Work Progress - Day 13

And the hits just keep coming...

Here it is, lucky day 13 and things are moving along, somewhat. It seems that Blogspot.com is having trouble with the image-uploader, so I'll have to try placing the pictures tomorrow.

So far, the exciter unit for Finish Mill #2 is completed, all connections and labeling are done. The soft starter has been wired up, with the exception of the telemetry wiring to the control room. Last time, Perry did this wiring. I'm hoping he does it again on this one.

Jesus has been bothering me about a missing signal from the starter on Finish Mill #1 (that his guys wired up). He said that they were able to "spot" (step-rotate) the mill without permission from the control room. I looked at the connection point on the wiring diagram he provided and their 'spot permission' input is wired to our dual-adjust input, which means that this connection will not do what they want. It's not an interlock, it is a means of switching the starter from one set of starting settings to another. I told him that the permissive should come from the pistol grip switch he had installed that selects the spot capability and that he probably needs to have it wired up there. Looks like I'll have to do it so I can get out of here.

(Editorial 'Snip') (Sorry, but I was just running off at the mouth and had trim my ranting down a bit, Hans).

...Speaking of back home, it looks like Katrina will be heading back to school this week. Too bad we couldn't have done a little something more together these past couple of weeks before she has to hit the books again. And once again, I've missed out on another wedding anniversary, (I've missed 3 out of the last 4 because I've been on the road for Motortronics on July 24th). The one I didn't miss out on was because we took vacation time and a cruise to keep me from getting shipped out.

Oh well, lots to growl about, after being stuck with the dirty end of the 'diggy-stick' again and again. After working 10-to-12 hour days every day while under pressure from the customer, I'm just exhausted and burned out, I guess.

Here are the pictures I couldn't post.

This is a view of the front panel Tom & I crafted for the second starter. It came out pretty nice, with all of the labels in place. The only thing missing is the customer supplied, locking Emergency Bypass switch.

This is the rear view of the control panel after it has been wired up.

And here is the second exciter cabinet, all wired up too.

And finally, the little red light that indicates when power is on in the exciter cabinet.

Work Progress - Day 12

Wow, Saturday is here and the second unit seems to be coming along faster than the first. Of course, there is less fabrication needed on the second motor starter. The morning started off with dropping Tom off at the airport, then heading to the cement plant. When I got there, they had managed to stuff the box into place after cutting the corners of a box that was standing up about 2 inches from the floor and hammering it flat. That worked. I was told that jamming the new gray enclosure between the two green ones actually did involve a liberal application of grease on each side to get it to slide into place.

Unfortunately, they couldn't slide it all the way back because there are some bolts sticking out, preventing it from going any farther.

This is a close-up of the front of the control panel. They still need to provide me with a keyed emergency bypass switch so I can install it. I also need to install a red lamp above and centered between the meters.

This is a view of the back of the control panel. I'll be wiring the components up on Monday, whenever they finally pull the cables into the cabinet.

While the guys were pulling cables into the exciter unit's box, I cleaned up and installed this giant Ground Fault Current Transformer (GFCT) in the back section of the starter.

I used a piece of wood block as a spreader to help maintain the correct wire spacing.

This a view of the GFCT from the front of the cabinet. Geez, this thing is huge...

Next was the installation of the 300:5 CTs for the Multilin 469 motor protection relay. I used the existing mounts that were already in there. It's going to be a tight fit for the motor leads.

This a downward looking view of the CTs including the 250:5 one I had to add for the Multinlin SPM Synchronous Power Management Relay. (Yes Tom, it's in the right place this time and facing the right way too.)

After I was done with the CTs in the starter, I focused my attention on the wiring in the exciter unit. Of course, the marking tapes they put on the cables to identify the bundles are nothing like the markings last week. I had to generate another conduit schedule and wire list based upon the new colors.

This is the finished product, the only thing left for me to do in the exciter cabinet is to punch a hole in the door and mount a red lamp in it, like the one below that was done last weekend.

Well, it's about that time, gotta go find something for dinner, I have tomorrow off, so I'll get some laundry done (again) and work on the drawings so I can turn them in to Jesus when I finish up here.

Work Progress - Day 11

Friday has arrived, and once again, we came in at 7:00 AM as requested, only to have to wait until 8:00 AM for the electrical crew to show up from a meeting. While we were waiting, Tom and I reassembled the exciter panel we had used for parts to repair the one that popped. Next, we cut the holes in the starter control panel door using the 2 and 3/4 inch hole-saw we had bought last night. After that, Tom worked on the medium voltage cables that needed to be connected to the back-bus while I worked on loading the control panel door with the electronic equipment. After that was done, I hung the door into place then the bus connections were taped and Tom made up a barrier to place between the connectors that were taped off and the side plate. That done, he removed the base plates from the floor while I taped off the bypass contactor. When we finished this, the starter and the exciter unit were transported via forklift to the MCC room.

Here is the soft starter standing proudly in the middle of the MCC room floor. You can see the results of the work we did yesterday and this morning to build the control panel door.

This is the remains of the original 'hard' starter that was in the MCC room for #2 Finish Mill.

This is Jesus and the back of a guy we only know as "Butter-Bean", looking at the opening created for the replacement starter.

This shot shows Perry (facing us) describing the details to Steve as to how they are going to get the new soft starter in place. Steve looks just as excited about it as Perry is. Well, maybe...

This is Joe, Tom's new Harley-shirt trading buddy. He is telling us how tough (and heavy) our starters are. I thought he was going to punch the cabinet.

Minutes after moving the softstarter and our tools over to the MCC room, we were hit with some serious rain. That's our rental car over there, getting a much deserved wash-down.

Here is a shot of the carcass of the old starter, sitting out there in the downpour. This hard-working machine had been starting a 1250 Horsepower motor since 1978, and now, this is its fate... Kinda sad, huh?

Since the rain had stopped progress in the MCC room and we would only be in the way, Tom and I decided to explore the Kiln/Blast Furnace area again. This picture shows the length of one of the kilns.

We were impressed by this glowing red spot which is actually a 1/4 inch thick steel plate covering the blast furnace. The heat from the kiln is so intense that the metal plate is glowing, but only in the shape of the round opening behind it.

Well, the time has come for Tom to return back to Tampa, his portion of the work here is done. Everything is packed into the crate, soon to be shipped back home. I'll be staying on for another week though, sorting out the wiring and getting the motor started.

Ladies and gentlemen, Tom Hackney has left the building...

Work Progress - Day 10

Well, work began on Finish Mill #2. Jesus told us to come in at 7:00 AM and after arriving, we couldn't find anybody in the electrical department. Come to find out, they had a meeting from 7 to 8 and no work was to be done (it figures). When things finally got under way, Tom and I started rebuilding the exciter unit. We replaced the burned stack assembly and boards, then we installed the new MOVs. While this was going on, the electricians started pulling apart the old cabinet out in order to replace it with the new cabinet. After we finished the exciter unit, the enclosure was picked up by forklift and moved over to the MCC (Motor Control Center) room. The rest of the day was spent cutting out the front control panel for the lights, switches, controls and meters. We haven't finished the panel yet because we had to get a 2 3/4 inch hole saw to make the openings for the voltage and amperage meters. We bought the hole saw at a tool shop this evening and will be able to finish it in the the morning.

This is the progress on the control panel so far. Some of the cutting work kind of scratched up the paint, so we taped it off and I used a spray can to repaint it.

Before we left the cement plant, we stopped by the MCC room to check on the removal progress. You can see see the gap btween the two cabinets and the floor plate has been removed.

Here is the view from the rear section and you can see the cables that have been pulled out.

This view shows that the motor/generator has been removed from the mounting pad. You can also see the replacement gray box to the right still mounted on its pallet, to be mounted where the motor/generator was.

This is a view of the cable tray in the ceiling that shows the wiring that will be pulled into both new cabinets when they are settled into place.

During dinner, I was playing around with the camera feature of my new cell phone and found that you can take a picture and it would put a border like this around it. I'll probably catch some grief when Tom sees this...

Work Progress - Day 9

Today was spent starting and stopping the mill, added another switch to the control panel and after lunch, a 4-hour mining safety certification training course that we had to take, because the Mining Safety and Health Administration (MSHA, pronounced - imsha) mandates that all workers spending more than 5 days on site must be certified. The parts did show up from the plant this afternoon and we are looking good for getting the second part of the job started on Thursday. It looks like Tom and I are going to be working here until the end of next week.

The only pictures I took today were videos of a machine called a spotter that uses 250 volts DC to make the motor move like a stepper motor. Whenever the motor makes a step (small degrees of rotation), the arcs that comes off the 6 relays are like small lightning bolts.

When the salesmen from the factory were here, the Electrical Supervisor likes to show, to those whom have not been sufficiently initiated, the spotter control system while its running to see what their reaction is. Needless to say, they jumped back a bit when the lightning storm began...

Well, tomorrow is a day of rest, we will start in earnest on the second stage of the job Thursday morning at 7:00AM. I'll keep you-all posted.

Work Progress - Days 5, 6, 7 & 8

Well, things really got out of hand when it came time get the motor running and we ended up having to stay until 10:0 PM (15 hours) on Thursday night, then we went 11 hours on Friday, 12 hours on Saturday, 8 hours on Sunday and then today we seem to be back to a more normal 8 - 5 schedule.

Many things have happened. We got the motor starter built and started by Friday afternoon, but we have had problems. When we got the motor to start turning, and about ready to synchronize to the power system, the synchronizer controller went BANG!

You can see the burn mark on the side of the cabinet.

It also burned a hole in the gold-colored aluminum heatsink.

We repaired it using parts from a second unit, then ordered replacements to be shipped in overnight. Then we have had all kinds of wiring issues that the electricians have been chasing down (mostly start logic). Then we had problems with the programming of the computerized synchronizing controller, then the motor protection computer started giving us fits. We finally got the whole she-bang running properly on Sunday afternoon at about 2:30 (this was after they discovered they left a feed-chute door closed and backed cement up all over the place around the ball mill). The starting system seems fine, we are now just doing 'busy work' putting labeling stickers on things and adding "Power On" lights to the cabinet doors. We were supposed to start on the second unit, but the supervisor wants to get a warm fuzzy before letting the team work on the next unit. Oh well, we have a salesman coming in tomorrow to let him know the extension of time is going to cost him quite a bit more money. Maybe that will put some giddy-up in his motivator.

This is a motor that looks like the one in the background that we are trying to get up and running.

And this view shows the ball mill drum that the motor is turning. This thing is like the old rock tumbler we used to have as kids, except the drum on this thing has plates (called 'liners') inside to protect the drum casing. This is because they load the drums with different sized cast steel balls in 1, 2, 3 & 4-inch sizes to grind up the materials that look like stone into the fine, gray powder called "Portland Cement".

Part of making the cement involves running some of the raw materials through a couple-of-hundred foot rotating kiln that is heated to 2500 degrees. There are two of them here and you can see the coal-fired blast furnaces on the far side of the room shooting the flames into one end of each kiln.

Here is a closer look of the blast furnace end on one of them.

They even let us have a look inside. Here is Tom holding a welding helmet with a special handle so he could look inside the kiln as it is running.

Another interesting thing is that they use this special gun to shoot material that sticks to the walls inside the kiln to loosen it up and make it tumble properly again. They say that when the material builds up, it looks something like a snowman, so they call it "shooting snowmen" in the kiln...

Here is one of the solid bullet rounds that they shoot into the kiln. Yep, that's an 8-gauge round, bigger than a 12-gauge shotgun shell. They have been going through about 100 rounds a day. We haven't been able to see it, because they shoot the snowmen in the kiln at night.

Here's Tom looking at a boiler on one of the floors of the cement mill. The mill is so big, I think it has like 11 - 12 floors.

Well, more work to go, it's looking like we might be staying until the end of next week. I won't know for sure until they hold a meeting tomorrow.

Work Progress - Day 4

We got in late tonight because we worked until 11:00 PM. We were so tired we just grabbed something from Sonic Burgers on the way home...

First off, I got the wiring cleaned up and routed to where we needed them, then the Test/Normal switch and Test Power socket were added. I'll have to finish wiring up the socket and switch with red wires tomorrow.

The door panel is in place and then I had to add a pistol grip switch and lock between the red and yellow lights. This meant that the Spotter Voltage Test dial had to be moved to the left of the yellow light.

Here are the two contactors, wired up. Tom spent most of the day cutting, stripping back and crimping connectors on the ends of the cbles. He worked hard to get the wire lengths as short as possible.

In this shot, you can see that the SCR power poles (with the green circuit boards on them) are installed, and further examples of Tom's cabling handiwork.

This is a picture of the GCC Rio Grande cement plant in Tijeras, NM and the mountain they are chewing up to use for the raw materials to make the cement. We see this view every day as we head back from lunch at Subway. I think we've eaten more than our share of sandwiches for a while. We can't figure out how Jerrod lost all that weight from just eating Subway sandwiches...

Work Progress - Day 3

Things are as hot as ever out here. It hit 97 degrees today and the humidity is up there too, thanks to all the rain yesterday.

Oh, I forgot to mention we had an interesting episode on the way to work. It seems a high-cube truck that was in the lane to the right of us clipped a guard rail as we were going over a bridge and it started swaying back and forth. I had to hit the brakes a bit hard because it looked like he was about to collect us, but he gathered it up before he got into us, so nothing more than a close call.

And now for the pictures:

This is the tight little aisleway that we have been working in to gain access to the back of the enclosure. When we dropped the monster contactor on the floor and slid it down this aisle, Tom had worked up a pretty good head of steam pushing it while I was pulling it and we about smacked a table that is positioned directly behind me as I'm taking this picture. Tom said he figured I would either let him know when we came to the end or I would jump out of the way. I chose the second option...

We finally decided upon a layout for the two contactors in the rear area of the enclosure. After cutting a plate for the right-hand contactor, they both were postioned and bolted into place. After we got things situated the way we liked it, Jesus checked on our work and said he didn't like the medium voltage CTs (Current Transformers) and told us to take them out. He gave us some smaller ones to put in that don't require bolting the medium voltage cables to them, we just need to run the cable through a hole in them. This makes for easier wiring. Unfortunately, this means we had removed/replaced/removed the CTs, all in one day. Good riddance.

The transformers ended up living in this area after all, there were two rails that were removed (you can see one of the bolt holes of the mounts for one of the rails) and the transformers were mounted to them.

This picture shows the conduits (pipes) that were mounted into the top of the sync-pack enclosure and cabling was pulled through them to the front of the big enclosure.

This is the other side where the cables were dropped through the left side of the big enclosure. They had a devil of a time getting the insulating sleeves over the conduit.

Here's Tom looking as beat as I feel at the end of the day. We had just finished cleaning & packing up and had talked about what our goals are for tomorrow. Earlier this afternoon, we were told that the team refurbishing the cement mill drum (I'll takes pics of that tomorrow) may not finish their work until Saturday. If, so Tom & I go into extra innings and will have to work on starting the motor Saturday. Hope they finish by Friday afternoon...

So far, the job has been taking its toll on us. We've been overcome by heat exaustion on Monday, yestderday wasn't much better and today was just as tough. Trying to figure out where to put things in the big enclosure, what should be pulled out, and how to wire it all up has been tough. The physical toll has been eating away at us too. Here is a picture of my right hand. I can promise you that my right arm and my left hand & arm are in the same shape. I told Tom we should count the cuts and scratches to see who is winning. I think he has me beat though, because he has sprung more "hydraulic leaks" than I have and he even spent the whole day today with a huge metal shaving in his shoe between his toes only discovering what it was once we got back to the hotel. How it got all the way up there in his shoe, I guess we'll never know...