On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 11:47:02 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 2:15:45 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 09:29:32 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:49:34 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.

What are the advantages of running on propane other than the possibility of having a large, buried propane tank as your source? I have a 330 gallon buried tank, but at 8 gallons an hour and an ~80% fill, that's less than 2 days run time. That equates to about 20 gallons of gas, if my preacher math is correct.

I may have slipped a decimal point on you. The gas to propane ratio is
~5:8.
I had all of that stuff written down but I lost the paper. I just
remembered the 8, not that it was 0.8
5 gallons of gas ran me about 10 hours and that took ~8 gallons of
propane ... based on the gauge. I still have not refilled the tank so
I do not have the actual number and since I don't have my log, I doubt
I ever will know exactly what my burn rate was. The next time I feel
like working on my generator, I have an hour meter I will be
installing but it is hard to think about that stuff when the power is
on ;-)

Ah, gotcha. That makes much more sense. The propane is still more costly, but the ease of long term storage of large amounts far outweigh the costs.

I keep saying that I'm going to buy a generator, but in the last ten years we've probably lost power for a total of 4 hours or so. Hard to justify it, until you need it.

I didn't plan to myself but a guy made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
5.5KW Briggs NIB $300

On Fri, 05 Jan 2018 15:40:14 -0500,
wrote:

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 11:47:02 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 2:15:45 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 09:29:32 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:49:34 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.

What are the advantages of running on propane other than the possibility of having a large, buried propane tank as your source? I have a 330 gallon buried tank, but at 8 gallons an hour and an ~80% fill, that's less than 2 days run time. That equates to about 20 gallons of gas, if my preacher math is correct.

I may have slipped a decimal point on you. The gas to propane ratio is
~5:8.
I had all of that stuff written down but I lost the paper. I just
remembered the 8, not that it was 0.8
5 gallons of gas ran me about 10 hours and that took ~8 gallons of
propane ... based on the gauge. I still have not refilled the tank so
I do not have the actual number and since I don't have my log, I doubt
I ever will know exactly what my burn rate was. The next time I feel
like working on my generator, I have an hour meter I will be
installing but it is hard to think about that stuff when the power is
on ;-)

Ah, gotcha. That makes much more sense. The propane is still more costly, but the ease of long term storage of large amounts far outweigh the costs.

I keep saying that I'm going to buy a generator, but in the last ten years we've probably lost power for a total of 4 hours or so. Hard to justify it, until you need it.


===

Yes, but once you go into a multi day power outage a generator is a
really nice thing to have. We're fortunate to have a good sized
diesel generator on the boat with 500+ gallons of fuel typically. With
a little red neck engineering we can power the entire house including
the central air, stove and hot water heater.


I have been here 34 years and Irma was the first time the power was
out more than a day and that one day outage was Charley.
The main advantage of propane for me is, it starts instantly and I can
put it away again just by unplugging it. No draining carbs, running
dry, stale gas etc.
I also have the kit to run off of a 20# tank if I want to take it
somewhere for a small job.

On 1/5/2018 2:06 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 12:28:51 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/5/2018 11:37 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 05:34:25 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I agree the harmonic problem is just on wye but that is the most
common configuration, 208 or 480.
I think the problem first showed up on 480/277 wye systems where they
had a building full of 277v electronic ballasts.
Then it started showing up in those 208 systems that were feeding 120v
lines in cubicles through the internal wiring with a 5 wire feeder as
PCs started replacing terminals with ferro power supplies and space
heaters.

Delta is always funny stuff, depending on where or even if you land
the ground. Corner grounded is probably the easiest to confuse the
novice. It will look just like single phase until you get your meter
out. (2 pole breakers, white wires etc)


Not familiar with that. The majority of the systems we built were
designed to run on 480v, 3 phase. All the main breakers, fused
disconnects, motor starters, etc. were three pole. Ground was run
separately. We used a dedicated control transformer in each power
cabinet to generate whatever the low voltage control wiring was ... 120v
in the early days but later 24 volt. IIRC, the control transformer on
the 120v systems was a 480v/240v step down with a center tap, providing
a neutral.




Did you ground your 480 delta at all? If so where did the ground land?

I understand your control circuit voltage can be 120 if you want. That
is just a class 1 control circuit. Most people are familiar with class
2 but they are both controlled by the same article in the NEC.
Class 1 just looks like regular line voltage circuits because it is
not voltage or current limited like class 2 and 3.
The center tapped 240 delta is commonly called "red leg" or "wild
leg"because the corner between the center tapped windings will be 208v
to ground. "Red" is a misnomer tho because the NEC requires the wire
to be orange. That is very common in places where they want discount 3
phase and have a significant amount of single phase loads like those
small industrial bays. The PoCo can do it with 2 transformers,
generally the wild leg will be on a much smaller one. One "winding" is
actually open. hence another name, "Delta Veep".

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/red%...ansformers.jpg

99.99% of the time, if you see 3 transformers on the pole, it will be
wye. but I have seen one place in Key West where they had red leg
delta with 3 transformers. The only tip off was one was bigger than
the other two and it was confirmed by analysing the wiring.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Tran...%20_breath.jpg

Yeah my wife thinks I am crazy too, taking pictures of transformers.



Ground for the 480 Delta system service was run separately back to the
physical (metallic) ground at the panel, usually via a 6 awg wire.
Ground was not taken from any of the legs of the 3 phase Delta the way
you have described.

Many of the systems we built also had a RFI ground consisting of wide,
copper flashing to two, 8' copper rods driven through the floor and into
the ground. The rods were about 10-15 feet apart and we tried to get
close to 1 ohm resistance between them. This often required a copper
sulfate solution to be poured into the rod holes.

The reason for the exotic grounding had nothing to do with safety. Many
of the systems utilized a RF transmitter running at 13 Mhz. The load
for the RF transmitter was a plasma (ionized partial pressure gas)
generated within the vacuum chamber.

We had specially designed "matchboxes" that allowed load impedance
matching of the 50 ohm transmitter output to the very low impedance of
the plasma. Other systems used an electron beam operating at 10,000
volts. A stream of electrons are emitted from a filament and focused
magnetically onto various metals or dielectrics that were vaporized by
the beam and deposited on optics in very carefully controlled thicknesses.

Anyway, there were often some arcs and sparks within the chamber with
either of these deposition methods that would raise hell with some of
the very sensitive measurement instruments. The elaborate grounding,
using a wide conductor (flashing) is much better at RF and EMI quenching
of the arcs. A simple, round ground wire has too much inductive
reactance. It's only purpose on these systems was to serve as a safety
ground. Sometimes we'd have to chase our tail for a while however
because the use of both grounding systems sometimes generated a ground
loop which only magnified the RFI problem.

So you were running ungrounded delta. That is fairly rare and usually
only for systems that are very intolerant of faults, like a glass
plant where a power failure makes the whole place pretty much trash.
I assume you had ground fault indicators since the first ground fault
is "free". I have never actually seen ungrounded delta here. The other
option is impedance grounding that grounds the system via a resistor,
just to stabilize the voltage, not to provide any fault protection.

You are right that there is no exception that allows the non current
carrying parts of the system to be ungrounded. They are really trying
to change that terminology to "bonded" to avoid confusion with the
"grounded conductor" that we normally call the neutral and the
"grounding electrode" that is your physical connection with earth.
Article 250 may be the most misunderstood article in the whole NEC,
hence the one I spent the most time studying. They are trying to
redefine some of the terms to make it easier to understand because
"ground" is such an all encompassing word that it misses the intent
about half the time and when you actually start testing, it isn't even
the same voltage from one place to another when you actually test with
stakes in the dirt.




I don't think the configuration I described is all that rare. In fact
it's pretty common for industrial machine tool wiring for equipment that
requires significant power. There are literally thousands of systems
similar to the ones my company built, designed manufactured and
installed by other companies in the USA and world wide, going back to
the 1950's.

We (and other US manufactures) follow(ed) the National Electric Code
however there are some things that aren't even acknowledged, covered or
would not be allowed (like the electron beam source application). Our
installation crew got into a ****ing contest with a union electrician
once regarding how the 10,000 volt leads to the feedthroughs were wired
below the chamber baseplate. There is nothing in the code book that
even comes close to covering anything like this. We had access to them
protected by panel interlocks, vacuum interlocks and then the leads
themselves are within plexiglass enclosures with "Danger - High Voltage"
stickers on them. I think it scared the electrician and he raised an
issue that temporarily shut down the installation of the system. It was
resolved by the customer's facility engineering and was approved.

There's a clause for situations like that in the code book that goes
something like: "When the machine requirements and the code conflict,
the machine requirements will govern".

Every one of our technical proposals had that clause in it, along with
pertinent ASME codes for pressure vessels, even though a vacuum chamber
is not really a pressure vessel. During the many years I was in that
industry there were no ASME codes for vacuum vessels. That's why two 8
inch flanges on some vacuum piping would be connected with 8, 3/4 inch
bolts with nuts. Kinda overkill for vacuum piping but that's what the
ASME code calls for.

On 1/5/2018 4:22 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jan 2018 15:40:14 -0500,
wrote:

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 11:47:02 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 2:15:45 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 09:29:32 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:49:34 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.

What are the advantages of running on propane other than the possibility of having a large, buried propane tank as your source? I have a 330 gallon buried tank, but at 8 gallons an hour and an ~80% fill, that's less than 2 days run time. That equates to about 20 gallons of gas, if my preacher math is correct.

I may have slipped a decimal point on you. The gas to propane ratio is
~5:8.
I had all of that stuff written down but I lost the paper. I just
remembered the 8, not that it was 0.8
5 gallons of gas ran me about 10 hours and that took ~8 gallons of
propane ... based on the gauge. I still have not refilled the tank so
I do not have the actual number and since I don't have my log, I doubt
I ever will know exactly what my burn rate was. The next time I feel
like working on my generator, I have an hour meter I will be
installing but it is hard to think about that stuff when the power is
on ;-)

Ah, gotcha. That makes much more sense. The propane is still more costly, but the ease of long term storage of large amounts far outweigh the costs.

I keep saying that I'm going to buy a generator, but in the last ten years we've probably lost power for a total of 4 hours or so. Hard to justify it, until you need it.


===

Yes, but once you go into a multi day power outage a generator is a
really nice thing to have. We're fortunate to have a good sized
diesel generator on the boat with 500+ gallons of fuel typically. With
a little red neck engineering we can power the entire house including
the central air, stove and hot water heater.


I have been here 34 years and Irma was the first time the power was
out more than a day and that one day outage was Charley.
The main advantage of propane for me is, it starts instantly and I can
put it away again just by unplugging it. No draining carbs, running
dry, stale gas etc.
I also have the kit to run off of a 20# tank if I want to take it
somewhere for a small job.



The only precaution I noticed about "DIY" conversions was the lack of a
detector to shut off the propane flow if the generator engine should
stall. Otherwise you could be in the making for a grand experience.

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 4:18:58 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 11:47:02 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 2:15:45 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 09:29:32 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:49:34 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.

What are the advantages of running on propane other than the possibility of having a large, buried propane tank as your source? I have a 330 gallon buried tank, but at 8 gallons an hour and an ~80% fill, that's less than 2 days run time. That equates to about 20 gallons of gas, if my preacher math is correct.

I may have slipped a decimal point on you. The gas to propane ratio is
~5:8.
I had all of that stuff written down but I lost the paper. I just
remembered the 8, not that it was 0.8
5 gallons of gas ran me about 10 hours and that took ~8 gallons of
propane ... based on the gauge. I still have not refilled the tank so
I do not have the actual number and since I don't have my log, I doubt
I ever will know exactly what my burn rate was. The next time I feel
like working on my generator, I have an hour meter I will be
installing but it is hard to think about that stuff when the power is
on ;-)

Ah, gotcha. That makes much more sense. The propane is still more costly, but the ease of long term storage of large amounts far outweigh the costs.

I keep saying that I'm going to buy a generator, but in the last ten years we've probably lost power for a total of 4 hours or so. Hard to justify it, until you need it.

I didn't plan to myself but a guy made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
5.5KW Briggs NIB $300

Ask him if he has another one.

Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 1/5/2018 4:22 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jan 2018 15:40:14 -0500,
wrote:

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 11:47:02 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 2:15:45 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 09:29:32 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:49:34 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.

What are the advantages of running on propane other than the
possibility of having a large, buried propane tank as your source?
I have a 330 gallon buried tank, but at 8 gallons an hour and an
~80% fill, that's less than 2 days run time. That equates to about
20 gallons of gas, if my preacher math is correct.

I may have slipped a decimal point on you. The gas to propane ratio is
~5:8.
I had all of that stuff written down but I lost the paper. I just
remembered the 8, not that it was 0.8
5 gallons of gas ran me about 10 hours and that took ~8 gallons of
propane ... based on the gauge. I still have not refilled the tank so
I do not have the actual number and since I don't have my log, I doubt
I ever will know exactly what my burn rate was. The next time I feel
like working on my generator, I have an hour meter I will be
installing but it is hard to think about that stuff when the power is
on ;-)

Ah, gotcha. That makes much more sense. The propane is still more
costly, but the ease of long term storage of large amounts far outweigh the costs.

I keep saying that I'm going to buy a generator, but in the last ten
years we've probably lost power for a total of 4 hours or so. Hard to
justify it, until you need it.


===

Yes, but once you go into a multi day power outage a generator is a
really nice thing to have. We're fortunate to have a good sized
diesel generator on the boat with 500+ gallons of fuel typically. With
a little red neck engineering we can power the entire house including
the central air, stove and hot water heater.


I have been here 34 years and Irma was the first time the power was
out more than a day and that one day outage was Charley.
The main advantage of propane for me is, it starts instantly and I can
put it away again just by unplugging it. No draining carbs, running
dry, stale gas etc.
I also have the kit to run off of a 20# tank if I want to take it
somewhere for a small job.



The only precaution I noticed about "DIY" conversions was the lack of a
detector to shut off the propane flow if the generator engine should
stall. Otherwise you could be in the making for a grand experience.




The only problem I had with bad ground was a missing connection between the
ground line and the neutral line . We had a float of 12 volts on the hot
to neutral. So sometimes the disk drive would fail to start.

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 16:32:19 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/5/2018 2:06 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 12:28:51 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/5/2018 11:37 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 05:34:25 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I agree the harmonic problem is just on wye but that is the most
common configuration, 208 or 480.
I think the problem first showed up on 480/277 wye systems where they
had a building full of 277v electronic ballasts.
Then it started showing up in those 208 systems that were feeding 120v
lines in cubicles through the internal wiring with a 5 wire feeder as
PCs started replacing terminals with ferro power supplies and space
heaters.

Delta is always funny stuff, depending on where or even if you land
the ground. Corner grounded is probably the easiest to confuse the
novice. It will look just like single phase until you get your meter
out. (2 pole breakers, white wires etc)


Not familiar with that. The majority of the systems we built were
designed to run on 480v, 3 phase. All the main breakers, fused
disconnects, motor starters, etc. were three pole. Ground was run
separately. We used a dedicated control transformer in each power
cabinet to generate whatever the low voltage control wiring was ... 120v
in the early days but later 24 volt. IIRC, the control transformer on
the 120v systems was a 480v/240v step down with a center tap, providing
a neutral.




Did you ground your 480 delta at all? If so where did the ground land?

I understand your control circuit voltage can be 120 if you want. That
is just a class 1 control circuit. Most people are familiar with class
2 but they are both controlled by the same article in the NEC.
Class 1 just looks like regular line voltage circuits because it is
not voltage or current limited like class 2 and 3.
The center tapped 240 delta is commonly called "red leg" or "wild
leg"because the corner between the center tapped windings will be 208v
to ground. "Red" is a misnomer tho because the NEC requires the wire
to be orange. That is very common in places where they want discount 3
phase and have a significant amount of single phase loads like those
small industrial bays. The PoCo can do it with 2 transformers,
generally the wild leg will be on a much smaller one. One "winding" is
actually open. hence another name, "Delta Veep".

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/red%...ansformers.jpg

99.99% of the time, if you see 3 transformers on the pole, it will be
wye. but I have seen one place in Key West where they had red leg
delta with 3 transformers. The only tip off was one was bigger than
the other two and it was confirmed by analysing the wiring.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Tran...%20_breath.jpg

Yeah my wife thinks I am crazy too, taking pictures of transformers.



Ground for the 480 Delta system service was run separately back to the
physical (metallic) ground at the panel, usually via a 6 awg wire.
Ground was not taken from any of the legs of the 3 phase Delta the way
you have described.

Many of the systems we built also had a RFI ground consisting of wide,
copper flashing to two, 8' copper rods driven through the floor and into
the ground. The rods were about 10-15 feet apart and we tried to get
close to 1 ohm resistance between them. This often required a copper
sulfate solution to be poured into the rod holes.

The reason for the exotic grounding had nothing to do with safety. Many
of the systems utilized a RF transmitter running at 13 Mhz. The load
for the RF transmitter was a plasma (ionized partial pressure gas)
generated within the vacuum chamber.

We had specially designed "matchboxes" that allowed load impedance
matching of the 50 ohm transmitter output to the very low impedance of
the plasma. Other systems used an electron beam operating at 10,000
volts. A stream of electrons are emitted from a filament and focused
magnetically onto various metals or dielectrics that were vaporized by
the beam and deposited on optics in very carefully controlled thicknesses.

Anyway, there were often some arcs and sparks within the chamber with
either of these deposition methods that would raise hell with some of
the very sensitive measurement instruments. The elaborate grounding,
using a wide conductor (flashing) is much better at RF and EMI quenching
of the arcs. A simple, round ground wire has too much inductive
reactance. It's only purpose on these systems was to serve as a safety
ground. Sometimes we'd have to chase our tail for a while however
because the use of both grounding systems sometimes generated a ground
loop which only magnified the RFI problem.

So you were running ungrounded delta. That is fairly rare and usually
only for systems that are very intolerant of faults, like a glass
plant where a power failure makes the whole place pretty much trash.
I assume you had ground fault indicators since the first ground fault
is "free". I have never actually seen ungrounded delta here. The other
option is impedance grounding that grounds the system via a resistor,
just to stabilize the voltage, not to provide any fault protection.

You are right that there is no exception that allows the non current
carrying parts of the system to be ungrounded. They are really trying
to change that terminology to "bonded" to avoid confusion with the
"grounded conductor" that we normally call the neutral and the
"grounding electrode" that is your physical connection with earth.
Article 250 may be the most misunderstood article in the whole NEC,
hence the one I spent the most time studying. They are trying to
redefine some of the terms to make it easier to understand because
"ground" is such an all encompassing word that it misses the intent
about half the time and when you actually start testing, it isn't even
the same voltage from one place to another when you actually test with
stakes in the dirt.




I don't think the configuration I described is all that rare. In fact
it's pretty common for industrial machine tool wiring for equipment that
requires significant power. There are literally thousands of systems
similar to the ones my company built, designed manufactured and
installed by other companies in the USA and world wide, going back to
the 1950's.


I don't know. Like I said I have never seen ungrounded delta but I
know the guys to ask.
I am still wondering if it was impedance grounded or corner grounded.
They do not need to bring the grounded conductor out to distribution
equipment, in fact we never did in computer rooms. It stopped at the
service disconnect.

We (and other US manufactures) follow(ed) the National Electric Code
however there are some things that aren't even acknowledged, covered or
would not be allowed (like the electron beam source application). Our
installation crew got into a ****ing contest with a union electrician
once regarding how the 10,000 volt leads to the feedthroughs were wired
below the chamber baseplate. There is nothing in the code book that
even comes close to covering anything like this. We had access to them
protected by panel interlocks, vacuum interlocks and then the leads
themselves are within plexiglass enclosures with "Danger - High Voltage"
stickers on them. I think it scared the electrician and he raised an
issue that temporarily shut down the installation of the system. It was
resolved by the customer's facility engineering and was approved.

There's a clause for situations like that in the code book that goes
something like: "When the machine requirements and the code conflict,
the machine requirements will govern".

Every one of our technical proposals had that clause in it, along with
pertinent ASME codes for pressure vessels, even though a vacuum chamber
is not really a pressure vessel. During the many years I was in that
industry there were no ASME codes for vacuum vessels. That's why two 8
inch flanges on some vacuum piping would be connected with 8, 3/4 inch
bolts with nuts. Kinda overkill for vacuum piping but that's what the
ASME code calls for.

Once you get off into "equipment" the NEC is largely silent. For IBM,
it stopped at the line plug although in places like Chicago the IBEW
still wanted a taste of the labor (or all of it).

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 16:36:21 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/5/2018 4:22 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jan 2018 15:40:14 -0500,
wrote:

On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 11:47:02 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 2:15:45 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 09:29:32 -0800 (PST), Its Me
wrote:

On Friday, January 5, 2018 at 11:49:34 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 08:32:51 -0500 (EST), justan wrote:

Wrote in message:


My 5.5 KW burned about 0.5-0.6 GPH gasoline and more like 8 on propane
running pretty much 24 hours a day at close to full load. Once I
started running propane, it never turned off. I did trip the breaker
now and then when the loads ganged up on me. ;-)


8 what?
gallons of propane an hour

What is involved in converting to propane?

You remove the carb, install longer studs, slip the propane venturi
over the studs and reinstall the carb. Then you mount the regulator,
hook up the hoses and you are ready to rock. The whole thing takes
less than an hour the first time and I bet I can do it in 15 minutes
now. They give you the initial setting on the control block for nat
gas or propane and you dial it in from there once you get it running.
I may be able to improve the fuel consumption a little but I would
rather be too rich than too lean. I have it pretty close tho.

What are the advantages of running on propane other than the possibility of having a large, buried propane tank as your source? I have a 330 gallon buried tank, but at 8 gallons an hour and an ~80% fill, that's less than 2 days run time. That equates to about 20 gallons of gas, if my preacher math is correct.

I may have slipped a decimal point on you. The gas to propane ratio is
~5:8.
I had all of that stuff written down but I lost the paper. I just
remembered the 8, not that it was 0.8
5 gallons of gas ran me about 10 hours and that took ~8 gallons of
propane ... based on the gauge. I still have not refilled the tank so
I do not have the actual number and since I don't have my log, I doubt
I ever will know exactly what my burn rate was. The next time I feel
like working on my generator, I have an hour meter I will be
installing but it is hard to think about that stuff when the power is
on ;-)

Ah, gotcha. That makes much more sense. The propane is still more costly, but the ease of long term storage of large amounts far outweigh the costs.

I keep saying that I'm going to buy a generator, but in the last ten years we've probably lost power for a total of 4 hours or so. Hard to justify it, until you need it.


===

Yes, but once you go into a multi day power outage a generator is a
really nice thing to have. We're fortunate to have a good sized
diesel generator on the boat with 500+ gallons of fuel typically. With
a little red neck engineering we can power the entire house including
the central air, stove and hot water heater.


I have been here 34 years and Irma was the first time the power was
out more than a day and that one day outage was Charley.
The main advantage of propane for me is, it starts instantly and I can
put it away again just by unplugging it. No draining carbs, running
dry, stale gas etc.
I also have the kit to run off of a 20# tank if I want to take it
somewhere for a small job.



The only precaution I noticed about "DIY" conversions was the lack of a
detector to shut off the propane flow if the generator engine should
stall. Otherwise you could be in the making for a grand experience.


That is true but if the venturi isn't "sucking" there won't be much if
any gas going through the regulator. It works pretty much like a SCUBA
regulator. You have to use the "prime" button to get enough gas in the
throat to start it.

On 1/6/2018 1:21 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 16:32:19 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/5/2018 2:06 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 12:28:51 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/5/2018 11:37 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 05:34:25 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I agree the harmonic problem is just on wye but that is the most
common configuration, 208 or 480.
I think the problem first showed up on 480/277 wye systems where they
had a building full of 277v electronic ballasts.
Then it started showing up in those 208 systems that were feeding 120v
lines in cubicles through the internal wiring with a 5 wire feeder as
PCs started replacing terminals with ferro power supplies and space
heaters.

Delta is always funny stuff, depending on where or even if you land
the ground. Corner grounded is probably the easiest to confuse the
novice. It will look just like single phase until you get your meter
out. (2 pole breakers, white wires etc)


Not familiar with that. The majority of the systems we built were
designed to run on 480v, 3 phase. All the main breakers, fused
disconnects, motor starters, etc. were three pole. Ground was run
separately. We used a dedicated control transformer in each power
cabinet to generate whatever the low voltage control wiring was ... 120v
in the early days but later 24 volt. IIRC, the control transformer on
the 120v systems was a 480v/240v step down with a center tap, providing
a neutral.




Did you ground your 480 delta at all? If so where did the ground land?

I understand your control circuit voltage can be 120 if you want. That
is just a class 1 control circuit. Most people are familiar with class
2 but they are both controlled by the same article in the NEC.
Class 1 just looks like regular line voltage circuits because it is
not voltage or current limited like class 2 and 3.
The center tapped 240 delta is commonly called "red leg" or "wild
leg"because the corner between the center tapped windings will be 208v
to ground. "Red" is a misnomer tho because the NEC requires the wire
to be orange. That is very common in places where they want discount 3
phase and have a significant amount of single phase loads like those
small industrial bays. The PoCo can do it with 2 transformers,
generally the wild leg will be on a much smaller one. One "winding" is
actually open. hence another name, "Delta Veep".

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/red%...ansformers.jpg

99.99% of the time, if you see 3 transformers on the pole, it will be
wye. but I have seen one place in Key West where they had red leg
delta with 3 transformers. The only tip off was one was bigger than
the other two and it was confirmed by analysing the wiring.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Tran...%20_breath.jpg

Yeah my wife thinks I am crazy too, taking pictures of transformers.



Ground for the 480 Delta system service was run separately back to the
physical (metallic) ground at the panel, usually via a 6 awg wire.
Ground was not taken from any of the legs of the 3 phase Delta the way
you have described.

Many of the systems we built also had a RFI ground consisting of wide,
copper flashing to two, 8' copper rods driven through the floor and into
the ground. The rods were about 10-15 feet apart and we tried to get
close to 1 ohm resistance between them. This often required a copper
sulfate solution to be poured into the rod holes.

The reason for the exotic grounding had nothing to do with safety. Many
of the systems utilized a RF transmitter running at 13 Mhz. The load
for the RF transmitter was a plasma (ionized partial pressure gas)
generated within the vacuum chamber.

We had specially designed "matchboxes" that allowed load impedance
matching of the 50 ohm transmitter output to the very low impedance of
the plasma. Other systems used an electron beam operating at 10,000
volts. A stream of electrons are emitted from a filament and focused
magnetically onto various metals or dielectrics that were vaporized by
the beam and deposited on optics in very carefully controlled thicknesses.

Anyway, there were often some arcs and sparks within the chamber with
either of these deposition methods that would raise hell with some of
the very sensitive measurement instruments. The elaborate grounding,
using a wide conductor (flashing) is much better at RF and EMI quenching
of the arcs. A simple, round ground wire has too much inductive
reactance. It's only purpose on these systems was to serve as a safety
ground. Sometimes we'd have to chase our tail for a while however
because the use of both grounding systems sometimes generated a ground
loop which only magnified the RFI problem.

So you were running ungrounded delta. That is fairly rare and usually
only for systems that are very intolerant of faults, like a glass
plant where a power failure makes the whole place pretty much trash.
I assume you had ground fault indicators since the first ground fault
is "free". I have never actually seen ungrounded delta here. The other
option is impedance grounding that grounds the system via a resistor,
just to stabilize the voltage, not to provide any fault protection.

You are right that there is no exception that allows the non current
carrying parts of the system to be ungrounded. They are really trying
to change that terminology to "bonded" to avoid confusion with the
"grounded conductor" that we normally call the neutral and the
"grounding electrode" that is your physical connection with earth.
Article 250 may be the most misunderstood article in the whole NEC,
hence the one I spent the most time studying. They are trying to
redefine some of the terms to make it easier to understand because
"ground" is such an all encompassing word that it misses the intent
about half the time and when you actually start testing, it isn't even
the same voltage from one place to another when you actually test with
stakes in the dirt.




I don't think the configuration I described is all that rare. In fact
it's pretty common for industrial machine tool wiring for equipment that
requires significant power. There are literally thousands of systems
similar to the ones my company built, designed manufactured and
installed by other companies in the USA and world wide, going back to
the 1950's.


I don't know. Like I said I have never seen ungrounded delta but I
know the guys to ask.
I am still wondering if it was impedance grounded or corner grounded.
They do not need to bring the grounded conductor out to distribution
equipment, in fact we never did in computer rooms. It stopped at the
service disconnect.

We (and other US manufactures) follow(ed) the National Electric Code
however there are some things that aren't even acknowledged, covered or
would not be allowed (like the electron beam source application). Our
installation crew got into a ****ing contest with a union electrician
once regarding how the 10,000 volt leads to the feedthroughs were wired
below the chamber baseplate. There is nothing in the code book that
even comes close to covering anything like this. We had access to them
protected by panel interlocks, vacuum interlocks and then the leads
themselves are within plexiglass enclosures with "Danger - High Voltage"
stickers on them. I think it scared the electrician and he raised an
issue that temporarily shut down the installation of the system. It was
resolved by the customer's facility engineering and was approved.

There's a clause for situations like that in the code book that goes
something like: "When the machine requirements and the code conflict,
the machine requirements will govern".

Every one of our technical proposals had that clause in it, along with
pertinent ASME codes for pressure vessels, even though a vacuum chamber
is not really a pressure vessel. During the many years I was in that
industry there were no ASME codes for vacuum vessels. That's why two 8
inch flanges on some vacuum piping would be connected with 8, 3/4 inch
bolts with nuts. Kinda overkill for vacuum piping but that's what the
ASME code calls for.

Once you get off into "equipment" the NEC is largely silent. For IBM,
it stopped at the line plug although in places like Chicago the IBEW
still wanted a taste of the labor (or all of it).


We built and installed a custom system for the deposition of hard carbon
(diamond-like coating) onto M1 tank infrared windows. It used a RF
power supply as part of the process. It was installed at a company a
couple of miles or so from O'Hare Airport and the local inspector
demanded that it needed to be CE Certified which was news to me. He
inspected all the components we had purchased and used for it ... down
to the small air actuator valves but when he asked what it was used for
he just signed off on the whole thing.

On 1/6/2018 1:21 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 16:32:19 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/5/2018 2:06 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 12:28:51 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/5/2018 11:37 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 5 Jan 2018 05:34:25 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I agree the harmonic problem is just on wye but that is the most
common configuration, 208 or 480.
I think the problem first showed up on 480/277 wye systems where they
had a building full of 277v electronic ballasts.
Then it started showing up in those 208 systems that were feeding 120v
lines in cubicles through the internal wiring with a 5 wire feeder as
PCs started replacing terminals with ferro power supplies and space
heaters.

Delta is always funny stuff, depending on where or even if you land
the ground. Corner grounded is probably the easiest to confuse the
novice. It will look just like single phase until you get your meter
out. (2 pole breakers, white wires etc)


Not familiar with that. The majority of the systems we built were
designed to run on 480v, 3 phase. All the main breakers, fused
disconnects, motor starters, etc. were three pole. Ground was run
separately. We used a dedicated control transformer in each power
cabinet to generate whatever the low voltage control wiring was ... 120v
in the early days but later 24 volt. IIRC, the control transformer on
the 120v systems was a 480v/240v step down with a center tap, providing
a neutral.




Did you ground your 480 delta at all? If so where did the ground land?

I understand your control circuit voltage can be 120 if you want. That
is just a class 1 control circuit. Most people are familiar with class
2 but they are both controlled by the same article in the NEC.
Class 1 just looks like regular line voltage circuits because it is
not voltage or current limited like class 2 and 3.
The center tapped 240 delta is commonly called "red leg" or "wild
leg"because the corner between the center tapped windings will be 208v
to ground. "Red" is a misnomer tho because the NEC requires the wire
to be orange. That is very common in places where they want discount 3
phase and have a significant amount of single phase loads like those
small industrial bays. The PoCo can do it with 2 transformers,
generally the wild leg will be on a much smaller one. One "winding" is
actually open. hence another name, "Delta Veep".

http://gfretwell.com/electrical/red%...ansformers.jpg

99.99% of the time, if you see 3 transformers on the pole, it will be
wye. but I have seen one place in Key West where they had red leg
delta with 3 transformers. The only tip off was one was bigger than
the other two and it was confirmed by analysing the wiring.
http://gfretwell.com/electrical/Tran...%20_breath.jpg

Yeah my wife thinks I am crazy too, taking pictures of transformers.



Ground for the 480 Delta system service was run separately back to the
physical (metallic) ground at the panel, usually via a 6 awg wire.
Ground was not taken from any of the legs of the 3 phase Delta the way
you have described.

Many of the systems we built also had a RFI ground consisting of wide,
copper flashing to two, 8' copper rods driven through the floor and into
the ground. The rods were about 10-15 feet apart and we tried to get
close to 1 ohm resistance between them. This often required a copper
sulfate solution to be poured into the rod holes.

The reason for the exotic grounding had nothing to do with safety. Many
of the systems utilized a RF transmitter running at 13 Mhz. The load
for the RF transmitter was a plasma (ionized partial pressure gas)
generated within the vacuum chamber.

We had specially designed "matchboxes" that allowed load impedance
matching of the 50 ohm transmitter output to the very low impedance of
the plasma. Other systems used an electron beam operating at 10,000
volts. A stream of electrons are emitted from a filament and focused
magnetically onto various metals or dielectrics that were vaporized by
the beam and deposited on optics in very carefully controlled thicknesses.

Anyway, there were often some arcs and sparks within the chamber with
either of these deposition methods that would raise hell with some of
the very sensitive measurement instruments. The elaborate grounding,
using a wide conductor (flashing) is much better at RF and EMI quenching
of the arcs. A simple, round ground wire has too much inductive
reactance. It's only purpose on these systems was to serve as a safety
ground. Sometimes we'd have to chase our tail for a while however
because the use of both grounding systems sometimes generated a ground
loop which only magnified the RFI problem.

So you were running ungrounded delta. That is fairly rare and usually
only for systems that are very intolerant of faults, like a glass
plant where a power failure makes the whole place pretty much trash.
I assume you had ground fault indicators since the first ground fault
is "free". I have never actually seen ungrounded delta here. The other
option is impedance grounding that grounds the system via a resistor,
just to stabilize the voltage, not to provide any fault protection.

You are right that there is no exception that allows the non current
carrying parts of the system to be ungrounded. They are really trying
to change that terminology to "bonded" to avoid confusion with the
"grounded conductor" that we normally call the neutral and the
"grounding electrode" that is your physical connection with earth.
Article 250 may be the most misunderstood article in the whole NEC,
hence the one I spent the most time studying. They are trying to
redefine some of the terms to make it easier to understand because
"ground" is such an all encompassing word that it misses the intent
about half the time and when you actually start testing, it isn't even
the same voltage from one place to another when you actually test with
stakes in the dirt.




I don't think the configuration I described is all that rare. In fact
it's pretty common for industrial machine tool wiring for equipment that
requires significant power. There are literally thousands of systems
similar to the ones my company built, designed manufactured and
installed by other companies in the USA and world wide, going back to
the 1950's.



I don't know. Like I said I have never seen ungrounded delta but I
know the guys to ask.
I am still wondering if it was impedance grounded or corner grounded.
They do not need to bring the grounded conductor out to distribution
equipment, in fact we never did in computer rooms. It stopped at the
service disconnect.

Ah .. I think I see the confusion. Yes, the secondary of a 3 wire, 480v
delta service will usually have one leg tied to *earth* ground but it's
not used as a current carrying conductor. The primary side of a 3 wire
service transformer is not grounded. There is also a 4 wire delta
service that includes a neutral from the service side.

You are talking the service side. I am talking the load side.

The equipment we built was powered by the 3 wire, 480v legs for power to
the various motors and heaters. A safety ground is run back to the
service panel that is tied to earth ground. It's why we used a
separate transformer to generate the single phase, 120v and 24v control
voltages used for the instruments and control switches.