Me writes:

In article ,
"Arnold Walker" wrote:

Many steamtrains are now ran on air due to boiler code worrys by insurance
companies.

CFR (Call for Reference) on the above. as I believe it to be
Bull****....

I think so too, especially because even without the water an old
boiler pressurized with air is also no small danger.

the only Steampowered Trains still in existance,
and in commercial service are in third and fouth world countries,

There *might* be some stored steam engines still running, typically in
chemistry or power plants where steam is available anyway and can be
filled into the engine easily.

--
Dr. Juergen Hannappel http://lisa2.physik.uni-bonn.de/~hannappe
Phone: +49 228 73 2447 FAX ... 7869
Physikalisches Institut der Uni Bonn Nussallee 12, D-53115 Bonn, Germany
CERN: Phone: +412276 76461 Fax: ..77930 Bat. 892-R-A13 CH-1211 Geneve 23

Gee . Maybe that bottom posting stuff isn't so bad after all....LOL

"Cliff" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 18:30:15 -0400, "John P Bengi" JBengi
(spamm)@(spamm) yahoo,com wrote:

BTW Cliff:
Most of that other thread was not my postings. It was a super troll we
have
been trying to demolish for the last 6 months on a few groups. He doesn't
like the vcomplaints to his ISP and News providers so he forges my
nickname
and treis to libel me in any group I visit.

His last known commonly used name is Bunty Jeck. Previously known as
Aunty
Jack, Eunty JEck, Gymmy Bob, nunja, M II, Taz, Tez, Tbz, T@z, Troll
killer
and over 300 incarnations of those basic ones over the last year. Very
mentally ill (OCD) individual in bed with Wayne and M II here or the same
person.

Sorry for the confusion but I gave up on that thread. I only post from
golden.net. Check the headers

Hope you liked the way I trimmed his/her top-posted stuff G.
--
Cliff

Cliff expostulated:

| On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:39:39 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
| wrote:
|
|| Maytag
|
| My impression of themis one of overpriced stuff that's
| no better than anyone else's.

Their top end (like their competitors' top end) products /are/ highly
priced. In at least Maytag's case the top end products are, in fact,
as good as they can make 'em. The R&D guys actually talk to the
production assemblers, pay attention to what they say, and make
product changes on the basis of their suggestions. More usually
(elsewhere) an assembly person has to tell a foreman who might or
might not tell a supervisor - and so on up the ladder until there's an
information "bridge" back down the chain to the R&D guys.

The Maytag link to the customer call center is disconcertingly direct.
When I first arrived I had a "recycled" R&D phone number and got calls
from CS call center operators demanding that problems be fixed *RIGHT
NOW!* That I wasn't the person they thought they were calling didn't
seem to make any difference - nor did the fact that I wasn't even a
Maytag employee. One gal told me that didn't matter and that I'd
better get up off my butt and *FIND OUT* who should be fixing this
problem and make 'em aware of it and have them get back to her
posthaste.

Maytag could never get away with showing a commercial of that scene
(can't admit right out loud in front of God and everybody that
someone's had a problem with /our/ product!); but after I came out of
shock I decided it was actually pretty impressive. Again, it's
noteworthy that in all of these "hot" calls the communication was
between "indians".

Convinced me that Maytag's problems are top-down rather than
bottom-up.

I'm not in a position to comment on "overpriced" - but I think that
when someone buys a washing machine (or whatever), not all of what's
being purchased arrives on the delivery truck.

Hmm. Reminds me of some current threads about CNC equipment and
perceived value (or lack thereof) of customer support organizations.

| Perhaps unerelated ... Sears seems to like to
| sell models that they (Sears) are the sole supplier
| of spare parts for .... so take a standard model,
| rebadge it & alter a few key failure prone or
| consumable items ...

That would match up pretty well with some of the (very biased)
comments I heard voiced around Newton. :-)

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html

On 2005-06-24 said:
Newsgroups: alt.energy.homepower,rec.crafts.metalworking,rec.
woodworking
Me writes:
In article ,
"Arnold Walker" wrote:
Many steamtrains are now ran on air due to boiler code worrys by
insurance companies.
CFR (Call for Reference) on the above. as I believe it to be
Bull****....
I think so too, especially because even without the water an old
boiler pressurized with air is also no small danger.
the only Steampowered Trains still in existance,
and in commercial service are in third and fouth world countries,
There *might* be some stored steam engines still running, typically
in chemistry or power plants where steam is available anyway and
can be filled into the engine easily.
--
Dr. Juergen Hannappel http://lisa2.physik.uni-bonn.
de/~hannappe
Physikalisches Institut der Uni Bonn Nussallee 12, D-53115 Bonn,
Germany CERN: Phone: +412276 76461 Fax: ..77930 Bat. 892-R-A13
CH-1211 Geneve 23
Smith Brothers in Galesville, MD (a marine construction and equipment
rental firm I used to work for) has an old steam crane operated from
a 1000CFM air compressor, used for plucking barge sections from the
water. Makes a merry chug.

You are aware of coal-fired steam excursion trains? We have one in
northern New Mexico (Cumbres & Toltec) and there are many in
Colorado.


Tom Willmon
near Mountainair, (mid) New Mexico, USA

Net-Tamer V 1.12.0 - Registered

F. George McDuffee expostulated:

| As a followon to another post I just made, see WSJ article Wed
| June 22 on this.
|
| I ask the same question about Whirlpool that I asked about
| Maytag. How much did they claim on their tax returns for market
| research and product R&D over the last 5 to 10 years? It is
| clear they did not do any.

I think you're mistaken. Whilrpool has introduced some well-developed
new products (this according to engineering folks at one of their main
competitors) and I've purchased a number (more than a half dozen) of
top rate new Kitchen-Aid (a Whirlpool brand) appliances for my own
home. The folks at Maytag weren't exactly thrilled to hear me praise
Whirlpool/Kitchen-Aid, but did pay close attention when I listed the
features I liked best.

I have to believe thay spent some reasonable amount of R&D money to
produce just the products I happened to buy - and that new products
don't just appear gratis on some design engineer's CAD screen. FWIW, I
suspect that they spent really serious money developing their "Duet"
laundry appliances.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html

"Me" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Arnold Walker" wrote:

Many steamtrains are now ran on air due to boiler code worrys by
insurance
companies.

CFR (Call for Reference) on the above. as I believe it to be
Bull****..... the only Steampowered Trains still in existance,
and in commercial service are in third and fouth world countries,
and mostly run on diesel fired boilers. Turning big air compressors
with diesel engines is a very wastefull way to move Railroad Rolling
Stock.


Me
Then you are bull**** ....Time Warner Theme parks for starts have done that
on most of thier trains.
There are historic trains all over the US running at this time.



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Your are correct on equal danger.....but that is not the way some insurance
companies see it.
When you first built up an engine it is air tested,so virtual all steam
piston engine's start life on air drive.
One problem with theme parks like Disney is that the employees were used to
IC engines.
And waste a lot of steam because they don't understand the point of a
throttle and a cutout(variable timing link in other words)
The reason ,about seven steam trains are missing from Disney World.
Both good air and good steam operation gets max. expansion for the unit of
work done.
Steam is a little tricker because of overexpansion in the right
conditions.Air usually is retarded 10 degrees behind the the setting used
for a steamengine on a given load.
Look around and we will find at least one historical steam train running in
virtually every state.....Texas has three,Colorado has two,and so on.
One irony about your steamtrain remark....is that in the Golden Era of steam
the major number of the locomotives in operation were industrial not
commerical service.
In my hometown in East Texas during that time period....there were seven
railroad lines running thru town. Missouri and Southern Pacific had two
lines with Southern Pacific furnishing all contract rail and locomotive
maintenance service.And the rest of the lines were sawmill trains hauling
timber out of the woods.
Many quarries,mines,and shipyards had trains for do-it-yourself short line
work in other parts of the country.
"Juergen Hannappel" wrote in message
...
Me writes:

In article ,
"Arnold Walker" wrote:

Many steamtrains are now ran on air due to boiler code worrys by
insurance
companies.

CFR (Call for Reference) on the above. as I believe it to be
Bull****....

I think so too, especially because even without the water an old
boiler pressurized with air is also no small danger.

the only Steampowered Trains still in existance,
and in commercial service are in third and fouth world countries,

There *might* be some stored steam engines still running, typically in
chemistry or power plants where steam is available anyway and can be
filled into the engine easily.

--
Dr. Juergen Hannappel http://lisa2.physik.uni-bonn.de/~hannappe
Phone: +49 228 73 2447 FAX ... 7869
Physikalisches Institut der Uni Bonn Nussallee 12, D-53115 Bonn, Germany
CERN: Phone: +412276 76461 Fax: ..77930 Bat. 892-R-A13 CH-1211 Geneve 23



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Me wrote:

In article ,
"Arnold Walker" wrote:

Many steamtrains are now ran on air due to boiler code worrys by
insurance companies.

CFR (Call for Reference) on the above. as I believe it to be
Bull****..... the only Steampowered Trains still in existance,
and in commercial service are in third and fouth world countries,
and mostly run on diesel fired boilers. Turning big air compressors
with diesel engines is a very wastefull way to move Railroad Rolling
Stock.


Me
I'm just jumping into this thread, so I haven't seen what set it off, but
here are a few facts...

There are still a lot of steam locomotives in service around the country in
excursion service. They all run in the traditional way - oil or coal or
wood burned to make steam to move a piston. Note the repeated changes in
the state of the energy. Each time you make such a change you lose a lot
of energy - simple thermodynamics.

Reconditioned/restored old steam locos are often run on compressed air for
safety testing. They don't actually go anywhere that way.

Let's look at an energy balance. Energy to heat water from 60 F to 212 F -
152 BTU/lb. Energy to convert water at 212 F to steam at 212 F and 0 psig
- 970 BTU/lb. Energy to take steam at 0 psig to 300 psig - 235 BTU/lb.
Adding these up, the total energy to take water at 60 F to steam at 300
psig is 1357 BTU/lb. The only portion of this that is usable is the energy
in the steam. If the steam enters the cylinder at 300 psig and leaves at 0
psig the actual energy used to do work is 235 BTU/lb, or 17.3% of the
energy added to the water in the tender.

Now add in all the losses involved in converting coal or oil to steam (less
than 50% efficient) and you can see that a steam locomotive is very
inefficient.

So what about compressed air? If you look at the volumes involved you will
see that it is just not practical. 1 cu.ft. of air at 3000 psig is about
200 cu.ft. of air at 0 psig. 1 cu.ft of water is about 1630 cu.ft. of
steam at 0 psig. A UP Big Boy locomotive used about 100 gallons (13.3
cu.ft) of water per mile on flat ground with a full 7000 ton cargo load.
That means that to run on compressed air it would need a storage tank
capable of holding 3000 psig pressures of over 800 gallons to run one mile!
Just how close would the compressed air refueling stations need to be, and
how much would it cost to compress the air?

Sure compressed air is great in the shop, but do you really care if it costs
you 6 cents/hour instead of 2 cents/hour to run your pad sander? By the
same token, why are there no table saws that run on compressed air?
Probably because most of us have neither the money nor the space for a
compressor large enough to do the job.

Note that this is a reply to the whole thread, not to the actual poster the
reply is posted to. In face, he is right. Going from the rotary output of
a deisel engine to compresed air to reciprocating motion of pistons is very
inefficient, and that doesn't even take into account all of the other
problems (non-energy related) of reciprocating piston locomotive drivers.

Peter
--


-- PeterZ --

Robert Bonomi wrote:

In article ,
Ulysses wrote:

"Me" wrote in message
...

In article ,
"Ulysses" wrote:


"wmbjk" wrote in message
m...

On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 15:43:10 GMT, "Pete C."
wrote:


Not necessarily. Home welding tends to be short duration. The hardware
to supply that kind of power is actually affordable, and if one is
designing the power system from scratch for what most would consider a
normal home, then the extra inverter capacity isn't a big deal. In our
case, for the house loads alone we could have gotten away with a
single SW4024 plus a transformer for the 220V loads.

How is this done, getting 220V from 110? How do you get the two "hot"
wires? Are there 2 secondary windings on the transformer? Wouldn't

they

need to be out of phase with each other?



Now here is a fellow that asks an inteligent question. If you take
a dual winding secondary with 120 Vac on each winding, feeding it
with a 120 Vac Primary, and connect the dual 120Vac windings in series
you get 240Vac. The phase is determined on how you connect the two
series windings. and they will either be inphase or 180 out of phase,
depending on the connection.

Me

Something else I've wondered about is why is it sometimes called 220, other
times 230, and also 240VAC? Do the different voltages imply single or
double phase or is it just a matter of different voltages in different
geographic locations? My little Honda generator is rated at 125 VAC which
seems to be unusual and that would give us 250 VAC if it was ran through the
step-up transformer.


It's a matter of history. The "standard" -- for what was expected at the
outlet in a residence -- changed over the years as power distribution got
better.

Circa WW II line voltage was 110VAC. by the mid 50's, this had climbed to
115VAC. by the early 60's, 117VAC. By the late 60', 120V. The 'two hots'
circuit was frequently called "220", even when the actual voltage was as high
as 235 (2x117). "240" does seem to have mostly displaced the old name.

Anyway, if somebody mentions a number in the 110-120 "or so" range, they're
talking about the same thing. Ditto for anything in the 220-240 range.
"208" is a "special" value. as is "277". Both having to do with specific
arrangements of 'three-phase' circuits.


Your Honda is probably at claimed 125V because of *lousy* voltage regulation.
125V at 'no load', dropping to 120V (or lower) as the load increases.



I've seen 125V used in high density housing - simply to lower the current in
the same wires.

Our house in the mountains of No. Ca. was a few miles from a swinging transformer.
Under low load, the transformer was at one voltage, as the current increased,
the transformer switched in another set of windings up until it hit an end.
The swinging transformer had massive make-before-break contacts that always rang
(voltage hits) as it moved. I called the power company when it started hitting
my lines heavy (I was logging them on my APC's) and they found a burnt contact.

So at one time or another, depending on load and speed of the swinger - it could
be many voltages.

Martin

--
Martin Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

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In article ,
lionslair at consolidated dot net "lionslair at consolidated dot net" wrote:
Robert Bonomi wrote:

[[.. munch ..]]

It's a matter of history. The "standard" -- for what was expected at the
outlet in a residence -- changed over the years as power distribution got
better.

[[.. munch ..]]

Your Honda is probably at claimed 125V because of *lousy* voltage regulation.
125V at 'no load', dropping to 120V (or lower) as the load increases.

Our house in the mountains of No. Ca. was a few miles from a swinging
transformer.
Under low load, the transformer was at one voltage, as the current increased,
the transformer switched in another set of windings up until it hit an end.
The swinging transformer had massive make-before-break contacts that always rang
(voltage hits) as it moved. I called the power company when it started hitting
my lines heavy (I was logging them on my APC's) and they found a burnt contact.


At one point I lived "across the parking lot" from the local sub-station.
the feed came out of the substation, down *one* pole, with the transformer
and the drop to the 6 apartment building I was living in. the building
was turn-of-the-century construction, with -- I think -- still original
wiring. I could get an *nine* volt drop at the wall, by kicking on one
of my pieces of electronic test gear -- one that drew about 8 amps. *OUCH*.

Anyway, I'm across the street from a school, 2 blocks from a *big* hospital,
And had several other sizable 'commercial' users within a few blocks.
A line-voltage monitor showed as high as 133V in early AM, with it slowly and
somewhat erratically falling to about 127V by somewhere after 9AM on a
week-day.

*THAT* led to a call/complaint to the electric company, Demanding that
they get the voltage down to the 'proper' level. (That degree of excess
voltage _is_ hard on equipment, and other things. Reduces the effective
life of incandescent bulbs by about _half_, in fact.)

For some reason, customer service didn't want to believe me -- I guess
complaints about "too much power" are *really* rare.

They suggested that what I was reporting "couldn't be happening".
That whatever I was using to read the voltage must be 'in error'.

I pointed out that I had _five_ separate pieces of test equipment, by five
different manufacturers, that were all telling the _same_ story, within about
2V (analog readout uncertainty on some of the meters). That all were
industrial- and/or lab-grade gear. That the precision-reading unit (readable
to 1/4v or finer) had been used for 'reference checks' at half-a-dozen other
locations around the city, and registered 118.5 - 121.5 at *every* other
location. (About the only thing I didn't have was a _recording_ meter / data-
logger.

They _grudgingly_ agreed to send an engineer out to see me. He took
one look at my 'bench', and said "Hell, you've got better equipment there
than _I_ do." Then, looked at my readings and said "that's not right!"
(He didn't even bother to cross-check with his own gear.) Borrowed my phone,
called in to the office, and ordered an _immediate_ roll of a maintenance
team to the substation, and goes outside to wait for the crew to show up.
Which they did, in less than 15 minutes. Less than half an hour later,
my instrumentation is showing a "respectable" 117V. rising all the way
to 123V when the rest of the neighborhood shut down.

I even got a credit on my bill -- where they went back an re-figured what the
kilowatt-hours _should_ have been if they had not been delivering 'too high'
voltage. I'd only lived there a few months, but they back-credited to the
date I moved in. It was about 15% of everything I'd paid.

"John P Bengi" JBengi (spamm)@(spamm) yahoo,com wrote in message
...
Leave the child alone. He doesn't know anything.


Nor, does George seem to contribute anything other than his definition of
'days of autonomy' and his harping on Wayne about it. George might consider
some help since his 'days of autonomy' mantra seems to have taken over his
entire existence and pushed out any other helpful contributions.

The subject is 'workshop in an alternate homepower environment', but it has
degenerated to YAWVGM (yet-another-wayne-versus-george-match).

The OP might as well just start a new thread to ask any new questions, these
two guys will not contribute anything more to the discussion, and most of us
recognize the YAWVGM and ignore the thread from here on.


Moving on.....
daestrom

Robert Bonomi wrote:

In article ,
lionslair at consolidated dot net "lionslair at consolidated dot net" wrote:
Robert Bonomi wrote:

[[.. munch ..]]

It's a matter of history. The "standard" -- for what was expected at the
outlet in a residence -- changed over the years as power distribution got
better.

[[.. munch ..]]

Your Honda is probably at claimed 125V because of *lousy* voltage regulation.
125V at 'no load', dropping to 120V (or lower) as the load increases.

Our house in the mountains of No. Ca. was a few miles from a swinging
transformer.
Under low load, the transformer was at one voltage, as the current increased,
the transformer switched in another set of windings up until it hit an end.
The swinging transformer had massive make-before-break contacts that always rang
(voltage hits) as it moved. I called the power company when it started hitting
my lines heavy (I was logging them on my APC's) and they found a burnt contact.


At one point I lived "across the parking lot" from the local sub-station.
the feed came out of the substation, down *one* pole, with the transformer
and the drop to the 6 apartment building I was living in. the building
was turn-of-the-century construction, with -- I think -- still original
wiring. I could get an *nine* volt drop at the wall, by kicking on one
of my pieces of electronic test gear -- one that drew about 8 amps. *OUCH*.

Anyway, I'm across the street from a school, 2 blocks from a *big* hospital,
And had several other sizable 'commercial' users within a few blocks.
A line-voltage monitor showed as high as 133V in early AM, with it slowly and
somewhat erratically falling to about 127V by somewhere after 9AM on a
week-day.

*THAT* led to a call/complaint to the electric company, Demanding that
they get the voltage down to the 'proper' level. (That degree of excess
voltage _is_ hard on equipment, and other things. Reduces the effective
life of incandescent bulbs by about _half_, in fact.)

For some reason, customer service didn't want to believe me -- I guess
complaints about "too much power" are *really* rare.

They suggested that what I was reporting "couldn't be happening".
That whatever I was using to read the voltage must be 'in error'.

I pointed out that I had _five_ separate pieces of test equipment, by five
different manufacturers, that were all telling the _same_ story, within about
2V (analog readout uncertainty on some of the meters). That all were
industrial- and/or lab-grade gear. That the precision-reading unit (readable
to 1/4v or finer) had been used for 'reference checks' at half-a-dozen other
locations around the city, and registered 118.5 - 121.5 at *every* other
location. (About the only thing I didn't have was a _recording_ meter / data-
logger.

They _grudgingly_ agreed to send an engineer out to see me. He took
one look at my 'bench', and said "Hell, you've got better equipment there
than _I_ do." Then, looked at my readings and said "that's not right!"
(He didn't even bother to cross-check with his own gear.) Borrowed my phone,
called in to the office, and ordered an _immediate_ roll of a maintenance
team to the substation, and goes outside to wait for the crew to show up.
Which they did, in less than 15 minutes. Less than half an hour later,
my instrumentation is showing a "respectable" 117V. rising all the way
to 123V when the rest of the neighborhood shut down.

I even got a credit on my bill -- where they went back an re-figured what the
kilowatt-hours _should_ have been if they had not been delivering 'too high'
voltage. I'd only lived there a few months, but they back-credited to the
date I moved in. It was about 15% of everything I'd paid.

I call bull**** on the credit! As if..............

On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 14:10:24 GMT, "daestrom"
wrote:


"John P Bengi" JBengi (spamm)@(spamm) yahoo,com wrote in message
...
Leave the child alone. He doesn't know anything.


Nor, does George seem to contribute anything other than his definition of
'days of autonomy' and his harping on Wayne about it. George might consider
some help since his 'days of autonomy' mantra seems to have taken over his
entire existence and pushed out any other helpful contributions.

The subject is 'workshop in an alternate homepower environment', but it has
degenerated to YAWVGM (yet-another-wayne-versus-george-match).

The OP might as well just start a new thread to ask any new questions, these
two guys will not contribute anything more to the discussion, and most of us
recognize the YAWVGM and ignore the thread from here on.

You're mostly right, but don't discount the lesson served up by
George's setup. It's a perfect example of tunnel-vision design,
decreased utility, and how to spend less in the beginning, but more in
the long run. For those considering hiring an installer, it also
demonstrates the importance of seeking out one with well-rounded
experience, as opposed to someone with what I call "contractor's"
disease. That's where a tradesman can't see the forest for the trees,
and continues to make the same assumptions and mistakes for an entire
career.

Wayne

I am onboard totally with you on this one. Must be the Great Lakes
environment...LOL Hot huh?

"daestrom" wrote in message
...

"John P Bengi" JBengi (spamm)@(spamm) yahoo,com wrote in message
...
Leave the child alone. He doesn't know anything.


Nor, does George seem to contribute anything other than his definition of
'days of autonomy' and his harping on Wayne about it. George might
consider
some help since his 'days of autonomy' mantra seems to have taken over his
entire existence and pushed out any other helpful contributions.

The subject is 'workshop in an alternate homepower environment', but it
has
degenerated to YAWVGM (yet-another-wayne-versus-george-match).

The OP might as well just start a new thread to ask any new questions,
these
two guys will not contribute anything more to the discussion, and most of
us
recognize the YAWVGM and ignore the thread from here on.


Moving on.....
daestrom

You must live in a tiny town if they sent out an Engineer for that...LOL

Did he have ditch digging caluses on his hands too?

Nice going. Never give up when you know you are right.

You would never get a rebate here for high voltage. power delivered is power
billed.

"Robert Bonomi" wrote in message
...
In article ,
lionslair at consolidated dot net "lionslair at consolidated dot net"
wrote:
Robert Bonomi wrote:

[[.. munch ..]]

It's a matter of history. The "standard" -- for what was expected at
the
outlet in a residence -- changed over the years as power distribution
got
better.

[[.. munch ..]]

Your Honda is probably at claimed 125V because of *lousy* voltage
regulation.
125V at 'no load', dropping to 120V (or lower) as the load increases.

Our house in the mountains of No. Ca. was a few miles from a swinging
transformer.
Under low load, the transformer was at one voltage, as the current
increased,
the transformer switched in another set of windings up until it hit an
end.
The swinging transformer had massive make-before-break contacts that
always rang
(voltage hits) as it moved. I called the power company when it started
hitting
my lines heavy (I was logging them on my APC's) and they found a burnt
contact.


At one point I lived "across the parking lot" from the local sub-station.
the feed came out of the substation, down *one* pole, with the transformer
and the drop to the 6 apartment building I was living in. the building
was turn-of-the-century construction, with -- I think -- still original
wiring. I could get an *nine* volt drop at the wall, by kicking on one
of my pieces of electronic test gear -- one that drew about 8 amps.
*OUCH*.

Anyway, I'm across the street from a school, 2 blocks from a *big*
hospital,
And had several other sizable 'commercial' users within a few blocks.
A line-voltage monitor showed as high as 133V in early AM, with it slowly
and
somewhat erratically falling to about 127V by somewhere after 9AM on a
week-day.

*THAT* led to a call/complaint to the electric company, Demanding that
they get the voltage down to the 'proper' level. (That degree of excess
voltage _is_ hard on equipment, and other things. Reduces the effective
life of incandescent bulbs by about _half_, in fact.)

For some reason, customer service didn't want to believe me -- I guess
complaints about "too much power" are *really* rare.

They suggested that what I was reporting "couldn't be happening".
That whatever I was using to read the voltage must be 'in error'.

I pointed out that I had _five_ separate pieces of test equipment, by five
different manufacturers, that were all telling the _same_ story, within
about
2V (analog readout uncertainty on some of the meters). That all were
industrial- and/or lab-grade gear. That the precision-reading unit
(readable
to 1/4v or finer) had been used for 'reference checks' at half-a-dozen
other
locations around the city, and registered 118.5 - 121.5 at *every* other
location. (About the only thing I didn't have was a _recording_ meter /
data-
logger.

They _grudgingly_ agreed to send an engineer out to see me. He took
one look at my 'bench', and said "Hell, you've got better equipment there
than _I_ do." Then, looked at my readings and said "that's not right!"
(He didn't even bother to cross-check with his own gear.) Borrowed my
phone,
called in to the office, and ordered an _immediate_ roll of a maintenance
team to the substation, and goes outside to wait for the crew to show up.
Which they did, in less than 15 minutes. Less than half an hour later,
my instrumentation is showing a "respectable" 117V. rising all the way
to 123V when the rest of the neighborhood shut down.

I even got a credit on my bill -- where they went back an re-figured what
the
kilowatt-hours _should_ have been if they had not been delivering 'too
high'
voltage. I'd only lived there a few months, but they back-credited to the
date I moved in. It was about 15% of everything I'd paid.

John P Bengi wrote:

You must live in a tiny town if they sent out an Engineer for that...LOL

Did he have ditch digging caluses on his hands too?

Nice going. Never give up when you know you are right.

You would never get a rebate here for high voltage. power delivered is power
billed.

"Robert Bonomi" wrote in message
...
In article ,
lionslair at consolidated dot net "lionslair at consolidated dot net"
wrote:
Robert Bonomi wrote:

[[.. munch ..]]

It's a matter of history. The "standard" -- for what was expected at
the
outlet in a residence -- changed over the years as power distribution
got
better.

[[.. munch ..]]

Your Honda is probably at claimed 125V because of *lousy* voltage
regulation.
125V at 'no load', dropping to 120V (or lower) as the load increases.

Our house in the mountains of No. Ca. was a few miles from a swinging
transformer.
Under low load, the transformer was at one voltage, as the current
increased,
the transformer switched in another set of windings up until it hit an
end.
The swinging transformer had massive make-before-break contacts that
always rang
(voltage hits) as it moved. I called the power company when it started
hitting
my lines heavy (I was logging them on my APC's) and they found a burnt
contact.


At one point I lived "across the parking lot" from the local sub-station.
the feed came out of the substation, down *one* pole, with the transformer
and the drop to the 6 apartment building I was living in. the building
was turn-of-the-century construction, with -- I think -- still original
wiring. I could get an *nine* volt drop at the wall, by kicking on one
of my pieces of electronic test gear -- one that drew about 8 amps.
*OUCH*.

Anyway, I'm across the street from a school, 2 blocks from a *big*
hospital,
And had several other sizable 'commercial' users within a few blocks.
A line-voltage monitor showed as high as 133V in early AM, with it slowly
and
somewhat erratically falling to about 127V by somewhere after 9AM on a
week-day.

*THAT* led to a call/complaint to the electric company, Demanding that
they get the voltage down to the 'proper' level. (That degree of excess
voltage _is_ hard on equipment, and other things. Reduces the effective
life of incandescent bulbs by about _half_, in fact.)

For some reason, customer service didn't want to believe me -- I guess
complaints about "too much power" are *really* rare.

They suggested that what I was reporting "couldn't be happening".
That whatever I was using to read the voltage must be 'in error'.

I pointed out that I had _five_ separate pieces of test equipment, by five
different manufacturers, that were all telling the _same_ story, within
about
2V (analog readout uncertainty on some of the meters). That all were
industrial- and/or lab-grade gear. That the precision-reading unit
(readable
to 1/4v or finer) had been used for 'reference checks' at half-a-dozen
other
locations around the city, and registered 118.5 - 121.5 at *every* other
location. (About the only thing I didn't have was a _recording_ meter /
data-
logger.

They _grudgingly_ agreed to send an engineer out to see me. He took
one look at my 'bench', and said "Hell, you've got better equipment there
than _I_ do." Then, looked at my readings and said "that's not right!"
(He didn't even bother to cross-check with his own gear.) Borrowed my
phone,
called in to the office, and ordered an _immediate_ roll of a maintenance
team to the substation, and goes outside to wait for the crew to show up.
Which they did, in less than 15 minutes. Less than half an hour later,
my instrumentation is showing a "respectable" 117V. rising all the way
to 123V when the rest of the neighborhood shut down.

I even got a credit on my bill -- where they went back an re-figured what
the
kilowatt-hours _should_ have been if they had not been delivering 'too
high'
voltage. I'd only lived there a few months, but they back-credited to the
date I moved in. It was about 15% of everything I'd paid.


As a matter of fact would his metor not run less with some things like his
fridge, vacuum, hair dryer, washing machine, dish washer, etc. What makes a
power metor spin? If voltage goes up does the amp draw go down?
I would give my left nut to have a little more voltage. Switch mode power
supplies love a slightly higher voltage and often run cooler when they are run
at max voltage.

Energy meters spin by the combination of current and voltage creating torque
on the non-ferrous disc as it tries to get out of the magnetic AC fluxes
created at 90 degrees to each other.

On resistive devices and most devices the current and power goes up as the
voltage increases. You bulb will be brighter etc..

On synchronous devices like AC motor compressors and furnace fans etc. the
speed is locked to the power line frequency. 60Hzx 2 changes x 60 sec/min /
#poles in the motor will pas the electromagnetic pole that creates the
torque and you typically get 1800 RPM. This is fairly constant, which means
the work that it puts out is constant also (constant workload) When you
lower the voltage to the motor now is has to draw more current to do the
same work and can eventually burn out by overheating from the high current.


BTW: If you have a disc or equivalent in your Electric Meter you can
determine the load of your house going through the meter at any given time
by clocking it with a stopwatch.

Look at you meter and observe the disc. You should notice a little black
mark passing on the edge of the disc every revolution. Time a couple of
these revolutions and mark the time (in seconds) down. I usually do about 60
seconds worth. There also may be fractional marks if your meter is moving
really slow and don't have an hour to wait (exag)

Also notice on the front of the nameplate of your meter there is a "disc
constant" noted as kH. This is the amount of energy (in watthours) that the
meter has measured each revolution of the disc. It will probably read
something like kH 7.2 or kH 12. This is the part that is tightly regulated
for accuracy.

Now apply it to this formula:

revs x kH x time(secs) / 3600. sec per hour

This will give you your home load in watts (power). This technique can be
useful to check the power of appliances to see where you hard earned energy
dollars are going each month by shutting off all the breakers except one and
looking for the energy pigs.

If you have a solid state kilowatthour meter on your house there will be a
blinking LED or simulated disc in LCD but the same thing will apply. Look
for a constant for the "equivalent disc revs" or LED kH.

Best of luck.



"Tim Thomson" wrote in message
...

As a matter of fact would his metor not run less with some things like his
fridge, vacuum, hair dryer, washing machine, dish washer, etc. What makes
a
power metor spin? If voltage goes up does the amp draw go down?
I would give my left nut to have a little more voltage. Switch mode power
supplies love a slightly higher voltage and often run cooler when they are
run
at max voltage.

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 19:10:57 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
wrote:

Cliff expostulated:

| On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:39:39 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
| wrote:
|
|| Maytag
|
| My impression of themis one of overpriced stuff that's
| no better than anyone else's.

Their top end (like their competitors' top end) products /are/ highly
priced. In at least Maytag's case the top end products are, in fact,
as good as they can make 'em. The R&D guys actually talk to the
production assemblers, pay attention to what they say, and make
product changes on the basis of their suggestions. More usually
(elsewhere) an assembly person has to tell a foreman who might or
might not tell a supervisor - and so on up the ladder until there's an
information "bridge" back down the chain to the R&D guys.

None of that would give any hint of what actually failed in the
field and flooded out the end customer or anything similar.
For that you'd need to know what went wrong, not just
how to make it cheaper.
--
Cliff

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 20:47:34 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
wrote:

Whirlpool

I once met their engineer that suggested replacing
all those custom hoses, fittings, pumps, etc. on their
washing machine models with a single set of standard
ones. I gather that they did it.

To this day I wonder how they got the contract for
the toilet(s) on the International Space Station.

BTW, They used to use ComputerVision IIRC.
--
Cliff

Cliff (in ) said:

| On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 19:10:57 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
| wrote:
|
|| Cliff expostulated:
||
||| On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 17:39:39 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
||| wrote:
|||
|||| Maytag
|||
||| My impression of themis one of overpriced stuff that's
||| no better than anyone else's.
||
|| Their top end (like their competitors' top end) products /are/
|| highly priced. In at least Maytag's case the top end products are,
|| in fact, as good as they can make 'em. The R&D guys actually talk
|| to the production assemblers, pay attention to what they say, and
|| make product changes on the basis of their suggestions. More
|| usually (elsewhere) an assembly person has to tell a foreman who
|| might or might not tell a supervisor - and so on up the ladder
|| until there's an information "bridge" back down the chain to the
|| R&D guys.
|
| None of that would give any hint of what actually failed in the
| field and flooded out the end customer or anything similar.
| For that you'd need to know what went wrong, not just
| how to make it cheaper.

Of course. Did the paragraphs following the one you quoted make it to
your server? If not:

The Maytag link to the customer call center is disconcertingly
direct.
When I first arrived I had a "recycled" R&D phone number and got calls
from CS call center operators demanding that problems be fixed *RIGHT
NOW!* That I wasn't the person they thought they were calling didn't
seem to make any difference - nor did the fact that I wasn't even a
Maytag employee. One gal told me that didn't matter and that I'd
better get up off my butt and FIND OUT who should be fixing this
problem and make 'em aware of it and have them get back to her
posthaste.

Maytag could never get away with showing a commercial of that scene
(can't admit right out loud in front of God and everybody that
someone's had a problem with our product!); but after I came out of
shock I decided it was actually pretty impressive. Again, it's
noteworthy that in all of these "hot" calls the communication was
between "indians".

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html

Cliff (in ) said:

| On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 20:47:34 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
| wrote:
|
|| Whirlpool
|
| I once met their engineer that suggested replacing
| all those custom hoses, fittings, pumps, etc. on their
| washing machine models with a single set of standard
| ones. I gather that they did it.

Seems like a "no-brainer to me" - though the no-brainer solutions are
sometimes the most difficult to get approved.

One of the other no-brainers (for CPU-controlled washers) should be to
allow either hose to connect to hot and the other to the cold water
supply. The controllers monitor both temperatures and control the flow
valves independently anyway...

| To this day I wonder how they got the contract for
| the toilet(s) on the International Space Station.

Interesting - I wasn't aware they'd done that.

| BTW, They used to use ComputerVision IIRC.

Ok. My primary software tools were gcc, Visual C, and Excel (in order
of high to low quality) - No CAD/CAM needed for what I was doing. I
did notice that the mechanical engineering types had some pretty nifty
packages for designing gears 'n' stuff, though. One of the guys took
time to teach me a bit about making gear trains quiet - and that was
so fascinating I skipped lunch. (I suppose that makes both he and I
hopeless geeks :-)

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html

On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 14:19:28 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
wrote:

| None of that would give any hint of what actually failed in the
| field and flooded out the end customer or anything similar.
| For that you'd need to know what went wrong, not just
| how to make it cheaper.

Of course. Did the paragraphs following the one you quoted make it to
your server? If not:

They made it but did not seem to be on that issue.
Perhaps you had to be there?
--
Cliff

Cliff (in ) said:

| On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 14:19:28 -0500, "Morris Dovey"
| wrote:
|
||| None of that would give any hint of what actually failed in the
||| field and flooded out the end customer or anything similar.
||| For that you'd need to know what went wrong, not just
||| how to make it cheaper.
||
|| Of course. Did the paragraphs following the one you quoted make it
|| to your server? If not:
|
| They made it but did not seem to be on that issue.
| Perhaps you had to be there?

Oops. Sorry, I may have assumed too much. Customer service call center
operators take calls from customers (and sometimes from dealers) when
there's either a problem or a how-to issue. Maytag's call center had
several hundred people and these operators seemed to have been more
knowledgable than I'd expected, given the number of products and
models supported.

Cost seemed to be a secondary consideration to these people. Their
mission (/their/ mission if not the corporation's) was to resolve any
issues to the satisfaction of the customer. If/when they thought the
issue was a consequence of design, even if the use was unusual, they
weren't bashful about letting the R&D group know about it. I think
part of their motivation was "Golden Rule" and part of it was workload
reduction (fewer future service calls for the same problem). Although
I didn't have a lot of contact with CS, I'm aware that even when the
problem was something the customer had done wrong (there actually
/are/ people who'll put a half box of detergent in with a single load
of clothes!) they tried to make a follow-up call sometime /after/
problem resolution to verify satisfaction.

CS isn't a cost reducing function. More usually it adds cost - since
they provide the information leading to engineering changes for
released products. I'm not aware of any instance where their input
ever led to making the product cheaper. I suppose it could happen, but
I didn't see it.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html

On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 11:31:04 -0400, "John P Bengi" JBengi
(spamm)@(spamm) yahoo,com wrote:

"daestrom" wrote in message
. ..

The subject is 'workshop in an alternate homepower environment', but it
has
degenerated to YAWVGM (yet-another-wayne-versus-george-match).

I am onboard totally with you on this one. Must be the Great Lakes
environment...LOL Hot huh?

What the heck are you talkin' about Gymmy Bob? I count 12 posts from
you so far in this thread. 10 are your usual worthless jackass
comments, and none contain so much as a hint of off-grid workshop
experience. Which is hardly surprising, given that somebody who posts
24-7 hasn't any need for a workshop on or off grid. George has dropped
14 steaming loads so far, with the only off-grid workshop connection
being his resentment of mine. No surprise there either. My posts total
31, half dead on topic (which is sometimes a bit like work), the
others being my reward - getting to skewer both the man of a thousand
IDs, and the Blunder From Down Under. Although frankly, the two of you
are making it so easy, you're taking most of the fun out of it.

Wayne

In article ,
John P Bengi JBengi (spamm)@(spamm) yahoo,com wrote:
You must live in a tiny town if they sent out an Engineer for that...LOL

depends on how you qualify it. biggest town in the state. pop. circa 250K

Did he have ditch digging caluses on his hands too?

*snicker*

Nice going. Never give up when you know you are right.

You would never get a rebate here for high voltage. power delivered is power
billed.

It was _unexpected_. I hadn't asked for it.

It wasn't big bucks either. 30+ years ago, now, so I don't have any precise
recollection of amount -- but I'm pretty sure it was under $20. An apartment,
in summertime -- without A/C -- and with a gas stove, doesn't use a lot of
power.

In article ,
Tim Thomson wrote:

As a matter of fact would his metor not run less with some things like his
fridge, vacuum, hair dryer, washing machine, dish washer, etc. What makes a
power metor spin? If voltage goes up does the amp draw go down?

Are you familiar with "Ohm's Law"?

If the _resistance_ is a fixed value, guess what happens to the current (amps)
when the voltage goes up.

In article ,
Tim Thomson wrote:
Robert Bonomi wrote:

[[.. munch ..]]


I even got a credit on my bill -- where they went back an re-figured what the
kilowatt-hours _should_ have been if they had not been delivering 'too high'
voltage. I'd only lived there a few months, but they back-credited to the
date I moved in. It was about 15% of everything I'd paid.

I call bull**** on the credit! As if..............

I was there. You weren't. Your claim is bullsh*t.

Note: I didn't even _ask_ for that credit. They did it all by themselves.

Note: this was more than 30 years ago. And in a territory with a strong and
active regulatory agency. And a state Attorney General that *really* hated
that particular utility company -- they had previously *sued* him, requesting
that the court grant order him to 'cease and desist harassment', no less.

Motor based appliances are not fixed resistances. As the voltage goes down
the current goes up to achieve the same horsepower and the same RPM

"Robert Bonomi" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Tim Thomson wrote:

As a matter of fact would his metor not run less with some things like
his
fridge, vacuum, hair dryer, washing machine, dish washer, etc. What makes
a
power metor spin? If voltage goes up does the amp draw go down?

Are you familiar with "Ohm's Law"?

If the _resistance_ is a fixed value, guess what happens to the current
(amps)
when the voltage goes up.

"The subject is 'workshop in an alternate homepower environment', but
it has
degenerated to YAWVGM (yet-another-wayne-versus-geor=ADge-match). ..."

I am glad that someone remembers....thanks to all those who contributed
positively to this thread so far.

If you have more to contribute on subject, please feel free to offer
it.

Thanks in advance,

TMT

On 26 Jun 2005 19:48:32 -0700, "Too_Many_Tools"
wrote:


If you have more to contribute on subject, please feel free to offer
it.

Thanks in advance,

TMT

Here's a sample day's work (yesterday's) in an off-grid workshop. The
project was building the last 2 of 5 scissor trusses for a friend's
aircraft hangar. All material was scrap - chords of 2" and 1.5"
schedule 40 pipe. Long braces from T posts, shorter ones from 5/8"
sucker rod. Most of the material was cut a few days ago. I wore out 3
chop saw blades (medium quality ones) which should give you an idea of
run time. The trusses are 40' wide, but built in halves. Each half
took about 30 minutes to lay out and prep, including about 15 minutes
use of a 4" side grinder. Then 26 welds per side, flip, another 26
welds. Layout, prep, and welding - about one hour total per half, with
a long break between each one to cool off. I built 4 halves, about 100
minutes welding for the day. I didn't check the current draw, but the
machine was set at 280 inches per second, 18 Volts, with .035" solid
wire. Perhaps 5kW input. Charging rate was medium, there was good sun,
but almost no wind, which was nice because I could leave the shop
doors open. When I quit for the day, my wife commented that battery
state of charge had dropped 6 Amp hours, and that she'd used the AC in
the office for a couple of hours. On this project, like most others
here, there wasn't any penalty for being off-grid, which is way cool
IMO.

Wayne

"Me" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Arnold Walker" wrote:

Many steamtrains are now ran on air due to boiler code worrys by
insurance
companies.

CFR (Call for Reference) on the above. as I believe it to be
Bull****..... the only Steampowered Trains still in existance,
and in commercial service are in third and fouth world countries,
and mostly run on diesel fired boilers. Turning big air compressors
with diesel engines is a very wastefull way to move Railroad Rolling
Stock.


Me
They don't always have a IC engine on board for the compressor...
Some recompress themselves with exhaust air,then heat the air recovered in
the boiler.

Many mine trains also run on air since sparks can be deadly in the right
environment.
They usually are either diesel air or stored air trains.



----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
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wmbjk wrote:
On 26 Jun 2005 19:48:32 -0700, "Too_Many_Tools"
wrote:



If you have more to contribute on subject, please feel free to offer
it.

Thanks in advance,

TMT


Here's a sample day's work (yesterday's) in an off-grid workshop. The
project was building the last 2 of 5 scissor trusses for a friend's
aircraft hangar. All material was scrap - chords of 2" and 1.5"
schedule 40 pipe. Long braces from T posts, shorter ones from 5/8"
sucker rod. Most of the material was cut a few days ago. I wore out 3
chop saw blades (medium quality ones) which should give you an idea of
run time. The trusses are 40' wide, but built in halves. Each half
took about 30 minutes to lay out and prep, including about 15 minutes
use of a 4" side grinder. Then 26 welds per side, flip, another 26
welds. Layout, prep, and welding - about one hour total per half, with
a long break between each one to cool off. I built 4 halves, about 100
minutes welding for the day. I didn't check the current draw, but the
machine was set at 280 inches per second, 18 Volts, with .035" solid
wire. Perhaps 5kW input. Charging rate was medium, there was good sun,
but almost no wind, which was nice because I could leave the shop
doors open. When I quit for the day, my wife commented that battery
state of charge had dropped 6 Amp hours, and that she'd used the AC in
the office for a couple of hours. On this project, like most others
here, there wasn't any penalty for being off-grid, which is way cool
IMO.

Wayne


Ah Wayne, it looks like your saying 5kW for 1.6 hours and claiming that
it equates to 6 amp hours.

Would you like to refrase that amd perhaps look at the maths.

You use of units may be suspect. And your numbers would suggest that you
can only work when the sun is out.

5Kw input for 1.6 hours at 24V looks suspiciously like 333Ah.

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 09:36:36 +1000, George Ghio
wrote:



wmbjk wrote:
On 26 Jun 2005 19:48:32 -0700, "Too_Many_Tools"

Here's a sample day's work (yesterday's) in an off-grid workshop. The
project was building the last 2 of 5 scissor trusses for a friend's
aircraft hangar. All material was scrap - chords of 2" and 1.5"
schedule 40 pipe. Long braces from T posts, shorter ones from 5/8"
sucker rod. Most of the material was cut a few days ago. I wore out 3
chop saw blades (medium quality ones) which should give you an idea of
run time. The trusses are 40' wide, but built in halves. Each half
took about 30 minutes to lay out and prep, including about 15 minutes
use of a 4" side grinder. Then 26 welds per side, flip, another 26
welds. Layout, prep, and welding - about one hour total per half, with
a long break between each one to cool off. I built 4 halves, about 100
minutes welding for the day. I didn't check the current draw, but the
machine was set at 280 inches per second, 18 Volts, with .035" solid
wire. Perhaps 5kW input. Charging rate was medium, there was good sun,
but almost no wind, which was nice because I could leave the shop
doors open. When I quit for the day, my wife commented that battery
state of charge had dropped 6 Amp hours, and that she'd used the AC in
the office for a couple of hours. On this project, like most others
here, there wasn't any penalty for being off-grid, which is way cool
IMO.

Wayne


Ah Wayne, it looks like your saying 5kW for 1.6 hours and claiming that
it equates to 6 amp hours.

Would you like to refrase that amd perhaps look at the maths.

You use of units may be suspect. And your numbers would suggest that you
can only work when the sun is out.

5Kw input for 1.6 hours at 24V looks suspiciously like 333Ah.

I started at about 8AM, and I finished up at about 4PM. During that
time, 2000 Watts of tracked PV was doing its job, along with a tiny
bit of help from 1300 Watts of wind generator in the AM. Duh!

Even after all your pathetic nonsense, I'm still astonished that with
your claimed 20 years of experience, that you need such simple
concepts explained to you. Haven't you learned *anything*? How the
hell can you function? As usual, whatever you do, don't admit that you
just wrote perhaps *the* biggest blunder of your Usenet career, or
apologise for it. But if you had one iota of shame, you'd go stand in
the corner for the next 20 years.

BTW, in your haste to act the fool, you failed to notice an actual
mistake - that I wrote "inches per second" wire speed when I should
have written inches per *minute*. Can't you do *anything* right?

Wayne

wmbjk wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 09:36:36 +1000, George Ghio
wrote:



wmbjk wrote:

On 26 Jun 2005 19:48:32 -0700, "Too_Many_Tools"


Here's a sample day's work (yesterday's) in an off-grid workshop. The
project was building the last 2 of 5 scissor trusses for a friend's
aircraft hangar. All material was scrap - chords of 2" and 1.5"
schedule 40 pipe. Long braces from T posts, shorter ones from 5/8"
sucker rod. Most of the material was cut a few days ago. I wore out 3
chop saw blades (medium quality ones) which should give you an idea of
run time. The trusses are 40' wide, but built in halves. Each half
took about 30 minutes to lay out and prep, including about 15 minutes
use of a 4" side grinder. Then 26 welds per side, flip, another 26
welds. Layout, prep, and welding - about one hour total per half, with
a long break between each one to cool off. I built 4 halves, about 100
minutes welding for the day. I didn't check the current draw, but the
machine was set at 280 inches per second, 18 Volts, with .035" solid
wire. Perhaps 5kW input. Charging rate was medium, there was good sun,
but almost no wind, which was nice because I could leave the shop
doors open. When I quit for the day, my wife commented that battery
state of charge had dropped 6 Amp hours, and that she'd used the AC in
the office for a couple of hours. On this project, like most others
here, there wasn't any penalty for being off-grid, which is way cool
IMO.

Wayne


Ah Wayne, it looks like your saying 5kW for 1.6 hours and claiming that
it equates to 6 amp hours.

Would you like to refrase that amd perhaps look at the maths.

You use of units may be suspect. And your numbers would suggest that you
can only work when the sun is out.

5Kw input for 1.6 hours at 24V looks suspiciously like 333Ah.


I started at about 8AM, and I finished up at about 4PM. During that
time, 2000 Watts of tracked PV was doing its job, along with a tiny
bit of help from 1300 Watts of wind generator in the AM. Duh!

We now know that you have 2000 watts of PV and 1300 Watts of wind.

Actual PV & wind production numbers, Watt hours will do.

Do you even know what was produced and used during that day?

If, and it is a big if, you in fact were producing energy at the rated
output for say 6 hours of the day which would be on the order of 19.7kWh
and you drew another 144Wh from the batteries, well you can see the
problem. You say 5kW input. Your numbers are vague at best.

Please, just once in your life try to bring some truth to your numbers.


Even after all your pathetic nonsense, I'm still astonished that with
your claimed 20 years of experience, that you need such simple
concepts explained to you. Haven't you learned *anything*? How the
hell can you function? As usual, whatever you do, don't admit that you
just wrote perhaps *the* biggest blunder of your Usenet career, or
apologise for it. But if you had one iota of shame, you'd go stand in
the corner for the next 20 years.

BTW, in your haste to act the fool, you failed to notice an actual
mistake - that I wrote "inches per second" wire speed when I should
have written inches per *minute*. Can't you do *anything* right?

Wayne

Well lets see. All you had to do was account for the numbers you used.

5kW input wonderful. Yes I made a mistake, I used 100 minutes when in
fact you meant 8 hours. Sorry. So this would be 5kW for 8 hours which is
of course 40kWh which is 1666.66 Amp hours. Is this your wonderful two
days autonomy at work.

Now Wayne would you like to account for the energy you used in a
coherent manner? 5kW or 5kWh? Do you know the difference?

The biggest blunder - YOURS.

Who cares about inches per minute or seconds. What does the welder draw
in watts? How many amps, what material thickness, how much penetration?

Or are we still talking about your hot melt glue gun.

It is easy to tell when you are out of your depth. The deeper you are
the more you foam at the mouth.

Your numbers do not add up. You now have another chance to explain your
numbers. So wipe your nose and the foam off your chin, get out your
calculator, and make some sense of your numbers.

George

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:59:42 +1000, George Ghio
wrote:

wmbjk wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 09:36:36 +1000, George Ghio
wrote:
wmbjk wrote:

Here's a sample day's work (yesterday's) in an off-grid workshop. The
project was building the last 2 of 5 scissor trusses for a friend's
aircraft hangar. All material was scrap - chords of 2" and 1.5"
schedule 40 pipe. Long braces from T posts, shorter ones from 5/8"
sucker rod. Most of the material was cut a few days ago. I wore out 3
chop saw blades (medium quality ones) which should give you an idea of
run time. The trusses are 40' wide, but built in halves. Each half
took about 30 minutes to lay out and prep, including about 15 minutes
use of a 4" side grinder. Then 26 welds per side, flip, another 26
welds. Layout, prep, and welding - about one hour total per half, with
a long break between each one to cool off. I built 4 halves, about 100
minutes welding for the day. I didn't check the current draw, but the
machine was set at 280 inches per second, 18 Volts, with .035" solid
wire. Perhaps 5kW input. Charging rate was medium, there was good sun,
but almost no wind, which was nice because I could leave the shop
doors open. When I quit for the day, my wife commented that battery
state of charge had dropped 6 Amp hours, and that she'd used the AC in
the office for a couple of hours. On this project, like most others
here, there wasn't any penalty for being off-grid, which is way cool
IMO.

Wayne

the Blunder From Down Under wrote

Ah Wayne, it looks like your saying 5kW for 1.6 hours and claiming that
it equates to 6 amp hours.

Would you like to refrase that amd perhaps look at the maths.

You use of units may be suspect. And your numbers would suggest that you
can only work when the sun is out.

5Kw input for 1.6 hours at 24V looks suspiciously like 333Ah.

I started at about 8AM, and I finished up at about 4PM. During that
time, 2000 Watts of tracked PV was doing its job, along with a tiny
bit of help from 1300 Watts of wind generator in the AM. Duh!

5kW input wonderful. Yes I made a mistake, I used 100 minutes when in
fact you meant 8 hours. Sorry. So this would be 5kW for 8 hours which is
of course 40kWh which is 1666.66 Amp hours. Is this your wonderful two
days autonomy at work.

No you Baron of Blunders, the largest part of the shop consumption was
(about) 5kW for 100 minutes. You had the demand part nearly right the
first time. You simply neglected to account for the balance of the
demands (all the house loads, about 4 kWhrs), and the *entire* supply
side (about 12 kWhrs). Why you're now trying to multiply the short
term shop power demand by 8 hours is between you and your therapist.

Face it man, you're busted. If there's a responsible authority
controlling solar installers in your area, reading such a fundamental
lapse in critical thinking by someone in their charge, then the writer
would at the very least be called onto the carpet for remedial
training. Not that such would do much good if he hadn't gotten the
basics down after 20 years.

The biggest blunder - YOURS.

Sure George, a system that can supply a day's use of workshop and all
the house loads as well, and come out with a 150 Whr deficit is
obviously just one giant blunder.

Get help man.

Wayne

In article ,
"Arnold Walker" wrote:

"Me" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Arnold Walker" wrote:

Many steamtrains are now ran on air due to boiler code worrys by
insurance
companies.

CFR (Call for Reference) on the above. as I believe it to be
Bull****..... the only Steampowered Trains still in existance,
and in commercial service are in third and fouth world countries,
and mostly run on diesel fired boilers. Turning big air compressors
with diesel engines is a very wastefull way to move Railroad Rolling
Stock.


Me
They don't always have a IC engine on board for the compressor...
Some recompress themselves with exhaust air,then heat the air recovered in
the boiler.

Many mine trains also run on air since sparks can be deadly in the right
environment.
They usually are either diesel air or stored air trains.



----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet
News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+
Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

You really don't know a lot about mechanical engineering, do you.....


then heat the air recovered in the boiler. Would this be in the
boilers that "due to boiler code worrys by insurance companies" you
state they don't use anymore????

Actually here in the USA most of the Mine Trains are electric with
Induction motors, and Solidstate FreqDrives that have no brushes or
Sparkpoints that aren't covered by Flame Supperssion Barriers....
Flame Suppresion Technology has been in our mines since the 1920's
when they were mostly electrified. A few are diesel-electric, and a
few more Propane-electric, but being a retired Powderman, I has some
small experience in the Industry, and have NEVER seen an Air Powered
Mine Donkey. Basic Menchanical Engineering Thermaldynamics should be
enough to convince anyone, that Stored Air Trains would be a Collasally
Inefficent way to power a mine donkey, and if it were even in the same
Order of Magnitude, all that conversion loss, would be a deal killer,
anyway.


Me CFR really means not your opinion, but someone elses actall
Reseached Facts..............

wmbjk wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:59:42 +1000, George Ghio
wrote:


wmbjk wrote:

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 09:36:36 +1000, George Ghio
wrote:

wmbjk wrote:


Here's a sample day's work (yesterday's) in an off-grid workshop. The
project was building the last 2 of 5 scissor trusses for a friend's
aircraft hangar. All material was scrap - chords of 2" and 1.5"
schedule 40 pipe. Long braces from T posts, shorter ones from 5/8"
sucker rod. Most of the material was cut a few days ago. I wore out 3
chop saw blades (medium quality ones) which should give you an idea of
run time. The trusses are 40' wide, but built in halves. Each half
took about 30 minutes to lay out and prep, including about 15 minutes
use of a 4" side grinder. Then 26 welds per side, flip, another 26
welds. Layout, prep, and welding - about one hour total per half, with
a long break between each one to cool off. I built 4 halves, about 100
minutes welding for the day. I didn't check the current draw, but the
machine was set at 280 inches per second, 18 Volts, with .035" solid
wire. Perhaps 5kW input. Charging rate was medium, there was good sun,
but almost no wind, which was nice because I could leave the shop
doors open. When I quit for the day, my wife commented that battery
state of charge had dropped 6 Amp hours, and that she'd used the AC in
the office for a couple of hours. On this project, like most others
here, there wasn't any penalty for being off-grid, which is way cool
IMO.

Wayne


the Blunder From Down Under wrote


Ah Wayne, it looks like your saying 5kW for 1.6 hours and claiming that

it equates to 6 amp hours.

Would you like to refrase that amd perhaps look at the maths.

You use of units may be suspect. And your numbers would suggest that you
can only work when the sun is out.

5Kw input for 1.6 hours at 24V looks suspiciously like 333Ah.


I started at about 8AM, and I finished up at about 4PM. During that
time, 2000 Watts of tracked PV was doing its job, along with a tiny
bit of help from 1300 Watts of wind generator in the AM. Duh!


5kW input wonderful. Yes I made a mistake, I used 100 minutes when in
fact you meant 8 hours. Sorry. So this would be 5kW for 8 hours which is
of course 40kWh which is 1666.66 Amp hours. Is this your wonderful two
days autonomy at work.


No you Baron of Blunders, the largest part of the shop consumption was
(about) 5kW for 100 minutes.

Welding;

100min / 60 = 1.6 hours X 5kW = 8000kWh / 24 = 333Ah

You had the demand part nearly right the
first time. You simply neglected to account for the balance of the
demands (all the house loads, about 4 kWhrs),

House;

4000Wh / 24 = 166.6Ah
and the *entire* supply
side (about 12 kWhrs).

Input;

12000Wh / 24 = 500Ah

Total;

333Ah + 166.6Ah = 499.6Ah


Hmmm no deficit here.

Well Wayne you have claimed a 150Wh deficit. I may be a bit of a skeptic
here, but, some how I just can't see that all the other things you would
do in a workshop for the task would only use 150Wh. It looks like you
you did 100 minutes of welding then watched TV for the rest of the day.

You also claim 12000Wh input. What is this based on. Being summer in
your part of the world + the fact that hot panels have a reduced output
can it be that you are simply multiplying the rated output of the
panels by six. What was the logged input for the day? Surely you monitor
your system? Or is all of this just a guess?



Why you're now trying to multiply the short
term shop power demand by 8 hours is between you and your therapist.

In fact you said "I started at about 8AM, and I finished up at about
4PM." This is some what longer than 100 minutes. With an input of 5kW.

The question remains; Can you make a coherent accounting of your energy
use/input for the day?

You see, if Too_Many_Tools is to set up an off grid workshop he might
find the actual numbers useful in deciding what he will do. How much
grinder time is 150Wh. It's just that 100 minutes work and the house
seems like you think that 100 minutes a day is a good days work.

I will give you as many attempts as you need to make sense. OTOH I don't
think you can balance your numbers. Surprise me.

Face it man, you're busted. If there's a responsible authority
controlling solar installers in your area, reading such a fundamental
lapse in critical thinking by someone in their charge, then the writer
would at the very least be called onto the carpet for remedial
training. Not that such would do much good if he hadn't gotten the
basics down after 20 years.


The biggest blunder - YOURS.


Sure George, a system that can supply a day's use of workshop and all
the house loads as well, and come out with a 150 Whr deficit is
obviously just one giant blunder.

Get help man.

Wayne