Iron Miners
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 6:36 am

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 106 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ... 8  Next
Author Message
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:44 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
Posts: 6872
Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
well worked on the motor today. adam and banks stopped by for some assistance. so i hooked up my rebuilt knife switch, circuit breaker and rewired the resistor bank. also made new main power cables to go into the battery box. while doing my wiring, adam was grinding the access panels off the motor. this later provided the best discovery yet. so after he grinded off the pannels, i took a look inside and noticed there is only 2 sets of motor brushes. not 4 like i thought before! now get this. theres 4 brushes on each brush block so after some complex trig, and algibra i came out with 8 brushes total. so, all of the springs on the brushes except 2 are broken. so this thing is still running after 80 years, on 2 brushes and the others just bearly touching! that is amazing. not only did this thing sit outside uncovered but in the rain and elements for how long. this baby is going to have some serious ass when the brush blocks are rebuilt. they were going to come out tonight, and adam got all the bolts freed up but on to the next problem........ so i got it all wired. hooked up the meter and it all rung out perfectly. well we hooked it up. video running and here we go........ nothing. crap. so we checked the battery voltage. all 4 24 volt batteries were less than 10 volts and when loaded under the mine motor, it all went to a big fat 0! oh well. gotta charge it up. these are just the test batteries and will not be in it when we run it for real. in the mean time banksey ol boy was having his own troubles. so his mission is the head lamp on the drivers end. the other is missing and needs to be fabricated yet. so he made 3 trips to the hardware store to get the parts he needed. then proceded to break the ceramic lamp holder. guess it wasnt our night to get things working. but at least we got it all wired up and ready to go. its still jacked up and on the stands so as soon as the batteries charge up she will be ready for a test run. probably thrusday. pics to follow.....

chris

pics: http://www.ironminers.com/mineforum/vie ... php?t=1337

_________________
Come over to the Dark Side....... We have Cookies!


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:55 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
Posts: 6872
Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
HAHA, one of mike piersas friends ray mercado located some records on our mine motor. they have drawings of the axle assemblies, bill of meterials, and inspection reports. they are checking on photos today and tomorow. this is great!

_________________
Come over to the Dark Side....... We have Cookies!


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 8:40 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
Posts: 6872
Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
well went up to do a little running on the motor today. took up 4 freshly charged batteries. hooked them up, then jumpered them to the mine motor and............. nothing. crap. what is wrong with this thing. so i got out the meter. no power to the controller, no power to the resistor bank, ok, no power to the knife switch, no power to the breaker, ok, no power at the end of the jumper cables...... what the......?? ok so the one clamp on the cables was shot so i recrimped the connector and haha she runs. the speeds on the resistor bank are a little screwed up, again, but its all good. just need to switch some wires around and she will run perfect. this is the first time is was ran on 4 batteries. every other time it was just 3. so now we had full operating voltage and let me tell you this thing is going to be fast! just wait till the motor is rebrushed and she will be cherry! tomorow adam and i are going to swap the wires around on the resistor, and possibly pull the brush holders out of the motor. first we are going to run it for about 2 mins at its slowest speed. this will put the most resistance on the batteries and im going to measure the voltage drop from start up to stop. take the difference and it should give us a good idea of a current draw from this baby. i ran it for about 40 sec tonight. which is the longest time it has run since it was put out of service. cool, good stuff!

_________________
Come over to the Dark Side....... We have Cookies!


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 1:34 pm 
Offline
Site Admin

Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:33 pm
Posts: 3080
Location: Above the Sterling Hill Mine
Very neat.. However keep in mind while being on low will cause the resister bank to draw the most resistance, the motor will still have no load on it. I'd love to know how much it draws still, but I don't think that will be a final number in any way.

So whats the problem, is the controller speeds wired to the wrong resistor banks?

Miner Greg


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 3:23 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
Posts: 6872
Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
that is correct, i miswired the wires to the resistor bank, so i just need to move it around a bit. there will be the most drop at the slowest speed because you are going through the entire bank. but like you said it will be different cause there is no load, unless i add a little brake. i dont want to do that till the new brushes are in though. did a fast run test last night and checked it with a meter and the highest drop was at the slowest speed. it dropped from 99 volts to 92 volts while running. at full it only dropped to 96. but youre right the test i want to do will be in no way a way to figure how long it will run, i just picked a time limit and am curious to see how much the batteries drop. it wont be any type of scientific test just a simple run down test. ill let you know how i do later. we are probably going to run it for awhile tonight then start rippin-n-tearin on the motor brush blocks. then begins the search for brushes.

_________________
Come over to the Dark Side....... We have Cookies!


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:00 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2006 11:47 pm
Posts: 143
Location: NEPA
Well kids, tonight was a success!!! Chris and I were working on the mine motor, and we figured out our little problem with the speed control, seems that we had the speed one wire on the wrong side of the bank, so after a little bit of head scratching and continuity test we got it squared away and it now works beautifully. You should see this thing spin the wheels, it's gonna be fast. We also did our little voltage drop test and the lowest we got it to drop to was 83.9 volts, that was in speed 2 with the brake all the way on, but soon recovered as we took the brake off. So after our little test and alot of jumping up and down we decided to start ripping into the motor. The two bolts that held the top brush block came out flawlessly and were actually still shiny! So after a little bit of fanagling we got it out all in one piece. Now for the second brush block on the bottom after I broke the bolts loose I was able to turn the bolts out by hand!!! Thats kinda hard to believe since this machine was built in 1926 and has sat outside for how many years. Well after we pulled the brush blocks out we checked the all out and you wouldn't believe it! The brushes look as if they are almost brand new, we couldn't believe it, The bottom brush came apart easily but the top one needed some work because of it being exposed to the weather. So for the rest of the night Chris cleaned the commutator up to a beautiful shine while I worked on the brushes. Guys if it ran this good on only 2 brushes, I can't wait to see it on all eight. If I missed anything Chris will fill in, Later


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:29 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
Posts: 6872
Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
yea you pretty much got it. thanks for the post. now i dont have to :D . but i do have pics.......;

http://www.ironminers.com/mineforum/vie ... php?t=1337

and video.....

http://www.ironminers.com/mineforum/vie ... php?t=1364

_________________
Come over to the Dark Side....... We have Cookies!


Last edited by Chris on Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 10:51 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
Posts: 6872
Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
ill tell you what guys, when we started this project we never meant to get this indepth in our restoration. now its so fun its hard to stop. i just want to make it better and better! and the cool thing is that its super easy to do. the thing is so simple that seriously anyone can do it. when you have problems and everything doesnt work out right some little tricks help out, but general work on it is easy. i mean it was built in 1926 how complicated can it be! it is very rewarding to take this rusting hunk of steel from then and totally restore it and bring it back to life. this is one experience thats memory will last a lifetime. and just think, we have 3 more to do after this. but i only think one will run...... but then again when i first got this one i didnt have any hope! look how that changed. i love this thing. its actually like therapy going there for a few hours after work to do some tinkering :D

chris

_________________
Come over to the Dark Side....... We have Cookies!


Last edited by Chris on Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 10:51 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
Posts: 6872
Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
yesterday i got some parts for the motor. got some insulating paint for the inside of the motor, new springs for the brushes. took the brushes to a motor shop in scranton, northend electric, and they took one look at the brushes i took out and said, why do you want to replace these? they are brand new! then i showed him a pic of the commutator after i polished it up and he said that motor doesnt have 10 hours on it since it was rebuilt. so it must have been rebuilt then the mine closed. sweet! so on 2 brushes the leads are shot so he gave me 3 new ones and we are going to install all the others. he only had 3 in stock but he said there was no reason not to use the ones i took out. i also got all the brush holders all bead blasted up yesterday. there were some mica waffer insulation disks on it stacked up totalling about 3/4 inch thick, but as a replacement i ordered insulating nylon for it. thats going to be better. plus we kind of wrecked some of the mica taking them off. i know underwoods motor barn is full of them and i was going to go get some but the nylon will be better. that will be in on monday, so we will assemble the brush blocks then and paint the inside of the motor. later next week we will reassemble the motor and see if we didnt kill it.

chris

_________________
Come over to the Dark Side....... We have Cookies!


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 9:32 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
Posts: 6872
Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
tonight adam and i finnished up the brush block assemblies. got them together, new brushes in and the attaching fittings painted. also at work today, i had one of the machine shop guys make up some plastic insulating spacers to take the place of the mica ones on the brush holders. they look much better than the old mica. so those are ready to install. adam painted the exterior of the motor itself and i sprayed the inside with insulating paint. wait till you see this baby! i took some pics but im not going to post any until its finnished later this week, or early next week. its going to be pretty lets just hope it runs again :?

_________________
Come over to the Dark Side....... We have Cookies!


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 9:55 pm 
Offline

Joined: Tue Nov 14, 2006 11:47 pm
Posts: 143
Location: NEPA
Well guys, you should see this thing coming together now, With my expert painting, and chris's shiny refurbished brush blocks you will hardly be able to see all the paint runs...........ok, just kidding , but it is coming together very well, with the new paint and the shiny blocks you wouldn't reconize it from the old photos. Just wait till you see it, you iron boys are going to be jealous. When we're done we should have a race, you guys can push your loaded steel ore cars, and we will pull our loaded wooden coal cars, see who comes in first, that would be interesting.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 10:56 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
Posts: 6872
Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
haha nice! and theyre not runs, theyre flow directional indicators! :lol:

_________________
Come over to the Dark Side....... We have Cookies!


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 10:08 pm 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:34 pm
Posts: 6872
Location: Within 60 Miles of the Northern Anthracite Field
So, tonight we did a little more work to the motor. ok, well it was our most sucessful night of work since we started the project. when we got the nice controller from the ohio boys we knew we had to make the motor nice, well here it is. it took just under a week to rebuild the brush blocks and install new brushes, paint the motor, and put it back together. so here it is. i couldnt believe the power difference from before! well i couldnt believe that it actually ran after we took it apart let alone have more power :lol: but anyways its much better and the arcing problem we had in the controller is virtually non existant anymore. it runs so good, adam and i ran it so long we ran the batteries down. i gotta charge them up and go over all the grease fittings again. also want to dump each gear box out while its running and flush them out with solvent. then refill them. good stuff. only thing left is new u-joints. but that might be a big job, like the controller, like the paint, like the bumpers, like the batteries, the motor...... oh yea those will be easy! :lol: heres a sample.

Motor guts before:


Image


Motor guts after!


Image



More pics:

http://www.ironminers.com/mineforum/vie ... php?t=1439

and video:

http://www.ironminers.com/mineforum/vie ... =7414#7414

_________________
Come over to the Dark Side....... We have Cookies!


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2006 12:07 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2005 3:43 pm
Posts: 921
Location: Western PA
lookin pretty sharp there boys!

_________________
-Thou shalt not little vein-


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2006 9:00 am 
Offline
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:41 pm
Posts: 2919
Location: Hard coal region, PA
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

_________________
This ain't longwall... this is long hole!


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 106 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ... 8  Next

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 17 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group