Saving a 1965 Generator for heritage preservation.

[Mark W]

So, very long story short.......I got given a bit of a generator, free if you take it out! All sounds too good to be true and it was, they got the better deal financially but I got what I wanted in terms of my quest to save these items of the British electrical engineering past.

Just a few issues, it wont fit through the door, it weighs 37 tons, no access for a crane etc etc but whilst sat in the bath you can come up with the solutions.

The door that is has got to come through.

It wont fit, so I had to knock the front of the building down after getting a structural engineer to confirm this was safe!

At last access to the treasure to include the BVP17 11kv switch gear.

Generator now jacked up and ready to skate on to the low loader, at this point the site health and safety adviser came across and said that we were not to do any jacking until they had seen the lift plan, he said this to me whilst I was leaning up against the already jacked up generator!

Unit slowly being skated on to the low loader

Unit now fully on to the low loader

Finally on its way to y place after a full week of preperation.

Sat in its new location

 

[Mark W]

I forgot to say, in one of the above pictures you can see a three phase motor that has its shaft covered as if it drove nothing? It took us a while to work this out and the answer is very clever!!

The output from the generator is 3 phase 6.6 kv,1333kva, this fed a step up transformer that then fed the sites 11kv ring main. This step up transformer also had a tertiary winding to give local 415/230 volt supply to the generator building for lighting, battery chargers for the breakers and other low voltage supplies. We found out that when the generator was moved in @ 1978 a new transformer was ordered but they accidentally ordered a delta wound three phase tertrairy 415 volt winding for this building supply. They needed a single phase 230 volt supply for lighting and other single phase equipment but they had no neutral. The solution was to use that motor, with its windings rated at the maximum neutral current, run it in star and the centre point of the motors star winding gave an artificial neutral.

The excitation for the generator comes from a small 11kv/110 volt transformer located on the main switch board. Should the generator develop a huge fault prior to the switch board the voltage could collapse and it would lose available control voltage to undertake control/shutdown operations. The generator is star wind with the centre point connected to earth via a neutral earthing resistor but........in line with this single connection to earth there are several current transformers. In the event of a large earth fault that would result in large amounts of current but limited voltage at the switch board then these current transformers would then generate the 110 volt ac that was need by the control panel to shut down which I found quite clever.

All relay logic with pneumatic timers, not a microprocessor in sight!!

 

[Rockingit]

Generator pawn. Beautiful!

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Nice. Convenient for power cuts, although difficult to connect directly into the house at 6.6kV. Sixteen times as many cylinders as most peoples' backup units. I'm not good at recognising engines that modern... is it a National? What's the model so I can look it up in my Boys Book of Big Diesels?

The nearest I got to salvaging a standby plant was a unit of some 400kVA with a Paxman 12RPHX driving an ECC 415V machine, in the basement of a building slated for demolition. But there were many competing demands on our time and the generator had to be left behind.

 

[Mark W]

Nice. Convenient for power cuts, although difficult to connect directly into the house at 6.6kV. Sixteen times as many cylinders as most peoples' backup units. I'm not good at recognising engines that modern... is it a National? What's the model so I can look it up in my Boys Book of Big Diesels?

The nearest I got to salvaging a standby plant was a unit of some 400kVA with a Paxman 12RPHX driving an ECC 415V machine, in the basement of a building slated for demolition. But there were many competing demands on our time and the generator had to be left behind.

Here you go Lucien ……the new genny for the house is a paxman v6 RPH ex BT.

The w h Allen engine is open rocker gear so very good to watch!

 

[Lucien Nunes]

The eagle-eyed will spot the early-warning siren tucked under the walkway and the half of a conrod visible next to it which gives an idea of scale of the internals.

850 cu ins = 13.9 litres per cylinder, 223 litres total.

 

[James]

makes my project look like a toy car next to a JCB tyre!!

Old generator

This may be coming up as free to good home.

www.electriciansforums.net

 

[Mark W]

The eagle-eyed will spot the early-warning siren tucked under the walkway and the half of a conrod visible next to it which gives an idea of scale of the internals.

850 cu ins = 13.9 litres per cylinder, 223 litres total.

You never saw that siren did you! What siren??!! …….that damn thing has already got me into a lot of trouble

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Did you run the siren? I've never gotten around to connecting mine up. Sorry, what siren? I meant syphon. Ignore me, just waffling.

 

[Mark W]

Did you run the siren? I've never gotten around to connecting mine up. Sorry, what siren? I meant syphon. Ignore me, just waffling.

During lockdown, clap for carers I set it off……frigging hell it’s loud. Got a few complaints in the village. I own the fog horn from the rms Windsor castle that I always set off at new year, 147db …..I don’t get complaints about that just the nuclear attack siren? Don’t know why?!

 

[westward10]

Good for chopping carrots those sirens. Back in the late 80s at Pinewood we had a full size WW2 siren and needed permission from who I can't remember to run it. At ground level it could only be run for a very short period of time.

 

[Mark W]

Good for chopping carrots those sirens. Back in the late 80s at Pinewood we had a full size WW2 siren and needed permission from who I can't remember to run it. At ground level it could only be run for a very short period of time.

After I realised how bad it was I had time to unplug it from the 3 phase supply, get the forklift, move it into the building, drop the roller shutter door and I still could not here myself think. I will never start it up again! The village WhatsApp group put a stop to that!!

 

[westward10]

I seem to remember it was run for seconds and it picked up very quickly and the powers that be decided it was not feasible to use along with the two Bofors guns rigged up to fire from gas and a rudimentary ignition system, too loud for the middle of London.

 

[Mark W]

W H Allen, they had a reputation for building large industrial engines and generators. A proof of their engineering standards, they kept the lights on till the very end on the titanic as they built the generators on board. The engine we saved was an early pioneer of large skid mounted units as typically the engine and genny were grouted directly to the concrete foundations after setting up on site. This engine is a complete skid mounted unit of 37 tons and is supported by anti vibration mounts from the floor which was quite new in 1965. This very engine is one of the very first in this range of v form engines, they soon went for enclosed rocker gear which would have made it look quite boring. It is air start, perfect for blackouts as an air receiver has lots of stored energy plus it had a small diesel compressor should it hit the fan. After 20 years of inactivity, we recommissioned it at our place, most disappointing start ever as it just started as if nothing had changed!! We have achieved a heritage award from w h Allen heritage society, just acknowledging what idiots we are!! The last generator units in service were on the Falkland Islands but I think they were v12 engines, if they have not been taken out of service yet they are due to be very , very soon.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

The convenience of a skid-mounted unit is not to be sneezed at. The amount of effort required to set up multiple concrete beds, often at different heights, with correctly positioned rag bolts etc, drop the lumps onto them, align the shafts, shim them, grout them etc, can be huge. It's one of the two reasons my old horizontal oil engine plant has never run in the 15 years I've owned it. This packaged plant makes a lot of sense if one doesn't have an army of installers being paid by someone else.