another old post - today, i visited the "senbao" electrical engineering co.

today, i visited the "senbao" electrical engineering co., organized by student union of school of electrical engineering. senbo company is a electrical equipment manufacture foucsed on high-voltage vaccum switch, transformer, regulator and control device. since this company is held and run by the several prof. of our university, so we have a good welcome and guide there. from this tour, i have a basic knowledge about the electrical grid system in china. the 'trans' net and 'feed' net, 'trans' net usually has 110kv, 220kv, 330kv or even 500kv (like in three gorges dam) voltage. and these power lines will be down at "bian-dian:zhan" into 'feed' net, which has .35kv, 10kv or 8kv voltage. the product made by senbao is primaily used in 10kv lines.

during the tour, prof. wang introduce the "Step Voltage Regulator" (SVR) to us: this stuff could compensate the voltage which is lost in the power line due to the resistance of metal. without this device, the 220v in source could decline to even 180v in the user-end. though widely used in western countries, SVR is still a new thing for chinese electrical grid, by prof. wang.

later in the Q&A part, prof. wang's answer to several question is quite impressing and helpful. his word reminds that how precious the time is, how the opportunity is valuable and how to be a qualified engineer. besides, he also talked about the relations between market, custom requirement, R&D and products. "even if he most advanced tech product is not fit for market, it's worthless. just little improvement, if it matches the custom reqirement, it will be a good product."; "the product is no value until it has been sold out". these sentences touch me because i never paid such attention to the relation between marketing and my job. the dict gives the definition of engineer - ' the people who use scientific knowledge to solve practical problems'. by today's experience, in modern societies, the 'practical problems' is included in a commerical problem. how to deal with the balance between the need ( maybe potential) and tech, the money and professional desire, are a crucial but never-endless question to every engineer.