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

[awemawson]

This afternoon I got the huge output socket / isolator fixed (6 x M6 Rivinuts) and measured up to get the cables to wire it up. Now the generator came with some very over specified cables about 3 metres long - by my measurements they are 150 CSA, and believe it or not to get round the various bends it's 2.5 metres from generator terminals to this socket, so I'd need 10 metres - now 35 mm CSA cable is just under £6 per meter and is marginal, and I've not had a quote for 50 mm CSA but it will be significant, so I've decided to go with the 'overkill' cables - after all the electrons won't mind a bit more elbow room 

But a consequence of this decision is that the 50 mm brass bush I'd got to pass the cables through the cabinet wall into the switch / socket no longer is big enough. 63 mm bush on order with appropriate hole saw which works out much cheaper than buying new cables!

[awemawson]

More DIN rail terminals arrived this morning, so I was able to complete the switch panel as a 'module' - this is the panel that distributes 'domestic' mains to the cabinet heater, engine heater, and battery charger to keep the generator ready to start when called for.

I also fitted a 16 amp 'Commando' input socket to the cabinet below the 125 amp output socket (socket angles ensuring that they don't clash) and then installed and tested the switch panel having put a bit of trunking in to tidy up it's wiring.

Then I AT LAST got round to putting power on the Deep Sea controller on the bench to prove that it was actually alive - rather late in the process and I'd be stumped if it wasn't, but all seems well - it went through a start up sequence reporting it's software issue, then went into 'wait' mode waiting for a button press - phew it works, I was rather dreading this test.

[hermetic]

getting close to finished Andrew, I am having to use extreme self control to prevent over-excitement at the prospect of an induction furnace. Molten metal on tap! you lucky man! As it happens I need to melt some copper, but I am working towards it too, though sadly, it will be less refined than an induction jobbie. Keep up the good work!
Phil.

[awemawson]

Of course Phil I have no certainty that the electronics of the Induction Furnace still works It's well over ten years since I used it  . . . . all those capacitors going dry . . . etc etc.

definitely a softly softly tip toe towards it sort of approach or else 

[russ57]

That second photo with the domestic input socket certainly puts the output into scale!

Russ

[awemawson]

Oh yes Russ it's certainly a whopper, and it only just fits without fouling the door handle as it turns. I want to replace that handle with one with a lock and I'll have to be careful that it's no longer.

[awemawson]

Yesterday my boxes of 20 and 25 mm conduit 'half clips' arrive. These are the clips for the flexible conduit that is draped all over the engine and they have to fix on existing bolts so needed to be wide enough to drill out to 10 mm. They also need a 'backing plate' in places where they are in free air to stop the conduit falling out of the back of the clip.

I cut a batch of backers and after a clean up gave them a coat of zinc paint.

Only had time to fit one conduit - the one for the fuel solenoid, but they seem to work OK 

Social duties stop more play today 

[John Rudd]

Looking very tidy now...  

How inconsiderate that social duties take precedence over 'toy time'      Mind you we have to look after 5 grand kids during the week ( not all at the same time... ) so my time playing with toys is a little stretched...But I still get the opportunity to read posts on here...

[awemawson]

Only five grandchildren John, you're slipping - I've TEN 

We've just had the twin six year old girls and their brother for an extended (exhausting) weekend, but they've now gone to my son in Houston, and were last seen (on Facebook) in the cockpit of the BA plane with the pilot so I hope the poor chap is OK 

Another  twelve year old grandson arriving tomorrow for a week - don't you love the school holidays !

. . . but I'm DETERMINED to get this generator finished so that I can move on to the next stage in this project.

[awemawson]

I did actually manage to escape for 90 minutes this afternoon, and assembled and documented what I'm calling the 'Gathering' DIN rail assembly. This is essentially where all the modularised parts get connected together, and it also houses the fuses for L1 and 24V that go to the Deep Sea Controller.

It takes a surprising amount of time to put these things together !

[John Rudd]

Any reason for the Blue Klippons?   

(Normally used on IS circuits  )

Earth ones normally Green/Yellow...

Or did you run out of the beige ones?

[awemawson]

They were what RS had at as reasonable price that would accept 10 mm csa cable. The beige ones are up to 4 mm iirc. As for Green / Yellow, yes it would be nice but minimum orders hit you in the pocket!

RS seem to be in a right mess in the DIN terminal department, with catalogue errors and incomplete ranges stocked. It wasn't like this when they were Radio Spares and only had one location and that was in the City just round the corner from my then office !

[Sea.dog]

St. Martin Legrand, wasn't it? Back in the day when their catalogue was about as thick as the News of the World 

[Pete W.]

About 23 years ago, I bought lots of DIN terminals from a branch of Wades, the electrical wholesalers.  (I admit I wasn't using the size of cables you mention.)  I never got stung with minimum order quantities but that branch of Wades, if I remember correctly, had an activity building cabinets for customers so DIN terminals were a staple item. 

[awemawson]

A day of three parts today !

The loins of bacon had had their allotted time curing so the first job was to open up their curing bags, rinse off the excess cure, and set them out to dry to form a 'pelicule', only then could  go and play.  After about an hour they were 'cling filmed' and put in the freezer to stiffen up for slicing. Now I can play !

Firstly I fitted the engine over temperature switch and the engine block heater, using Loctite pipe sealer on the joints. Then I added the 'beezer' round junction box for the heater, and ran it's conduit and cable back to the switch panel sockets. Then it was a case of running various conduits to all points needed, which I think I now have. One necessitated removing the ol filler assembly from the side of the engine, so I can definitely confirm that it has a crank shaft, as I've seen it 

At this point My Hermes delivered the new 63 m brass bush  so I was able to get on and fit it. The cables that will go though it are seriously difficult to bend - in fact I'm thinking I may need to use my pipe bender on them, and because of this I wanted the bush mounted as high in the output socket enclosure as possible to give more space to  manipulate them, Needless to say the moulding of the enclosure didn't have a hole suitably  high so I had to do a bit of sculpting with my air detail filer to create a starting spot for the drill. After this drilling the big hole went without too much drama and the bush was fitted. Glad to say the cables now pass through reasonable easily.

Right - help now at hand to return to the bacon and start slicing the chilled loins (6 mm rashers) and vacuum packing them - all 106 packs of 6 rashers. This took a couple of hours.

Then, moment of truth, fill her back up with antifreeze and water (memo to self I really MUST buy a bigger funnel!). So theoretically it was now safe to power up the block heater, so I did   

The engine was sitting at 11 degrees according to my I/R thermometer, and the bit around the block heater quite quickly rose to 13 degrees so I went in for supper leaving it to heat up. On return the actual heater housing was up to 30 degrees and although perhaps, maybe, possibly, the water jacket was a bit warmer, it certainly wasn't   as much as I'd expect, and the temperature gradient from heater block to the rest of the housing is too steep for my liking. I strongly suspect that there is an airlock in the system, and I need to run the engine to circulate the water a bit and get the air out, but I can't do that at the moment as the exhaust manifold is still blanked off from spraying.

I then wired up the starter solenoid as that is one conduit with only one function and relatively simple to do.

[awemawson]

I was told that I had to be out at 10.30 this morning 'to give advice on concrete crushing' - why me 

Anyway before the allotted hour I managed to make up new heavy duty battery leads using cable from the originals and terminations from Vehicle Wiring Products, and install them and wire in the starter motor solenoid.

When I got back early afternoon I had a good head scratching deciding the best place to locate the 'Gathering DIN Rail' and how to get cables to and from it. It ended up mounted vertically on one of the cabinet reinforcing rails, and being serviced by slotted trunking and flexible conduit. Then I made up the seven way cable form that runs from the relay box to the cabinet, and pulled it through. Quite stiff this one as it contains two 10 mm CSA cables.

I had major difficulty getting self adhesive pads and trunking to stay glued despite rigorous cleaning down with IPA. In the end I changed to using acetone as a cleaner, and ran a hot air gun over the bits that were to be glued, as I strongly suspect that I was getting condensation between cleaning and gluing. Seems OK at the moment but we'll see if it's all fallen off in the morning !

[John Rudd]

I had major difficulty getting self adhesive pads and trunking to stay glued despite rigorous cleaning down with IPA. In the end I changed to using acetone as a cleaner, and ran a hot air gun over the bits that were to be glued, as I strongly suspect that I was getting condensation between cleaning and gluing. Seems OK at the moment but well see if it's all fallen off in the morning !

Well if you think about it....as the ipa/ acetone evaporates, it cools the surface....( try it on the back of your hand..) the surrounding air will condense out any moisture in it, if the temperature is cool enough....

Early morning dew ring any bells? 

[philf]

 :3m do a primer for double sided tape. I don't know what's in it!

[John Rudd]

:3m do a primer for double sided tape. I don't know what's in it!

Stuff that makes stuff stick to it?.....

[philf]

:3m do a primer for double sided tape. I don't know what's in it!

Stuff that makes stuff stick to it?.....

John - I know now!

https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=SSSSSuUn_zu8lzNvl82eM8txnv70k17zHvu9lxtD7SSSSSS--

Phil.

[John Rudd]

Its pretty nasty stuff..., Cyclohexane.....

We used that a lot at ICI......

I like the bit in Section3 ' Acrylate polymer......CAS Nbr.....trade secret...lol...

[awemawson]

Significant progress today 

Firstly I re-attached the exhaust / silencer assembly so that I could start the engine. Then, temporarily wiring a fuel solenoid switch and dabbing a wire to drive the starter solenoid I started the engine and let it run for a minute or so just to make sure all was well - it was, and no water leaks after introducing antifreeze.

Then I terminated both ends of the seven way cableform that I pulled through from the relay box to the control cabinet. Moving on to the current transformers I identified all their connections, replaced the eyelets at the transformer end as the originals were rather corroded, and wired them to the Gathering DIN rail terminals.

Then I made up cable forms for the voltage measuring side and current measuring side of the Meter Panel, wired them to the Gathering DIN rail terminals and installed said panel.

Moving my temporary fuel solenoid switch and 'dabbing wire'  onto the Gathering terminals I then started the engine from within the control cabinet and was able to prove out the wiring for the phase to phase voltage measuring. and frequency meters - all seems to work OK

At this point I can't prove the current measuring side as I can't yet put a load on the generator.

I have yet to wire the oil pressure and engine over heat switch back to the relay box, and similarly the wiring for the charging alternator and ammeter need wiring back to the relay box. Wires for these functions already go from the relay box to the gathering DIN rail. Then of course the big step is then to wire in the Deep Sea Control to do away with my fuel solenoid switch and 'dabbing wire' !

In all quite a long day but a satisfying result.

[JerryNotts]

John,
That's because we used to make it! (Cyclohexane).


Warning Potentially OFF TOPIC!

If you can stop yourself falling asleep in the process it's possible to see why the chemical industry objected strongly when the Commision were persuaded by the Swedish commissioner at the time to take on the regulation of chemicals. Bear in mind the size of the various national chemical industries across the EU at the time. Germany which also objected was/is the biggest.
A 37 page safety data sheet is pointless. It probably takes longer to read, look up all the references and understand than to realise that almost nobody has the facilities to implement the precautions. As Andrew could conceivably be ranked as a 'Professional' user, but certainly not an 'Industrial' user under current REACH Regulations he would have been provided with a current Safety Data Sheet at the time of receipt of the goods, at the latest.  There are three types of users under REACH, the third being ' Consumer' i.e. the man in the street, under the old UK terminology.
You may wonder why it is important for Industrial and Professional users  to read an SDS. The moment you realise this potential deficiency is when an accident occurs in which you are involved in any way: as soon as an HSE inspector asks to see the container of the product which will(?) carry the safety label. This will tell her/him that you should have an SDS  thus you carried out a risk assessment and are working in the prescribed manner. All very well in theory but at what cost.

And to complete this lecture: it is possible to see that despite the manufacturers claims the document is actually a re-hash of a US MSDS ( Material Safety Data Sheet)  The NJTS Reg No (New Jersey Toxic Substance Number) strictly should not be used but perhaps regulators working in the field have learnt to be tolerant of such things, even if they have seen it.  There are also a Americanisms which help give the game away, including one of my personal pet hates 'odor'.

Sorry to be a bore, just re-living old habits.

Jerry 

[awemawson]

A day of contrasting highs and lows today.

I started off on a concentrated effort to pull all the cables through that interconnect the Alternator, it's Regulator, the Ammeter, the Over Temperature Switch, and the Oil Pressure Gauge. I'd not been looking forward to this as some cables have to start off in one conduit then swap to another to avoid joins - examples being the 10 mm csa heavy ammeter cables, and the bundles were pretty much on the limit of what you can pull through the flexible conduit, and especially the reduced diameter of their terminations.

All went reasonably well - I decided to wire the CAV 440 regulator on it's 'Low' setting for the moment - apparently this sets the regulated voltage to the low end of the spectrum.

Now in the final implementation the 'W/L' (warning light) connection is sourced from the Deep Sea Control, but for testing I wired in a bulb. This is supposed to be about 2.5 watts at 24 volts, and the only low wattage 24 volt bulbs that I had to hand were telecoms 'wedge bulbs' drawing all of 20 mA - but I tried it anyway. The W/L input is intended to give an initial current flow through the field winding to start the alternator generating, and when it does the light goes off as now both ends are at the same voltage.

So - the moment of truth - start the engine having noted what the battery voltage was to begin with and watch what happens. Initially nothing - the light stayed on, the battery voltage was unchanged, and nothing showing on the ammeter. Then after perhaps 45 seconds the light went out, the battery volts started to rise, and the ammeter showed a ten amp charging rate. Every subsequent starting has resulted in normal charging activity.

My conclusion is that the alternator rotor had little residual magnetism, as I've dismantled it and anyway it's sat unused for many years on the auto-electricians shelf as the bearings were bad. The 20 mA was not really enough, but gradually the alternator 'bootstrapped' itself - I've no doubt that the correct 2.5 watt bulb, which would be drawing about 100 mA would have got it going pretty well instantly.

So, on a high I decided to wire in the Deep Sea Controller. Firstly I wired up a cable form to make connection easier, fixed the panel in, and found that I'd made the cable form about 12" too short to lay nicely in the trunking  I decided to connect it up anyway 'as the crow flies' fashion just to prove that it worked, and then I made a BIG mistake. Friends arrived and rather than downing tools, I rushed to finish the connections and must have got something wrong 

Connecting the battery the starter solenoid instantly pulled in, then the display went blank - no life - a dead controller 

Now I have subsequently powered it up on the bench, and it is starting up normally, but it's 'switch outputs' are sitting at 8 volts (it runs off 24) so something is sick. I will investigate further, but also I've sourced a replacement - at least if the original heals itself I'll have a spare 

[John Rudd]

Jeeez...! Where did you dig up that old Fluke dvm from?

Shame about the controller going south...