First Contactor

The exciting news for today is that the first contactor was installed and tested. Everything went pretty much as planned. I decided to start with #5, since it's the only contactor that rises by itself, in series with a set of control resistors. (Frank was always a big Star Trek fan, so I try to work in an allusion now and then.)

By far the hardest part was getting the contactor onto the platform, since it's up inside the box to some extent. I need to think about this a little more. But after that, things went smoothly.

Yo ho and up she rises!

The nice thing about this system is that once the contactor has been raised into position, I have all the time in the world to get the rubber insulator, washer, and nut into position, and tighten everything up. That certainly isn't the case if you're trying to raise it by hand! This one was more of a challenge because the two bolts on the left are right against the wall of the box, and hard to reach.

But here it is in position. And it works! Bill Wulfert was on his way to Barn 8 to measure windows on the 1024, so he helped by running the controller. And I talked to Rod some more about making new rubber parts for mounting the rest of the contactors. We'll need a total of 78, but have only about 25 spares on hand.

And among other things, I did some more paint removal on the 36. Ugh. I concentrated on the molding strip under the belt rail, as seen here. And I redid some electrical testing. Contactors 1, 2, 3, and 11 will be next. I just can't wait!

But please keep reading...