"The new year has arrived, so it's time for us to produce some results here..." On January 1, 1670, in a research institute on the banks of Xuefeng Lake, the Pan family and his son were chatting while having breakfast.

Breakfast is soba noodles with beef sauce, all of which are locally produced and very cheap. Xuefeng County has gradually increased its population in recent years, especially on the banks of Xuefeng Lake. Due to the popularity of the 7.5-horsepower steam engine, agricultural irrigation conditions have been greatly improved. Therefore, local agricultural output has improved a lot compared to the past. Although it can only provide some rye, buckwheat, barley, oats and other grains, it is already quite good. What else can you ask for in this barren place?

Xuefeng County now has a population of about 7,000 or 8,000 people, most of which are concentrated in Xuefeng Town. Among them, the personnel and technology of the Second Heavy Machinery Factory and the Electrical Institute of the Engineering and Technology Research Institute account for a considerable number of them. Most of the remaining are craftsmen and family members of supporting small factories, small workshops, and some people engaged in railways, maintenance and transportation. In short, basically men work in factories, workshops or railways, and women and elderly farming rhythms. Therefore, this town also has strong technological characteristics, especially when there are a large number of research projects that can be called cutting-edge technology here.

The Institute of Electrical Engineering, chaired by Pan Yan and Pan Yin and his son, has been established for many years. Before, some of the craftsmen in the institute have been used to barely create some electrical measuring instruments, and then measure some voltages generated from hand-crank generators. The East Coast people define the current unit as ampere and the voltage unit as volts, but there is no clear definition of the specific size. Moreover, due to the limitations of technology, materials and accuracy, each measuring instrument measures the same current or voltage and its scale changes are also different, which is also intoxicating.

Therefore, under such conditions, it is impossible to do more in-depth theoretical research, because you can't even do the most basic standard measurements, so what else can you talk about? At present, we can only verify some superficial laws of electricity and common sense, cultivate some students and seeds, and give them a perceptual understanding of the characteristics of electricity.

If in-depth theoretical research and teaching cannot be done, then the Pan family and his son simply took a different approach and decided to make electrical application products, making some money first, so that they can recruit some technicians with more exquisite skills to make some relatively reliable (at least with convergence in quality and performance) electricity meters to prepare for future teaching and theoretical research.

At present, there are several products they have launched. One is the second-generation lead-acid battery, which has greatly improved its performance compared to previous products, such as the extension of service life, etc. At present, the main customer of this battery is the railway company. Their telegraph rooms and various relay points (due to various factors, the East Coast telegraph lines must have a relay point every short distance, which is quite low) requires a large number of lead-acid batteries, which is an extremely important annual income from the Institute of Electrical Sciences of the Academy of Engineering. Second, based on the original hand-crank generator used for teaching, they invented a generator with a higher output voltage, of course, it is also a hand-cranked one.

Since this new hand-crank generator is a test subject, with unstable performance and many defects, the Pan family and his son did not even set a model. The difference between this generator and the original teaching use is that its coil is driven and rotated in a plane parallel to the side of the magnet, and its output voltage has exceeded that of a single lead-acid battery, which undoubtedly has won the favor of many people mainly in some laboratories.

The people in charge of the laboratory often need to use the electricity generated by the generator to electrolyze some chemicals to see what wonderful reactions will occur. Although this behavior seems a bit blind and has no future for commercial promotion, it is still relatively important for the accumulation of technology. Oh, by the way, it is worth mentioning that this new hand-crank generator also has a simple rectifier, which aims to convert the oscillation output of the generator coil into a unidirectional current (DC).

However, this type of hand-crank generator with rectifiers currently has a fatal flaw, that is, although the current it generates has been processed and changed from alternating current to direct current (this step is extremely critical), its current is undoubtedly still a pulsating current, that is, the magnitude of the voltage changes periodically with time. It is commonly known that the voltage is sometimes larger and sometimes smaller (fortunately, the positive and negative directions of the voltage have not changed), which makes people speechless.

What's more, this pulsating current will cause serious heating conditions. If you try to transform it into a large generator, it will cause serious problems. Therefore, the existence of these defects has destined that this hand-crank generator can only become a "toy"-like existence, and will be recharged in major laboratories for research purposes. The development of electrical science on the East Coast encountered great difficulties from the beginning.

There is another funny thing, perhaps out of superstition or out of admiration for new things. Some people think that electric current may be beneficial to the human body. Especially after the Ministry of Health used lead-acid batteries and several large buckets to make a simple electrocardiogram device, many people even tried every means to buy lead-acid batteries (currently a tube product) or a small hand-crank generator to give themselves a "electrotherapy".

The Pan family and his son were also very interested in this situation. They had always been tempted by money and even specially designed a small generator. This generator can be held by a person in his hand, and the power of his body can be achieved by changing the rotation rate of the handle. Of course, it can also be controlled by a magnetic shunt. The principle is that when the magnetic shunt moves through the magnetic poles, it changes the intensity of the external magnetic field, thereby changing the output of the generator.

However, the "irresponsible" behavior of the Pan family and his son was quickly stopped by the president of the Engineering Academy because they felt that this kind of electric shock treatment behavior was ridiculous, and the Institute of Electrical Science should not help increase this kind of unhealthy trend, so they wiped out the "major plan" of the father and son. Of course, even if the superior departments do not intervene, they probably cannot sell many such hand-crank generators. Because this new thing is completely handmade by people, it is extremely troublesome, but there are few talents who understand these. In addition, the raw materials are not so abundant, so the Institute of Electrical Science is located on the east coast and can only continue to use the special funds of the Science Spring Project Team to do some basic research and talent cultivation. It is really far away to rely on commercialization.

"There are many results now. We also have some technical reserves and patents on hand. The second brother's company in Xingnan Port has also registered some patents for electrolytes." Pan Yin finished eating the noodles in the bowl, pushed it aside, and said with a frown: "But at present, there is no one that can be commercialized on a large scale. This is too disheartening. Father, we have been living in this place where birds do not shit for so many years, and have worked hard to cultivate talents for the country, spending so much youth and making contributions, but now seeing that the electrical science still cannot develop, it is disappointing to think about it..."

"What do you know!" Pan Yan put the chopsticks heavily on the table and said in a slightly scolding tone: "Now that various industries in China are booming, steam engines are constantly innovating, applied to various fields, and have driven the development of a series of industries such as materials and machining. There are countless factories that rely on this industrial chain to survive. It can be said that the entire industry has been completed, and the country has invested a lot of energy and a lot of funds. How can you say that this scale and intensity of investment be pushed away by turning it over? Isn't that a joke!"

Pan Yin felt a little depressed when he heard this. It was not that he didn't understand these principles, but he just felt depressed. After all, although he was sure that the development prospects of the extremely powerful electric and the derived electric motor (it is just an idea at present, and it is still far from taking action) were far beyond those of the steam engine, but after all, this new thing requires a large amount of capital investment and strong marketing promotion, but how is this possible on the East Coast today?

The current East Coast Republic of China is a highly centralized police state. The state has severe control over all aspects and has even maintained a huge bureaucratic system. It is precisely this powerful control that has made the Pan family and his son invest a lot of effort in electrical research (although the current conditions have limited results) and cannot quickly gain the favor of capital and complete commercialization. Although even without control, their results cannot attract any serious investment states to invest so much manpower, material resources, energy and time costs in the power of steam engines. How could they give up at will because they wanted to develop electricity? That's not a brain-dead thing!

What's more, the current steam engine technology on the East Coast is enough to suppress the old continent. After all, the steam engine technology of United Provinces, France and England is just in its infancy. Even the strongest of them is currently only applying steam engines to mine pumping and dock lifting goods. The promotion speed is slow due to the unreliable quality, and the East Coast people are constantly digging out steam engine technology and constantly introducing new products. In fact, their technical advantages in this area are getting bigger and bigger.

So since it is already in absolute technological leadership, it is unlikely that any leader will immediately order the steam engine to be replaced by electricity. It is simply overturning the existing industrial system in the East Coast, which is completely thankless. Moreover, the more terrifying thing is that when electricity is spread to Europe, they may become interested in it and conduct research. Once they discover the mystery, it is not ruled out that Europeans may directly launch electricity as the driving force and skip the steam power link. Then the East Coast people will be stupid, wouldn't they shoot themselves in the foot!

Therefore, for reason, no one in the East Coast now gives up steam power and switch to power. Moreover, it is more closely related to the fact that the East Coast government may continue to block the research results of the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Academy of Engineering to prevent them from being understood by the outside world, especially foreigners, in order to avoid major losses to national interests. At the same time, they will of course further allocate funds to the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Academy of Engineering, led by the Pan family and his son, so that they can continue to cultivate talents, develop projects, and accumulate technology so that once the central government decides to develop electricity in the future, they can immediately take out considerable reserve technology and reserve talents and spread the business as quickly as possible.

Pan Yan's thoughts about the Executive Committee are absolutely intimate, which may be closely related to his identity as a time traveler. Of course, he also understands that it is enough to make various technical reserves, then squeeze out little by little, and maintain a leading advantage over the old continent at any time. It is absolutely a fool to release all the good things at once. However, as the saying goes, as the butt determines the head. Since he is the director of the Institute of Electrical Science and has embarked on this "evil road", at a time when power technology cannot be commercialized, he has to consider the interests of himself and his small department. For example, give priority to some results and make some money for himself first, otherwise, once he kicks his legs, how can he gain a foothold, which is a stupid son who doesn't seem to be able to make money?

"The only thing that can be put on the table now is the benefits of various electrolysis methods and their commercial application. We have worked hard for the country, cultivated so many talents, and done so much research. The Executive Committee also accused us of some patented electrolysis technology. I remember that the second brother had a patent for electrolysis saturated salt water under the name of the mechanical processing workshop opened by Xingnan Port, right? The Executive Committee's officials finally had a little conscience and allowed us to enjoy this patented technology for three years (only for commercialization, laboratories can still be used for free). It was only after three years of nationalization, which gave us a lot of opportunities." Pan Yan narrowed his eyes and said, "I remember the current country.
Chapter completed!