Protocol: IN THIS INSTALLMENT of “Diary of a Generator Operator,” I pick up the story of how the analytical tools I learned in IATSE Local 481’s Training, Education, and Classification (TEC) program, enabled me to stay one step ahead of a looming disaster on the set of a major motion picture. From what I learned, I was able to isolate the problem to a bad piece of 4/0 cable in our neutral run, but not until several 18ks failed, and a 1400 A generator blew up. The bad piece of 4/0 created a resistive neutral that turned our three-phase distro into a voltage divider circuit where the voltage of each phase floated in an inverse relation to its load. As demonstrated in Parts 1 and 2, a bad piece of 4/0 cable has the potential to bring even the largest production to a crashing halt. In this part, I explore what preventive steps can be taken to identify a resistive neutral at the outset and avoid these hazards. Now, back to my diary.
1 comment:
I generally tend to find stories from people in the field to very interesting and informative. I worked with a lot of automation equipment this summer, and always had to test every single component of every device before we even plugged it in to keep everything safe and running correctly, before it even left the door. While it may seem crazy to some that a single bad cable in a whole setup can literally destroy other equipment, as was the case in this scenario, it is important to keep in mind that wiring is like the veins of an electrical system. If you have a blood clot, you could potentially die if it doesn't get fixed. I really like that the author not only explained the specific issue, but attributed what he learned to the scenario and walked the reader step-by-step through troubleshooting to identify the issue. While I do not know a ton of electrical theory, he kept it simple enough that I was able to understand.
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