# 18 hours of downtime for the company last night .



## mmcmdl (Jul 31, 2021)

Electrician wired up a motor wrong and shut half the plant down for 18 hrs . We the mechanics traced our entire vaccum system from the silos to the hoppers . Swapped out 3 Roots blowers . My boss was with me until Midnight until we gave up the trouble shooting . My coffee pot was never even started . The motor was a 5 horse Baldor running one of our pellet lines which runs the full length of our roof out to our silos . Had to dump silo hatch checking for bridges and clogs . None found . The motor that was originally pulled was wired high voltage which we all visually checked out and verified . The motor that was installed was also a 5 horse Baldor which was also wired high voltage so we took the electricians word as good . When we started up the system , the motor ran the blower and system great , until we put any kind of a small load on the vac system . The motor would stall , tripped the breakers , blew fuses in an instant . They smoked quite a few contactors also in the process . We the mechanics totally disected the entire system and found nothing once again . 

This morning when the daylight electrician came in , I took him over to the blower room and showed him what was going on . John , a very talented and smart guy said immediately the motor was wired wrong . In 3 minutes he re-wired it low voltage and the system took off without a hitch . What I learned was to always read the motor plate and not just look at the motor itself . I' not an electrician so that's not my responsibility and I have to trust my co-workers . I did inform my higher ups that the issue was resolved at my morning meeting . They did not seem very happy . I had vacation planned for tonight and Sat night so I don't know the outcome as of yet , but this is not the first instance something of this magnitude has occurred with this electrician . We use contracted electricians as well a company employed . Sad that our contracted ones are so much better .  But yes , I am thrilled I took these 2 nights off when I did . The blood pressure would have surely been thru the roof .


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## matthewsx (Jul 31, 2021)

Well deserved time off.


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## Nutfarmer (Jul 31, 2021)

18 hours on down time will cut into management’s bonus. Surprised if the electrician will still have a job.


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## mmcmdl (Jul 31, 2021)

Nutfarmer said:


> 18 hours on down time will cut into management’s bonus. Surprised if the electrician will still have a job.


I would have to agree here . Not only were we down for 18 hours , my point is , my group was told this was top priority for the night . We had 8 hours straight trying to figure this out and found nothing . Meanwhile , the rest of the plant was having their issues as usuall . We could not assist in fixing these issues which caused a snowball effect . It turned into a 14 hr , no break no lunch night . We've been experiencing more and more of these lately .


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## jwmay (Jul 31, 2021)

Sadly, over the last 8 years I've worked with many electricians who were incompetent/dangerous. But if it's anything like my plant, he'll continue to cause problems until he finds someone he can fool into paying him more money to screw their stuff up instead. I know several people I wouldn't trust to change a light bulb move on to higher paying jobs in electrical trades.  States need to enforce licensing And testing requirements for anyone hired into this field. As it stands, the Union is the only one testing.


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## Bi11Hudson (Jul 31, 2021)

It seems that when the "bean counters" decided to merge the craft of Electrician and Millwright that any shade tree mechanic could qualify. And a "residential wireman" that had a county license is considered an electrician. The whole problem has been around for at least the last couple or three decades, probably more. Long gone are the days when the electrician could bypass one coil on a 4160 motor to keep it producing power. The problem is the loss of knowledge of how to bypass that one coil. With the advent of computer control of everything, the craft of electrician has become . . .  Well, I've been out of the field for 20 odd years. And thankfully don't need to see today's electrician opening a size 1 / 480 V starter looking for the controls of a 4160 motor. That one almost gave me heart failure when the line was still live, just in standby mode with the other two running. A 300 horse motor running on a 480 Volt 20 Amp circuit and you call yourself an electrician?!?!?! With the motor leads open. . .  Glad I'm retired out of it.

And it's as much the fault of the state, I suppose. The code requires a master electrician, but not that he be present all the time. Any hayseed that can twist the wires together fits the bill. Just so long as the master is on the payroll.

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## ddickey (Jul 31, 2021)

Why didn't management call in an electrician? Oh that's right then they have to pay OT and off shift differential.
Is it a union plant?
They used to tell us to trust but verify. In this instance it may have helped.??


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## homebrewed (Jul 31, 2021)

A number of years back I sent one of our mechanical vacuum pumps out for a rebuild.  It took an extraordinarily long time for the rebuild, so when it came back I re-installed it ASAP.  The pump was part of a $150K process etcher, and is the backing pump for a TMP (turbo-mechanical pump) -- so it was a high vacuum system, and critical for a lot of our analysis work.  When I turned the system on it didn't sound right so I turned it back off, and discovered that the backing pump had PRESSURIZED the tool!  The idiot who re-connected the pump motor wired it so it ran backwards.

Fortunately I caught the problem before any damage was done.  But never used that rebuilding company again.  I also implemented a pre-install checkout that verifies proper pump operation before it's installed in _anything_.


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## Janderso (Jul 31, 2021)

jwmay said:


> Sadly, over the last 8 years I've worked with many electricians who were incompetent/dangerous. But if it's anything like my plant, he'll continue to cause problems until he finds someone he can fool into paying him more money to screw their stuff up instead. I know several people I wouldn't trust to change a light bulb move on to higher paying jobs in electrical trades.  States need to enforce licensing And testing requirements for anyone hired into this field. As it stands, the Union is the only one testing.


I had a mechanic working for us years ago, it got to the point we couldn’t trust him to perform an oil change right.
We fired him.
A local dealer hired him. A couple years later he was their service manager.
Funny how things work out.


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## homebrewed (Jul 31, 2021)

A prime example of the Peter Principle.


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## sdelivery (Jul 31, 2021)

Those who can do...those that can't  manage....


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## Bi11Hudson (Jul 31, 2021)

And those that can't manage become consulting engineers.
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## Superburban (Jul 31, 2021)

Janderso said:


> I had a mechanic working for us years ago, it got to the point we couldn’t trust him to perform an oil change right.
> We fired him.
> A local dealer hired him. A couple years later he was their service manager.
> Funny how things work out.


The Military calls it  " F_ _ _ up & Move up." Just like private industry, the worst ones have the knack of moving on before they can be discovered as incompetent, or someone figures the quickest & easiest way to get rid of them is to promote them. Management tends to keep the good trustworthy workers under them.


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## Asm109 (Jul 31, 2021)

Referred to those guys as Teflon managers.  Because all the ****E they pulled never stuck to them.


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## Janderso (Jul 31, 2021)

sdelivery said:


> Those who can do...those that can't  manage....


Hey,
I’ve been in management for over 35 years…..


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## jwmay (Jul 31, 2021)

I can't believe you fired someone. I've never actually seen anyone get fired for incompetence. I got threatened with a write up once but that was for a clever email I sent to someone I didn't know. Another guy  left a 2" gas line open, not locked out, and had been trying to light the flame. I don't even think they talked to him about it. Another guy shorted the DC bus on a live servo drive, causing a small flash which burned all the hair off his arms, and all they did to him was print him a manual for the servo drive! Another guy pulled a good 100 hp motor off a stamping press cause "it was smoking so it must be bad".  Another time, a guy applied AC voltage to a dc circuit board to see why none of the LEDs were lit. All of these guys left my company for higher paying jobs as electricians. Caveat Emptor!


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## pdentrem (Jul 31, 2021)

homebrewed said:


> A number of years back I sent one of our mechanical vacuum pumps out for a rebuild.  It took an extraordinarily long time for the rebuild, so when it came back I re-installed it ASAP.  The pump was part of a $150K process etcher, and is the backing pump for a TMP (turbo-mechanical pump) -- so it was a high vacuum system, and critical for a lot of our analysis work.  When I turned the system on it didn't sound right so I turned it back off, and discovered that the backing pump had PRESSURIZED the tool!  The idiot who re-connected the pump motor wired it so it ran backwards.
> 
> Fortunately I caught the problem before any damage was done.  But never used that rebuilding company again.  I also implemented a pre-install checkout that verifies proper pump operation before it's installed in _anything_.


My dad ran into the same problem. Sent 100 hp DC motor to Westinghouse for rebuild. Came back with leads marked in reverse from when sent. Bang! Sent motor back and bill for damages to equipment and stoppage to navigation of waterway. Very expensive and time consuming.
Pierre


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## Bi11Hudson (Jul 31, 2021)

Way back ('75) when I was an electrician because I thought I was, the old timer I worked for taught me things I never imagined. Like how to bypass a grounded coil in a 2300 volt pump motor. The mold spin motors were compound wound DC motors where we used (shunt) field weakening to intentionally over speed the motor. They weren't that big, maybe 250 HP. But when one failed during operation, an electrician was stationed along side it to keep it running till the end of the production day. Using whatever was necessary, including a fire extinguisher if needed. Swappin a mold motor during operation could block out two or three machines while the crane handled the motor. With down time in the thousands of dollars per *minute*, it was cheaper to trash a motor than replace it during operation. They were replaced at night and sent to a motor shop that we had been dealing with since the '40s. Leo would rebuild whatever was needed, sometimes the motor leads were marked properly, sometimes not. The brushes were always new, as were the bearings. It essentially was a new motor, just a rough housing. When we changed the motor, the new install was always run for a few minutes without the belts. Not just the rotation, but to verify the motor was actually good. That comment "believe, but verify" struck a chord of memory, which ended up this extended text. Thanks for hearing me through.

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