I apologize for the lack of updates in the past couple of weeks. I’ve been hiding away at Red River College working on completing my second level.

Courses in level two include:

• Commercial Wiring Code
• Alternating Current Fundamentals
• Electronics
• Direct Current Machines
• Motor Controls and Control Systems

An overall grade of at least 70% must be achieved in order to pass level two. Grading is based on homework, tests, exams and labs. Not all of the courses include mandatory lab time.

Motor controls is a class that is a good mix of theory and labs. The theory portion of the class includes drawing control circuits, and textbook questions about specific control components. For example:

“Motor M1 is controlled by stop/start push buttons. After the start button is pressed, motor M1 will continue to run until the stop button is pressed, or an overload trips.”

The single line diagram would look like something like this:

The practical side of the class involves hands-on wiring. The motor controllers that we wire have been around the college since many of the instructors went through the program. They may be out of date, but are a great teaching tool. Here is an example of a forward reverse project.

It is per code to have colour-coded wires. Red represents “Line 1″ or “Phase A.” Black represents “Line 2″ or “Phase B.” Blue represents “Line 3″ or “Phase C.” Orange and yellow represent forward and reverse control wires. Projects are marked on functionality and neatness.

In the month that I was on vacation I had another journeyman manage the MPI claim centre on Lexington Ave.  This job is now in its final stages, so I’ve been asked to start a new project.  This new job is on a new building at the University of St. Boniface.  It is a training facility for nurses, which means that they will have actual working  hospital rooms to train the nursing students in. 

This job is a very interesting one to me in that it includes the following:  geothermal heating and cooling, a full mechanical heating and cooling system, plumbing and medical gas piping for the vacuum and oxygen lines that are in the simulated training rooms.  Nothing in this building is typical and every floor is different, so it will make for a job that holds your interest but at the same time will require thinking throughout the different phases.

As this job is getting underway, I will be back and forth between the Nursing Pavillion and helping to finish the mechanical room at the MPI claim centre.  In my next blog I’ll try to incorporate photos of the mechanical room as it comes together.

This was a VERY simple job, however I figured I would include it in my explanation of our Unit 3 maintenance because it is a part of it.

I needed to weld a threaded port onto the generator bearing oil sump so there can be access to taking a sample of oil from the generator bearing. As I stated this was a very simple job that time wise took next to nothing, I simply Tig welded the threaded port on.

Other than cavitation, the units sometimes require other repairs, modifications or fabrication. In the generator pit, there was a water pipe that had a split in it and was leaking. It had been temporarily repaired with putty and tape until the outage of the unit.

We disconnected the copper pipe and brought it back to the weld shop to make it easier to repair. We began by taking off all the tape and putty, then using an oxy-acetylene torch we heated up the pipe to melt the solder, which we call sweating off the pipe, until the elbow was removed.

We then put the new elbow onto the pipe and soldered it back together.

When it comes to transmissions, vehicles can either be automatic or manual. A car that has an automatic transmission “knows” when to shift gears automatically. Cars with a manual transmission need the driver to manually select the gears according to the engine’s RPM (revolutions per minute) and speed of the vehicle.

Most manuals have a range of five or six gears to choose from. The lowest gear to starts the car out from a stationary position while the higher gears are used for highway or higher speeds. Manuals have a third pedal besides the gas and brake called the clutch pedal. By pushing pedal to the floor, you separate the engine and transmission. By separating the two, power is longer being transferred from the engine to transmission. The gears inside can slow down and properly mesh together when shifted up or down. When the clutch pedal is raised, the engine and transmission connect and spin together.

The main components of a transmission are the pressure plate and friction disk. The pressure plate is bolted to the flywheel at the crank, and spins at all times when the engine is running. The friction disk is splined (or fastened) to the transmission input shaft and drives the transmission. The pressure plate has “fins” or fingers that are keeping pressure on the disk. When pressure is released (clutch pedal down) the disk is not being forced to the flywheel. It will not be turning with engine. Chilled spots and grooves can be seen in the one picture above. This is caused by the disk slipping on the flywheel, heating up and burning the clutch.

Unit 3 is the first unit that was scheduled for an outage during our annual maintenance. This outage went from April 4^th until April 14^th.

There are many steps regarding the outage of a unit that I am not aware of, however I can definitely tell you what my role in the unit 3 outage has been.

I was able to view the turbine runners, after the head gates were closed and there was no longer any water entering the draft tube and propelling the turbine. Once proper holds were on the equipment and scaffolding was in place surrounding the turbine runners we were able to enter the area and perform our inspection of the unit. We had to go over the turbine blades and the liner surrounding the turbine runners and look for cavitation or signs of cavitation and cracks. Anything we noticed needed to be measured and marked for an engineer to photograph and document. It is then decided whether the defects or lack of, should be repaired or carried over until the following year.

In the case of Unit 3, the only thing we found were small sections of sugaring, which is what happens prior to cavitation beginning, which is usually left alone until the following year if the problem progresses.

There is putty that is placed over top of the bolts surrounding each turbine blade, the putty helps prevent cavitation on the bolts. In places where the putty has fallen off we must replace it.

One nice thing about being in a trade is that you don’t have to bid for time off or work on a seniority basis.  When you want a vacation, all you need to do is talk to the boss.  Last summer I had talked with the owners about taking a three week vacation, which they didn’t bat an eye at. 

After running four jobs in the last year I was due for a good long vacation, one that would make me forget what day it was and remove any stress in me.  Being that it was our anniversary, we decided to go to Europe for three weeks.  The funny thing is that three weeks turned into a month as we ended up getting delayed by the volcanic ash cloud from Iceland and we got an extra week in Venice.  Not a bad deal! 

The owners were very understanding of our situation and were happy that we arrived home safely.  Once I got home though, things needed to get done.  I went to the office the next day to stop in and say ”hi”, and I was handed the blueprints to a new year-long job.  They said, ”you can start there Monday”.

Its going to be a very busy summer for me with many projects on the go so this vacation was perfect timing to prepare me mentally for the next year.

In a previous blog post, I talked about how I disassembled the interior out of a vehicle. That vehicle had been involved in a collision, with body damage in the front end from the impact which broke wire harnesses and connectors. My job was to replace both the engine wiring harness as well as the vehicle main harness.

I know what you’re thinking: sounds like an easy task! A few wires here and there, no problem right?  

Not so much. In today’s vehicles, there is a lot more to it  than just a few wires running around. Cars have a huge variety of electronics: lights, sensors, computers, switches, actuators, motors, etc… Basically, everything that is used to control the engine and vehicle systems. Wiring is needed as a conductor to carry power or high/ low voltages signals to or from these components. It networks the computers together, and carries output or input voltage from the sensors to the computers. It’s like a freeway in a big city, with bridges crossing over each other, eight lanes wide with traffic flowing in a hundred different directions.

And like the cars on that freeway, the electronic signals all have a certain destination to go to.

Another type of electronic superhighway...

The title pretty much speaks for itself, I needed to fabricate a bracket that would make the Oil Sight Glass more sturdy because it could be broken off quite easily. To fix this before it became an issue, I took some measurements and began fabricating the bracket.

The sight glass couldn’t be removed, nor could anything around it, which made it quite difficult to get exact measurements due to the location of everything. Once I had the measurements I needed I went back to the shop and began by cutting 3 pieces of flat bar, one for the main portion and two smaller pieces. I drilled holes into the smaller pieces as they would be used to help bolt the bracket onto the existing equipment located around the sight glass. I first tacked everything in place and then went down to see if everything fit up properly. I then Tig welded it all together, put some paint on it and installed it.

BEFORE

BRACKET

AFTER