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...