[Amps] 8877 Grid Trip timing

[Jim Tonne]

Karl-Arne wrote in part:

>   . . . short circuit the 14 kV 15 A rectifier using a 
> 0,3 mm silver wire, which should not burn off or 
> melt. This obviously required some courage by 
> the maintenance personnel.

That brought back a memory of my first exposure to
crowbars (also using iggies).

It was at Continental and it was a very long time ago.
I had never heard of crowbars and they were getting
me up to speed on the innards of high power as 
compared to lowpower [50 kW or less] which was
my background to that time.

My boss went around, telling everyone that I was
about to learn how to test the crowbar.  He told
everyone in earshot to get their earplugs, or at least
get ready to plug their ears.  I think he winked at
each of them but of course I didn't know that.  He 
looked at me with a look of pity, poor boy, you 
can't hold the stick to do the shorting and also plug 
your ears so you'll just have to tolerate the noise.

So I got up my courage at the right moment and 
shorted the high voltage.  It silently tripped off.  All
the meters went to their standby readings.  I guess 
the HV transformer kind of grunted.  But not a
sound excepting for LOTS of laughing about how
they had got me all prepared for a huge mess and
how nervous I ought to be.

Clowns!

- JimT