Authorized Personnel Only [S3E17] Periwinkle Blue

[@Sir_Uncle_Ned]

That is some high quality vintage schmoo there. There are days when I envy you, being able to work with these wonderful machines. And then there's today.

[@-r-495]

Fully agree! Sincerely hope that dust doesn’t contain a certain material that was used in an excessive manner until the early 1990s.

[@joshmcdevitt190]

O’reily auto Carrie’s an orange plastic cleaning cup in the “HELP” section. It’s designed for removing gasket material without harming/deeply scarring aluminum. I’ve used them chucked up in a cordless drill to clean bus work, without harming it or the conformal finish. Looks like it and some contact cleaner to soften stuff would save you a ton of headaches.

[@tekvax01]

catching your shirt in the grinder is *ALWAYS* a party!

[@jonpattison]

Watched a guy get his shirt tail caught in the lead screw of a lathe. Not a lot of fun for him, but very entertaining for the rest of us...

[@tekvax01]

"from hell to breakfast", I can safely say, I've never heard that one before!

[@sethrice9939]

I’m thinking about the grease, dust and sometimes chaffe caked grime we cleaned off combines and tractors at the farm. We used an air compressor with the nozzle bro by the standard squeeze and blow kind. The business end being sort of like a wand with an 80 degree bend at the end. Made from a tiny copper water line. Like for your fridge. Got in to all the places you’d spend all day trying to clean or get to, in mere seconds. But add metallic magnetized gunk and yeah, that probably would be all mechanical cleaning.

[@3800scgp]

Oh man, looks like the schmoo that builds up on top of the machining centers where I work. Metal dust, evaporated coolant mist, and oil makes a fine paste indeed 😛 Good luck!

[@dieseldork6]

Love the videos! Really appreciated seeing a chainsaw in the mix...fixing electrical...takes all tools! Haha, probably for the blocking, but still random! Love it!

[@tekvax01]

"Bootsy, lunchbox, and meat"; sounds like a Soup Sandwich!

[@randomstranger9674]

You want my concubines? Sorry, no, that's a deal breaker.

[@CutTimeBrony]

I know its already done but we hot pressure wash stators all the time at the motor shop I work at. However we can a big ass oven to bake them dry right after.

[@jwshields]

You mentioned Simple Green for cleaning, have you ever heard of/used/tried Mean Green Degreaser? It's a rarity around my parts, but using it for automotive degreasing is pretty top notch. Not sure if it'd be corrosive or anything for the stator though.

[@Psi105]

I would combine scrubbing with compressed air.

[@obviouscaptain2931]

I'm new to this party, but I'm here for it. I'm thinking vacuum power coupled with compressed air would make quick work of a good bit of that vintage gunk. Ask me how I know, pretty please.

[@markhodgson2348]

We all appreciate your efforts and hope you have fun with your work

[@traqnsavov822]

cleaning with extraction gasoline, "Benzinum Petroleum" it is not conductive, evaporates quickly.. but it is not good to inhale!

[@TechnoW1zard]

How often do the magnets on the rotor need replacing, or re-magnetizing?

[@mrdiesel6303]

The magnets on the rotor are electro magnets. How powerful the magnets are controls the amount of electricity being produced in the armature.

[@sybergoosejr]

This is awesome to watch for me

[@-r-495]

Ah, the turbine blades have an adjustable angle!

[@gstpierre69]

@@-r-495 Kaplan Turbine. Used in low head applications

[@theGoogol]

Great Snatch reference! :)

[@Physicsduck]

Thank you! :) I'm glad you caught that.

[@theGoogol]

@@Physicsduck : Your channel is about to explode. Have you seen the stats of your channel recently?

[@Physicsduck]

Sure, but I've had little spikes before. This will pass. Sure I'm enjoying it while it lasts, but next week things will be quiet again.

[@theGoogol]

@@Physicsduck : We'll see 😊You have enough quality content to keep new subscribers like me busy for a while and from I can see on the stats, this should be good. Fingers crossed 👊🏾

[@theGoogol]

@@Physicsduck Congratz on 30k subs! (edit : and a quarter million daily views)

[@ocsrc]

I like the red shop towels

[@ocsrc]

The stator needs a shop vac and an air compressor, blow 120 psi air through it and suck the back side with a shop vac

[@1oddtech]

Could an argument be made to dry ice blast the stator so the turbine can go back online sooner than mechanically cleaning?

[@RNMSC]

I know this is a couple of years late, but as I understand it, it costs less to pay someone for the manual work, than the dry ice needed for a dry ice blast would cost, by enough of a margine that the reduction in man hours that provides wouldn't recover the difference when applied to the added hours that the generator could be spun up and operate. There may be other advantages and disadvantages in the process as well. One of the disadvantages I would think would be the need to ventilate that pit, as it's likely to gather CO2 from the Dry Ice sublimating might be a disadvantage, while the folk at Osha might consider the reduction in time of someone standing on the inner edge of a rim over a 12 foot hole to a metal floor, would reduce risk significantly. On the other hand, it keeps climbers who are well versed in rappelling, and rope harnesses up on their skills in these things. The best training for rope work is to make sure you are safe.

[@ocsrc]

That is a scary piece of equipment

[@el_es]

It Gets Better.

[@Buddyman1225]

What you gonna do with all the shit that comes off stator while you cleaning let it just fall down into pit ?

[@SamSitar]

your turbine is impressive. harness is a nice color. magic erasers are good. shit show is the price of cleaning something.

[@bobthedog123456]

I think ammonia would work well. Don't know if would damage the coil though.

[@patricktrudeau1996]

Is there a reason you couldn't use a hot water pressure washer with degreaser to clean the stator? If not, a tower climbing harness with a built in Bosun's Chair (or just a certified Bosun's Chair) would probably be the ticket if you're spending a week scraping it all by hand.

[@jfbeam]

Having used a pressure washer to clean generators before, it just needs to be dry when powered up. 'tho I'm not working with 350kW generators that make thousands of volts. (the generac's have a large warning to not run them in the rain - we do anyway. the big kohler doesn't say that, but is mounted where it can't rain on it.)

[@zovisapphire]

it has been mentioned in older videos that pressure washing would destroy insulation. water can cut things very easily at high pressures. I used it all the time to strip off paint. It's probably not worth it to take the chance that you might be JUST close enough for the pressure to be enough to cut something vital. This is a very old system so you can't exactly just order replacement parts off ebay or the local hardware store.

[@sandy1653]

On the one hand I don't envy you the job. On the other hand, putting some noise canceling ears in and carrying on a mindless task would be kinda relaxing. If incredibly tedious.

[@chrisrhodes5464]

It would be nice if you could use a steam cleaner to get it cleaned up

[@LtKernelPanic]

I don't envy you one bit. I'd be in a tyvek suit while cleaning all that gunk out because that looks like it'd be a bitch to get out of your overalls.

[@pawelfranzkowiak6239]

Maybe a dumb question but why not WD40 or Brake Cleaner the Shit out of it? This stuff is not condictive and at least the brake cleaner evaporates very fast.

[@ForfeMac]

Walnut blasting too abrasive? Or not abrasive enough?

[@JRRott-mj5jq]

So spraying it with cleaner is ok but power washing is not?🚬🤔

[@zovisapphire]

it's less about the cleaner or water than it is the pressure that can CUT things. water is crazy at high pressures. I used one to strip paint off things for galvanization.

[@nodrogdivad]

Your shitshow is my entertainment!

[@JRRott-mj5jq]

Why didn’t you just get a power washer with a hot water heater on it and clean the stator off.

[@Physicsduck]

Boss wouldn't pay for it. I don't own the plant, I just work here.

[@Sam-vx6le]

That disclaimer though!! Gets me every time.

[@Wtfinc]

2 comments? bro, ill clean giant inductors for free if it got me in the door.

[@Physicsduck]

If you're interested, there's a lot of power plants hiring for skilled trades! Go knock on the door!

[@-r-495]

I remember a co-apprentice using compressed air to clean out the fuse box mounted just beneath the ceiling in our mechanical shop. I can confirm that this can very well be conducive gunk, people using compressed air to clean fuse boxes mounted just beneath the high ceiling in a mechanical workshop will receive a new hairstyle at best but in our case nobody was holding the ladder after hours. The spark was at least 10ft long and left a massive black stain on the ceiling. The guy paid with broken bones and a dislocated shoulder but got lucky: The 🪜 wasn’t long enough to expose more than one hand and he got to tell the story 👀