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View Full Version : The final critique of Laniar Tech Ammonia Refrigeration program.



zolimer
07-06-2008, 06:30 AM
Hello all, I finished the coarse today, and i gotta say that i had a good week! It was a good group of guys and it seemed like a shame to say goodbye, The team work aspect forced me to work with different students during different excersizes!

The instructors made the lab portion of the course seem as close to a real work experience as possible! They took the role of the supervisor on the job and were not over bearing with intervention unless they recognized that the team was veering into left field! sometimes they would let you make a mistake to reinforce some not so common sense operating principles, we learn best from our mistakes!

We worked with three different systems and did repetitive exercises in this order:

1. Walked down system with P&ID for valve tags and to id special function valves and components.
2. Filled out a partial valve worksheet that identified valve number, valve type, location relative to components,type of line, Comment related to function and normally open/normally closed.
3. Verify valve positions against valve worksheet.
4. Create start-up checklist for particular system.
5. Instructor verifies check list and/or corrects checklist
6. Start system to the point of normal operating parameters.
7. Load calculation worksheet.
8. Stabilize system
9. Non condensable worksheet.
10. Energy consumption worksheet.

And the two stage system included a soft start/soft stop hot gas defrost valve group id worksheet and an oil cooling comparison worksheet between the high stage and low stage compressors!

Overall it is the best class i have taken so far! I have been in this trade about 14 month's. There is a test and this is a pass or fail course! They offer the RETA CARO exam on friday, but word to the wise, i think this test may have been written by some backwoods clan in west virginia with an affinity for torture:confused:! As a matter
of fact the RETA test was my worst experience, i did pass though!

US Iceman
07-06-2008, 04:38 PM
They offer the RETA CARO exam on friday, but word to the wise, i think this test may have been written by some backwoods clan in west virginia with an affinity for torture:confused:! As a matter of fact the RETA test was my worst experience, i did pass though!


Now, now, don't be making fun of people from the hills... You're talking about some of my relatives.:p

What was the problem with the test? I would be interested in hearing your additional comments. I recently took over as the Education Chairman for RETA so I'm interested in hearing all comments; good or bad...

zolimer
07-06-2008, 08:08 PM
Iceman, I was speaking of the type of back woods clan like the one featured in the movie "Wrong turn" and feel
pretty confident that your family would not fall into that category!

As far as the test, i feel like a few of the questions had 2 possible answers that could have been right, depending on how you read it. Here is an example:

what is the most important thing to do before draining oil from an ammonia system?

A. remove ammonia vapors from the space as soon and as quickly as possible.

B. Inform all personnel that you will be draining oil in the area.

In my view they are equally important! But which one? This can be easily be left to interpretation!

Lets face it, we are not all english major students here! A lot of people that are going to take this test don't deal with some of the components that were focused on for an assistant operator exam, and just didn't belong on this test!

For instance there was a question on effective cleaning technique for shell and tube condensers on a halo-carbon system. I deal with nh3 90% of the time and hvac 10% of the time. I have never seen a rotary vane compressor in action! and if i do i will certainly read up on them, but as an assistant operator i should not have to memorize how they work!

What i am getting at is that there was not one question on this test about trapping liquid in a line between valves! In fairness there were three about hydrostatic expansion in a vessel.

Also RETA's book one should have the safety chapter in it instead of book four and it should be the first chapter! There are too many people that are coming into this trade that are not willing or just dont know the importance of taking the extra time to understand the consequences that what they do could have a major impact on the people around them!

I think that the assistant operator exam should focus more on safety, operating conditions and Basic principles. there where 200 chapter questions in the book. I used those questions as a study guide in preparation for this exam, but the questions on the exam were very different from those asked in the book! I had no benchmarks to gauge my successfully completing this exam!

I was sweating it during the test, but at least i can say that i passed a somewhat difficult test! I had studied the material for three months.