Opening a new board.

[oldway]

I would be very pleased if Dave could open a new board in ELECTRONICS / POWER ELECTRONICS AND ELECTRICITY for high power (SMPS, No Break's, battery chargers, ...) gears / questions and electricity.

What do you think about ?

[b_force]

I personally would like to see even a lot more subforums/boards
At this point everything is just being put on one big pile, which is pretty confusing and messy sometimes.

[fourtytwo42]

I see two problems, one is if we have to many fragmented boards it will be hard to decide what one to put something in and find something.
The other is a bit more serious, there are a number of sites that have hosted such information and frankly some of it is very dangerous indeed. Some posters simply copy other designs, reverse engineer or copy data sheets but have absolutely no idea of electrical safety or fire hazards, not only that they continue to promote there designs to the unwary when these issues are bought to there attention.
We already have examples on this board of people selling snake oil but at least it only hurts the unwary pocket rather than put anybody in hospital or far worse.
IMOP If such a board existed here it would have to rigorously moderated to prevent danger to others.

[oldway]

I believe that, on the contrary, opening a new board about Power electronics and electricity would have the advantage of being able to give a general advice on the dangers of working/repairing/testing/developping  equipments supplied by mains voltage.

Currently, many subjects are open in this area without any warning.

Moreover, it is not a forum who have to control what everyone does.

On the internet, there are countless forums, videos and more on the repair of devices powered under 230V, and even microwave ovens where there are nearly 3KV and 0.9A ....

The separation of Power electronics and electricity would at least guarantee that all readers of this board are warned of the risks they run, even if the author of the topic did not.

[fourtytwo42]

Whilst to a certain extent I agree with you publishing schematics is a bad move as they get copied and implemented by the clueless! If I draw your attention to your own post https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?action=post;quote=1288871;topic=94083.25 with the video of the transformer being disassembled to show it's dangerous construction you can see what happens if principles and safety are not understood.

[hans]

I suppose as a community it's possible that someone could create a sticky thread about general HV and high energy safety precautions. Perhaps on top of that a general topic where people can freely ask what is safe/what is not.

One problem may remain that safety is also common sense, and some common sense is also gathered by experience. And that is very hard to transfer over even via a forum. But I suppose this issue will remain nonetheless.

WRT dividing board up I think getting too fragmented will be annoying. Sure I may look into project boards a bit more often if it wasn't mixed with analog, mechanical and physics questions. Then again take the microcontrollers & FPGAs board; the volume of incoming questions is usually so low that opening the board once or twice a day is enough to keep up. It's not worth splitting Micro's and FPGA's up, as has been discussed many times before at various places on the forum I think.

[H.O]

IMHO those who will put themselves in a dangerous situation because they don't know or understand what they're doing will be doing so with or without a a specific forum section. There's already 24 categories and 12 sub-categories, it's fragmented enough IMO.

[Shock]

I'd like to bump this.

I think it's an excellent idea for a forum and pulls EEVblog towards more discipline orientated topics.

Oldway said another post...

Answers to security questions should be made by people who prove their qualification and in a non-anonymous way so that they can be held responsible for the erroneous and dangerous advices they give and even be suited in the courts for their consequences.

On the subject of electronics "safety" (to avoid ambiguity).

That sounds good in concept, but I see two problems arising. The first it implies Dave or anyone who contributes has a duty of care. In some parts of the world this would also enable readers to make not only lawsuits, but frivolous lawsuits. The other is it's best to have an actual open and multiway conversation, least the forum be heavily moderated. Law/regulations/standards, equipment are country specific and we know that people can give incorrect advice and readers also interpret advice incorrectly.

As for people using their real names and providing their credentials, well if they want to be a subject matter expert I see no problems, even if they use a second account or their post signature. However I think it should be entirely optional, which leads to a similar problem.

My solution to those problems would be the person providing the advice instead quote or provide an actual documented source, the audience or individual asking the question can then refer to it if required. This has been pretty standard on the internet for the last 20 years so I'm sure it will serve us well, it also helps to clarify situations as there is nothing better than a good explanation and a black and white diagram to go along with it.

I would also put a disclaimer sticky up as well, it only needs to be simple and also outline the requirements on providing advice:
"Warning - Discussion on this forum can cover topics working with voltages above (insert ELV/SELV). It is no substitute for supervised training relevant to your location and experience. Feel free to ask questions but when replying with advice, for clarity provide a relevant source of the standards or training for readers."

[oldway]

As for people using their real names and providing their credentials, well if they want to be a subject matter expert I see no problems, even if they use a second account or their post signature. However I think it should be entirely optional, which leads to a similar problem.

My idea is not that the real name would be published on the internet but that a new "special" account could be created where it is necessary to identify and justify its security skills. Only Dave would have this information related to the identity of the account holder.
These avatars would be identified as security experts ...

[Shock]

My idea is not that the real name would be published on the internet but that a new "special" account could be created where it is necessary to identify and justify its security skills. Only Dave would have this information related to the identity of the account holder. These avatars would be identified as security experts ...

It's fairly acceptable across the internet to use two accounts if someone is separating their professional and personal identities, even if they are both nicknames, if it comes to that anyway.

I've seen the particular idea you have elsewhere and it died a slow death unfortunately, they were asked a lot of questions and lost interest and people were left hanging, others started coming in trying to help while they weren't online, on holiday. However this doesn't mean it cant work here of course, and is necessary for some topics.

If a proclaimed expert can answer questions while providing a credible source reference, it should be fairly transparent to everyone and has a more community type vibe going for it, Dave doesn't need to endorse or administer anyone as well (which is a bonus).

I even have a few questions ready to go.