Can anybody help with a puzzle please?

[Melody Hales]

Hi Everybody,

One of my hobbies is geocaching and I'm trying to obtain some coordinates in the form of 52°XX.--- and 00X°XX.---. (or it could be in this format 52.XXXX and X.XXXX) I'm usually pretty good at these, but this is an electrical challenge and I'm stuck. I've got the following clues:

Mains voltage is 240V (OK, I know it isn't really)
5.99254V (shown on an image household plug, next to the neutral pin)
270.44353V (shown on the same image, next to the earth pin)

The clues also state single phase. OK, that's all I have and have been trying to find a way to solve this for over 2 weeks. Do these number mean anything to you. Any ideas? I've looked at RMS voltages, standards, adding, multiplying, dividing etc etc but to no avail. Nobody else has solved this yet.

Any help very gratefully received!!

Melody

 

[telectrix]

no idea. a pic might help.

and .... geocaching? ...... do you trap geo's or use a tranquilizer gun?

 

[gutterball]

if it is neutral for north and earth for east the numbers don't match 6 for n 8 for e. how many do you need for a position?

 

[Rockingit]

OK - how good is your Trigonometry/Calculus? Voltage is dependent on degrees as well... we work on a 360deg sine wave that has half a cycle in the positive and half in the negative - so we get 240v at 90deg, back to zero at 180, -240 at 270deg and back to zero again at 360.

So, do the maths and see what you get as an angle for a voltage of 5.99254V (being a voltage) and then see what Voltage you get from an angle of 270.44353 (which I assume to be used as an angle as indicated by it being 'earth')

Good question, this one!

 

[Melody Hales]

Thanks for the help -just what I needed! I have now solved the puzzle and found the cache!

 

[Rockingit]

So was I right then?

 

[mogga]

Im totaly LOST ffs please let us know what the answert was ffs

 

[Melody Hales]

Hi All,

Just to clarify, Rockingit (THANKS) provided the inspiration needed. Once I realised that was the key, it took about 2 mins to solve and I rushed out and got the cache. I won't reveal the actual answer here in case another geocacher finds it but yes, it was simply a case of taking 240V as the RMS voltage, calculating the peak and then calculating the angles from the voltages given. I'm really pleased, my other half mentioned phase angles last week (amongst many other ideas), but we didn't make that final little leap of thinking. He's a clever engineer, but doesn't like geocaching! GPS coordinates can be thought of as angles (they are really) based on degrees north of the Equator and east/west of Greenwich.

Thanks again to you all - what a lovely bunch of electrically minded people you all are

 

[Rockingit]

[smug mode engaged] :smartass:

 

[telectrix]

someone please find the plot, i've lost it entirely.

 

[Rockingit]

Hang on..... I'll explain all in a minute!

 

[Rockingit]

Right - are we all seated comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Geocaching = finding little hidden packages based on clues and GPS coordinates.

The clue to find this 'cache' had been expressed as a set of voltages rather than as Northings and Eastings (to use old speak).

So, as all us clever sparkies that went to college for more than 5 weeks all know, voltage and angles are almost interchangeable - we all know that at the top of the sine wave, 90degs, the voltage is U-rms, so therefore if we know what our maximum voltage is, we can work out all the rest of the numbers based on where the angles are.

Therefore, for every given voltage there is a corresponding angle so long as we know what our U-rms is. The clue gave it as 240V, therefore all it took was some maths to find out what the angles corresponded as, and they were the degrees N & E to find the parcel.

It's easier to do the maths in RADs not DEGs but then you'd need to do another conversion to get some DEG's for your GPS.

Feeling better now?

 

[ipf]

[smug mode engaged] :smartass:

I'd be after some of that cache if I were you (whatever it is).

 

[Rockingit]

I'd be after some of that cache if I were you (whatever it is).

No mate, it's pleasure enough to know that my brain still works!!!!

 

[Top Cat]

Right - are we all seated comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Geocaching = finding little hidden packages based on clues and GPS coordinates.

The clue to find this 'cache' had been expressed as a set of voltages rather than as Northings and Eastings (to use old speak).

So, as all us clever sparkies that went to college for more than 5 weeks all know, voltage and angles are almost interchangeable - we all know that at the top of the sine wave, 90degs, the voltage is U-rms, so therefore if we know what our maximum voltage is, we can work out all the rest of the numbers based on where the angles are.

Therefore, for every given voltage there is a corresponding angle so long as we know what our U-rms is. The clue gave it as 240V, therefore all it took was some maths to find out what the angles corresponded as, and they were the degrees N & E to find the parcel.

It's easier to do the maths in RADs not DEGs but then you'd need to do another conversion to get some DEG's for your GPS.

Feeling better now?

I wired a socket today!