DNH Starter

In order to button up on the topic that has been previously addessed on this solid state starter, we did a start-up on the Well on Tuesday and all went as planned.  I can only attribute the heat on the one phase to a motor failure which I did find out had happened prior to us finding out about what was going on during the previous episode when we were not present.

The best thing to do to check these starters for proper operation when a phase loss happens, is to do the following:

Turn down P18 (CL2) all the way CCW- Master BD.
Turn down P1 (CL1) all the way CCW- Master BD.

Power up the unit and measure the output.  You should have about 212 volts phase-to-phase which is leakage voltage and is a correct reading.

Give the unit a start command and quickly measure phase current on each phase.  These should be somewhat balanced.  If not, you have a firing problem and that will need some further investigation but at least will give you direction. 

Make sure that you have checked the motor (or are using a test motor) and that it is not the problem prior to doing the above test.

Make sure that in while performing the above tasks, you are in proper PPE for the voltage and task at hand and that you are someone that is authorized by the governing body or company to do this work.

Hope this helps,

Scott

Happy to have a soapbox sometimes

After listening to all the rhetoric that spews out in the arena of politics over the past several years, and now listening to what is going on in the past few years I am almost convinced of one thing:

The Tea Party movement is a bad thing for the GOP.

Maybe some or even most see this group as a good thing but I have a differing viewpoint.

So the champions of the Tea Party seem to be about beating the Democrat's but if you look and listen closely, they are (in large part) about getting rid of all the “dead wood” in Washington representing our (Republican) party.  That’s great, unless you look at it from the Democratic view.  They see us, one-by-one picking off our most senior members that are in powerful places or soon destine to be and replacing them with young, energetic loud-mouths that have zero seniority or experience in Washington.   [Most if not all of these newly elected guys and gals will spend the majority of their first term just getting the lay of the land before doing anything of importance, and believe me when I tell you that everything revolves around seniority and power with these folks.  Newbee's get nowhere in that environment.  Don’t believe me, do your homework or just watch informational television like C-SPAN for a while and you will get the picture.]  Now in doing this, those positions of power that were destine for one of the older members of either the house or senate will now go to the next person in line which in most cases will be a Democrat.

The Democratic Party is looking at this Tea Party thing as a blessing for them since their folks will most certainly own all the senior positions in both the house and in the senate and will in-fact control most if not all of the over-sight committees as well.  We (the GOP) won’t be getting anything done with these folks in charge of everything, will we?

How in the world is this doing us (the members of the GOP) any favors?  Long term, if we could be like the people that came before us and really be able to see the “long term” of anything, it may do some good.  But then we would just end up in the same place we are today since as soon as someone starts doing well (in our eyes), we never vote them out and they become the Bob Bennett’s and Orrin Hatches of today.

Can we really believe our Jason Chaffettz and Mike Lee’s (darlings of the Tea Party movement) can get through to the old dogs back in Washington and be heard even in their own party?  Ever heard of “if wishes were fishes…..”

This Tea Party stuff is tearing at us, not helping and healing.  I for one wish it would go away and take Sarah Palin with it.  So what she is easy on the eyes for most.  Bigger and better things to think about or do so get over it and move on and anybody that looks like Tina Fey needs help, seriously. 

Talk about chuming the waters.......

Scott

DNH Starter

Just to give you an update, we found that the firing board was not operating correctly so we changed it out.  We also replaced the wire that runs from the SCR firing board to the snubber circuit as this is the one that was discolored and burned from what seemed to be an overheating problem as well as the SCR's in that phase.  There had been some current problems as the SCR's showed signs of pitting on the surfaces and this also was apparent on the heatsinks.  We resurfaced the heatsinks and installed the new SCR's.

The contractor went to the jobsite and reported back the the contactor (bypass) looked fine and that the contacts are as new.  We are going to the site tomorrow to do a start-up on the unit.  I will report further about this.

Scott

DNH Soft-Starter Problem

We recently had an issue of a DNH Starter not turning the motor that was connected.  I went to the site and took along a 25 horsepower motor to connect to the starter to see what was happening.  When we gave the Starter a run command, the shaft of the motor viberated back and forth but did not spin.  I really didn't give it too much time to do anything since I could tell that things were not good.

We brought this unit to the shop and in looking it over, we found that a wire from the firing board that goes to the snubber for that phase was burned.  In disassembling the unit, we also found that the heatsinks of that phase had been very hot.  Hot enough to burn the fish paper that is used as an insulator around the bottom of the heatsinks.  This would indicate that the units bypass contactor is not carrying the load on this phase but rather the current is traveling across the SCR's to the motor.  We have not at this time checked the contactor but will do so in the next few days as that part of the starter is still on site.

I will get back to this and give you the end result when we get some more information and draw our final conclusion regarding this matter.

I felt that this is worth writing about because in almost 30 years, we have never seen this before.

Scott

Putting it off

I am a bit of a procrastinator when it comes to certain things and this is one of them.  My doctor has been hounding me about getting a colonoscopy for about three years now and I keep saying that I would get it done.  Well, finally my wife got tired of me saying I would and made the appointment for me and here is what happen:

Four polyps found and removed.  One did not look normal and was isolated to be checked independently.  The lab diagnosed it to be cancer and the doctor called me within three days of the procedure and that includes a weekend.

We met with the doctor the very next day and I was scheduled for a CT scan the following day to see the extent of the cancer.  The scan showed that the cancer was localized to just that area.  Now the doctor had already scheduled another procedure at the time of my visit to remove the remainder of the cancer and also has schedule one of his partners to do a follow-up ultrasound to make sure the cancer will be all removed at the time of this next procedure.

I will undergo the first procedure the week after next and the other the following week.  Thankfully the cancer has not spread outside of the colon at this time and the removal of it should be a fairly simple procedure.  I am certainly happy at this point that my wife scheduled the test to be done because if left up to me, it would still be one of those things I would be putting off probably to the point of no return.

My advice to all, when they tell you to do this at 50, you better gets it done if you want to see 55.  I may not have if I had not gone in to do this a 8 days ago.

Scott