How about this elevator controller. That's a 40HP motor I'm leaning on, with open cable sheaves, etc. Notice the dates on the control drawing.
Posted on 01/24/2005 1:13:36 PM PST by hsmomx3
PHOENIX (AP) -- They look like cobwebs or huge balls of spaghetti hanging from electric poles across Mexico, gigantic clusters of illegal electric lines known as diablitos, or "little devils."
Dentist Benjamin Rodriguez has one hanging outside his window in the Xochimilco neighborhood of Mexico City. Like an evil parasite, it makes his lights flicker and stops his dental drill. Occasionally, the transformer across the street explodes.
"Six or seven times a year, the power just goes out completely," Rodriguez said.
"You call the power company and they come and cut all the illegal lines and the next day they're back up."
Mexico's Energy Department says electricity thieves are bleeding the country's power grid dry, causing millions of dollars of losses, starting fires and crippling the country's efforts to modernize.
Now the government has launched a crackdown on the thieves, installing tamper-proof meters and running ads urging people to report theft.
"To the devil with diablitos!" say TV commercials as cartoon devils with electrical cords for tails prowl the streets of a darkened neighborhood.
In central Mexico alone, the amount of electricity lost, mainly through diablitos, rose 8.7 percent from September 2003 to September 2004, according to Luis de Pablo, director of Central Light and Power. In the rest of the country, it rose 1.3 percent.
In Mexico state, where squatters have built entire cities around the capital, about 300,000 houses are using stolen power, according to the state Electrification Board.
That's equivalent to a city the size of Tucson, and the figure doesn't count the thousands of diablitos serving taco stands, CD sellers and other street vendors.
"It really hurts us, because that money could be going into infrastructure," said Gerardo Lerma, a spokesman for Central Light and Power.
Diablitos were cited as the possible cause of a fire that swept through a shantytown in Juarez in 2003, killing four women, and one that destroyed a public market in Durango in May. On Dec. 2, two firefighters were injured battling a blaze caused by a diablito at a recycling warehouse in the Mexico City suburb of San Juan Tlihuaca.
The government launched its campaign against diablitos in 2003, but honest electricity customers say it has not gone far enough. On Oct. 14, customers from Mexico state protested in front of Central Light and Power, demanding that the company take action against theft, which is inflating their electricity bills.
The illegal lines are an epidemic in low-income places like Xochimilco. Around the central plaza, street vendors have broken open ornamental lampposts and strung lines to their stands. Other lines disappear into homes.
Thieves around the plaza refused to give their names. But many said they have to use the diablitos because the government is slow to install new lines to homes and has only a few electrical outlets for street vendors.
In the past two years, Central Light and Power has installed 500,000 tamper-proof meters and 840 miles of new cable with an outer coating meant to foil electricity thieves, Lerma said.
It has also gotten 250,000 thieves to become paying customers by installing new lines to their homes, he said. Electricity theft is a federal crime but most offenders get off with a warning because overworked prosecutors can't handle the extra cases, officials say.
There is one electric meter on the pole outside the La Vega shoe store. It's connected to outlets used by four sidewalk stands, including that of video-game seller Juan Loiza.
"We use the meter and share the bill, but look at this," he said, pointing at 10 other electric lines that climb the pole like vines. "Who else is going to pay when they can just put up a line?"
Westinghouse? Or perhaps I-T-E.
That pic in #39 looks like some of the switch gear in the old boilerhouse I used to work in.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
SCREWDRIVER ALERT!
Do the Tesla coils use a single, constant source of alternating current?You could get one to 'light off' with a couple car batterys, if you wound the primary with heavier wire (literally, copper strapping) ... drag one of the battery contacts repeatedly across a jagged 'contact' (to allow the built-up magnetic field to collapse) and you'd be set ...
The *secret* here is: e = L * di/dt with the secondary resonant (literally: a tuned RF circuit).
Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day, but give him a case of dynamite and soon the village will be showered with mud and seaweed and unidentifiable chunks of fish.
It's Frank Adams gear. That piece has been installed and engergized since 1924.
A company I used to work for had a small piece like this displayed in the lobby. I'd been hoping to find some still in operation someplace. A project I'm involved in now has this one in place, but wants to keep it for their own display after the entire building is rewired. RATS, I wanted it.
It was surn near PE alert. Shortly after I took that picture, an access panel on a piece of hardware "crashed" open. I about had a heart attack at that instant.
The neon transformer I used is powered by standard 115 VAC, 60 Hz line current. The output was 15,000 VAC. That transformer is lethal by itself. It will generate a nice "Jacob's ladder" with a couple pieces of stiff 12 gauge wire on the output terminals.
You can build a safer Tesla coil than the one I built or the large economy size done by RadioAstronomer. There is a book titled Electronic Gadgets for the Evil Genius that includes project plans, parts lists and approximate costs. I bought a copy of the book to play with the anti-gravity lifters. The book projects are easily implemented by any electronics hobbyist. You might have to place a mail or internet order to get some of the odd parts.
One of the Tesla coil projects runs off the 115 VAC line and produces a 250,000 volts. It can produce a 12 inch spark. The Tesla coil operates at a frequency around 500 KHz for this model. Nominal cost is $100. The driving transformer product 6500 volts at 23 milliamps. About 1/3 of the voltage of my neon transformer and much lower amperage.
If you have more $$$ to spend, there is a Tesla coil project in the book that will generate a 30 inch arc. Duty cycle is limited to about 10 seconds on. It produces substantial amounts of ozone. The project plans warn that a Faraday cage may be required for safe operation.
I assume you have seen what happens when you give several cases of dynamite to the Oregeon DOT along with on large dead whale ?
It appeared to me, from one of the theory websites, Tesla coils use capacitors to create a secondary, phase-shifted AC source. It looked like there was an interference pattern that causes the effect.
Is this correct?
Neighbors thought UFOs had landed.
What did the FCC think?
I think you might mean Dale Carnegie.
PICTURES ! We need PICTURES !!!
My guess is a lack of the rule of law. Corruption is pretty much a way of life in Mexico and very few are willing to invest in a system where laws can be bypassed for a few pesos slipped to the right politician/LEO.
There's still a lot of F A gear in use. They made good stuff.
The oldest gear I have seen is the Main Electrical Board on the USS Texas battleship in Houston. Built in 1911 by the J B Cutter Electric Co. of Phila. PA, the predecessor entity that became the ITE Circuit Breaker Company, then ITE Imperial, then Gould ITE, Gould, Gould Brown-Boveri, BBC Brown Boveri and is now part of the ABB Group.
The oldest switchgear and breakers I have worked on were made in 1929, ITE type LX 600A 600V 3 Pole. They're quite interesting. Built on slate, "hot-front" (meaning that all metal parts were energized), pull-down operator, carbon block arcing assemblies. Main contacts made of copper leaves, main contact pressure adjusted by removing or adding leaves. Some are the elevator feeders at a downtown building in Minneapolis, two were still in use at Ameren UE's Bagnel Dam in the Ozarks.
Sometime around 1920 the Reverse Current Trip devices were no longer supplied on one or two legs as the Power System became more reliable, but prior to that time, you got both overcurrent and reverse current protection on polyphase breakers.
I'll keep you in mind when I upgrade Goodyear in Lincoln. They have a 2300V and 480V combined control board. If my outfit gets the contract, I'll have to dismantle it. It's the original Westinghouse.
Many moons ago Northern States Power hauled all of the slate panels from the St. Anthony Falls Dam powerhouse to the dump and tortured me for weeks before telling me the truth. It was a treasure trove of pre-1920 Electrical Control technology.
The stuff is still out there, I see it every now and again.
How about this elevator controller. That's a 40HP motor I'm leaning on, with open cable sheaves, etc. Notice the dates on the control drawing.
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