Shop Time w/T.W. Friends

They know you are good go to employee, you can handle it!

 

Now I feel like a single phase guy livin’ in a 3 phase world.

Mornin’ Gent



@ the Dr.‘s office…I’m throw in’ codes.

 

All I can do in this case is turn off the switch.

 

Glad it wasn’t me who sparked it.

 

This would be the doctor if I had a check engine light

 

My cold light is permanently on.

How big is the pile of chips/salvage?

 

Chips are light weight today, knee deep in plastic

 

Place in ‘Berta made lots of teflon rings. I did not now the salvage was valuable. Just piles of it waitin’ to be sent back to TX for reprocessing.

 

A residential service is generally billed with no restrictions or surcharges - you can use everything whenever you want.

A commercial service, either single or three phase usually has a "demand" charge.
This is a multiplier that is usually applied to the whole month.

You could not run production for 29 days and on the 30th day start something large and it would be applied to the whole month.

Most here know that electric motors pull more amps when starting up than running, 2 to 3 times the nameplate full load is a reasonable estimate.

Ex: A one horsepower motor (like a table saw) will use about 15 amps at full load when operating on 120 volts.

That same motor will demand around 45 amps for a short time when starting up.
This is where that "surge" rating comes in on generators.

A 15 amps electric heater on the other hand has no startup spike, it uses 15 amps as soon as you turn it on.

Transformers are expensive and the utility company wants to be compensated for providing you the ability to operate your equipment.

To be continued

 

Demand charge part 2

Now imagine the demand of starting a 50 horsepower air compressor or a 1000 horsepower chiller.

The utility has equipment to measure your demand and surcharges you based on your highest peak.

To get back to the wood shop, if one large machine is already running the demand point is already established, if a second machine is started it pushes that point higher.

At the way back job I ran an industrial cooling water power house. We were told our demand ran on a quarter hour interval.

If I started a chiller at 8:01 we paid demand until 8:15 - 14 minutes, if I started at 8:14 the meter reset at 8:15 so only 1 minute demand.

 

Demand part 3

The garage used to be a body shop decades ago, I was charged demand.

After a year or two I called them up and they agreed I wasn't doing commercial work and removed it.

However, if I go over 700kwh two months in a row they would put it back on.

That is why I have the big gas power air compressor when needed.

 

It’s both illuminating and re-volting at the same time…

 

Could be far more.

 

Ya'll just aint wired for it.

 

It definitely wasn't sheared from being loose. The flywheel is gouged from the bolt heads being over tightened. No bolt heads inside the bell housing.

 

Machine list from a dusty memory:

1000 ton Trane
700 ton Trane - 3 of them
582 ton ? Carrier - had a dual compressor, ran one or both
186 ton ? Carrier - 2 of them, originally they had variable displacement compressors and VF drives the size of refrigerators, either might have been ok but the software of the day couldn't make them work happily together, both "features" were bypassed.

All 3 Carriers were field test machines -- AKA: the company got a smokin' deal probably...

And...

A wonderful gadget called a Teco-Chill with a V 12 or 16 ? Caterpillar engine running on natural gas driving a 750 ton chiller - serial number 1.
It would run reliably for weeks and then at the moment you really needed the damn thing the software would hiccup. - - -

The company & Tocogen got into a so they walked away from it.

 

The D in VFD is drive.

 

Edited so I look less dumb...