Overhead cranes and other stuff

[Knobhead]

Not a question but I was having a rummage around my PC and found these pictures of some of the fun gear I got to play with.

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Anyone else got photo’s of things they’ve worked on?

 

[Guest123]

Not much on that scale Tony, Do a lot of maintenance work on sites near to me but that sort of industry doesn't exist locally.

 

[BigBreakfast]

I have workrd on overhead carnes before but twas many years ago and they were not to the scale of your cranes Tony. Intersting work though and usually very dirty and tight working space.

 

[Knobhead]

Unfortunately it doesn’t exist here now. The sites levelled.

The inside cranes scared the sh*t out of me the first time I went on one, in the end I was the only electrician licensed to drive one under load. 7 hooks from one crane could spell an awful tangle if you got it wrong. At one time there was a jib crane on the shop floor, just a glancing blow from one of the hooks wiped that out.

The outside cranes had a brilliant trick if it was windy, they’d f*ck off on their own! Who says sail power is dead. Driving them was funny, you select travel left and set off like a rocket on speed 1, coming back it would be struggling on full power. You can see the grey control panels, fun in winter, wind and snow. I unfolded a drawing and was just stood there holding the corners of the A0 drawing the rest vanished in to the distant horizon!

It was fun though unk:

 

[Des 56]

I knew a spark local to me,he was 4 or 5 years in front of me doing his time, who got killed working on an overhead crane

It can be an interesting, but very dangerous job, and sparks like Tony may have to eat and drink this danger often

With the pits and steel and manufacturing collapsed,there are now not nearly so many with Tonys skill left to maintain these sort of things any more

Those who talk of de skilling the trade better realise this sort of equipment still needs sparks who know their onions

 

[netblindpaul]

Funnily enough Tone I did one the a couple of weeks ago for a company, it had been down for months they had had several peeps to have a go and no one could fix it, got it done in less than half a day including setting up the access equipment and clearing down!
Easy when you know how, no drawings though so it took me a bit longer!
I am OK at heights as long as I feel safe which I don't generally unless it is genuinely safe!

 

[Knobhead]

The crane in the first 4 pictures had a twin on the same track. It failed and so was dumped at it’s end of the track for near 6 months. I’d transferred to a different part of the works for a while. On my return, “errm can you have a look at the west crane”, after I’d come back out of orbit I just took one tool with me up to the crane, a hammer (small). One tap and low and behold, action! I flatly refused to tell anyone what I hit. (I hadn’t, I just used the handle to rattle two relays but the hammer looked good).

BTW the crane manufacturers idea of a relay would be a 20HP contactor anywhere else, everything was to battleship standards. The cranes had 2 switch rooms built in to each of the outer* booms, all the switchgear was open with just a handrail to stop you falling on it.
*There were 4 booms with 2 cross travel crabs, the lower iner crab could pass under the larger outer crab. Each crab had 2 winch drums.

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[bomjac]

First experience of cranes was the test panel myself and my cousin managed to get smoking in the training school as 2nd year apprentices. All DC contactors, relays and arc chutes. Had to point to point the entire panel back to find the short (which was a work of arc, done in solid drawn, round copper bars !). Boy were we relieved when we found the short.

Fast forward 3 years to the steelworks and there I am trying to fathom out why the ore bridge crane wont work, absolute bitch of a machine to fix due to the habit it had of crabbing out of alignment when the rails were full of crap. The safety equipment would stop it from moving one set of motor drives until you had gotten it back into alignment. This was also a favourite trick of the Barrel reclaimers. Crane was fed by 500 V DC IIRC, from the spookiest thing you ever will see - a room with 3 huge mercury arc rectifiers which gave off a glow like Frankensteins lab with the arc jumping over a pool of mercury inside a Vacuum tube.

The barrel reclaimers, stocking out machines and bucket wheel - all of which lived at the end of a 600 metre 3.3kV cable, each with their own 3.3k/440V transformer on them. Getting rather sentimental now about trying to joint those cables in winter nights with a blizzard blowing around me.

I still miss working with the big, chunky stuff, the buzz of fixing a fault on a few hundred tons of machine and actually seeing the end product of our spoils trundling down a track in a torpedo carrier past you on its from the Blast Furnace to the BOS plant.

I don't have any pics unfortunately, but do a google image search on them if you want to get an idea of the plant mentioned here.

 

[Knobhead]

My old friend Rodney the rectifier!

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[telectrix]

jeez, tony. i wouldn't have a clue where to start on some of that gear. the nearest i've been to a crane is the one that was hefting the packs of bricks on site.