# The Stuff I See



## Big John

The other day I was doing PM on a four pole 2 phase breaker from an era when the only electricity in the city was DC or 2 phase AC power. It occurred to me that I run into a lot of neat old stuff.

So I figured I'd share some of them here, and I'll post more as I find pictures or see stuff in the future.

Still functional 600V slate generator switchboard with the exciter rheostats on the top right:
 

Little 500W DC M/G set to supply battery power to the old flooded iron batteries:


Turn of the century generator exciter control:









Closeup of the exciter voltmeter:


The abandoned control board for a 1910 steam-turbine plant (I always regretted not grabbing one of those gauges to make into a clock):









And in that same plant, an original brass-and-iron drill press that was designed to be powered by leather belts from an overhead line-shaft:


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## HARRY304E

Nice,,,thanks John..:thumbup:


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## papaotis

wow! thats some old stuff. and still intact:thumbup:well, maybe not live?


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## chicken steve

living history!

~CS~


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## 8V71

Totally awesome....those are some coolass looking rheostats and meters.:thumbup:


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## flyboy

I love seeing stuff like that. :thumbsup:

The wife and I went to the Biltmore in Ashville, NC. Part of the tour was the mechanical room in the basement where they preserved three or four upgrades on the HVAC and old originol DC electrical system.

She had to drag me out that basement. It was so cool. :thumbup:

Thanks for sharing those pictures.


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## fdew

Thats wonderful, Thanks for sharing it.


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## Big John

papaotis said:


> wow! thats some old stuff. and still intact:thumbup:well, maybe not live?


 Some of it sure was. The gear in the top picture was 600V here's the back side with a nice walkway between and under a bunch of exposed bus:


The DC exciter control with the neat voltmeter was energized, but the knife switch had been taken out of the circuit.


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## 360max

Big John said:


> Some of it sure was. The gear in the top picture was 600V here's the back side with a nice walkway between and under a bunch of exposed bus:
> 
> 
> The DC exciter control with the neat voltmeter was energized, but the knife switch had been taken out of the circuit.


...is most of your work in Cuba, Big John?


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## HackWork

I thought this thread was going to be about Eric's balls. 


I'm not sure if I'm happy or let down...


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## Big John

360max said:


> ...is most of your work in Cuba, Big John?


 Ah, Cuba! Where the jungles are friendly and the women are easy to hide in! 

There is a surprising amount of work out there like this. That's why I started this thread.


HackWork said:


> I thought this thread was going to be about Eric's balls...


 No, that's a different thread called "The Stuff I'm Trying to Unsee."


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## 360max

Big John said:


> Ah, Cuba! Where the jungles are friendly and the women are easy to hide in!
> 
> There is a surprising amount of work out there like this. That's why I started this thread. No, that's a different thread called "The Stuff I'm Trying to Unsee."


it had to take you back a bit first time where called to fix one of these antiques. Pretty cool to see tho!


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## circuitman1

we have an old power plant down in columbia with stuff like that still whirling around.next to the musseum.talk about noisy, the old genny's were loud.but all powered by water.which i could get some pics, but they want let ya anymore.don't rember the voltage, but was open terminals.:thumbup:


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## HARRY304E

flyboy said:


> I love seeing stuff like that. :thumbsup:
> 
> The wife and I went to the Biltmore in Ashville, NC. Part of the tour was the mechanical room in the basement where they preserved three or four upgrades on the HVAC and old originol DC electrical system.
> 
> She had to drag me out that basement. It was so cool. :thumbup:
> 
> Thanks for sharing those pictures.



Check out the Thomas Edison plantation in Florida 

:thumbsup:


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## LARMGUY

I like that old drill press.


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## pete87

Hold the 500W DC Motor Generator , I will take it .


Thanks
Pete


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## USMC240

That stuff looks so cool. Whenever it gets torn out I bet a Hollywood prop company would buy it, looks like something you see in old movies.


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## JRaef

Portland OR, or Portland ME?


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## Zog

USMC240 said:


> That stuff looks so cool. Whenever it gets torn out I bet a Hollywood prop company would buy it, looks like something you see in old movies.


They don't buy, they rent. We build stuff for movie sets all the time.


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## Toronto Sparky

Great Photos...


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## piperunner

Well i like it John they just dont make **** like that anymore !:thumbup:


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## janagyjr

JRaef said:


> Portland OR, or Portland ME?


or Portland, TN

Cool thread BJ, thanks for sharing.  :thumbsup:


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## TeslaL1

*Nice!!*

Wow! I learned the trade on this kind of stuff before allowed to hold a modern multi meter! Love the pics, where are they from? Still functional? I just replaced K&T from a 1903 built mansion. What was cool about it was all the original gas lines were still in the walls for gas lamps as the house was built before the grid was in the area. They pre wired it by wrapping K&N around the gas lines.
Awesome pics thx for sharing.


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## Cletis

HARRY304E said:


> Check out the Thomas Edison plantation in Florida
> 
> :thumbsup:


I refuse to go to that one...He F'd up Tesla and i'm bitter about it


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## boora2

Cletis said:


> I refuse to go to that one...He F'd up Tesla and i'm bitter about it


 Cletis,think those trees there are not banyan trees,but strangler fig trees.


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## just the cowboy

Wow the power company still supplies 2 phase. I haven't seen that since Phila. got rid of it in the 70's. My shop teacher got a lot of used stuff from the factorys so we could work on it. Most people hear 2 phase and think 240V of a single phase circuit


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## Big John

pete87 said:


> Hold the 500W DC Motor Generator , I will take it.


 Unless someone scrapped it, it's still sitting there. I could've grabbed it at the time, but I've already got DVD cases made of 1900 era glass voltage-regulator cabinets, and shelf I made out of a gutted WWII battery charger: I had to try really hard not to just bring home a ton of random junk. :laughing:


JRaef said:


> Portland OR, or Portland ME?


 Portland ME, but we work all over New England.


just the cowboy said:


> Wow the power company still supplies 2 phase. I haven't seen that since Phila. got rid of it in the 70's....


 Apparently there is still actual 2 phase distribution in Philadelphia; there are guys here who've said they've worked on it. 

The stuff I run into is old internal plant distribution. One of our customers still uses it to run their entire plant, and they just convert it in the substation. Unfortunately it's tough getting pictures because a lot of places have strict no-camera rules. But I'm keeping my eyes peeled for more photos to share.


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## Big John

Had to do some PM and oil changeout on a bunch of vintage GE oil circuit breakers and grabbed a few photos.

The top of one, still with the original conductors with tar-impregnated cambric insulation carrying 2400 volts:









Internal contacts in the open position. Dead simple design, you can see that bottom cross piece just moves up or down to make contact between Line and Load. I think the cylindrical insulators on the outside of each phase are fiberglass, but on many of them they were still wood. The phase barriers and tank liners were just wood saturated with oil to make it a good insulator:









And in the closed position. The problem with these breakers is that the operator isn't really spring charged: There's a cam assistance to help prevent them from being closed slowly enough to arc, but a stupid operator could still do it. And what trips them is just the force of gravity pulling down on that whole hanging contact assembly. Old oil with high combustible gas content, plus that questionable operation is what tends to make these things into bombs.


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## adamc

wow

great stuff !


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## 8V71

Wicked stuff Big John. Keep them pics a coming!!!


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## ampman

it seems like wood soaked in oil would make a better conductor than insulator


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## Big John

ampman said:


> it seems like wood soaked in oil would make a better conductor than insulator


 I've always thought the same thing about the kraft paper used in high voltage transformers. Seems like it would still conduct electricity, oil or no oil. E.g., if you have a metal screen, it doesn't make any difference if you put it in oil, it's gonna be just as conductive. I believe the same would be true for wood.

But if you check out this table, oven dried wood (which is what they'd use) can have the same resistivity as air. So the oil helps extinguish arcing, provides cooling, and can provide a barrier against contamination to make sure the wood _stays _a good insulator, but I'm not sure the oil actually does anything to make it a _better _insulator.


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## Ontario

Beautiful! Damn man, this is just plain awesome!


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## Big John

So I know this isn't vintage, but I figured somebody would get a kick out of this and didn't see a reason to make a whole thread:

Some big honking donut current transformers:










If the bus hadn't been running in the middle, I honestly could've climbed right on through there. They were about the same diameter as a 55 gallon drum. 8,000 amp, 19kV bus.


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## KDC

That's some big doughnuts. 

Better than what I've been doing. Waiting on weather to get better to do oil samples on Converter Transformers. 

Although, today got to help change out a HV Vacuum Breaker for our valve halls. That was interesting. Sucks we have a no pictures policy from the worksite.


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## Big John

KDC said:


> ...Better than what I've been doing. Waiting on weather to get better to do oil samples on Converter Transformers....


 Whatsa matter? Can't walk outside for a couple minutes!? :laughing: It's been nice here, but had to go up and do a transmission line inspection today where it ran over the ridgetop was a steady 30MPH 15° wind. It was a long several hours.


> ...Sucks we have a no pictures policy from the worksite.


 Yeah, it's a bummer. I've been keeping an eye out for stuff with this thread in mind, but unless it comes through the shop, it's a rare case when I'm allowed to photograph anything.


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## JRaef

Every time I revisit this thread it inspires me to dig deeper for my old film pictures of a power generating and pump station built in Spokane WA in 1906. The dam generated power off of the river, then they ran water pumps to push the water up hill to storage reservoirs when power wasn't being used at night, releasing it later when they needed it. Concepts people talk about today as if they are new ideas...

Long ago they had abandoned the storage as power generation and use it now as potable water, pulling the water out of an artesian well instead of the river. I had a contract to replace the old 1906 slate board 2400V wound rotor motor starters for the pumps with modern soft starters. Looked a lot like the first set of pictures Big John posted here, then I had the "after" pictures. The back room behind the slate boards was all open bus bars too, they called it "The Suicide Room" because one slip or misstep in there and it was all over.

Here's a web shot of 3 of the pumps, one old and 2 new. 









There were 3 more bigger ones too, can't find an overall shot of the plant though. Here's an old shot of one of the bigger ones we removed. 








It too was replaced by a big vertical turbine pump like those shown above.


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## Jlarson

JRaef said:


> It too was replaced by a big vertical turbine pump like those shown above.


It's the second stargate! :laughing: :laughing:



wildleg said:


> forget all that other stuff. just get the stargate working so you can hunt down some alien booty


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## Big John

JRaef said:


> Every time I revisit this thread it inspires me to dig deeper for my old film pictures of a power generating and pump station built in Spokane WA in 1906...


 Great pictures. Do you know any of the history on that pump house? It reminds me a whole lot of this drydock pump station at the Kittery Navy Yard (it's the round building in the background) which I believe Thomas Edison had a hand in designing and it's on a registry of historic places, but I can't find much public info to back that up. 










That one actually goes down five stories below what's pictured there, to below the floor of the drydock. The controls have since been upgraded, so it's no longer the DC M-G sets and open knife-switches, but the pumps and architecture are all still original.


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## JMC679

Big John said:


> Great pictures. Do you know any of the history on that pump house? It reminds me a whole lot of this drydock pump station at the Kittery Navy Yard (it's the round building in the background) which I believe Thomas Edison had a hand in designing and it's on a registry of historic places, but I can't find much public info to back that up. That one actually goes down five stories below what's pictured there, to below the floor of the drydock. The controls have since been upgraded, so it's no longer the DC M-G sets and open knife-switches, but the pumps and architecture are all still original.



since I've been in the same pump house assuming it's the one in front of the power house and directly across the dry dock from the refueling riggers crane... You forgot to mention the coolest part of the pump house. The roofs removal able to pull pumps. Or so I was told while I was working for an outside contractor there as a pipe fitter. Here's a pic dry dock ones pump house, motors and pumps. I lost all of my pics on my phone from the powerhouse and the pump well on drydock 3? You posted the original pic of.


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## dmxtothemax

flyboy said:


> I love seeing stuff like that. :thumbsup:


.


Same here !

:thumbsup:


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## Galt

What's the most impressive to me is the quality of the material and workmanship. Easy to repair even though it would last forever.


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## Big John

Galt said:


> What's the most impressive to me is the quality of the material and workmanship. Easy to repair even though it would last forever.


 There is something to be said for that. I've had some very "animated" conversations with plant supervisors because they couldn't understand that a lot of this ancient stuff is so overbuilt that it can be terribly, terribly broken and it will still technically run. 

After the nuclear apocalypse comes, when all the computer controlled 500 megawatt plants are completely ruined, I'll be able to take a couple of car batteries into an old turn-of-the-century hydroelectric station and still be able to put it online.


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