The electrical Volunteers Report Sunday 18-06-2023

[marflow]

Another Sunday, another ELR.
Colin, Jonathan, Jack and myself today.
We took the scaffold up to the pavement outside BBS to do the 2 lamps on the road-bridge. Apparently they haven't worked for over 20 years.
Simon had fitted a new fuse box in the clock tower. The old one had rusted through and was highly dangerous. It had only taken two years since reporting to get this done. The old one had lasted 50 years. The new one is very thin and tinny (thinny) compared. I had suggested plastic.
We re-connected the clock and by now, it should have sorted itself out. The motors can't go fast or slow, so the controller simply restarts them when it 'thinks' they're right.
The cables to the two lamps were tested ok. So we removed the two lamp innards and outards to take them down to our workshop for rewiring, cleaning and a lick of paint. The old mercury lamp fittings with their heavy ballasts removed and the fittings rewired for LED lamps. The ones we use on the platforms seemed ideal candidates. Colin suggested we dim them as they're designed for 100 to 250 volts and that should make them more reliable as they don't seem to last the promised 50,000 hours. So I suggested putting two in series. That was tried and there is absolutely NO difference in brightness.
So we'll install them next week.

See you next week

[asbibby]

Nice one Cyril.

[marflow]

who is Cyril?

[asbibby]

The man who fought the monkey in the dust hole and came out without a scratch!