My Rant and Rave, then I Look on the Bright Side.

Originally a reply on G+, decided it wouldnt be polite, proper, not exactly on topic.
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I have mixed feelings on this; teachers used to get crap pay where I live. Soon, they got well-deserved raises, and fantastic benefits. Free health care and nearly every drug free but Viagra (was still in court last I'd heard).  Now the Union structure and politics turned it into a literal Mafia with a Teachers-Union-owned insurance company - and required participation - that was helping bankrupt the state. I'm Union, and while most of my "brothers and sisters" hate the new Governor by default, he really hasnt taken away much from teachers, and his tools are helping districts, even small ones save millions from insurance premiums alone. Many districts have the same coverage, albeit a deductible and a 15%ish contribution in premiums (I pay about 21%, $39 a week for family with premium dental and vision). The pension is funded (Wisconsin is one of few states that have a sustainable pension fund at the moment), teachers may still retire in their 50s (if eligible) with a pension that survives them to their spouse's death. It's not a bad deal at all. The previous Governor had cut teaching jobs, eliminating a national award-winning teacher due to seniority. Nobody seemed to care then. Public support quickly faded from the traditional "teachers are heroes" to "They make HOW much?", coupled with a rather strange and boisterous demonstration at the capitol that lasted for weeks, with many fringe groups tagging along which had nothing to do with teachers, or even Wisconsin. More support dropped when Communist groups and paid out-of-state "Professional Demonstrators"  ran amok daily in Madison. Everyone just wanted it to be over. With the recall effort of the governor now over (Governor Walker got a greater percentage of the vote in the recall against Barrett than in the main election, also against Barrett), teachers arent starving, class sizes are actually down, budgets arent slashed (reduced aid to the schools from the state was offset by what the districts made up in insurance premium savings alone). The taxpayer - really all of us - has taken charge. It's not all about money; we already have the highest property taxes in the country but we still dont hate teachers, and we dont want sub-par education or conditions for our children. If these changes would have negative effects, they would raise all heck to get things back the way they were. It's still a "good gig" being a teacher in Wisconsin, and I feel bad they got a bad rap over the last 18 months because of a few polarizing groups.


That said, we really need to emphasize what students CAN be good at. Provide advanced classes, hire SMART guidance counselors and have regular interaction with students. Push the students, all of them, into what they are good at. Make them ENJOY winning, yet learn sportsmanship. All this "fairness" and "thats good enough" mentality is HURTING us as a nation. I didnt have any of that despite attending a college prep high school...and I didnt make it to college. Nobody pushed me. I wish they had. I started pushing myself several years ago. Most people couldnt handle what I had to juggle without giving something up. I sacrificed my health and my relationship. I still have learned and done more than most engineers several years out of college. I'm happy now, but I started this far too late in life. That motivation should be forced on kids.Yes, FORCED. Whats the harm? If we find out a child isnt good at something, then emphasize something else. Not everyone is right for college, and the opposite is true. I know white-collar professionals that are legends in their careers, but can barely mow the lawn, let alone fix anything. Push a gearhead into accounting and the book nerd into the Golf team, you might not have a happy student, nor a successful one. Kids dont know what they want to do, and many have no clue what they are "good" at even at 16, 17...or as an adult. 


This is the failure of the school system. We just "do it this way". WHY? Sure, A kid not knowing how to balance a checkbook or who Napoleon was is ridiculous, but it happens now as it is.


Compare:
Husband: "Honey, why do you cut the ends off the roast before you cook it?"
Wife: "Well, it's the way my mother always did it. I'll ask her"
Wife to her mother: "Mom, why do you cut the ends off the roast before you cook it?"
Wife's Mother: "I dont know, it's how my mother did it. Call her"
Wife: "Grandma, why do you cut the ends off the roast before you cook it?"
Grandma: "Well, my pan was too small..."


Are we doing things wrong in the first place, just because we've always done them that way?
Are some GOOD teachers "not-so-good" BECAUSE of the way we teach and WHAT we teach,
or is it just the teacher in some cases? 


Not all teachers SHOULD be teachers just because they WANT to be teachers.


Some really SUCK at it, just like any other job. Some people suck at cooking, or can't seem to grasp certain skillsets; their brains arent "wired" that way. It's not evil to say someone shouldnt be teaching because they are terrible...its evil to let them keep teaching, and diabolical to put students under their instruction.


A poor teacher, no matter their well-intention, is a curse on students and impressionable young minds.


They should be able to be fired, just like anyone else on earth. 
This, by NO MEANS is the only problem, if it even IS a problem.
Why does Milwaukee Public School system constantly churn out students that cant read nor
tell time unless it's digital...but yet some of the brightest students also come from MPS.
Is there just a surplus of lazy kids...or dumb ones?


When I was in high school, there were a lot of social problems. Besides the God-awful students, the fights, the drugs, the truancy, We had terrible teachers, not teaching us anything, but instead had us read the chapter, take the test. Do a dumb timeline and color it in and make it look nice. This was 11th grade...COLORING...and covering the same boring US History in one semester, leaving about 99% of history out of it, and focusing on the Holocaust for a month alone, which didnt even happen in the United States. World History, repeat, except one month on Native Americans, one month on the Holocaust, one day on Vietnam, the rest on social issues that were popular in the 1960s when the teacher was a teenager and were pretty much solved by then.


I was bored to death and loathed several classes. I was proficient at math at the time, but the teacher really hated me. I didnt do anything to apply myself, and often skipped out. Nobody cared. No, not even my parents.
I did have a science teacher that was a prude and sort of weird, looked and acted like that frumpy woman that won that Britans Got Talent opera singer. She saw my potential, paid attention to my work, and FLIPPED THE F OUT for me. Got my first "Success Card". She BRAGGED about my project (which was really uncool at the time, we all had to be cool 24-7 or get our asses kicked by someone else acting more cool than we did that day), and I think she'd even kept it. THAT drove me. When I got in a fight in her class (it was bound to happen), she got me in trouble BUT said I had potential. She'd followed up on me. She even gave me a ride home once - I lived a few miles from the school but wasnt "eligible" for the bus. 


THAT is a good teacher. She didnt let me slide when I did something wrong. She encouraged me LIKE A PARENT SHOULD, and without saying everything I did was wonderful. She told me SOME OF MY WORK SUCKED, but I was the most intelligent student shes seen in years, and was excited for MY future.


Where are these teachers? I've only had ONE since then...


I had a GREAT teacher for my Apprenticeship, whom added to my knowledge and experience and recharged my lust for knowledge of all things technical. He'd also shown me I can prove him wrong, or correct him when he makes an error; this PROVES we're all fallible, and that we should NEVER be satisfied thinking we "know it all".




'Nuff said.

The Politics of Apprentice Abuse

Working on the -80C freezer again

Mechanic 1: Measure the amperage of the high side compressor, I want to know if its turning off
Me: Start circuit or run circuit?
Mech 1: Just tell me if its turning off or not
Me: Cant you hear it?
Mech 1: Do you know what you're doing?
Me: *sigh* Fine. *Places clamp-on ammeter on 20A internal freezer circuit breaker*
Mech 1: Whats it pulling? Is it on?
Me: Fifty-two amps. There, now it's off
Mech 1: Check the voltage this time. Turn it off and restart it.
Me: ...wtf? Okay. 
Mech 1: What are you reading?
Me: Sixteen volts
Mech 1: Someting wrong with your meter? We should be getting 110
Me: Reading EMF induced into the start circuit by the run circuit. That's how the potential relay works, it reads EMF, and w-
Mech 1: Dont you have a gauge that will read it?
Me: Gauge?
Mech 1: Yeah, a gauge...(blank stare) ...
Me: A voltmeter? Every voltmeter in the world would read that
Mech 1: No filter or anything? None in the world? What about an analog voltmeter?
Me: ...
Me: When the windings are energized, it creates a magnetic field. Both the start and run circuits are generating a field, but the run becomes much stronger, inducing a counter-emf and a voltage over 300 volts depending on load, and--
Journeyman 1: (Walking over to us, not knowing what I'm doing is because Mechanic 1 asked me to. I refuse to make an enemy out of this guy; he has too many already and thats the last thing I need now) Hey! Why are you doing that? You need to find out if the control board is CALLING for the compressor to be on! *frustrated at me*
Me: I'm explaining to him why we're reading weird voltages at the Potential Relay, and--[He interrupts, acting like he is frustrated as if I have no diagnostic skills]
Journeyman 1: *Points to crude stick-drawing of circuit*
Mech 1: Lets check the compressor, each lead to ground
Me: (How can we check the compressor AT the compressor by checking each wire to ground? WTF?) *says nothing* *removes common, run circuit wires*
Journeyman 1: Dont take them off. You dont need to take them off to check if its grounded. None of them should be grounded.
Me: I have you telling me to do one thing, him telling me something else. 
Me: (Tests each compressor terminal to ground, 6500 ohms. Was actually reading the coil on the Potential relay)
Mech 1: The compressor's shot!
Journeyman 1: The compressor's shot!
Me: Uh...(knowing this reading is as unlikely as winning the Powerball without a ticket)...
Journeyman walks away to get his Megger 
Mech 1: Well no wonder! You have a wire still connected!
Me: Yeah, I know. He told me not to disconnect anything.
Mech 1 and Mech 2 leave for lunch
Journeyman 1: Hook this up to ground, ok, now put this on one of the terminals
Me: Okay, on the common (reads 58megaohms. Thats good)
Journeyman 1: (Takes lead off compressor, puts on bolt holding down compressor, then another bolt) Thats good. (Wraps up cords on megger, not testing the other terminal points to ground nor each other)
Me: *sigh* Okay.
Journeyman: Time for lunch
(We're actually 15 minutes in to lunch)
I work through lunch, unpaid as usual (if I take a "late" lunch, some individual  says I was taking a "long" lunch, so I just skip it. How do I prove I DIDNT do something? You cant prove a negative), so I'd thought...
Drawing 53 amps. Must be low supply voltage. Measure 117V at receptacle, and at breaker in freezer. Turn freezer on, high stage compressor turns on, 53 amp draw, voltage at 90V at receptacle.

Push freezer to another receptacle, a GFI fed by the same panel.
Plug in, turn on. 117V and 14 Amps continuous, main breaker didnt trip, freezer 20A breaker didnt trip, and the overcurrent/overtemp combo switch on the compressor didnt trip. 

This was verified by what I'd said back in March, and doubly verified by an email I'd received from the helpful folks at So-Low Freezer company, that if the voltage does *NOT* drop below 108V *AND* the compressor(s) are drawing 40+ amps, the compressors are defective. 

So, for now it's back in the mechanics hands. There must be a certain way of charging or turning up this system from a shut-down (as I'd said the first DAY I looked at this freezer...as it didnt fail at all, only turned off for a couple hours in order to get the frost build-up out), but the "manual" we have for this unit is pretty generic. 

I still stand by my guns with my theory "If you dont know how it is supposed to operate, how can you possibly troubleshoot it?". I want to take FIVE MINUTES at least and learn how it works, so I can fix it. My Journeyman is a smart guy, but I'm not going to argue. Often times he gets frustrated (like the first day we'd looked at this freezer. He's treating it like a PLC or sometrhing). He writes reviews for me, which always get interpreted by The Find Faults No Matter What Apprenticeship Committee as "Oh, your review is pretty bad. We were expecting it to say 'perfect', it only says you're doing a 'fantastic' job. Fantastic is a window cleaner. Do you want to clean windows? All your marks are 5-stars, so there is no room for improvement. Dont you want to improve?" Maybe not in these exact words, but that's pretty much the political shit I deal with. The Committee doesnt like me, I have no effing idea why. At the last meeting, I was accused of "working all the overtime [I] can so [I] can go to some porn convention in Las Vegas", right in front of my bosses and everyone in the room (not true by the way, I went to DEFCON 20, my first vacation in over ... wow... 21 years? Since Jamaica in 1991?!). I was so shocked, I didn't know WHAT to say. WTF?! The other individual accused me of starting a rumor about his performance and knowledge, which I'd never heard until he accused me, so maybe thats it. Turns out when I'd asked people about this rumor, they all laughed as if it were entirely accurate. Is it? I dont know, I dont really work with him until he needs a voltpack cleaned and checked. Well, bullies can only be bullies as long as they have power. He wont have any over the apprentices any more by the end of the year.

On a good note, I was given a great project to do, and access to a bit of a budget if I need. I get to re-engineer a control/monitoring/alarm/feedback/input-output system for the casting area, in the same room my fail-safe idiot-proof nitrogen freezer lock and ventilation  system is. The one the operator keeps bypassing with a screwdriver on the tamper-proof key (looks like a pit bull has chewed it up). I've already emailed EHS about it, nobody seems to care.


It's Friday, I'm going home. I'd like to SAY "I dont care either", but I do, and I'll fret all weekend that nobody wants to fix a real safety concern...because I had built that system, and it operates PERFECTLY, except when someone overrides it because they are too lazy to wait the required 10 minutes for venting so they can open the freezer.


I have a lot of pictures and fun stuff to post. It was a great week. It really was, despite a discouraging finish.

Land Jewell...not a shiny gem.

...or maybe it is.

I'll summarize with my e-mail I'd sent.



Hello,


The correct thermocouple extension wire for S6 was ordered this morning on #xxxxxxxxx,
Any extra can (and this type should) be used for S7 and S8.


If you enjoy details, read on;


I'd received a response from CM Furnace today, they recommended using "B" Thermocouple wire for our part number and temperature run. My original assumption was correct, but that was luck. I'd never heard of a "Land-Jewell" thermocouple before, nor had Paul, Pat, Scott, Dave... It doesn't show on any T/C charts or from Grainger, Newark, Omega.


I'd thought it was the manufacturer name. I Googled it and an engineering book came up, explaining the properties and applications of the "Land-Jewell". Paul had checked the platinum-rhodium ratio on the thermocouples he was working on, they didn't match any "letter" code for thermocouples, but they were the same in that engineering book I'd found (Pt60% Rd40%, and Pt80 Rd20%). The Land-Jewell T/C type is recommended for hi-temp and maintaining that temperature for extended periods, more durable than other ranges. "B" was the suitable extension wire CM Furnace said to use, which is Cu/Cu, the same as what the engineering book had recommended. So, Sinter 7 and 8 must be using this as well.


More info on the Land Jewell:


http://books.google.com/books?id=-375rPRjeGkC&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=land+jewell+thermocouple&source=bl&ots=9yZ8GtbkRG&sig=9jnr7523-eK0KgbClV_sXejG0Ek&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_1KET76FFIKa2gXj0KCdCQ&ved=0CJABEOgBMAU#v=onepage&q=land%20jewell%20thermocouple&f=false
Pages 39 to 45


The Land-Jewell is listed on the CM Furnace brochure, but no detailed explanation.


Regards,



I really hate mystery movies (they are always about some snooty know-it-all solving a crazy conspiracy-type murder), but this was a hell of a lot of fun...mainly because I'd learned something and shared the info with my peers. The job is getting done, and ahead of time (if we get the parts in soon). I guess this was more of a puzzle that nobody could help you with, you're pressed for time, and you start with a misconception of sorts.

Feels damned good to make progress.

Homemade Capacitor

I'd been looking at the materials sitting in my living room for a while now. I might as well do it.

Materials:

2 Xerox brand Overhead Projector Sheets - free from dumpster  (two packs of 100 sheets)
2 sheets Aluminum foil, generic.
4 feet Radio Shack burglar alarm window tape.
Tape (not for electronics, but all I have here)

Starting with  plastic sheet, foil on top. Cut to exactly 8"x10"

Plastic is 8 1/2x11"

Conductive burglar alarm tape (sticky side against plastic, other side on foil)

Taped to secure. Repeat again with a second layer.

Runs along the entire length for uniformity and good conductivity.

Not as good as solder, but I dont want lumps.

I have mad soldering skills & was taught by

a NASA contractor AFTER I'd thought I was good already, 

so I could do it "without lumps". This is just a proof-of-concept anyways.

Final 16-17nF!

After testing with a battery, it holds a tiny charge that is quickly dissipated by my meter.

I really need better tools at home. Great justification to buy more!

I will continue to experiment with dual layers and other sizes.

I can take this to work and try out on a hi-pot tester to see what the breakdown is.

I'm hoping to score 15kV at least on this!

For education or other DIY plans, try:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance

http://teravolt.org/diy-capacitors/

Locker Room & Hallway Relamping & Ballasts.

More Rocket Science today.

Moving right along, we were well-prepared from yesterday. We have ballasts, wirenuts, quick-disconnects, T8F28 SPX41 lamps (nice bright cool white, 4100K. I hate the 3500k yellow crap lamps) to finish up the lamping project and replace all the old shitty defective ballasts.

One fixture has 24" square U lamps, bad ballast in that one, no voltage to the "tombstones", at least not enough to fire off my pocket tester.

Beeps when near voltage over 90 volts, does NOT have to have

anything "on" in the circuit; just a path of available voltage, like a wall

switch in the "off" position; one side will be "hot", and make this beep and light up.

We didnt have any ballasts to power three lamps, so I had to use two ballasts that could be used for either ONE or TWO lamps, and stuff them in the fixture. Tough, but possible. Also had to rewire the "tombstones", because now the wiring is different. I also pulled apart the sockets to bend back the press-fit tabs. The wiring may come loose from these, or at times can be pulled right out of the "tombstone" when replacing a ballast and you wont even know it. 

Cardboard insulator covering the connectors

Removing the connector from the inside\

 Bent and unbent pins (left side)

How I had to wire two ballasts to power three lamps. Just use both examples!

So, we finished up the rest of the day doing this. The Women's locker room is twice the size of the Men's locker room...there are also a half dozen toilets, nothing but a sink in the Men's room. I sure hope the men aren't peeing in the sink...but the sink in the Women's room doesn't work at all...so how are they washing their hands?

Eww...

One last tip for the day...

Cleaning the dirt that collects around the lines of flux.

Good idea to do this, black soot isn't a good reflector.

Formula 409 and a rag is good enough, and all we have at work

approved by entry into the MSDS system.

Wash your hands, kids. You're touching nasty things all day long that other people touched with pee-pee and poo-poo hands.

lol.

Tool Time

Time to admire a few things we'd ordered. Simple tools and equipment can make a job easier, faster, safer, and more profitable than the cost of the tools in the first place.

Enter Exhibit "A": Waterproof Protective Gloves:

Great for when I always seem to smack the back of my hand on something.

I hate that; it's an annoying pain.

Two replacement Gearwrenches, ratcheting, Offset, and one that doesn't come in the set.

One Unibit, great for FAST holes for EMT/Conduit or a pre-hole

for a "Greenlee knockout"; i.e., pushbuttons/light for control panels, e-stops, etc.

American companies must provide PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) for employees that require it by OSHA regulations. Every year they allow us $125 for work boots/steel toed/ESD/kevlar-toe (for working near the magnetic MRI coils; we have vendors that come to our site once a year and offer us low-and average-quality protective footwear for $65-2/$125 and usually give us a pair of socks, too.

It's rather nice having a "footwear professional" talk to us about the quality, fit, longevity, and everything else they know about shoes. You don't normally think of them as anything but "Shoe Salesmen", but these guys are amazingly intelligent and really enjoy their careers. Some are owner-operators of a franchise. They come around Valentine's Day this year to hock their wares to us. No cash up-front, either. Just Sign & Drive.

Just in time, too!

Battery acid effects, amplified with time.

Safety Lighting (Continued)

Starting on the ballast replacement and relamping.

"2N" G.E. ballasts will be replacing the older ballasts for the larger T12 bulbs.

T8, T12...the number is the measurement in eighths of an inch wide; T8= 1"...T12=1.5"

First, we isolate the circuit with lockout tagout. I'd thought to look for a second switch, sure enough, was one on the opposite hallway.

LOTO on an installed light switch cover. 

Hasp so others can add their lock and tag.

Ballasts were beneath a panel inside the underbelly of the fixture. None were leaking (so far) but many were bad, and incompatible with the new T8 lamps anyways.

Old and Busted.

New Hotness + Means of Disconnect

(Shown plugged for pictoral purpose only) 

410.130(G) "Means of Disconnect".

TT took me to lunch for my birthday. We went to Rocky Rococo's, a fast-food pizza place, if you don't know what that is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

While chowing pizza and breadsticks, I'd explained "RickRolling" to TT, he actually got a kick out of the song, which we later joked about.

I took the foil from my breadsticks and  cut two rectangles from it, each having a tab. I have two fat "L"-shaped flats of thin aluminum foil. Wrapped it up in the coupon material with about four turns, and voila'!
2 nF capacitance!

I think the buttery breadstick grease is a rather good dielectric material! (not really).

2 nF! 

From Wikipedia:

A farad is the charge in coulombs which a capacitor will accept for the potential across it to change 1 volt. A coulomb is 1 ampere second. Example: A capacitor with capacitance of 47 nF will increase by 1 volt per second with a 47 nA input current.

The 'farad' should not be confused with the faraday, which is the electric charge carried by one mole of singly charged ions. So don't accuse me of talking about myself all day today.

We returned to relamping and reballasting, singing the Rick Roll song; I'm thinking this isn't such a bad birthday after all!

TT must be intolerant to something in the pizza. It wasn't even 30 minutes since we'd eaten, and he dropped his ass SO BAD in the staircase, I'd almost puked. He was changing the ballast in the staircase on the 1st platform, I was on the 2nd. Even after trying to escape down the hallway, it had creeped another twenty feet inland like an invisible deadly septic Ninja.

Anyways, we'll finish tomorrow. Another day in Candyland.

Why Numbers are Dangerous.

I've always been fascinated how the brain works.

More likely out of frustration when dealing with incompetent instructors.

You know the type: They tell you 37 ways to NOT do something, and one way TO do it...
...when it comes time to use that knowledge, you remember every single one of the 37 ways to NOT do something, and a few of your own, but can't remember the RIGHT way, because you were overloaded on information.

In comes the brainpower, and why you DON'T TEACH SO MUCH TO PEOPLE. Not everyone has a perfect "filter" for such things, will forget 90% of what you said in an hour anyways, and will remember something the way their brain is wired, not the way you taught them.

Example 1:

Dry skin: 120v and 0.0011A. 

Example 2:

GFI trips at 0.0050A

Thesis 1: Grabbing 120VAC will result in 0.0011A current in body with dry skin at the contact point

Thesis 2: GFI receptacles trip at 0.0050A imbalance.

Synthesis: It is OK to touch live 120VAC wiring with dry skin.

WRONG!

An example of why this is NOT the way to teach someone about safety;

People wrongly assume electricity takes the shortest or easiest path to ground. NOT TRUE.

Except for high-frequency examples of WHERE on the conductor the current flow is (i.e., "skinning") and certain experiments Tesla was famous for, under normal conditions, electricity takes ALL paths it can as a return point (or ground) and can be can be calculated accordingly. 

Say there is a set of conductors, size 3 AWG (size of a Sharpie marking pen) and a spot removed on the insulation by a genetically engineered plastic mouse, impervious to electricity, whom has gnawed an area large enough away for you to put your "1000-ohm dry skin palm" on.

Well, its feeding a 5HP motor (about 3700W)  drawing 30 amps at 120 volts. V=I*R, so That's only 4 ohms! Your dry-skin hand is 1000 ohms, so no current will go through you, right? WRONG!

Regardless of the motor,  you are now a new branch circuit. Unless you and the motor will draw enough to trip the breaker or fuse, you'll continue to be an electronic heater/screamer which hasn't been tested by UL;  until the cows come home, whatever that means. Even if the breaker does blow, you're already had enough to ruin your organs, fry your heart or brain, probably even the family Joules.

So, I guess I have issues with people thinking they know about electricity because they "learned it in school".

Well, teachers were STILL teaching that Neptune didn't have rings and water vapor was visible when I was in school. A guy from the Electric Company told us in Driver's Ed class that if a power line falls on our car, we're "OK" because the tires insulate us. NOT EVEN CLOSE TO TRUE!

We're OK because we're the same voltage (potential) as the car, as the line, as the ground immediately under us. We're OK because we're all the same voltage and therefore no current flow.

MetersFeet

Voltage dissipates radially to ground, assuming all conditions equal.

Volts

       Distance to ground point

So, being in a car with a live 13800-Volt line on it can be fatal just stepping out of the car.

A 4000-5000 volt difference between the car and where your foot touches the ground means you get 4000-5000 Volts. Lets say a path between  your right hand and left foot exist at 2500 Ohms.

V=I*R; 5000=n*2500; 5000=2*2500. You now have two amps going through you.

Two hundred times dead, you are. Not a pretty way to die, nor always instant. Electric chairs are engineered (or were) poorly and often caused unspeakable misery rather than their intended "insta-death" purpose.

I'm far off-topic here, but I'm ranting. If you like weird movies and want to know more about electric chairs, see Mr. Death (1999). Warning: It's a political shocker movie. No pun intended. It covers capital punishment and the Holocaust, so if you're the least bit queasy about either subject, by all means see it anyways and flame my blog with insults.

Just a side note which I will prove soon:

GFI receptacles wont trip even if you shove a fork in one end and your tongue piercing in the other.

There needs to be an imbalance between the L and N side (usually indicating current going to ground and not back to the N; in a 1-phase circuit, a neutral really isnt a neutral; it's a return path).

Good day!

Another Safety Lighting Issue

There is a recently-remodeled area upstairs with a hallway connecting two locker rooms (Men and Women).

The lamps are all burned out in the hallway, all seven fixtures...and most of the lamps in the locker rooms.

It's daylight out, so you can still see pretty well. At night, it's unsafe.

TT and I had located ballasts and lamps for a previous job, along with the associated parts.

Starting in the 2002 NEC code with 410.130(G) and revised since then, you must have a "means of disconnect" for ballasts and/or the fixture (with a few exceptions listed).

Like this, about $1 apiece:

Don't think you cant get hurt working on 120V. It can and will kill you if it gets the chance. Dirty bugger it is.

Here's a nice, quick video on the subject;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osEr7SjVWlQ
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/osEr7SjVWlQ" frameborder="1" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So, TT and I recycled all the dozens of ballasts and a hundred or so old lamps laying on this cart (God forbid an Apprentice would have done such a thing...) and prepping it for the job, as soon as the Work Order comes through. The rest of the day I'll be working on my "My Learning" training. The three-hour Electrical safety (section 1 only) is on the list. Seems like I'd just done this last year.

Oh, yeah. It was last year!

Engineering a Clean-room Monitoring System

Back in September, I was given a rather special opportunity to "wire up" a multi-room monitoring system for a clean room, a monitoring lab, and assembly/finishing area.

I was given a box of parts, spools of various communication wire and vague directions. Like, "Build this".

I couldn't have been happier, seriously! I *love* things like this; it's why I wanted this career.

"Well, you can look at the other system we have; there arent any drawings [electrical wiring diagrams] for it, but maybe that will help..." I was told by Pat O. Well, nothing is labeled. Parts were added later. Parts were removed later. Nothing can be traced out, as everything is in a tight bundle or knotted beyond belief. Can't really touch anything, as this is monitoring a live system. To boot, it's about 110dB in this room.

A power supply went bad and nobody could fix it for two days, as they couldnt locate it. It was in the ceiling. May I stress the importance of ELECTRICAL DRAWINGS and LOGICAL LAYOUTS?

Anyways, here's my system:

The CAT-5 running out of place was not mine.

Anyways, I'd drawn up blueprints in Excel (faster that way, dont ask) after going online and downloading all the product information for the temperature sensors, particle sniffers, the D/A-I/O converter and USB module, the stacklights (with unknown controllers in the prefab boxes) even the cabling to make sure it was compatible with the MODBUS runs.

There was cable pulling of all sorts and near-impossible ways to access it, working around the Utility guys and constant interruptions by Journeymen that needed "help" with this or that. The cabinet pictured here had to be modified to accept power and be portable; it was quite a bit of work making it acceptable, and make the removable cabinet side possible to be removed. A bit of slack in particular places below the reinforcement rails, using a quad receptacle box as a junction box also, power was run in to the terminal blocks and the additional fused rail-mounted convenience receptacle.

From there, a 24v supply powers the components. The stacklights are  powered by 24v and also controlled completely by MODBUS.

Here's a JPEG of my Excel blueprints. I made them pictoral, so even the least-skilled onlooker can decipher how it works. All b'prints and system files, documentation, even a training video on the particle counter...everything, was burned onto DVD-R supplied by me. The department leader got a copy and one was left in the cabinet.

It was a great project. Everyone was impressed. 

When the vendor/contractor came out to install the software, he turned it on and everything worked.

Perfectly.

I don't think people realized how much work went into this.

I was recognized by an engineer and put in for my second company award. 

The Bronze "Expertise" award.

Expertise

Dear TS,

Thanks for your dedication and expertise in getting the SGB equipment installed quickly and accurately, which allows the Perenna program to stay on track.

From TM

Of course, this wasn't good enough three months later according to the two people not involved with this project AT ALL, other than checking up on me on the third day of the project, in the middle of figuring out how the system is supposed to work, as I was pulling some of the communication cables. 

[Critic]"You should have mounted the stack lights first, so it at least looks like you're doing something!"

[Myself] "Well, then lets say I mount them on day one. Then it looks like I'm not doing anything later on"

That apparently wasn't logical to him. The Engineer and the Department leader checked in on me EVERY SINGLE DAY and saw the progress. They didn't seem to have a problem with it.

And the other system? It went down recently, it took over a day to fix it, as there are no drawings nor blueprints, so that add-on power supply in the ceiling that failed was hard to find. Nobody knew it existed.

I took three weeks to do this, did it all by myself, minus a couple hours help at the end from [Someone]. According to [Critic] and what he tried to convince my boss, was that "Nothing was done until we sent [Someone] to help you, and suddenly it was done".

I'm just an Apprentice, so I have to deal with this crap.

Maintaining batteries today in the fork lifts. Running all over the place with a water container on wheels with an electric pump inside.

Many of the batteries are  6v and wired in series to increase the voltage to 24v or 36v depending on the vehicle.

Instead of the batteries having the typical snap-off covers on the cell fill points, a special connector is pressed into each cell with a hose running through them. The portable container has a special quick-connect device on the nozzle; that connects to the hose to fill the batteries quickly. Often a forklift will take a gallon or two every month.

A nice little circuit http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/charger1.asp

Lead-acid batteries give off hydrogen gas; don't be dumb. I had one blow up in my face from a faulty charger once, one spark was all it needed. Enough force to knock you down and stun you a moment, and the acid doesn't feel too good either.

More Switches/Receptacles

In the back of the same room, a receptacle had disintegrated (a worker had shown me). The bottom receptacle had fallen apart, and the top had a blade stuck in the neutral, ripped off of who-knows-what.

Shown with Fluke pocket voltage tester.

Further examination shows the switch above this for the lamps in the old shower room were as old as the broken ones from yesterday, I'd decided to replace the remaining two in the area.

First, as always, LOCKOUT TAGOUT (LOTO).

With description, location, name, date, phone number in ink.

Cover removed, quite nasty. No ground.

Cover removed, top had the blade stuck in the neutral (left).

Rewired, grounded, taped for safety.

Done. Used the correct size cover, too. Previous was too small.

Done. 

Done.

Again, not the most challenging thing...but very important when it comes to protecting life and property.

Done and tested by 9:30. Time for my 9:00 break!