THE WELDING MACHINE FROM A PLACE CALLED 'KATWE'.

THE WELDING MACHINE FROM A PLACE CALLED 'KATWE'.


And I visited this place called Katwe, and I was to buy a welding machine,locally made as it was cheap running between 400,000ushs to 500,000Ushs.

Prior to that we had bought one from big shop called 'Game' running at around 350,000Ushs. It turns out that the welding machine could not work on mass production of steel products like windows, doors and staircases. The 'Game'people were good,
as they allowed us to take back their product. And so, that's how we turned the
eye to Katwe.
Yeee!!!, support for the locally made stuff.

Now about that welding machine from Katwe!
It was a complete shame on me to see the barely uneducated having made something that works and me, with all the technical knowledge about the machine only knowing it in theory. This, I termed, the fine gap between theory and practice. It had nothing to do with the fact that I couldnt make the machine but the issue was 'why should I make it?' This question if looked at in more details would be the sole basis of why students should go higher institutions of learning..the university.

I was so eager to give this uneducated inventor/copycat more knowledge of what they are producing but it was so hard to change all those electrical engineering terms into the local language.
For example, how do you say 'electromagnetism' in the local language. Or rather when I said the word 'current', everyone got confused with 'current'events...nooo! I had meant electric Current'.

Now after recovering from the fact that a person with no prior knowledge, than
did I take a more detailed 'look' into the machine...oops! it turned out that
the machine was just about, say, just over 50% efficient.
Turns out everything about the machine was not as good as portrayed by the
aper. The aper had done some very good marketing of the product.

In layman's language, a 50% efficient machine simply wastes the remaining 50% of
your electricity consumption just like that. And the friendlier power guys will say, "your bill please!"

Ahh!...guess what comes next...
checkmate once again!!!
like the water-guys,
suffereth we do.

And what would your next move be...
...before you trick the electricity company...
...bypassing the meter...
...in a bit to save on the electricity...
...and specifically that extra 50% waste...?

It would be wise to get advise. For example, observations on this
Katwe-made welding machine showed that;

"1- the way the windings had been done was so exactly poor
2- the laminated plates had been poorly packed, air-gaps reduced efficiency
and likewise leading to more power losses through heat, sound, hysteresis and eddy currents plus all that other jargon. In otherwords, improving the mutual inductance between the two windings was key to a highly functioning welding machine.
And for this reason much power had been lost during the transfer from the primary to the secondary windings thus reducing the effectiveness of the device. This meant that it was not optimised to work as an electricity saving device.

Forsooth making high quality welding machines from Uganda is so possible and just as easy as it was with the vehicle made by the Makerere engineering guys. Later on that vehicular machine.

Now prior to that,
...these guys ignorantly informed me of how their local stuff works better than
imported items...which was partly true. Likewise they had told me of how better they are than the engineering graduates from Makerere...which was so out of context...oops I sorried them ignorant ones.

To clear the air, the engineers from the university can not be compared to those faulty inventions from the un-educated people. There is no comparison point, everyone has their downsides which are exactly 'orthogonal', the meeting point being 'non-productivity to the society'.

For long the Katwe people have been given accolades by investors and government
for being productive, while sharp, but correct, criticisms have been directed to universities.
In actual sense, almost all these products from the barely educated people function at less than that acceptable efficiency, while on the other side, universities have produced educated people who have not been productive but
good grade-getters.
so,
Who tried?
Who didnt try?
who benefited?

You see...
according to the PRESENT SITUATION...
it's better to have a less-efficient product than a degree-person walking with latent knowledge that can not be output
into a real product. In fact I was able to use the low-efficient welding machine to fabricate all the 40windows and 5big doors. The electricity bill was huge though.
Nonetheless,this proves the fact that....

"knowlegde not shared-is-indeed not knowledge".

--> Nathan (Apr2009 writing collection)

The goal of every engineer is to retire
without getting blamed for a major catastrophe!
...Dilbert

DONE
--> Nathaniel.D.M
on Variety engineering.
Civil/Structural engineer!
CG- 3DsMax2009 Animation Professional!
Amateur Astrophysicist/Astronomist!