Picked up 6 MEP-802A gensets and will be documenting making them all runners here

[87Nassaublue]

I totally agree with you guys about the dangers of high voltage. We had the first hybrid bus in public transit. It was the Breda bus . Made by Breda in Italy. It ran on diesel until it went into the tunnels, then it switched to 700 volts DC on the overhead power lines. One of the regular maintenance jobs was cleaning the switch-over contacts. You where suppose to make sure the capacitors where drained before touching them. I forgot one day and put my file across them to clean them up. I got a zap that made my arm hurt so bad I thought someone stabbed me ! Thankfully it wasn't near a full charge or I'd be dead ! As it was it gave me a good scare !
Our new buses are true hybrids and to work on the high voltage side you need special rubber gloves and rubber coated tools.

I bet that woke you up! You're lucky it didn't get you good! Only thing I can think of more dangerous than what we did is being a lineman for the power company! Many years ago I was working on grounding near some 440 3 phase in an xray generator. Someone turned the breaker on while I was working. I got blasted pretty good too. With all that current passing through me made my nerves jittery for the rest of the day, so I had to go home. After that they came up with the lock out tag out process. I have to agree that is a good process!

 

[Another Ahab]

I bet that woke you up! You're lucky it didn't get you good! Only thing I can think of more dangerous than what we did is being a lineman for the power company! Many years ago I was working on grounding near some 440 3 phase in an xray generator. Someone turned the breaker on while I was working. I got blasted pretty good too. With all that current passing through me made my nerves jittery for the rest of the day, so I had to go home. After that they came up with the lock out tag out process. I have to agree that is a good process!

I'm currently in Tennessee helping family who own a construction company with project close-out as a subcontractor to Kiewit at the Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Facility (here's a link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_Mountain_Pumped-Storage_Plant )



​

It's a 1,652 megawatt plant. I'm talking power generation at scale; BIG scale.

You should see the transmission cables here, they're like 4" in diameter (the stuff is 18 lbs a foot I think is what I heard). If I can get a photo tomorrow I'll post it up.

The safety guy here told me that just having sweat on your arms and getting near the transmission cables (not touching them, near them) will give you a "bite". And those cables are shielded and fully insulated.

A healthy respect for current is probably a real good thing to practice at all times.

 

[87Nassaublue]

I'm sure he's right too! I bet just walking through the room with the cables, you can feel the hair on your arms and head move around! That's some serious power! Do you know how many kilovolts they are putting on those cables?

 

[Guyfang]

I once had a trouble call on a work site, in "La Pampas". In the middle of nowhere. One phase missing. Got there and saw that the cable from the distribution box was buried under a road. It had been raining for weeks, (normal german fluid sunshine) and the dump trucks had punched a hole in the roadbed. The cable was in all probability damaged. I got out walked over to within maybe 4 feet of the road bed, Dropped my truck key and tried to picked them up. I got a minor jolt/shock from just touching the ground! I stood up, walked away and called the power company. Told them I don't have a problem fixing the cable, but they just have to cut the power off until I am done! The work site boss flipped out. How can I turn off his site like that. I told him to go over and get my keys from the ground, and then I would explain. I will give him this, he tried. But afterwards, didn't say a word more!!

 

[Another Ahab]

I once had a trouble call on a work site, in "La Pampas". In the middle of nowhere. One phase missing. Got there and saw that the cable from the distribution box was buried under a road. It had been raining for weeks, (normal german fluid sunshine) and the dump trucks had punched a hole in the roadbed. The cable was in all probability damaged. I got out walked over to within maybe 4 feet of the road bed, Dropped my truck key and tried to picked them up. I got a minor jolt/shock from just touching the ground! I stood up, walked away and called the power company. Told them I don't have a problem fixing the cable, but they just have to cut the power off until I am done! The work site boss flipped out. How can I turn off his site like that. I told him to go over and get my keys from the ground, and then I would explain. I will give him this, he tried. But afterwards, didn't say a word more!!

You got that message to him, loud-and-clear. That's great.

 

[Another Ahab]

If I can get a photo tomorrow I'll post it up.

I'm sure he's right too! I bet just walking through the room with the cables, you can feel the hair on your arms and head move around! That's some serious power! Do you know how many kilovolts they are putting on those cables?

I was up on Raccoon Mountain again today checking the project and while I was there got some pics:

- The cables are rated for 230 KV; the diameter is 4.68". THAT is some serious wire right there.

- The turbine is one of (4) that power the turbine generators. That is a solid casting of stainless steel.

- The generator room is carved from solid rock. The bright colors are for psychological effect (it gets grim working in a cave eight hours a day; this is no BS apparently).

- These are the cables exiting the generator plant and transitioning to the transmission tower (broom is for scale, and I didn't measure it but the feed pipe on that hydraulic cable-pulling winch looked to be 1-1/2").

- Last view is top of the Mountain, that lake water builds a serious head dropping 1,100 feet to the stainless turbines in the generators.

Hope you liked the show. And now back to the regular programming (and please pardon me pclausen for the sidebar):

 

[rustystud]

I was up on Raccoon Mountain again today checking the project and while I was there got some pics:

- The cables are rated for 230 KV; the diameter is 4.68". THAT is some serious wire right there.

- The turbine is one of (4) that power the turbine generators. That is a solid casting of stainless steel.

- The generator room is carved from solid rock. The bright colors are for psychological effect (it gets grim working in a cave eight hours a day; this is no BS apparently).

- These are the cables exiting the generator plant and transitioning to the transmission tower (broom is for scale, and I didn't measure it but the feed pipe on that hydraulic cable-pulling winch looked to be 1-1/2").

- Last view is top of the Mountain, that lake water builds a serious head dropping 1,100 feet to the stainless turbines in the generators.

Hope you liked the show. And now back to the regular programming (and please pardon me pclausen for the sidebar):


View attachment 631033 View attachment 631035 View attachment 631034 View attachment 631036 View attachment 631037

That is really cool Ahab !!!

 

[87Nassaublue]

I once had a trouble call on a work site, in "La Pampas". In the middle of nowhere. One phase missing. Got there and saw that the cable from the distribution box was buried under a road. It had been raining for weeks, (normal german fluid sunshine) and the dump trucks had punched a hole in the roadbed. The cable was in all probability damaged. I got out walked over to within maybe 4 feet of the road bed, Dropped my truck key and tried to picked them up. I got a minor jolt/shock from just touching the ground! I stood up, walked away and called the power company. Told them I don't have a problem fixing the cable, but they just have to cut the power off until I am done! The work site boss flipped out. How can I turn off his site like that. I told him to go over and get my keys from the ground, and then I would explain. I will give him this, he tried. But afterwards, didn't say a word more!!

HAHA! Now that's how you explain a problem to someone who doesn't have the background to understand! You educated him very quickly! LOL

 

[Another Ahab]

That is really cool Ahab !!!

Oh, this project was VERY cool, believe you me!

The TVA project manager on the job told me there are only a handful of these kinds of Pump-Storage Plants in the country.

That ground-wire you're looking at in the first pic is 1" diameter of spun-wire over a copper core. !

 

[87Nassaublue]

I was up on Raccoon Mountain again today checking the project and while I was there got some pics:

- The cables are rated for 230 KV; the diameter is 4.68". THAT is some serious wire right there.

- The turbine is one of (4) that power the turbine generators. That is a solid casting of stainless steel.

- The generator room is carved from solid rock. The bright colors are for psychological effect (it gets grim working in a cave eight hours a day; this is no BS apparently).

- These are the cables exiting the generator plant and transitioning to the transmission tower (broom is for scale, and I didn't measure it but the feed pipe on that hydraulic cable-pulling winch looked to be 1-1/2").

- Last view is top of the Mountain, that lake water builds a serious head dropping 1,100 feet to the stainless turbines in the generators.

Hope you liked the show. And now back to the regular programming (and please pardon me pclausen for the sidebar):


View attachment 631033 View attachment 631035 View attachment 631034 View attachment 631036 View attachment 631037

That is very impressive! I'm wondering though, did the guy with the broom get a little too close? I wouldn't want the job of sweeping under those cables! That looks like a metal handled broom too!

 

[Another Ahab]

That is very impressive! I'm wondering though, did the guy with the broom get a little too close? I wouldn't want the job of sweeping under those cables!

If you zoom in on the picture, you can see the broom guy:

- He's the little pile of ash next to the broom handle.

 

[87Nassaublue]

If you zoom in on the picture, you can see the broom guy:

- He's the little pile of ash next to the broom handle.

HEHE, That's what I thought!

 

[pclausen]

Cool sidebar guys. That is one clean looking power plant. Lol at the boss guy trying to pick up your keys!

I was successful in extracting the lifers and cam out of the "donor" 802 with the broken piston. It was in much better condition. I kept everything in the same order:


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802-7-1-2016.jpg

I managed to break my hone working on trying to get those pits all the way gone, so I'm waiting for NAPA to get a new one in for me. In the meantime I buttoned up 802 #2, so I now have 2 fully functioning units (sans a few gauge not working correctly on both of them).

The 3rd unit in the below pic is the "donor" unit/


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802-7-4-2016-1.JPG

And finally, a shot of the final 2 that are in the process of being torn all the way down.


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802-7-4-2016-2.JPG

One day, I'll get them done! ****, I'll even get that BMW auto tranny put back together that has been sitting on that rear work bench for the last 2 years. One day, but not today.

 

[Deoje]

Great thread. It's really cool what you are doing. I've learned a lot just from your descriptions and pictures.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[Another Ahab]

You have one very squared-away garage/ shop there; wondering if it's the Fleet thing going on; are you maybe former USN?

And how do you muscle those units around; do you have a pallet mover or something?

 

[pclausen]

You are very welcome Deoje. I'm also learning a lot during the process from all the helpful folks here on this forum!

Thanks Ahab. No I'm not a former USN or any other branch of the military. Back in the day (80's) I worked on rebuilding and tuning radio broadcast equipment, then I started an ISP (1995), which was a lot of fun and then sold it to a regional service provider in 2000, and I still work there today. I wear many hats, but my main focus is on analyzing data from our various systems and combine it into data warehouses and create reports against that data. I suppose maybe some of that discipline with writing sql code has rubbed off on how I laid out the shop.

As for moving those 802s around, I have a set of forks for the loader on my tractor. I can handle very large generators if I had to.

 

[Another Ahab]

View attachment 632303

Photoshop makes Phunnies.

 

[pclausen]

I'm a master at Photoshop. Here's another one I did.



Here's one I did lifting a mature loblolly.



Just did this render of a larger generator. Notice the shadow detail on the ground. Looks very realistic.


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/36kw-04.JPG

 

[Another Ahab]

Okay, was I wrong on that first shot?

I can't tell now if you're busting chops or not!?

 

[pclausen]

I can assure you those photos are all real. I have the John Deere H260 loader. Here are the specs:



I have the Mechanical Self Leveling model (MSL), and as you can see from the above specs, it will lift a 4,400 lbs object to 1.5 meters and a 3,500 lbs object to max lift height.

That Saab was maybe 3,000 lbs (I was taking it to the scrap yard, so I didn't really care about damaging the under carriage).

Here's another fun video. The playhouse posts were set in cement and had been there for 10+ years.

www.cstone.net/~dk/IMG_5215.MOV