Day 67

Morning
HPM issues again. This time the punch head would jerk rather than raise after punching a compact out. After some digging around the program, Tony found a temposonic that was giving a zero reading for about one cycle, which was just enough to cause problems. We put a debounce in to fix the issue, then passed off the strange programming to Lyons. I also asked him about getting an analog out card for beam patterns.

Afternoon
I worked on my service drawing for a little while. When I needed the breaker information, I went out to the floor to have a look around. It was a good exercise to try to find all of the mains and service breakers. Tony finally showed me that the bank 46 service is in a shed with 4 arc's power supplies. We also went across the street to S8 to have a look at the west gun.

Day 66

Morning
There were a few outstanding maintenance issues this morning. 10 ARC was shorting out so it couldn't be run. Jim was up and down the thing looking for a problem. They found that the bellows was screwed up. Later, they also found that there was some bad micarta in the power supply diode stacks. I went down to the visitors center for an HF class. It was very informative, but I don't want to go anywhere near the pickle room now.

Afternoon
The afternoon went a little slower. I worked on a few of the drawings for the welder upgrade. Tony pulled the gun out of 4 to put a few anode spacer rings in that we got from Curtis. They might not be enough, but we won't know until there is some new material to put in the welder. I took the old anode across the street. Curtis said that it wasn't too bad at all, but it does need a good cleaning.

Day 65

Morning
We had our project review meeting this morning. I went through the progress that I made on the welder project and we talked about what kind of work I would need to do while Tony was gone to Alaska. It looks like I will be working on getting quotes for the welder parts, as well as working on the S9 project and finding information about the stinger brakes on 9/10. I also cleaned up my desk area a little. When I did, it reminded Tony that I need to look at these Von Ardenne boards that have an issue with them.

Afternoon
Tony went to go over drawings with Tim, so I was alone to work on cad drawings. I finished up the input drawing for the welders, but I didn't want to start anything that late for the service overview drawing. I did a little more research into inductive choke filters, but I will need to spend more time to really get into this topic. I am still only getting a rough idea of what's going on with those.

Day 64

Morning
There weren't too many things to run around to this morning, so it was mostly working the office on the plc cad drawings. I made a really nice, and clear, drawing showing the plc outputs for the new system. We did shuffle some of the outputs a little bit from when I wrote the program, but that's okay.

Afternoon
I continued to update the drawing as well as the i/o wiring spreadsheet. It worked out well that all of the valves are on one card and all the pumps are on another. I started to work on the input one as well. I also email Chris Haller to see if he knew anything about chokes, but my information was too vague to provide anything.

Day 63

Morning
We started out the day meeting two representatives from Wonderware down in the visitor center. I'd say it is still up in the air with what we are going to use for trending in general in melting. I am glad that that choice doesn't change most of the work that I'll be doing to get trending working around here. Those old welders need an upgrade regardless. We came back and worked on a few things before pulling the gun out of 4.

Afternoon
We took the gun across the street to have Curtis take a look at it. The cathode had some serious melting on the backside, which is fairly strange. There wasn't any new material to be put through, so there will be a wait before we can try the gun again. We still need those anode spacers too. I worked on the drawings for the welder plc upgrade.

Day 62

Morning
There was a big "kick off" meeting for S11 down in the visitor center. It had Tony, Dean, and a lot of plant engineers (Tim, JJ, Justin Wu, Joe, and one more). There was a lot of discussion on a variety of topics, but nothing that was very concrete. Tim grabbed Tony for some EBW 4 redlines. Afterwords we hit up the machine shop and Curtis before going back to melting.

Afternoon
While I was waiting for some EBW 4 prints, I found Greg to ask about his trial run yesterday. He said that everything was about normal except that the auto striping was way off and so be bowed the electrode at first. He fixed it up and got some new material in the welder already. A couple of issues on EBW 7 later we made it over EBW 4. Lots of little fixes in the afternoon.

Day 61

Morning
Start up went very well. There was one issue with a blower on 8 ARC, but nothing else had any problems. We got Greg welding away in EBW 4. He started laying down real stripes for us. The welder did alright, but the material was pretty nasty. Lots of off gas and eventually some oiling that gave the gun a fit. Tony wants to get a spacer in the gun to up the power. There was also a little meeting with a vendor from Delta systems where he demoed there product for the automated HPM unloading.

Afternoon
Started out with a meeting about the future of trending in this department. We went over all of the things that would be good to see on a screen in the foreman's office. Eventually, this kind of information will move into trending and maintenance screens. Tim stopped by and showed Tony (and I) how to program the panel view's that we've got. He also discussed a few other topics like S11 and the Old Bliss Press.

Day 60

Morning
Lots of little things to take care of before Tony left for a wedding. Had an SI08 meeting for EBW 4. No big action items resulted from that. There were some talk about the new furnace (S11) and what kind of massive job it will be. We ran across the street and threw a bit into S9 to fix the argon bottle issue. The fix was very clever. There is a lock-in bit over a push button in one rung. Tony dropped the argon bit into that rung. When the bottle goes dry, the bit will turn off leaving only the push button to start the gun back up.

Afternoon
Tobin stopped by and asked a few questions so we took a look at the HPM press. When they serviced the hydraulics they left a few pistons up that were causing a lock out. Tobin pushed them down only to find that the lines are hooked up backwards now. It did fix the problem. Tony took off for his sister-in-law's wedding. I took a look through a controls book and fixed up some small things before taking off for the week.

Day 59

Morning
Tony was out due to some nasty allergies, so it was all on me today. I snagged the maintenance laptop and continued to work on the new welder program. I put in all the logic for the three states, the light controls, and updates to some of the state transitions. It should all be done with by now.

Afternoon
I spent some time finishing up the program and documenting anything that was wrong in my theory of operation document. I accidental missed the D.P. heat control, so I needed to add that back in. I also used Excel to make an I/O map to convert from SLC150 to new PLC. This time the inputs and outputs are arranged by function rather than randomly. It shouldn't be a problem landing the wires. I finished up the day looking at inductor chokes.

Day 58

Morning
I spent most of the morning finishing up changes to the theory of operation document. I redrew the state diagram based off a conversation with Tony about how to handle insert changes. It ended up being the same state diagram, but the pumping state now has a little aside for changing out the gun. I also added a way to go from backfill to shutdown. I got everything squared away and printed out a new copy of the doc.

Afternoon
I went down to the shop and picked up the laptop. It wasn't too bad getting started in RS Logix 5000 because I've done 500 and seen enough on EBW 4 to know where some things are. I got the interlocks and state transitions programmed in. Now I need to fill out the workings of the states themselves. No plans for testing yet.

Day 57

Morning
Document updates. I updated the I/O layout to include more information, the Theory of Operation document to reflect some of the changes that we discussed on Monday, and the drawings that I made yesterday for the trending network stuff. I still have more to do on the Theory doc, but it's getting closer to completion. We got out to the welder to try out Tim's new controls finally. There were a couple of bugs to work around, but Tony got a beam going in there.

Afternoon
Looking at the controls, the PID's were really out of whack. Tony started adjusting the numbers on the fly to produce a smoother transition between the auto and manual state. He also got a few just plain fixes in there to make the thing run. There were still some issues with the bombardment ramp and getting a beam back after an arc.

Day 56

Morning
When Tony got here we had a meeting to go over the welder project. I showed him the document that I had been working on. There are still some things that need to be fixed on it before it's complete. We sat on the welder for a bit while Josh Webster updated one of the switches. That inspired a question about the Mynah-Delta V gear. We took a look at some of the network gear around melting.

Afternoon
I worked on the document a little, but I also drew up some CAD drawings for network diagrams. Tony wants two options: one using the existing switch, and one with a new switch. The drawings themselves aren't too bad (most CAD drawings aren't), but I wanted to be sure they were clear and useful.

Day 55

Morning
There was an issue with a motor down in the pumphouse. One of the cold well pumps would indicate that it was running when it was actually off due to a device net issue. We spent some time looking at it up in the control room, then down in the pump house. There was also an issue with S9 and an argon bottle interlock, but we didn't have the time to go get that fixed. I went to the monthly engineering meeting which was about the budget.

Afternoon
There was a fall protection class that I supposed to go to, but with only one in attendance he canceled it. Came back and got a little done on the welder with Tim's new program. All of the PID controls should be better now, but we won't know until we get some time to test it out for real.

Day 54

Morning
We worked on EBW 4 more. Tim came out with his new program, but unfortunately it was not the right one. He lost some work and had to return to his office to finish it. That set us back a ways on the welder, but we did set up a list of things to do.

Afternoon
They put a different stock into the welder. This time we got some recycle turning compacts. They will be useful because they off gas as the welder runs so it will be a more robust test. No updates from Tim, so the welder didn't run for the rest of the day. I did get some work done on my TOP document.

Day 53

Morning
Getting EBW 4 welding. When Tony went up to the high voltage cage, he found that a shunt had blown. Looks like 5A went through a 2A rated shunt. When the shunt went, so did the DC trip board. That explains what the problem was late last week. Jim fixed a few things up, then we ran. Rich and an operator ran the welder most of the morning. Tim stopped by to work on the displays and controllers. Tony was trying to do about three things at once. We got trip settings adjusted and some things updated, but found a few issues with the main beam.

Afternoon
The main beam arcs hard when it starts up because the trigger board and contactor come on at the same time. The beam also needs to trip at the end of the electrode while it turns around. Tony wants to put a relay in that connects to the PLC so he can program those things in. With meetings taking over, it was difficult to get back out there. Tim was working out here for a while, but he returned to his office after a time. I used the time to get more done on my welder project. I'm only a little ways off from writing the program for it, but I need to have a more formal review with Tony before I do that.

Day 52

Morning
Most of the morning was spent working on my new program. I had the state machines worked out from the day before, so I started defining the internals of each state much better. Once I really got into it, it looked more and more like I would need to revise the states from five to a simple three because of the limitations of the welder interface. Greg came by as well, so I helped him reset his panelmate down in seven.

Afternoon
I now took apart my state machine and looked at what I would need and be able to implement. I contracted the program down to the three core functions. After one of Tony's meetings we talked about a few details of backfilling and how to implement the interlocks in the program. Each state will have a much more focused goal, but that makes the program a little more dependent on the interlocks than originally planned. We also had a meeting with Tim and Matt about four's progress. Welding tomorrow.

Day 51

Morning
After working on some welder documents and attending a pre-shutdown meeting, we got the new CT's in by air mail. The will transform 1A to 1V. Gave them to Jim to put in up there, but Tony was loaded with meetings so they didn't get put in until the afternoon. I finished up the I/O documents for EBW 1 and 5.

Afternoon
I started to work on the theory of operation document. I found that it would be best to look at the five states of the welder as the five major headings for this document: Startup, hold, shutdown, back-fill, and leak rate. I started to change that over when Tony came back and we went out to four. We got the bombardment up and the trip settings in place. It worked like a champ. Tomorrow we will be able to get it welding again.

Day 50

Morning
Without any properly sized CT's for the bombardment feedback, we looked at getting a current switch that could be used to trigger the external limit on the trigger board. The problem was that the only ones Jim had in the shop were normally closed, so it would have to be put together with a relay to make it work. At this news, Tony decided to just wait until Monday to get the real CT's. I came back and worked on the welder upgrade. I started to revise the desired theory of operation document when I became distracted by the errors in my I/O sheet. It took me the rest of the morning to improve it, but I did make it much more useful and found old oil on EBW 2's Stokes 212 pump.

Afternoon
This was equipment overview time. Our third installment skipped over welders because of the amount of time spent working on four. Instead, we tackled arc furnaces. I learned a lot more about the things that are done to the metal to get a more consistent chemistry, like how to combine portions from different parts of the melt. I haven't spent much time working on any furnace, so this will probably be the majority of what I learn. We also shut down a DI water pump on 14 to see if the new one can handle the full load.

Day 49

Morning
Now that the bombardment works, the trigger boards need to be tuned for trip settings and limitations. Tony and I were working on that when Rich came by to check on the progress. We had it working so well that we actually started pulling a beam. Rich warmed it up, then started to put down a stripe. It was a really focused, nice looking weld. Unfortunately, we also popped the DC trip board upstairs. The CT's that are on the bombardment side are too big, so we weren't getting the voltage signal that we needed. We stole a few from Tobin's old test bench across the street but those still don't work.

Afternoon
Without the right sized CT's in there, we couldn't do much. Tony found that an arestor in the high voltage cage had actually snapped in two, but NWL said that it wasn't necessary to the function of the supply. We cooled things down a little and started looking for some CT's. LEM has a model that we are getting a quote on. I found another company, AcuAmp, that makes something that might work. We will have to wait and see.

Day 48

Morning
With the new resistor banks in from the night electricians, we set out to test the bombardment on the dummy load. The tests were not very successful as it still wouldn't stabilize at all. We blew some fuses and needed to get replacements for those. Even after taking the circuit down to the scr's and plugging in a space heater, we still didn't get the right voltage. Things weren't looking too good.

Afternoon
Tony figured there must be something wrong with the trigger board to be causing problems this far back in the circuit. We took the amplifier prints up to the 480 panel and started tracing wires. The wires from the 120 to the 480 were fine, but on the actual scr's themselves there was something wrong. The wire from the scr trigger to the driver board was flipped. The negative thyristor was firing when the positive should have been and vice versa. We flipped them around and presto, the thing was pulling like a champ. Tony got all the crap that we'd put in to test out and the bombardment work great. Ordered up some fuses for tuning.

Day 47

Morning
Still trying to get the bombardment circuit to work perfectly. Tony got a replacement transformer from Owen, as well as a modified trigger board. The electricians got the new transformer up onto the mezzanine, but it wasn't installed. Tony was looking into putting a resistive load on the end rather than using the real bombardment. We got the resistors we needed from the pig shed and then made up the board out in the electric shop. Tony and I spent some time looking at the zener diodes before lunch.

Afternoon
With the electricians swamped with calls, the changes to ebw 4 didn't get finished. I worked on my desired theory of operation document for ebw 1 and 5. It looks like the old program will be only slightly useful for creating the new setup. I used ebw 7 as an example on a procedure that uses states. With some work, the new program will look and run in a much more straight forward way than the current setup.

Day 46

Morning
I worked in the office during the morning. Starting by layout the I/O for EBW 1 and 5, I was trying to get some more work done on the welder upgrade. I began drafting a desired theory of operation document. It will outline what the system needs to do and in what order. From there I can write up the new program in RS Logix 5000.

Afternoon
Working with Tony on getting the fixes for EBW 4 going. We grabbed a different trigger board from S7 and some diodes from the instrument shop before trying to fire the bombardment again. It worked pretty well until the small transformer blew. It threw a pretty large puff of white smoke. We should get a new trigger board from Owen before long.