NEW North American Locking Receptacle Series

North America Power Cord Locking Receptacles

Key Specifications:

L7-15R
15A
277V
NEMA L7-15R
Approvals: UL/cUL

L7-20R
20A
277V
NEMA L7-20R
Approvals: UL/cUL

L7-30R:
30A
277V
NEMA L7-30R
Approvals: UL/cUL

For prices and samples, contact High Tech Connections TODAY!

sales@hightechcords.com

The NEW Economics of Checked Baggage

So, what to make of Delta's new sliding scale for checking bags? On domestic flights, the first bag is free, the second is $50, and the third is $125. This kind of thing is the exact opposite of most retail economics, where the more you buy the cheaper the unit cost becomes.

Delta seems to think there are diseconomies of scale to checking bags: that checking twice as many will cost it much more than twice as much. This is not intuitive. If you break down Delta's baggage-handling costs into fixed and variable, the fixed costs would include the maintenance of the infrastructure and the wages of the baggage handlers.

Maybe a drop-off in checked bags will allow the number of baggage-handling staff to come down a little, but I doubt those numbers would be very large. The variable costs, by contrast, are pretty much entirely a function of the bags' weight. Under its new scheme, one large, heavy bag travels free, while three small, light bags will cost you $175 and four will set you back $300.

I'd love to be a luggage shop in the Delta departures area right now, selling big cheap duffels to passengers faced with sticker shock. The obvious alternative would have been for Delta to charge by weight: give everybody an allowance of say 30 pounds, and then charge per pound above that. That would be fairer, and easier to understand too: right now the system is a complete mess, with international travellers paying $150 for three bags, but all of that being for the third bag, with the second flying free.

And of course there's a long list of exceptions: first-class passengers, elite frequent fliers, military customers. Delta has twin motivations here: it wants to turn checked baggage into a profit center, while alienating as few paying customers as possible. Looked at from that point of view, its actions make a bit more sense: most people will pay relatively modest sums, while the big fees will be levied on travelers using the airline as a means of transporting luggage as much as themselves.

Even so, I suspect that most passengers would still be happier with a charge-by-weight system calibrated to generate the same amount of revenue. Big heavy bags are the bane of both travellers and baggage handlers: it's really not smart to incentivize their use in this manner.

NEW! Thermal Circuit Breakers for Electronic Applications!

NEW KX-series Thermal Circuit Breakers with voltage drop less than 0.25V and insulation resistance of 500 megaohms Current ratings from 3 to 50A available. All breakers are offered with a wide selections of terminals, bushing and caps.

General Specifications:

Rating: 3.0 to 50.0A
Input power: 125/250V AC, 50V DC, 50/60Hz
Interrupt capacity: 1,000A, 125V AC; 200A, 250V AC
Dielectric strength: 1,500V AC, one minute
Resettable overload capacity: 10 times rated current
Voltage drop: less than 0.25V
Insulation resistance: 500 megaohms
Reset time: within 60 seconds
Temperature rise: less than 65 degrees Celsius, at 100% of rated current applied continuously at 25 degree Celsius
Calibration (at 25 degree)
100% of rated current: hold, no-trip135% of rated current: trip in one hour200% of rated current: 40 seconds trip300% od rated current: 10 seconds trip

For OEM pricing, full specifications and product samples, Contact High Tech Connections TODAY! sales@hightechcords.com

Quality-Built Fuse Blocks for Your Production!

UL-approved Fuse Block, Applicable Fuse Size: 6.35 x 30mm / 6.35 x 31.75mm

Model Number: KX08-F2003

General Specifications:

Fuse size: 6.35 x 30mm / 6.35 x 31.75mm
Maximum rating: 20A/300V
Dielectric strength: 2,500V AC, one minute
Insulation resistance: 500V DC, 5m Ohms minimum
UL listed
RoHS compliant

Contact High Tech Connections TODAY for pricing and samples! sales@hightechcords.com

FORD Building New Mustang Cobra Jet For Drag Racing!

According to cnet reviews, Ford's Mustang FR500CJ Cobra Jet, will be the latest in a LONG line of Mustang variants.

If there's one thing Ford Motor Company does well, it's cranking out variants of its modern muscle car, the Mustang. You've got the GT, GT-H, the Cobra, the GT500, the GT500KR, the Warriors in Pink edition, the California Special, the Mach 1, the Bullit, the list goes on and on.

Now Ford has yet another 'Stang variant to add to the list: the Mustang FR500CJ Cobra Jet. So, what makes the Cobra Jet different from the rest? Named after, and inspired by, the 1968 Mustang Cobra Jet, the FR500CJ is a factory-built drag racing variant.

The interior has been stripped, which helps lower the vehicle's weight to 3,300 pounds. Skinny front tires and chunky, drag slicks out back replace the standard Mustang's street tires. The power plant is a supercharged 5.4-liter 32-valve V-8 based on the motor found in the GT500.

The engine will output 400 horsepower and an unknown amount of torque. I can't help but be a little disappointed that, with a name like Cobra Jet, there isn't a jet engine under the hood. I suppose NHRA doesn't allow jet engines in the FR500CJ's class. Pity.

Ford says there will be an initial 50 unit production run with the MSRP being $69,900. I'm not really sure what to think about the Cobra Jet. On the one hand, I can't help but wonder if perhaps Ford's energies could be better spent somewhere other than the drag strip. In a world where most automakers are researching and developing alternative fuels and electric/hybrid power, the FR500CJ seems a bit archaic.

On the other hand, the big engines and big power of drag racing are a ton of fun. I mean, the Mustang FR500CJ Cobra Jet may be a dinosaur, but what kid doesn't like dinosaurs?

Complete Internet Protection? Not Yet!

Dennis O'Reilly says to the short list of life's certainties--death and taxes--we can now add "Web threats."

Early indications are that there will be no quick fix for clickjacking, which enables a PC to be infected with malicious software simply by clicking a disguised link on a Web page.

All browsers are equally vulnerable, and there appears to be no sure solution, at least in the short term. Even disabling JavaScript and other advanced Web features won't prevent an infection.

Does this mean you should cancel your broadband account and dig out the ham radio? I don't recommend it. In fact, reports such as these show the folly of believing that our Web browsing is ever completely safe.

No hardware or software will ever be 100 percent secure. Yes, keep your antivirus definitions up-to-date. Yes, use a firewall.

Download and install Giorgio Maone's NoScript extension for Firefox (donation requested) to gain site-by-site control over the scripts that run in the browser.

But even these precautions are no substitute for common sense. Be careful about the sites you visit and the links you click. View your e-mail as plain text; Microsoft's support site provides instructions for doing so in Outlook 2003 and 2007. In Mozilla Thunderbird, simply click View, Message Body As, Plain Text.

Last, but definitely not least, every PC user must acknowledge that the day will dawn when their system crashes for good--whether due to a malware attack or (more likely) a hardware or software failure. Keep your data backed up!

In addition to creating an image backup of your hard drive once or twice a year, using a program such as Acronis' True Image Home (15-day free trial), try an online backup service to keep your important data files fresh.

Nifty New Kitchen Gadget!

Making decisions can be difficult. Even when the choices presented offer a win/win result. I happen to like cheese. So, if I am faced with a simple choice, say cheddar or Swiss, it can be hard to decide between the two--or the myriad of other possibilities that exist. As you can imagine, grocery shopping for me can sometimes be quite an ordeal.

Luckily, I am comfortable and aware of my indecision while in the supermarket. My solution? Purchase one of each. But what of those times that making a choice leads to a commitment? No, I'm not talking of anything too serious, just choices that are somewhat important--such as which bottle of wine to open, the red or the white?

Sometimes a product comes along that actually does make life easier. The Skybar Wine Preservation & Optimization System from Frontgate is just such a device. Three independently chilled chambers store your wine and keeps them ready at their optimum temperature.

Each chamber is equipped with a pouring spout that smoothly decants your wine of choice directly into your glass. Vacuum technology preserves open bottles of wine for up to 10 days.
With three chambers, the choice between red and white is obsolete. Simply open one of each.

Now if I could only figure out what to put in the third chamber.