Ethical dilemma [RE-wrenches]

[Drake Chamberlin - Electrical Energy]

<x-flowed>
Hi William,

I think you are handling the situation perfectly.   Your strong, well 
documented word of warning may keep a serious problem from being 
permanently swept under the proverbial rug.

Drake

At 09:37 PM 08/13/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>Fiends:
>
>Here's a dilemma and how I dealt with it.  I am still wondering if there is
>a better solution.  Your thoughts are appreciated:
>
>I was called by the operations director for an off-grid elementary school
>to replace fans on an SW inverter.  While on site, I took some time to
>learn how the system was built.  There are 4 SW inverters with outputs
>summed through 2 levels of transformers.   They run their generator during
>the school day and ran on batteries and inverters during the afternoon and
>evening for extra curricular, janitoring and etc.  The system runs great
>while fed by the generator, but when the generator shuts down, inverters 1
>and 2 are not synced to inverters 3 and 4.  You can measure the voltage
>from phase to phase and over a half hour or so it goes from 240 to 0 and
>then back up.  The output of the equipment room is two hots and a shared
>neutral.  When the inverters are out of phase, the neutral is properly
>shared.  When the inverters drift in phase, the neutral current will
>increase, possibly until the current is double the rated current.  It is my
>understanding that power is distributed throughout the school in this
>manner.  At any point where a neutral is shared--on a feeder or multi-wire
>branch circuit--this condition is possible.
>
>I wrote a report describing this problem as clearly as I could.  I followed
>up with phone calls to the operations director.  Last conversation I was
>told that there was no money to correct this problem and that all they
>could do is, "conduct extra fire drills."
>
>I wrote to the school and told them I could not work for them until this
>issue is addressed.  I do not want to be even associated with a system in a
>public school that has an obvious design defect.  I feel pretty comfortable
>about this decision, but I am curious what others might have done.
>
>William
>
>__________________________________________________________________
>William Miller
>SLO Communications: Communications and Power Systems Consulting
>PO Box 50, Santa Margarita, CA 93453
>Voice :805-438-5600             Fax: 805-438-4607       VMail: 805-546-4875
>email: wrmiller at slonet.org
>License No. C-10-773985
>_____________________________________________________________
>Compatibility:
>Word processor: WP7
>Spreadsheet: Quatro Pro 7
>CAD: Microstation 95, DXF, Visio 4.1T
>_____________________________________________________________
>"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made." Dan Quayle
>__________________________________________________________________
>
>- - - -
>To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com
>
>Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/
>
>List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm
>
>Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html
>
>Hosted by Home Power magazine
>
>Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com
>

- - - -
To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com

Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/

List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm

Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html

Hosted by Home Power magazine

Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com

==^================================================================
EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Qcs.bz9JC9
Or send an email To: RE-wrenches-unsubscribe at topica.com
This email was sent to: michael.welch at homepower.com

T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================




</x-flowed>