Heroes, which service customers in and around Portland, Ore. and the Columbia River Gorge. He said the additional touch point Sensi Predict and Emerson offer to reach customers is a worthwhile feature.

Emerson sends a Sky Heating-branded email stating, Heres your filter life, heres your this, heres your that. That alone is definitely worth something. We get an alert on the back end with the Sensi Predict. And theres nothing like calling a customer up proactively and saying, Your Sensi Predict system says that you may have a potential failure. We want to come out and investigate just to make sureeverythings running fine. The customer will say they havent noticed a problem, but when they arrive at home, they find that something isnt working.

My managers absolutely love it, and the technicians love it, being able to see all the data; and if there is an issue, they can pull it up, log into it and say, Heres what were seeing. Call the technician. And then the technician goes to the home completely understanding what could be going on, versus going into everything blind, Smith said.

Kenny Rogers, general manager of the residential service group for Haller Enterprises, Lititz, Pa., said Sensi Predict provided the company with a solution for customers with busy schedules, who did not want conventional two-visit preventive maintenance plans.

They wanted something smart, that they could still get maintenance benefits, but with no visits or one visit, Rogers said. We were seeing the direction of the market shift that way. Everybodys busy. We wanted to continue to provide the same amount of service, with the consumer not having to make time for a service call. We offer it to all residential customers with the focus on systems 10-years-old and older, or new non communicating HVAC systems.

Additionally, Rogers said, customers will still receive information on system performance.

Theyre getting monthly feedback on how their systems are performing. Thats something we werent able to provide before. One visit, and then another in six months. And something could have happened along the way. With Sensi Predict, theyre receiving monthly check-ups, that are emailed to them, and notifies them anytime theres an issue with one of the sensors, then an alert is sent to our office. So in most cases, were notifying the customer before they know they know they have an issue, Rogers said.

Rogers said Sensi Predict reduces the number of service calls, even those made for service agreement customers.

We have a normal service agreement plan, and just added the smart maintenance to the existing platform. We offer a couple options: one is Sensi Predict with no visits, and we monitor, and any alerts that come up are taken care of by an internal rep.

And we have another plan, where we simply do annual safety check, to make sure its clean. If theres anything wrong, we receive an alert and send people out. We just added two plans. We are having some customers that do like a connected home, and want to know what theyre system is doing each month, and theyre switching over to the smart plan.

Rogers says that by using Sensi Predict, his teams can perform more and better maintenance for a lower cost, which is always the quintessential problem in any industry: how do you do more service for less money while the cost of everything is rising, and this really is that answer, he said. So instead of offering a standard maintenance, where we come out twice a year, once for the furnace, once for the air conditioning to tune everything up, we can now offer maintenance where we dont come out at all.

Correction: a previous version of this story incorrectly listed Comfort Zone's location as Coral Gables. It is based in Cape Coral, Fla.

More here:
hvac technicians integrating internet of things into smart homes - Contracting Business

PUBLISHED: 14:00 27 February 2020 | UPDATED: 14:00 27 February 2020

Garmin G3X Touch air test

Philip Whiteman

Email this article to a friend

To send a link to this page you must be logged in.

Another duff rivet, another failure to measure thrice and cut once. Building your own aeroplane is fraught with mistakes and challenges to one's self confidence. I've said to many people that building my RV-7 was 65 per cent technical skill and 35 per cent psychological.

That might even be underselling the mind-over-matter part of the job. To get over the frustration of a day of making mistakes, I often used to put the tools away, pour myself a pint of London Pride and sit down with my copy of Chasing The Morning Sun, the enthralling account by Manuel Queiroz of him kicking cancer into touch, rebuilding an RV-6, and then flying that aircraft around the world in 39 days.

I don't think I'm brave enough to fly an aeroplane from Tarawa to Honolulu non-stop. It would require enormous confidence in the Lycoming engine, and a more momentous leap of faith in my own workmanship for me to sit in an aircraft for sixteen hours as the lonely Pacific Ocean passed under my wings.

That's what Manuel did, while sitting surrounded by 450 litres of avgas. And then he did almost the same length of journey again flying from Hawaii to San Francisco.

I will never make such a flight in my RV, not least because Mrs Goodwin would veto it. And not least because I have yet to paint the spare bedroom ceilinga job which has been on the to-do list for longer than HS2, Crossrail and the third runway combined.

This, however, has never stopped Manuel's wonderful book from being a tome to inspire. I read it several times during the build of Dumbo and several times since.

So it's a bit of an honour to be sitting next to him in his much travelled RV-6, G-GDRV. Today the aircraft and its pilot have come from Gloucester, a penguin-like hop compared to Manuel's epic journey.

It has, however, taken two cancellations for him to get to White Walthamdemonstrating perfectly that it is just as easy to kill yourself clacking into Membury mast in fog as it is to come down in the Pacific Ocean and be gobbled up by sharks.

Queiroz has flown in to show Whiteman and myself his recently finished new panel. There are some glorious moments in the construction of a kit aircraftthe fitting of the propeller, for examplethat turn a wheelbarrow into something that might fly.

But, for me, nothing beat the fun of designing and creating the panel. During the lead-up to this exercise my nose would be pressed against the canopy of any homebuilt machine that I could find in order to carry out a bit of panel plagiarism.

This nosiness slightly loses its appeal after you've completed your aircraft for fear of catching a bad case of panel envy. I fear that is about to happen.

Another personal point of interest is that Manuel has just had his RV cleared for IFR/night flying, a process that I intend to follow myself when I have a) some more money and b) braced myself for the paperwork.

Manuel has a background in the motor trade, particularly in high performance cars and motor sport. He learned to fly in 1990 and since 2008 has been exclusively involved in avionics, first with RGV Aviation at Gloucester and then, from 2014, as a freelancer designing and building avionics systems, including panels, for permit aircraft.

His latest project is a fantastically detailed panel for an RV-10 that contains many of the components that we're about to examine in his own aircraft. We're going to go for a short trip from White Waltham so that Manuel can demonstrate his new system in action, but before that we need a run-down on some of the 'panel porn' that's been fitted.

"G-GDRV's panel was all analogue when I made my trip," he explains, "but so much of the journey was spent flying over oceans it didn't make a lot of difference, because most of the time you were just sat there hoping the engine kept running.

"I've upgraded to this new panel mainly because I thought it would be fun to do so, but also as a joint project between Garmin and Adams Aviation, who both wanted to be involved in the process of getting a Permit aircraft approved for IFRa learning and fact-finding experience, if you like."

The centrepiece of the new panel is a Garmin G3X Touch, an impressive slab of a glass screen thatas its name suggestsis a touchscreen device. Glass v 'steam' is as divisive a topic in light aviation as Brexit.

Well, perhaps not, but there are certainly several schools of thought on the subject. Me? I'm a fence-sitter, having fitted a combination of steam gauges (although none are vacuum) and a Dynon FlightDek 180, the latter being almost out-of-date as I was building. Old tech but still brilliant, competent and multifunctional.

Immediately at home

As Manuel leads me through the G3X Touch's functions it's quickly clear that if I were building an aircraft today this system would be at the top of my shopping list.

I remember a good ten years ago flying in a Cirrus for a Pilot article on the then new and sexy Garmin G1000 system. I found it overly complicated, tricky to use in flight, and worryingly distracting. In my day job as a motoring journalist I am well used to being plonked in front of complicated 'infotainment' systems and having to master them quickly during a road test.

Sometimes it just isn't possible to do so in a couple of hours. So when I say that I immediately felt at home with the G3X the words carry some weight.

That this is the case is very much down to having recently fitted a Garmin Aera 660 portable GPS to my RV's panel. This touchscreen device is a joy to use andmore relevant to today's taskis very similar in operation to the considerably more comprehensive G3X.

It's like owning Apple products: once you've got the hang of one device you're in the family and can easily learn all the company's other gadgets from watches to laptops.

Before we go flying and see the G3X Touch in action, a quick run down on the rest of the panel. To the unit's right we have a Garmin G5. I'm sure you've come across this, or rival Dynon's D3 Pocket Panel and AvMap's Ultra EFIS.

All three are the best piece of avionics that you can buy for the money. The G5 is the back-up instrument in case the main unit has a hissy fit or simply dies. Interesting point here: the LAA used to be against a back-up instrument being from the same manufacturer as the main device.

"I managed to argue against the logic of this," explains Manuel, "because in my opinion it doesn't make sense to have two operating systems that could easily corrupt each other. Safer, I reasoned, to have units using the same OS."

Next we have a Garmin GNC255A to deal with nav/comms, a Garmin GTX345 transponder which also incorporates ADSB In/Out, and last in the upgrade list we have a GMC 305 autopilot control panel which is also a Garmin product. As you can see from the photographs it's a very neat set-up and not at all over-busy or cluttered.

Let's go flying before we get into discussing how difficult it all was to retrofit and also the scary subject of cost. And the big question: do I think it's been worth it or would I have stuck with the well proven circumnavigation set-up?

We've decided to head south past Guildford, because I know the area extremely well, so that Manuel can concentrate on showing me how everything works.

We'll be flying across Farnborough's ILS for Runway 24 so we'll be able to see how the G3X system displays the localiser and glideslope.

Queiroz's G-GDRV and my G-DMBO are quite different aircraft. Aside from the latter being much newer and lower-hours, the tech and the money are firewall-forward in my RV whereas in Manuel's it's the other way around.

His carburetted IO-320 and fixed-pitch prop do the job perfectly but I was seduced by a more powerful IO-360, fuel injection, twin electronic ignition units and a CS prop. It matters little because all RVs are fast once they're off the ground. We have a much longer takeoff run than I'm used to but we're soon cracking along.

The first detail that I fall in love with is the transponder. Not the unit itselfalthough it is a bit easier to use than my Trig unit (which doesn't have ADS-B but is under half the price of the Garmin)but its interface with the G3X.

Queiroz enters the squawk that we get from Farnborough using a keypad that he quickly brought up onto the screen; as the numbers are given to us he taps them in and they are automatically transferred to the transponder itself. It's so quick that it'd be rare to enter the wrong squawk.

You can do the same for radio frequencies which would also reduce the number of blunders. Always embarrassing accidentally to ask Heathrow if you can do an overhead join when you thought you were talking to Denham.

As a back-up we have a tablet mounted to the panel on which navigation or traffic information can be displayed. Both of course can be shown on the G3X's screen but it's particularly handy and sensible to have the traffic information up permanently.

The navigation moving map is exactly the same as the Garmin Aera 660's except bigger and therefore easier to use.

It's quite bumpy today but using the touchscreen is not difficult. The best method is to use the frame of the unit as an anchor for your fingers or thumb and then prod the relevant icon. It's easier than on many car touchscreens and the Garmin's graphics are sharper too.

We're flying on autopilot that Manuel can operate either by reaching across to the separate GMC305 controller or the G3X touchscreen bang in front of him. I think using the controller looks easier and more intuitive.

One function that his autopilot has and mine doesn't is the ability to change the rate of descent. Very useful for making a controlled let-down through cloud.

Back in the circuit at White Waltham the lady inside the G3X lets us know that we're 500 feet from the deck as we're on final approach for Runway 25. "Thank you my darling," says a polite Queiroz who then puts us down as if we've landed on whipped cream rather than on one of southern England's most notoriously bumpy airfields.

One of the advantages of a tip-up canopy on a side-by-side Van's RV is that when the canopy is open you have excellent access to the back of the instrument panel, unlike with a sliding canopy (like mine) that requires lying on your back with a joystick up one trouser leg and a torch held in your teeth as you try and find a problem.

This means that we can have a good look at Manuel's installation. I'm staggered at how little wiring there is for such a comprehensive and multifunctional system.

"All the wires from the engine sensors such as EGT and CHTs go into a small box," he explains, "that then converts them and introduces their outputs into the CAN BUS system. That's why there are only a couple of DIN sockets in the back of the G3X."

The other remarkable thing is how shallow the G3X unit is. I'd have to remove my whole instrument panel to fit a replica of Manuel's system but it would fit easily, not least because I would be able to remove a lot of redundant wiring, not to mention doing away with my three back-up steam gauges.

High cost but huge value

So what's stopping me? You guessed; it's the cost. A quick tap on my Casio brings the total for the units that we've mentioned to just over 15,000 including VAT.

That's pretty good value considering the capability of the system. (I've not counted autopilot servos, the back-up battery that Manuel has fitted to power an emergency bus, or wiring.)

Fifteen grand would be a lot for me to spend replacing a system that works, and has worked, very well for me. However, if I were starting a new project I would virtually copy Manuel Queiroz's panel.

There's little on it that I'd change, and if I'm honest I really do have a rather bad case of panel envy.

Read more from the original source:
Garmin G3X Touch air test | Aviation technology reviews and information - Pilot Magazine

Even the manufacturing locations are being kept secret. Development of a loyal-wingman drone by Boeing in Australia may not be a black program, but it is at least light gray.

Still, the company has let a little light in by releasing a photograph of the first major assembly of the first prototypeits center fuselage. It reveals that the fighter-like Airpower Teaming System (ATS), as the drone is called, has large adaptable spaces for payloads.

At first, these will surely be for electromagnetic missions: passive intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and perhaps jamming. Yet even the intended tasking of the ATS is not confirmed amid a general withholding of information about the program since its public unveiling in February 2019.

When it released the photograph on Feb. 9, Boeing reiterated the plan for the ATS to fly for the first time this year. The type is aimed at the global defense market, with Australia as the potential launch customer. The 11.7-m (38-ft.) type may be a candidate for U.S. and British programs, too.

BAE Systems says it is supplying the flight-management system among other items, including technology from the British Taranis and Mantis and Australian Kingfisher experimental drone programs. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) is a partner in the work, which the service calls the Loyal WingmanAdvanced Development Program, but has not committed to quantity production.

The potential production quantityeasily hundreds of aircraftunderlines the importance of the location of manufacturing and identity of the manufacturer. In the photograph the major assembly is seen in what looks like a small, new factory.

Asked where the aircraft is being made, Boeing referred Aviation Week to the RAAF. The Australian defense department, responding on behalf of the RAAF, in turn attributed its inability to disclose information to Boeings need for commercial secrecy. The defense department is unable to release information on specific locations at this time due to Boeing customer and supplier sensitivities, it says.

Design, development and manufacturing of the prototypes is occurring across three Australian states by more than 22 suppliers, the defense department says. Boeing has a number of sites and teams focused on the design, development and manufacture of the Airpower Teaming System.

The commercial reasons for not disclosing the manufacturing locations are unclear. But the policy also helps keep the details of the design secret.

The drone is aimed at the international market and intended to be cheapand not subject to U.S. export restrictions. It seems likely ATS would be mostly kept in storage, like missile rounds, minimizing support costs. Hinting at the number of ATS an air force might need, Boeing says it has studied concepts in which 4-16 of the drones would accompany one manned fighter. Even if a customer did not buy at least four ATS for every fighter, unusually large-scale production must be envisioned.

The states involved are evidently Queensland and Victoria and perhaps South Australia. The photograph revealed a conventional structural scheme in which an aluminum substructure was covered by a composite skin. Lining of the inlet ducts also appears to be made of composite. Boeing is presumably making the composite parts at its factory in Melbourne, Victoria, which specializes in such materials.

AME Systems, in Victoria, is making wiring looms. The Australian subsidiary of RUAG, also in Victoria, is supplying landing gear. Globally, RUAG maintains business-jet landing gear, a hint at the origins of the ATS undercarriage.

BAE Systems is making hardware kits including flight control computers and navigation equipment. Its autonomous-vehicles team is in Melbourne, but the company makes electronics in South Australia. Ferra Engineering of Brisbane, Queensland, is making precision machine components and subassemblies, Boeing says. That notably does not include building up major assemblies such as the fuselage.

According to Boeing, the programs industrial team comprises 16 companies. This contrasts with the defense departments reference to 22 suppliers.

The ATS appears to be designed for high subsonic speed in level flight; it will need that to keep up with the manned fighters it accompanies. Its single engine is of an unidentified type used in very light personal jets. The Australian government said last year the aircraft could be armedpresumably in a later version.

The RAAFs head of air-combat capability, Air Cdre. Darren Goldie, underlined Australias withholding of a commitment to volume production of the ATS, saying in a Boeing statement that working with the company would help the air force consider options for manned-unmanned teaming. But there is industrial pressure on Australia to place an ATS order: Boeing said last year the fabrication equipment was not too big to be moved to another country.

The major assembly in the photograph is most of the fuselage of the first aircraft, from the well for the nose landing gear to the wells for the main landing gear. If the assembly includes the rear fuselage, the camera angle has been chosen not to show it. Rear fuselages are sensitive parts of stealth designs. That rear was covered on a mockup that Boeing presented at the Australian International Airshow in February 2019. In general, the fuselage major assembly appears to conform to the design of the mockup.

The next major milestone will be weight on wheels, when the fuselage structure moves from the assembly jig to the aircrafts own landing gear to continue systems installation and functional testing, Boeing says. The Australian team has applied digital engineering and advanced composite materials to achieve cost and agility goals for the . . . aircraft, which is designed to use artificial intelligence in teaming with other manned and unmanned platforms.

BAE Australia has a strong background in autonomous systems. Apart from the flight management system, it is providing simulation capability, flight control computers and navigation equipment. This equipment will be allied with Boeings autonomous mission systems, BAE says. Another partner is the governments Defense Science and Technology Group.

Visible in the fuselage assembly, are the insides of the inlet ducts. These snake inward and upward to hide the engine face; this is a conventional stealth feature. Access hatches and doors in the belly are hexagonal, a low-observability feature supplementing an airframe shape that appears intended to be highly stealthy. ATS missions must demand a level of detectability comparable to that of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning, since the two types would operate together in Australian service.

Lines of fasteners in the lower corners of the fuselage and the position of frames inside indicate the location of payload bays. These are forward of the main landing gear wells and abreast of the downstream section of the inlet duct, where it would be a single tube. The ATS already was known to have space near the center of gravity for payloads. Customers will be able to tailor ATS sensors and systems based on their own defense and industrial objectives, Boeing says.

The bays may open at the sides rather than below. Since fasteners are visible in the photograph, the first ATS prototype will not have full stealth features. The forward fuselage is full of avionics, a source close to the program said in 2019. Conceivably, some of that equipment also could be customized, especially to take advantage of the nose position.

Since the ATS could be armed, designers may intend the adaptable midfuselage spaces to become weapon bays in a later version. The evident size of the bays seems to rule out the possibility of carrying air-to-air missiles, but glide bombs might fit, making the ATS a strike aircraft useful against undefended or lightly defended ground targets. The GBU-39 Small-Diameter Bomb is 1.78 m long, only half as long as a Raytheon AIM-120 Amraam.

An aircraft such as this might be flown for only hundreds of hours, offering the potential to cut structural weight. The fuselage does not appear to have heavy-duty gauges, and elements could be spaced more widely than would be done in an aircraft designed for intensive use. Bent-metal frames abreast of the inlets are much lighter than would be expected on a fighter. The robustness of the overall structure probably is governed largely by maneuver loads, not fatigue life.

The inlet shapes and mild bumps on the sides of the fuselage upstreamseen in the mockup and on the major assemblycorrespond to the design of supersonic diverterless inlets, which are stealth features. This suggests the slippery aircraft may be supersonic in a shallow dive, a valuable characteristic in fleeing from enemy fighters. With an engine unlikely to much exceed 3,000 lb. thrust, it could hardly rely on repeated hard maneuvers to survive.

Yet the positioning and shaping of the inlets, suiting high angles of attack, indicates that the ATS is intended to pull high-G maneuvers. Otherwise, stealth considerations would recommend a dorsal inlet. In a Japanese concept, loyal-wingman drones could serve as missile sponges. In that role, an ability to maneuver hard once or twice before running out of energy would be valuable. So would extremely low cost.

The aircraft appears to lack hydraulics, which would be troublesome for long-term storage. Instead, actuation of flight control surfaces and doors may be entirely electric.

The large fuel load for a range (perhaps ferry range) of 3,700 km (2,000 nm) probably is carried at least mainly in the upper fuselage and wing.

With Guy Norris in Los Angeles and Graham Warwick in Washington

See the article here:
Boeing Builds ATS Assembly, But Will Not Say Where - Aviation Week

NZXTs new ultra-compact H1 mITX chassis arrives equipped with both a 650w, 80+ Gold SFX modular power supply and built-in NZXT 140mm AIO liquid cooling, making it incredibly attractive for system builders looking to assemble a tiny but powerful desktop PC. Simply drop in your choice of mITX motherboard, 2.5-inch SSD/HDD (or a motherboard-mounted NVMe drive) and system memory (and a graphics card if youre a gamer), and the NZXT H1 becomes a quiet, compact machine. With support for all but the largest of GPUs, the H1 can also be built up as a powerful gaming monster.

Priced at $349, the H1 seems pricey, until you stop to factor in the cost of a quality AIO cooler and SFX-L PSU. Taken together with the attractive chassis, theres a surprising level of value here.

As small form-factor (SFF) cases go, the H1 delivers a simple, monolithic look snf minimalist appeal. At 187mm x 187mm (7.36 x 7.36 inches square), it occupies a tiny amount of desk or floor space, while allowing for system builds which rival large gaming PCs. Combine this with a very perferated set of side panels, the H1 allows for access to fresh air for the 140mm AIO as well as allowing easy venting of the thermal load.

Top panel access is clean and concise, with an LED-lit power switch and a single item each of USB-C, USB-A and a 4-pole audio I/O jack.

The NZXT H1 ships with all components nested neatly within its rectangular frame, including the installed 650w power supply and PCI-e graphics card riser. Cabling is neatly bundled and already routed throughout the chassis, making cable management an afterthought even before assembly.

Included accessories are focused around AIO cooler mounting for AMD AM4, FM2(+), FM1, AM3(+), AM2 and Intel 115x. An included headphone/mic splitter makes for easy addition for audio I/O from the top panel, instead of routing 3.5mm connections to the bottom of the motherboard panel.

Getting to the interior of the H1 requires both the tempered glass front panel and mesh rear panel to be popped off to unlock the singular, U-shaped side+top cover of the chassis. Side rails allow for the top/side panel to slide neatly up and off of the chassis, and provide guidance when sliding them back down into position during reassembly. Magnetic, removable mesh dust filters extend along the interior length of both side panels.

The 140mm AIO comes with a splotch of pre-applied thermal compound on the plate, and the radiator is mounted on a swing-out frame that allows for simple access to the motherboard mounting platform.

Stubborn stickers are unfortunately found on multiple components of the H1, which tend to leave a lot of adhesive mess upon removal. A bit of adhesive remover was required to tidy this up, but wed like to see a better approach to providing information to the buyer/builder than stickers that wind up looking like the above when you attempt to remove them. We would also like to caution that a good amount of pressure and rubbing was required when removing the gunk, which could cause damage to components if you arent careful.

Even though the H1 supports only the small, mini-ITX motherboard form factor, it feels like theres a good amount of space to move about inside the chassis during installation of components. A relocated PSU power cable allows for the 120v power to be relocated to the rear/bottom of the chassis, along with the motherboard I/O panel.

Below the motherboard sits the PCI-e graphics card riser mount, which wraps around to the opposite side and allows for the riser to be fitted into the PCI-e slot. There is ample room for all but the very largest graphic cards on the market, allowing for the H1 to pack as much graphics card power into a highly portable build.

Closely resembling the Kraken M22, the 140mm AIO in the H1 has the pump mounted in the center of the radiator, leaving the mounted component to function only as a CPU block.

Swivel fittings allow sweeping the sleeved tubing out and away from the CPU when the radiator and fan are swung back into mounting position. Since the 140mm AIO pivots down to sit adjacent to the CPU block face, rotating the coolers tubing is required to close up the chassis. Use care when performing this step though, as it still requires focus to correctly orient the tubing while also not pinching it or the fan/pump wiring between the chassis pivot hinge in the process.

Once the motherboard is installed and the cooler cold plate is mounted, closing up the H1 shows just how compact a complete system build can be. The layout and preparation of the cabling, cooler and drives resembles a densely complex puzzle of components. Seeing the close proximity of all the components, its easy to see why the correct positioning of the coolant tubing is needed to complete the electronics origami inside the H1.

The bottom of the H1 aligns the motherboard I/O panel, graphics card ports and relocated power supply connection in a convenient cavity and routing arch cutaway. As the H1 is designed to stand vertically, the lower cutaway provides Ethernet, USB, display and power cabling to collect and direct out the bottom rear of the H1 chassis.

MORE:Best Cases

MORE:All Case Content

Original post:
NZXT H1 Review: SFF Excellence, PSU and AIO Included - Tom's Hardware

The Alabama Legislature met in session for Day 5 of the annual Regular Session on Tuesday, February 18. Twenty-eight committee meetings were held during the week to consider legislation. Both Houses met in session on Thursday, February 20 for Day 6.

535 bills have been introduced so far this Session.

The Legislature will return to Montgomery on Mardi Gras for Day 7 of the Session with the House convening at 1:00 p.m. and the Senate convening at 2:00 p.m..

DURING THE WEEK

The Senate Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on SB165 by Senator Tim Melson. The bill, named the Compassion Act, creates an appointed nine member medical cannabis commission to oversee regulations and licensing for medical cannabis cultivators, processors, and dispensaries, and requires a statewide seed-to-sale tracking system for all medical cannabis in the state. The bill does not allow for the smoking or vaping of marijuana or edible forms of the drug. However, treatment in the form of pills, gelatinous cubes, gels, orals or creams, transdermal patches, and nebulizers will be allowed.

Patients would receive a state issued Medical Cannabis Card and a patient registry would be established. Medical conditions are enumerated in the bill, including Crohns Disease, HIV/Aids Related nausea, cancer-related chronic pain, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Proponents and opponents spoke on the bill. After several amendments were adopted by the Committee, the bill was given a favorable report.

The House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee held a public hearing, but did not vote, on HB79 by Representative Tim Wadsworth that would authorize a judge of probate, district judge, or circuit judge to carry a pistol openly or concealed in a courtroom, courthouse, courthouse property, and within his or her office.

Advertisement

Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) Director Lance LeFleur and staff briefed the Mobile and Baldwin delegations on the structure and timeline of the containment, clean up, and monitoring of the Barry Steam Plant Coal Ash Deposit in Mobile County.

The Senate confirmed nine of the Governors board and commission appointments this week including Leslie D. Sanders to the Board of Human Resources, Representative Rod Scott to the Alabama Commission on Higher Education, and Wendall Wilkie Gunn to the University of North Alabama Board of Trustees.

BILLS PASSED BY HOUSE:

Advertisement

Advertisement

HB46 by Rep. Hollis HB66 by Rep. McClammyHB84 by Rep. Hill HB140 by Rep. Baker

BILLS PASSED BY SENATE:

SB53 by Sen. BurketteSB106 by Sen. Barfoot

To prohibit the smoking of tobacco products or vaping in a motor vehicle when a child aged 14 or under is in the vehicle.

To authorize a municipality or county to establish a local redevelopment authority for property that is contiguous to an active US Air Force military installation.

To limit mayoral pardons in relation to convictions for domestic violence.

To provide that landfills covered by substances other than earth are included within the definition of a landfill.

To authorize a municipality or county to establish a local redevelopment authority for property that is contiguous to an active US Air Force military installation.

To authorize the formation of charter schools near military installations with a focus on serving military dependents.

HOUSE:

HB35 by Rep. PringleHB69 by Rep. RichHB74 by Rep. K. Brown

To prohibit public K-12 schools from participating in, sponsoring, or provide coaching staff for interscholastic athletic events at which athletes are allowed to participate in competition against athletes who are of a different biological gender (House State Government Committee).

To increase the fees for issuing permits in the regulation of of the manufacturing, sale, display of fireworks, and for the use of pyrotechnics before an audience with 5% of the total fee going to the Alabama Firefighters Annuity and Benefit Fund (House Insurance Committee).

To prohibit the operator of a motor vehicle from using a wireless communication device in any manner that would require the operator to physically hold the device (Amended in House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee).

SIGNIFICANT FLOOR ACTION THIS WEEK

NOTEWORTHY BILLS REPORTED FROM COMMITTEE THIS WEEK

HB81 by Rep. C. BrownHB110 by Rep. C. BrownHB113 by Rep. C. Brown HB209 by Rep. McMillanHB233 by Rep. ReynoldsHB272 by Rep. Weaver

SENATE:HB147 by Rep. SellsSB59 by Sen. WardSB60 by Sen. Ward SB177 by Sen. GudgerSB183 by Senator Sessions

A proposed Constitutional Amendment to provide that a person charged with a Class A felony, when the proof is evident or the presumption is great, and if no conditions of release can reasonably protect the community from risk of physical harm, be denied bail before conviction (Amended in House Judiciary Committee).

To designate the Dauphin Island Sea Labs Alabama Aquarium as the official Aquarium of Alabama (House State Government Committee).

To provide for additional offenses that would require mandatory denial of bail (Amended in House Judiciary Committee).

To permit a pet dog in an outdoor dining area of a food service establishment under certain conditions (House County and Municipal Government).

To allow a municipality to use electronic records and signatures in the conduct of its affairs (House County and Municipal Government Committee).

To revise deadlines for candidates to qualify for the November 3, 2020 general election to accommodate the dates of the 2020 Republican National Convention (House Constitution, Campaigns and Elections Committee).

To prohibit a municipality that does not already have an occupational tax from imposing an occupational tax unless authorized by local law (Senate Governmental Affairs).

A proposed Constitutional Amendment to provide that all individuals are entitled to reasonable bail prior to conviction, except for offenses enumerated by the Legislature by general law (Substituted by Senate Judiciary Committee).

To provide for additional offenses that would require mandatory denial of bail (Substituted by Senate Judiciary).

To provide that former public employees may resume employment with their former employer or with another public employer during the 2 year prohibition against lobbying or otherwise representing clients before the government body for which he or she had worked (Amended in Senate Fiscal Responsibility ond Economic Development Committee).

To authorize any county to issue bonds to refund certain bonds previously issued by the county, and to ratify and confirm the validity of any refunding bonds originally issued prior to January 1, 2011 (Amended in Senate Banking and Insurance Committee).

SB196 by Sen. Williams

To provide the Department of Agriculture and Industries with exclusive jurisdiction over the regulation of working animals; to provide a reporting and investigation process for alleged violations of animal cruelty (Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee).

SIGNIFICANT INTRODUCTIONS THIS WEEK

A proposed Constitutional Amendment that would authorize municipalities to levy and collect ad valorem tax for the purpose of paying debt service on bonds, and the costs of public capital improvements (House County and Municipal Government Committee).To specify that the definition of gross receipts, for the purposes of municipal business license taxes, does not include any excise tax imposed by the federal, state, and local governments (House County and Municipal Government Committee).

To exempt slot machines manufactured prior to 1960 from the crime of possession of a gambling device under certain circumstances (House Judiciary Committee).

To create the Alabama Church Protection Act to provide for the justification for a person to use deadly phycial force in self-defense or in the defense of another on the premises of a church in certain circumstances (House Judiciary Committee).

To require each public school senior to legibly print and sign his or her name in cursive writing as a requirement for graduation from high school (House Education Policy Committee).

To provide that if a person is convicted of boating under the influence, the persons boating license and drivers license will be suspended (House Judiciary Committee).To authorize the adoption of local legislation authorizing wagering on professional, collegiate, and amateur sports contests and athletic events (House Judiciary Committee).To prohibit a medical procedure on or medication to a minor child that is intended to alter the minor childs gender or delay puberty (House Health Committee).

HOUSE:

HB253 by Rep. BallHB258 by Rep. CrawfordHB260 by Rep. C. BrownHB263 by Rep. GreerHB270 by Rep. SellsHB284 by Rep. ShaverHB301 by Rep. RogersHB303 by Rep. AllenPage 4 of 6

SENATE:

MSB194 by Senator WaggonerSB217 by Sen. WhatleySB219 by Sen. ShelnuttSB110 by Sen. Figures

To revise deadlines for candidates to qualify for the November 3, 2020 general election to accommodate the dates of the 2020 Republican National Convention (Senate Governmental Affairs Committee).

To require a municipality or county that levies a motor fuel tax to use the proceeds for road and bridge construction and maintenance with certain exceptions (Senate Finance and Taxation Education Committee).

To prohibit a medical procedure on or medication to a minor child that is intended to alter the minor childs gender or delay puberty (Senate Healthcare Committee).

To repeal Act 2019-189 making abortion or attempted abortion a felony (Senate Judiciary Committee).

More:
Weekly Legislative Session Report: Week Three - alreporter.com

The flick of a switch or a slow transition, how do you like your light? Dimmers versus traditional light switches create ambiance and can reduce the number of times you get up from the sofa to turn the lights on and off.

Whats the real difference between traditional and dimmer switches?

A traditional light switch simply supplies or cuts the power to the lamp or bulb. A dimmer switch used to work by means of a variable resistor, the more resistance, less energy to the bulb and more heat at the dimmer switch therefore dimmer light. Modern dimmers work differently by rapidly shutting off the light bulb circuit every time the AC current reverses direction 120 times per second. Depending on where the dimmer is set changes how long the circuit is off in milliseconds. The higher the switch is set, the faster the circuit turns back on. This changes the amount of energy supplied to the bulb, and thus the brightness of the light.

If you are considering changing to a dimmer switch, the first thing to ask is whether it will be compatible with your current lighting system.

There are three primary styles of dimmer switches.

Rotating Switch: This lets the user turn the dial to gradually change the brightness of the bulb.

A dual switch plate: traditional on/off switch with a light dimmer switch.

Touch Dimmer: The user simply touches a plate on top to turn the light up or the bottom to decrease brightness until the preferred setting is reached.

Wireless: This allows for controlling two or more different sets of lights by remote control. If you are lounging on the sofa or your favorite chair, you probably don't want to get up multiple times to change the lighting as the sun comes up or goes down, so this is an ideal option. They can be installed anywhere and sometimes without the need for wiring. Some feature wireless controls via computer or cell phone. Oftentimes they can integrate with other smart home systems, such as heating/cooling and security. Voice control is even automated.

Control the brightness of the rooms lights remotely from your phone.

Many dimmer switches are not compatible with energy-saving light bulbs. An energy-saving bulb contains glass tubes coated in phosphor. When electricity passes through the bulb, the gas emits ultraviolet rays which light up the phosphor. When used with a dimmer switch, these bulbs simply flicker on and off. We recommend switches that let you choose from two or three fixed levels of brightness.

Additionally, incompatible bulbs will limit the dimming range and cause humming, buzzing and flickering. Unless the manufacturer indicates the bulb is dimmable, do not install any LED or compact fluorescent bulb in a socket controlled by a dimmer.

There are also tabletop dimmers equipped with a cord, plug and socket. Though the bulbs in the fixture must be compatible with the dimmer.

Ever notice interference to nearby televisions and radios when you turn the lights on? That happens because the rapid changes in the voltage supplied to the bulb can cause excessive vibrations in its filament, which is magnetic. Higher quality dimmer switches will include inductor chokes or interference capacitors that can smooth the effects of the changing voltage.

Look for LED bulbs that state they are dimmable. There are several types and color quality available. Manufacturers publish lists of bulbs that are compatible with dimmer products.

Each dimmer switch comes with a wattage rating that tells you the maximum watts of bulbs you can control with it. Follow the instructions, otherwise serious damage or injury can occur. Also, if you will be controlling multiple bulbs from one switch, you need to add up the wattage of each bulb concerned.

When installing a dimmer, it is highly recommended that you hire a licensed, bonded, and insured electrician. Electricity is a safety issue, and should really not be left as a DIY project or to a handyman.

A professional electrician will:

Inspect the wall box in which the dimmer will be installed and take measurements to be sure the dimmer will physically fit.

Confirm that the dimmer intended can be used with the type of bulb in your application.

Check if the dimmer requires a "neutral" connection (a wall box with a ground connection and at least two other wires).

Help you choose a dimmer with sufficient power capacity by calculating the total wattage of the bulbs to be controlled and choose a dimmer rated for at least a 20 to 30 percent higher power capacity.

Check the dimming range with a visual test to ensure it is suitable for a given application.

Check labels or markings on the dimmer, packaging or installation instructions for an electrical safety rating such as UL-1472.

Now that we shinned a light on dimmers, go ahead and set the mood in your favorite room.

For more do-it-yourself tips, go to rosieonthehouse.com. An Arizona home building and remodeling industry expert since 1988, Rosie Romero is the host of the syndicated Saturday morning Rosie on the House radio program, heard locally from 8 to 11 a.m. on KNST-AM (790) in Tucson and from 7 to 10 a.m. on KGVY-AM (1080) and -FM (100.7) in Green Valley. Call 888-767-4348.

Continued here:
Rosie on the House: Setting the mood with lighting dimmers - Green Valley News

FLEMINGTON Flemington Borough Council will consider enacting an ordinance involving property maintenance as well as the 2015 International Property Maintenance Code (IPMC) at their Feb. 13 meeting at 7 p.m.

Council is considering enacting the IPMC to better establish and enforce rules regarding property maintenance within the borough.

IPMC regulates and governs the conditions and maintenance of structures within a borough and provides penalties for violators and the condemnation of buildings and structures unfit for human occupancy and use.

The regulations would include eight chapters ranging from the roles and authority the borough will have involving enforcement of the IPMC to establishment of criteria for installing and maintaining heating and air conditioning, ventilation and fireplaces.

According to a notice of intent from the borough office, chapter one will involve the establishment of necessary legal basis for enforcement of the code by the borough.

This includes all the police powers inherent in enforcing the IPMCs minimum standards for the use and maintenance of buildings that must follow the line of authority from the United States Constitution to the state and borough, the notice said.

The chapter defines roles and responsibilities of the borough.

Sections 201 and 202 from Chapter two will address practical concerns that may be encountered while interpreting the code in relation to the use of gender, tense and singular versus plural. It also provides an alphabetical listing of terms that are commonly used through the code.

Chapter three lists a variety of requirements for exterior property areas as well as interior and exterior elements of the structure.

The chapter specifies criteria for installation and maintenance regulations for building components. It also includes requirements for regulating safety, sanitation and the appearance of interior and exterior structure.

Chapter four established the minimum criteria for light and ventilation and identifies occupancy limitations.

Chapter five consists of the minimum criteria required for the installation, maintenance and location of plumbing systems and facilities including water supply systems, water heating appliance, sewage disposal systems and related plumbing fixtures.

Chapter six establishes minimum criteria for the installation and maintenance of heating and air conditioning equipment appliances and systems, water-heating equipment and appliances, ventilation and exhaust equipment, gas and liquid fuel distributing piping and components, fireplaces and solid fuel-burning appliance, chimneys and vents, electrical services, lighting fixtures, electrical receptacle outlets, electrical distribution system equipment, devices and wiring, and elevators escalators and dumbwaiters.

Chapter seven establishes minimum requirements for fire safety facilities and fire protection systems.

The final chapter included, chapter eight, contains a comprehensive list of all standards that are referenced within the IPMC code.

The full ordinance can be viewed at the borough office during regular business hours.

By PAT CROSSLEYpcrossley@sungazette.comJERSEY SHORE - With few additions or changes to classes being offered, ...

From PennLiveWILLIAMSPORT A Centre County man is headed to prison for 18 months for underreporting $807,578 ...

BELLEFONTE In Centre County, the 2020 budget has been amended and passed unanimously.On Tuesday, the ...

BELLEFONTE An energy savings project that began in 2017 in Centre County recently reached completion. On ...

LOCK HAVEN For the first time ever, members of the Clinton County Assessment Board of Appeals will be required ...

Link:
Flemington to consider IPMC ordinance | News, Sports, Jobs - Lock Haven Express

February 7 2020 @ 15:23 by Richard Dawson

Apex Wiring Solutions has recruited a team of industry specialists and invested over 500,000 in a creating a manufacturing facility for the Apex Core a central hub for a households heating, ventilation, electrical, communication and metering services.

The North East-based company, which claimed to revolutionise UK electrical installation is hoping to once again disrupt the construction industry with this new venture.

Key to this drive are prefabricated utility cupboards (PUCs), which are favoured in the construction sector because they arrive fully assembled and ready to install on site.

Apex directors, Mike and Dave Lewis, are creating the UKs largest PUC manufacturing facility at their base in Littleburn Industrial Estate, near Durham city centre.

Contracts and production managers James Moore and Paul Cooper, alongside production supervisor Kaspars Netlis, will oversee design, development and production of the new product.

The team have been recruited by Apex Wiring Solutions for their reputation for PUC innovation.

Company director, Dave Lewis, said: There are moments in industry when there are huge leaps forward in innovation. We saw that with modular wiring in the early 2000s and were seeing it now with these PUC units.

Modular solutions save developers time, reduce waste, cost less and are safe all things that are vital if the Government is to truly address the housing crisis and build more homes, particularly starter homes.

James, Paul and Kaspars have developed the technology. They have spent the last six years refining and perfecting PUC design and development, so when they became available it was a no-brainer for us to recruit them to lead this exciting project.

See the article here:
Apex Wiring Solutions invests in construction industry disruptor - Apex Core - North East Times

This is Part 3 of a 5-part series on the trucking tech shortage and the strategies to combat it. Read Part 1 on the overall issue here. Read Part 2 on youth outreach here.

At Heavy Duty Aftermarket Dialogue in January, John Blodgett, vice president of sales and marketing of MacKay & Company, revealed a survey done by the consulting firm found fleets' top concern going into 2020 was the technician shortage.

He noted the issue "was not new, but is higher in the ranking from where it has been in the past."

Until recently, the industrial trade, like so many others, has only actively recruited men, which comprises a tad less than half the population. Anytime your choices are slashed in half, your quantity and quality are bound to suffer. So while engine complexity, wages, retirements and messaging are critical factors, the most logical area to address the truck tech shortage is where it has been most glaringly deficient: viewing women as viable workers on the shop floor.

By the industry not looking to hire more women, I think theyre missing out, quite honestly, said Tyson Sontag, a former TMC SuperTech winner and current high school diesel technology teacher..

In his classroom, which is at most 3 girls to 12 boys (usually less), he noticed some of the advantages women bring to the trade. He observed they were more detail-oriented, kept tidier work stations with parts sequenced, and while not as fast as the boys, their work is right the first time.

These are stereotypes traditionally associated with women, and even if not always true show how they could balance a shop floor. But its the negative tropes, such as women not being strong enough to do the job, that seem to keep most shops male-dominated.

Not every man, especially those whose bodies have seen decades of wear and tear, is strong enough to do every task by himself. This is where teamwork comes into play.

Theres always some young dumb lug trying to prove his strengthlet him pull the cylinder head, and let this girl take apart the dash and figure out why somethings not working, Sontag mused.

Its not the most politically correct response, but rings true. A woman, whatever her size, might not always be able to lift as much, but can carry just as much of the workload.

About an hour north, TLG Peterbilt-Joplin learned this, thanks to a tech named Aymee Cunningham, a petite woman who often heard customers question her value to the shop since 2011. She recalled how this all changed in 2014 via a YouTube video posted by the business. It started when a concrete pump truck had a check engine light pop on and interrupt pouring operations. No one from the OEM or Cummins could figure it out.

I decided I was going to make my own circuit for it, she explained, believing the wiring was too small to consistently handle the current.

I fixed it, she said, still visibly affected by the small victory for the shop and giant leap for her self-esteem. They havent had a lick of problems since.

That one moment was a game-changer for at least that one shop.

It was an eye-opener for everybody when she solved that, recalled general manager Roger Bartlett. It was a big deal and she gained a lot of respect.

Few women can command respect upon first walking through the garage door. Bonnie Greenwood is one.

While attending WyoTech in Laramie, Wyo., Greenwood became the first female champion of TMC FutureTech, the student version of SuperTech, in 2017.

Greenwood had a college degree (in wildlife biology) but decided shed rather be a grease monkey. She was hired almost immediately by FedEx Freight in Salt Lake City.

And the term grease monkey is somewhat of an anachronism, said Ellen Voie, founder and CEO of Women in Trucking, an advocacy group promoting female representation in the industry.

People have a misconception when you say diesel tech; theyre thinking that youre all greasy, Voie said. Sometimes that is still absolutely true, but you dont need to be six-foot-five and built like a gorilla.

These days theres no reason why women cant do the job, she said. Its not as physically demanding as it once was.

Maintaining trucks isn't always a dirty job, but sometimes it is, which is fine for Ryder Technical scholarship recipient Sabrina Depue, who fell in love with the diesel trade when she was young. "I didn't have the confidence I could do it even though I loved it, but I dove in head first and I have never looked back," she said.

But Voie questions if the industry is doing enough to let women know the trade has become more accessible. She also mentioned womens smaller hands are something of an advantage when working with wiring, and they can get to places many men cant without removing a ton of other components. Its not hard to imagine a giant master mechanic sheepishly asking the new female tech to unscrew a sensor deep within the labyrinth of pipes and hoses so he doesnt have to spend half a day disassembling it.

Perception is still the biggest challenge. Voie alluded to the infamous Snap-On Tool calendars of yesteryear featuring bikini models as a symbolic no girls allowed sign.

Its always been such a good ol boys network, she said. It takes time to realize they need to make changes.

Since 2016, Ryder has supplied 20 women with technical scholarships, up to $2,000 each, to aid in their education. Diesel mechanic school tuition costs around $4,000, according to alltrucking.com.

Ryder is taking the lead in drawing more women to the transportation industry, at a time when the industry needs to grow the pool of qualified diesel technicians and professional drivers, said Patrick Pendergast, vice president of recruiting services at Ryder.

Together with the Women In Trucking Foundation, we are able to make technical education more affordable for women who are striving to make a career in trucking a reality, he continued.

A best practice Roehl Transportation uses is showing trainers the movie North Country, where Charlize Therons character must assimilate into a coal mine, and discussing the movie afterwards.

It sensitizes them to what women are feeling and thinking when they enter a male environment, Voie said.

Any company wanting to address the issue must go all in, though, and be prepared for the challenges, she said.

To get to that point, Voie believed the way trucking markets these jobs must reverse course. [Some companies] just have this mindset that they think that a NASCAR car in their ad or a Dallas cheerleader is what people are looking for, she said. You just eliminated half the population because that doesnt attract women.

And if this is truly as critical a problem as everyone says, and its been going on for decades (as we spelled out in Part 1), its crazy not to at least try.

Read the original post:
How recruiting women can help defeat the tech shortage - Fleet Owner