Trail of tears and funny pictures

[Tycho]

Sorting pictures from old HDD to new, thought I'd share some of them
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The crew on a ship were scratching their head on how to sling load some gas bottles... I were working nearby, and showed them I do it.
Noose around the valve and another noose around the bottle body, then as the crane lifts slowly, you adjust the center of gravity.
The load I hooked up for them went great... 10 minutes later I look back and see this! and ran for cover.

[NH3LVR]

Picture did not come through. Love to see it.

[Tycho]

Valve manifold I had installed on a stern trawler many moons back.

This installation was done in the local area, and when it's local we don't stay on site 100% of the time. on this one, I would drop by whenever I had time, at least once a week.

I remember this one so well, because the pipe builders and welders were so on board with my thinking that it was uncanny (Hasn't happened since )

the ship owner wanted it neat, and that all plate-freezers and cargo hold be operated from one location.

We found this nice corner where the ship owner would allow us to put it, I could see the valve manifold in my mind, and I tried explaining it to the pipe builders and welders.

there were a lot of drawing on paper and flailing of arms trying to explain then I remembered that all the valves were on board, and all the plate-freezers were covered with plywood to protect the aluminum plates from welding sparks.

I had the pipe builders help me move two sets of valve housings over to the plywood and set them face down, and as soon as we did that, they all went "aaaaaah, now I see!" and it was a beautiful moment, the manifold in the pictures is the result.


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[Tycho]

Picture did not come through. Love to see it.

Seems like RE doesn't like "hotlinking" of pictures from other sites, I uploaded the pictures to my own image hosting account off site, and it seemed to work in that first one, now I know it didn't

Anyway, attached the picture for you to view now

Since I can't hotlink, I will be making a new post for each picture, so stay tuned

[Tycho]

Overhauling a Howden WRV 204 I think, for another refrigeration company.
Many companies in Norway use Howden compressors, but they come to us for service on the compressors. Not judging, I like it, because they dismantle it from the unit, ship it to us, then I get to put it up on what I call the slaughter-bench and work my magic on it.

This one in particular, it didn't have many hours on it, but the white metal bearings were smeared out or "gubbed" and also note the copper plating.

This was a NH3 system, a large industrial Air conditioning system if I remember correctly.

Copper plating on a NH3 compressor is an indicator of moisture/acid in the oil, and warrants immediate water content test of the NH3 in the system, check of any heat exchanger that is water/NH3.
Oil Change, Oil filter change, and frequent oil samples taken and sent for analysis.

Copper plating as seen is these pictures indicate Severe moisture contamination in the system.
Also the damages to the white metal bearing (smearing) also indicate severe degradation of the lubricating oil.

In this case, this was an industrial AC that hadn't been running for some years, and was in the stages of being recommissioned.

Called up the client as soon as I saw the copper plating and advised him of my finds, he said thanks and he would relay to the client and his guys on site

Feels good to help fellows, if I hadn't said anything, they may have just installed the compressor again and then had a major breakdown in less than a year or so

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[RANGER1]

Tycho,
To me it’s a shame to have to cover up beautiful pipework job, as work of art.
A lot of planning on that one.
Great work.

[NH3LVR]

Your first picture reminds me of an incident on Kodiak Alaska years ago.
We had a processing vessel tied up on our dock. It belonged to the same company as the Cannery.
There was also a company owned tender boat.
One of the crew on the tender was a 16 year old whose Uncle was the Captain. He had been promoted to Manhood when he came to Alaska for the Summer. And also knew it all.
I had explained how to strap NH3 cylinders to the set of flying forks and crane them aboard. Of course a deckhand always knows better.
Skipping ahead, when I put on the Air Pack and went aboard the cylinder was lying on the deck, split open, with a rope tied around it's neck Three vessels were abandoned, one person had to be retrieved from the water and Cannery Row was evacuated. The Cook was missing for a bit, but was found in the walk in freezer. Perhaps the smartest of the lot!
Needless to say, Lawyers ensued.

[Josip]

Sorting pictures from old HDD to new, thought I'd share some of them
original_IMAG1010.jpg

The crew on a ship were scratching their head on how to sling load some gas bottles... I were working nearby, and showed them I do it.
Noose around the valve and another noose around the bottle body, then as the crane lifts slowly, you adjust the center of gravity.
The load I hooked up for them went great... 10 minutes later I look back and see this! and ran for cover.

This is normal, being there .... just read my signature - first row only ....

Best regards, Josip

[Tycho]

This is from a Howden XRV204.
Brand new, of the factory, it had ran less than 400 hours.
The U-sleeve on the capacity piston on the XRV range has been known to last anything between 10 and 2000 hours.

It's odd... I have had XRV204's on my slaughter-bench where the u-sleeve is missing all of the steel springs in the lower half, and the slidevalve has been working just fine.
Others missing the same steel springs, and on top of that, the plastic is worn half away, and the slide valve has worked just fine.

On the Howden XRV range, the first indicator of a worn out u-sleeve is that as soon as the compressor starts, it starts increasing slide load, instantly.

The compressor shown in the attached pictures, the u-sleeve has shed almost all it's steel springs.

Normally, they would just be passed out through the discharge port from the compressor and over time get caught in the oil filter.

In this case, some of them got caught between the piston and the body, and managed to gauge a pretty good stripe in the body/cylinder lining.

The client wanted to replace the compressor, delivery time for a replacement was 6 months.
A new machine was ordered by the company I work for.

The client then said they would have it taken out to machine the cylinder lining.

I was on board, doing main service on the majority of the plant, so I stayed out of the discussion and waited to be told what to do.

3 weeks later, as I was nearing done on everything else, I happened upon the Customers supervisor and asked him if he knew what was going on with the compressor.
He said they had meant to take it out to machine it, but it had just been forgotten, then he asked me if I could take a look at it and do whatever I could with the compressor in place.

Sure, I'm not one to balk away from a challenge...

The compressor unit was already vacuumed and ready to open.

Took the slidevalve cover off, saw the gauge...

polished it as best I could with fine emery paper, then I drove over to "biltema" (store that started out selling car parts, but now selling everything, maybe equivalent to walmart and other big chains where they sell everything from toothbrushes to Weber carburetors)

Bought a box of 3 component "liquid metal" and dabbed it on where the groove was...

The slide valve thing was a bit in the way, so I put on too much, and it ended up taking me 4-5 hours and seriously chaffed and bruised knuckles to sand it down to the point where I could start polishing.

as a final touch I used a hone to smoothen everything out.

Proud to say... this compressor has been running for 3 years now without a hitch.

Sad to say the other compressor that was a factory new Howden XRV has a major breakdown after only 2 years












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[Josip]

Valve manifold I had installed on a stern trawler many moons back.

This installation was done in the local area, and when it's local we don't stay on site 100% of the time. on this one, I would drop by whenever I had time, at least once a week.

I remember this one so well, because the pipe builders and welders were so on board with my thinking that it was uncanny (Hasn't happened since )

the ship owner wanted it neat, and that all plate-freezers and cargo hold be operated from one location.

We found this nice corner where the ship owner would allow us to put it, I could see the valve manifold in my mind, and I tried explaining it to the pipe builders and welders.

there were a lot of drawing on paper and flailing of arms trying to explain then I remembered that all the valves were on board, and all the plate-freezers were covered with plywood to protect the aluminum plates from welding sparks.

I had the pipe builders help me move two sets of valve housings over to the plywood and set them face down, and as soon as we did that, they all went "aaaaaah, now I see!" and it was a beautiful moment, the manifold in the pictures is the result.


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Nice job, congrats!
Sometimes drawings are not applicable ...

Similar, isolated valve manifold box I saw in Algeria (in the year 1985.)
for double temp cold rooms ... made by STAL Sweden ...
as I was quite young refeng it was nice experience and good school for me...


Best regards, Josip

[Tycho]

24 years field experience, 95% of the time working on NH3 systems...

Never had one work related injury in all those years, not one!

Every time I have to open a system, I do a mental check of "what's the worst that can happen!" and double check everything.


On this job, I were to replace the needle valve that is between the coalescer section of an oil separator and back to the compressor suction on a compressor unit.

Originally, I were supposed to visit a client that knew me from the previous company I worked with who had called me up and booked me for 11 am that day.

My boss figured I could replace the needle valve in that time, and I agreed... 2 hour job I said...

I went onboard, closed all the valves needed, connected a hose to the service valve and started bleeding the pressure of to the environment.


the pressure got down to 0,3 bar, and it kinda stayed there.

the clock was ticking and I wanted to get to the other client that I knew from before...
(dumb as I was)

So.....

I thought to myself that "0.3 bar and it's barely anything coming out of my bleed hose... dammit, has to be an off sensor"

So I went back down, put my full face filter mask on, thought to myself, you idiot! but kept going

Closed the needle valve, then disconnected the pipe going from the valve to the suction.

As soon as the pipe was open I put my thumb over, but there was nothing, just a *pfh*

No worry!

Connected the new valve to the disconnected line, Nice!

Started disconnecting the old valve from the line that coming from the bottom of the coalescer section.

as soon as it was off, I placed my thumb over the pipe opening.

I'm wearing goatskin gloves with latex gloves underneath btw.

so now I have to move the last piece of pipe to fit into the connection on the valve, there is a light tension in the pipe because the new valve is slightly longer than the old one, so to get it into place I would have to remove my thumb and press down on the pipe...

So I align the pipe next to the new valve, move my thumb off the top of the pipe...


and instantly, there is a fountain of liquid ammonia sprouting out of the pipe, that then rains down all over my arms...

I'm wearing a face mask with filters, the filters are overcome by the first plume of ammonia, or it could be that I always sport a 5 day beard, and I start smelling nh3 inside my mask, so put my thumb back to cover the pipe (10 mm pipe), then I go down on my knees, and turn my face away from the source.

Once the mask started working again, I got back up, turned back, and with some deft turns had the old needle valve fitted back on the pipe.

Joke:
I feel that there should be a requirement that technicians working with NH3 should be clean shaven, and that employers should have to pay for clean shaven employers


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24 years damage free!

[Tycho]

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Valve manifold from platefreezers...

Can anyone spot the fault?

[Tycho]

We've all been here!

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[RANGER1]

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Valve manifold from platefreezers...

Can anyone spot the fault?

Tycho,
At a guess valves 3 & 4 from the left wrong way around (without knowing what is liquid & hot gas lines).
Or maybe 1 & 4, hell I don't know!

[Tycho]

Tycho,
At a guess valves 3 & 4 from the left wrong way around (without knowing what is liquid & hot gas lines).
Or maybe 1 & 4, hell I don't know!

Could probably have used some better explanation of the valves to make more educated guesses

1. Hotgas is piped into the main return side of the suction valve

2. Hotgas return/overflow is piped back into the plate freezer side of the suction valve.

So the two pipes had to be switched around.
Luckily I caught it on the first manifold.

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[Tycho]

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Electrical corrosion?
the pressureswitch was sending 24V straight to ground so that was my conclusion.

[Tycho]

Repurposing parts...

A service tech in Norway used an old Bitzer rotor to make a table lamp

I want one


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[Tycho]

Made me laugh

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[Tycho]

Howden XRV204 shedding boltheads.

Pictures taken by a Chief engineer.

3 out of 4 bolts on the capacity piston cover had sheared of.
Told him to just put whatever he could find in there to keep it in place until we could get there.

Never got an answer, but I think the Czech factory used the wrong grade bolts for some of the XRVs

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[RANGER1]

Howden XRV204 shedding boltheads.

Pictures taken by a Chief engineer.

3 out of 4 bolts on the capacity piston cover had sheared of.
Told him to just put whatever he could find in there to keep it in place until we could get there.

Never got an answer, but I think the Czech factory used the wrong grade bolts for some of the XRVs

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Tycho,
Is that Czech factory still going, or completely shut down?

[Tycho]

Tycho,
Is that Czech factory still going, or completely shut down?

shut down, all manufacturing moved back to scotland now

[josef]

Yes, she has finished assembling.
If my head serves me right, Howden Czech never made compressors, just assembled them.

Josef.

[Josip]

Could probably have used some better explanation of the valves to make more educated guesses

1. Hotgas is piped into the main return side of the suction valve

2. Hotgas return/overflow is piped back into the plate freezer side of the suction valve.

So the two pipes had to be switched around.
Luckily I caught it on the first manifold.

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Yes, for sure ... without notes (in red - much better in yellow for me)
like this it is not possible to say which valve is for what ... at least for me


Best regards, Josip

[Josip]

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Electrical corrosion?
the pressureswitch was sending 24V straight to ground so that was my conclusion.

This is very dangerous ... should be replaced long time ago and properly grounded ....

Many years ago one woman (slaughter and meat production house in Slovenia) was injured due to
sudden leak of ammonia valve (unfortunately, she died later in hospital),
she was caught in dead end within cold room ...
tragedy ... after that all corroded valves were replaced and properly grounded ...
and of course installed ammonia sensors ...

Best regards, Josip

[cricri]

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French adventures ,
this is a crankshaft of an ammonia heat pump compressor. driven by a 110 kw motor, low oil level, resseted too many times....

[cricri]

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and here is a 132 kw motor, driving a TSMC8x180. gone away by itself during operation.
the taped plates welded to the base frame (bad welds) failled; motor was ejected from the unit against the LP vessel retention.....entire unit moved from 5 cm at motor end.
lucky this time..

[Tycho]

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and here is a 132 kw motor, driving a TSMC8x180. gone away by itself during operation.
the taped plates welded to the base frame (bad welds) failled; motor was ejected from the unit against the LP vessel retention.....entire unit moved from 5 cm at motor end.
lucky this time..

Holy cow, good thing nobody were around!

Haven't had that happen, but a couple of things I have seen (after the fact) are:

-Coupling spacer ejected from a Howden WRV163, went through the coupling guard and was embedded in the laminated ceiling plate.

-Hot gas valve, fired 10 meters across the factory deck on a ship, also embedded in the laminated siding.
(Chief engineer had trouble with a leaking hotgas valve on a R-22 plant many moons ago, it was the old danfoss type where the insert is threaded into the housing. He decided to replace it while the system was still running. Ended up loosing 1500Kg R-22)

[Tycho]

Was praying it wouldn't be stuck and snap off inside the pocket

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[Tycho]

Pretty true

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[Tycho]

Time to replace.

Marks are from being stabbed with a phillips screwdriver.


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[Tycho]

True enough

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[Tycho]

AC compressor that was "running a bit rough" according to the chief engineer

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[Tycho]

Rough start this week, a ship came in with serious mussel growth in the cooling lines.
They spent all monday removing it from the main lines, got called onboard at 8 in the evening to start the freezing plant.

Fired up the compressors (2 Howden XRV204), after 10 minutes they tripped on high discharge pressure because the oil temp was too high.

Dismantled the seawater lines and found this:
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Ran the pumps for a few minutes with the oil cooling lines disconnected to flush the pipes

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mussel remnants all over the deck.

Reassembled the pipes and fired up the system.

Another 10 minutes and it tripped on high discharge temp because of no oil cooling.
Opened the cooling lines and dug out shells again, not so much, but still enough to clog the oil cooler.

ran the pump for a few minutes letting it spew out onto the deck again.

Did this 2 more times.

The 5th time I opened it up the cooler was clean, but there just wasn't enough cooling, and I could see that the water coming out the side of the ship from the oil coolers just didn't seem right.

Next step, dismantle one of the oil cooling pumps... looked brand new except from some rust colour on the impeller.

Now it was 8 in the morning, the only thing I hadn't checked were the NRV valves on the pump discharge.

Tired and frustrated I called in the piping company that had cleaned the suction side on monday, to check/replace the NRV valves (the bolts were so rusted they were twice the size they should have been), and I were in no state to operate an angle grinder
Got a replacement tech from the company I work from to come onboard.
The piping company came, I went home to sleep.
3 hours later I get a call from our guy onboard and he says that they are dismantling all the pipes from the pumps up to the coolers because they are blocked with mussels.

Managed to get 6 hours of sleep, then back onboard to take over from the day guy.

In the meantime, the chief engineer has replaced some broken gauges on the seawater lines, so we can now see what is happening.

Start the pumps, 2 minutes and the pressure is at 1.5 bar on the oil cooler inlet. the pumps are designed for 15 meters, so it's blocked again.

Clean the coolers again.

start the pumps again, same thing happens.

Chief engineer said he has a flange with a fire hose connection that would fit on the pump delivery line, so we removed a piece of pipe and hooked the hose connection on, the water seemed clear and we didn't see anything coming out onto the deck, until we tied a stainless mesh basket in front of the hose.

There were large amounts of mussel shell remnants that blocked even the 5x5mm mesh in the basket.

When that was done, the Chief engineer invited me to dine onboard, and I kid you not... I can't make this sh*t up!

After washing our hands and walking to the mess room I said "I hope the next time I see a mussel, it has been marinaded in a nice white wine based tomato sauce and I have garlic bread on the side"

We walked into the mess room, Chief engineer in front of me and I hear him start laughing and saying "I don't *profanity* believe it!!"

as I get closer, I see this:

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The cook had served up steamed mussels!

The chief engineer had been struggling for 3 days, jury rigging cooling lines, shutting down non essential equipment, the last day the oil cooling for the freezing plant was done with fire hoses.
They come ashore to unload the cargo and spend another two days clearing all the lines of 2-300 kg of mussels.

He has slept 4 hours in 3 days.

And then the cook serves mussels for dinner

Luckily they also had Chicken tikka masala and rice, we both went for that