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#13066 - 12/24/14 04:10 AM westinghouse car runs with doors open  
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Vatorgator Offline
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Was looking to see if anyone has had a similar experience on a old duplex traction job, 2c2bc erl controls.
we were replacing the 41B coil on the number 1 car, had the power off, and had to loosen the screw holding the ES relay, in order to get the coil in and out. While we were in the midst of replacing, building engineer came to machine room and indicated that the other car was running with the doors open. we immediately shut off the car, and i had the mechanic run down to make sure the doors were closed and we had control of car, he met 4 people in the stairway that were in the car when it ran with the doors open, very scary situation, after we made sure the car doors would not open we ran the car from the controller, and it ran fine, now we are a bit uneasy to say the least, we decided to get the coil replaced so we could have one car running in the building, while trying to get the coil in, we noticed that the direction relays 2A, and 2B would pick up in the other car that was on controller inspection at the time, they would chatter as i moved the 41b relay around. if 41B number 21 contact would touch the frame of the controller, the direction relays would pick in the other car, i could simulate the problem by just putting a jumper on 41b 21 contact to ground, and sure enough the direction relays would pick up in the other car, it did not matter if any of the door relays were out, or the 29 relay was out, i could physically hold 41,41a etc out and still would pick up direction relays. so now i decided to find out why, ended up finding the number 21 contact of LU relay in the contact holder incorrectly, causing it to be wedged up against the relay frame, repaired it, and now i could not get the direction relays to pick. I decided to see if i could simulate this exact situation with the other car, so i proceed to jump same to contacts to ground in opposite cars, and sure enough same outcome. This seems to be a design flaw, since 79 and 00 power supply is ungrounded, this double ground situation somehow found a path between the 2 controllers and cause this problem. strange thing is that the bigger relays, 2 and 6 did not pick up while i was testing this scenario, only 2a and 2b, using the meter, i found that there was only 48vdc across 2a, 2b, 2 and 6 relays with respect to 00, just enough to pick up the ES relays, but not enough to pick up the bigger 2 and 6 relays, however the car did run with both car and hall doors open, as we have 4 eyewitnesses. so i am thinking that while moving the 41b relay around, some of the other contacts must have introduced a little extra voltage to the scenario to pick up the relays 2, and 6 or the car stopped, and 2 and 6 dropped, but then 48vdc was applied, and that may have been enough to repick the relays. Has anyone experienced anything like this?
the 41 b contact that i grounded was in the 438 circuit, I know it seems like 1 in a million chance for this to happen again, but i was the 1, and it will happen elsewhere
just giving a heads up to be careful when working on these cars, or any system that has floating power supplies for the controller. If any one can give me any advice, please pm me, if you have ran across this situation. or something similar

#13068 - 12/24/14 05:38 PM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: Vatorgator]  
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E311 Offline
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Wow! That's really bad. The ERL Westinghouse uses each side of the exciter for its control voltage and return. Make VERY sure that the controller frame is grounded. The control voltage does not use ground as its reference point-it uses one side of the exciter.

#13070 - 12/24/14 11:05 PM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: E311]  
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I'd check 79-00, 511-512 and 311-312 to ground in both controllers. I think you have a ground on one of those supplies and another ground on the car that moved with the doors open.

#13071 - 12/25/14 12:44 PM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: E-man]  
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This is a scary situation, but surely after all these years design flaws would have surfaced by now. So bearing this in mind there has to be a fault somewhere. Maybe the same equipment elsewhere is good place to test this theory. The only Westinghouse print I've seen, shows a closed loop circuit apart from direction contactors going through the rototrol circuits. If there was a main contactor in series with the motor and generator armature loop circuit this movement wouldn't occur unless this relay has a proper supply to it.

#13073 - 12/25/14 04:36 PM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: uppo72]  
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Sounds like you have 2 sources grounded. With a ground effecting the doorlocks or should I say 79-00 this can be bad! We would use a 200 Watt light bulb on a utility cord. Cut the plug end off and pull back wiring. Strip the White/Black and ground one end. Touch other end to (79,00,311,312,511,512). If 79 to ground lights the bulb your 00 source has a ground! You use a light bulb to verify it can carry current and is not induced! Also if you put your light bulb on 79 and it lights very faintly, start at the top of the controller picking up each relay momentarily. If the light gets brillant look for the contact on that relay causing it...Hopefully the mechanics have keep the power supplies seperated over the years and used the correct wiring colors for sources. Or you could be in for some FUN!

#13075 - 12/26/14 03:30 AM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: halfpick]  
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jkh Offline
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VatorGator,
I'm woundering why your not blowing the fuses? Something is allowing the 48vdc to bypass the 40, 40A, 41 & 41A contacts. Are the controllers connected next to each other? Is there a square conduit on top connecting the two? Any chance where the wires come thru are worn thru the insulation? Have you isolate the 48vdc and work back from there. Is the 48vdc coming from the exciter or somewhere else? If it is the exciter where is the rest of the 125v?

I'm looking at DWG 477639 sub10.


Make good choices,

JKH
#13077 - 12/27/14 02:48 AM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: jkh]  
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Is this a side by side construction? Is the field wiring coming in a common conduit or ducting? I wonder if you have a short from 79 to ground and/or pinching/inducing this short via the mixing of the 2 field wiring within these structures. Maybe the over travel/direction limits wiring?? This should blow fuses, so I would place a short to see if this blows the fuses at the very least.

Last edited by uppo72; 12/27/14 02:54 AM.
#13081 - 12/27/14 04:28 PM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: uppo72]  
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halfpick Offline
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You are not blowing fuses because more than one power feed is grounded. Most system are HOT to ground! This isn't! With multiple grounds in the system and the other car shut-off for repairs you now have something bypassing the doors. Some of the older systems had a coil at the beginning of the doorlock ckt and at the end? If the grounds were on contacts in that circuit....no fuse would blow and you just jumped them out! More than likely when the other unit was shut-off that provided the "perfect-situation". I do agree these car's had to be doing some strange things when the system slowed down! That's why we did maintenance back in the day and performed system checks on weekends and at nights....This would of come up an been addressed! Oh....That's why you keep 79 with 00 and 511 with 512. Most guy's over the years use whatever they can find....Those colored wires are there for a reason!

#13083 - 12/28/14 04:20 PM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: halfpick]  
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I agree with Halfpick. You're not blowing fuses because you only have ONE ground per supply, per car. Very scary because you can have one ground and not know about it unless you get another one in the same supply or something out of the ordinary is noticed or happens.

#13086 - 12/29/14 08:18 AM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: E-man]  
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Originally Posted By: E-man
I agree with Halfpick. You're not blowing fuses because you only have ONE ground per supply, per car. Very scary because you can have one ground and not know about it unless you get another one in the same supply or something out of the ordinary is noticed or happens.


Ok but would it be also fair to say it depends on 'where' the short is? If the current isn't high enough to over current the fuse then it wont blow? Fair statement? If there is a load between supply and an earth(ground) that suppressors the current flow the fuse wouldn't blow? If there isn't then the current would be high surely?

#13088 - 12/29/14 05:15 PM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: uppo72]  
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Agreed.

#13090 - 12/29/14 11:56 PM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: E-man]  
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Thanks Halfpick,
Looking at the limited information I have, I do see how westinghouse has supplied 79 00, 311 312 & 511 512. And I understand that these circuits are not grounded. The print I am looking at for the 2c2bc ERL doesn't have a 41b contact in the 438 circuit. 438 is feed from 311 & 312. Relays 1, 1a & 1b are parallel in their circuit feed by 79 & 00.

Is it possible I'm looking at it all wrong? Is it possible that power from "let's say" 311 & 312 is shorted over to 79 & 00?


Make good choices,

JKH
#13091 - 12/30/14 01:28 AM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: jkh]  
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Vatorgator You have some good old fashion troubleshooting to do here. We have dug into similar duplex shorting problems but never with the same outcome as yours witch is as bad as it can get running with doors open. Opening your feeds to 311-312-511-512 and see if the problem goes away. Always try and cut things in half till you loose your problem. Disconnect T cable wires and check again. Older Westinghouse are very bad about diodes shorting when they go bad vs opening up. Does the short or ground only occur with a relay picked or dropped or is it there all the time. You will need to get permission to come in at night for this one Im afraid unless you can have both cars down during the day. We have had to cut the wires between each row of relays once you determine the feed you are after. Normally the brown wire if I remember correctly. Again cut thing in half and see where you lose the problem. Take the time to do a good visual check front and back to see if something looks out of place like the ladder you found. Especially where relays have been replaced I have seen a wire soldered back into the wrong spot that drove 3 mechanics crazy for a week. I have also seen where the Bakelite spacers between the stationary contacts on the NA NB relays had burnt and turned to charcoal and short 3 sets of contacts together. Everything looked fine till you poked your meter lead right into the Bakelite!!!!

#13092 - 12/30/14 01:40 AM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: jkh]  
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The problem arises when contacts from one source become common to other sources in a different supply. Once this happens things get jumped out. So....Say a doorlock in the 79-00 circuit goes common with a selector contact in the 311-312 circuit only when the car is at the basement. Which is where you shut the other car off at! Because you have other relays and contacts in these circuits you won't blow a fuse, but you could jump out a safety device like a doorlock feeding 311 that is grounded but not in the doorlock circuit through a contact or contacts to the 41 relay to the other side to 00. Allowing the car to run with the doors open....It could happen! I would bet if you just could turn the car that is shutdown on...This would go away....Use the lightbulb to discover your grounds and life will return to normal!

#13094 - 12/30/14 04:00 AM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: halfpick]  
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both cars are running, maybe i did not explain myself correctly. There were 2 grounds that caused this problem, 1 ground in the direction circuit, that being the LU contact that was touching the frame of the relay thus grounding it, and the other being in the 438 circuit, which i grounded by moving the relay around while changing the coil. if you look at the 438 circuit, there is a 1000 ohm resistor that comes right off of the 311 line, and then into the 438 coil circuit, i inadvertently grounded the right side of that resistor by moving the relay around. The grounded LU contact had been like that for who knows how long, and when i introduced the ground in the 438 circuit, the problem arose. I did take some measurements with the meter while i was tracing out why the direction relays were picking, and from 00 to the the right side of that 1000 ohm resistor that was grounded i was getting 48 vdc, the same voltage that was from 00 to the left side of the direction relays 2,2A,6 etc. i had 48 vdc across direction relays, that is how i isolated the problem back to the LU contact, once i broke the feed to the grounded LU contact, the voltage across direction relays dropped to 0. The car that was running, and ran with the doors open, had a ground in the direction circuit, and when i introduced a ground in 438 circuit of the car that was shut down and i was working on, that is when the car ran with doors open,
both cars are running now, there are no grounds in either of the cars power supplies now, However, like i explained earlier, i can simulate the exact scenario on the opposite car. We have been given some advice to use the lightbulbs to check for grounds on all our westinghouse cars, as half pick has suggested. I think it has something to do with the drop across the 1000 ohm resistor in the 438 circuit, since the car i was working on was shut off, the car that was running, and ran with doors open, was supplying the feed to the 311- 312 circuit, grounding out the right side of that 1000 ohm resistor and grounding out the LU contact cause a feed between the 2 points. I am in portland for a week, but when i get back i will go to another job and see if i can duplicate the problem. I believe i can duplicate it elsewhere, I will keep you posted. JKH in this duplex controller, 79 and 00 are the same as 311 and 312. with car number 1 off, car number 2's 79 and 00 will feed the common feed 311 and 312. Halfback, i did not try to duplicate the problem with both cars power on, maybe i will check into that as well when i get back

#13095 - 12/30/14 05:05 AM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: Vatorgator]  
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On a side note observation... Just the other day a guy who was with me when I had an ES relay coil to change wanted to loosen the relay screw to move the relay around, which I've never done and I've changed many coils. I push on the relays on each side bending them slightly out of the way (and bending the relay I'm changing also) so I can get the coil out. He also wanted to take the ladders off, which I've never done. I guess everyone has their own way they have been taught to do things...

#13096 - 12/30/14 05:59 AM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: E-man]  
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Wow good find. We had many old montgomery vv jobs up here with floating grounds. All of them were required to have engineered GFCI's installed in the early 90s after a similar outcome caused serious injury. If you do end up finding a common situation it would be beneficial to the industry and the public, so kudos to you for chasing this one down.

#13097 - 12/30/14 11:24 PM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: rollaway-up]  
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VatorGator,
Thank you for you follow up. Have a safe trip.

To Halfpick, E311, EMan, Uppo, Dan & Rollaway thank you for your participation.

I wish the best to all for the new year and hope that all stay safe.


Make good choices,

JKH
#13098 - 12/31/14 04:14 AM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: jkh]  
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Originally Posted By: jkh
VatorGator,
Thank you for you follow up. Have a safe trip.

To Halfpick, E311, EMan, Uppo, Dan & Rollaway thank you for your participation.

I wish the best to all for the new year and hope that all stay safe.

Thanks mate and all the best to rest of the lads as well.

#13099 - 12/31/14 04:18 AM Re: westinghouse car runs with doors open [Re: uppo72]  
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I also agree that if this is a design flaw, then a must change into the circuit is needed.

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