Puma / Dorman 6LE / MacFarlane B46B / 110 kVA Generator Resurrection

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John Rudd:
As the forum has been down a few days, has any progress been made? :poke:

Its a bit like the soaps, need the next episode.... :lol:

awemawson:
Well John, as you may imagine one or two things have been happening.

I've been working on enhancing the safety and security of the generator. Firstly fitting a lockable handle to the main cabinet to keep prying finger out, and also replacing the temporary knob on the inhibit switch with a key operated one.

The door seal got stripped out ready for replacement and the door given a coat of paint. I also decided to seal the base of the main cabinet with a sheet of zintec to keep the vermin out.

Then I've been making metal covers to cover up the various DIN rail terminals and wiring. They got a coat of paint this morning and hopefully can be fitted tomorrow.

Meanwhile it's developed two leaks. One to the flange of the oil / water cooler (leaking oil) and more worryingly a water leak from my fabricated water jacket heater that resulted in it tripping my RCD!

Now I suspect that these leaks are inter-related - certainly both in close proximity. When I first tried the water jacket heater I had thought that it was getting rather hot and the heat wasn't being carried away as quickly as I'd have expected, and I suspected an airlock in the area.

I'll need to remove the right angled and gasketed flange that connects the oil / water cooler and remake the joints, and probably have another go at making a heater element, but that's for another day as it involves draining the coolant.

awemawson:
Paint was nice and hard this morning so I fitted the safety covers to the Gathering DIN rail terminals and the controller and metering panel, so hopefully even the most determined fingers can't get into trouble.

Then I set to fitting the pair of angles that I'd fabricated and painted that will hold the poly-carbonate shield that will cover everything in the lower part of the control cabinet, and just have the rectangular bezel for the isolator protruding.

I had intended to bring the consumer unit forward 4" on spacers so that it's face was co-planar with the Isolator and cut another rectangle for access but in the end reasoned that access was fully possible by removing six screws, any tripped RCD's or MCB's would be visible through the poly-carbonate, and adding an extra stress riser to the poly-carbonate shield wasn't justified. I need to work out a scheme to cut a rectangle with rounded corners for the isolator to reduced stresses, having experienced polycarbonate stress cracking on my Beaver Partsmaster CNC Mill. The six mounting screws will be treated as I did on the Partsmaster, (*) with over sized smooth edge holes and 'top hat' inserts to take the screw clamping.

To help an awkward bit of layout for these angles I used a trick employed by the wooden boat builders and made up suitable 'length bars' to ensure things ended up in the right place - otherwise rather tricky 'in a box' !

Meanwhile the 3 1/2" BSP fittings have arrived for me to modify the exhaust layout, but that again is a job for another day.

(* https://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,9180.msg154826.html#msg154826 )

John Rudd:
All coming together nicely... :bow:

Have you got your " Electricity at work act " signs in place?..... :lol:

awemawson:
Work - who's working :lol:

But I HAVE ordered the attached sign sized 300 x 400 mm for the door :thumbup:

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