One Really Overpriced MOV

[Sionyn]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2251815/Thumbnail-sized-component-save-7m-British-project-drill-signs-life-arrives-Antarctic-ice.html

[amyk]

However, when the scientists fired up their boiler's primary burner for the first time its controller circuit failed. ... But then, on Saturday afternoon, this secondary burner failed

Any idea where those faulty controllers were made?

[peter.mitchell]

Maybe they should fix the supply voltage?

[G7PSK]

It is hard to believe that they did not have a few more spares available on site also that they could not bypass the mov in some way. The really incredulous thing is that they were employing such flimsy equipment in that sort of conditions, it dose not take an Einstein to realize that  a generator will have quite large transients on it and all equipment connected will need to be able to survive such events.

[PA0PBZ]

Just wondering how long the one they sent over is going to last.

[ecat]

Just wondering how long the one they sent over is going to last.

Long enough for them to encounter another problem I'm sad to say. Project abandoned http://www.ellsworthlive.org.uk/

[SeanB]

Probably it would have been better to have sent a replacement voltage regulator for the genset so it did not cook the controllers. They probably worked perfectly on the mains when tested, and the genset probably did as well, but did not like the load presented to it, most likely from it being a really badly balanced one. Most 3 phase gensets do not like a light load on one phase and a heavy load on the others, especially if the lightly loaded one is not the one used for voltage regulation, where the heavy load on the others causes the one phase voltage so climb very high as the genset compensated for the winding losses.

[M. András]

wonder how much that stuffs worth what they have there and what was the manufacturing price compared to it

//off
am i the only one who immediatly remembered the particular episodes of x-files when i saw the lake drilling photos?
//

[peter.mitchell]

wonder how much that stuffs worth what they have there and what was the manufacturing price compared to it

//off
am i the only one who immediatly remembered the particular episodes of x-files when i saw the lake drilling photos?
//

nope, but i did remember the episode where  they were in the Arctic and people were going crazy

[lewis]

Long enough for them to encounter another problem I'm sad to say. Project abandoned http://www.ellsworthlive.org.uk/

FOR GOD SAKE, CAN'T WE DO ANYTHING IN THIS FUCKING COUNTRY ANY MORE! Where's the 'Great' in Great Britain?

Run out of fuel? So what! Get some more you bastards! And before anyone says 'Well Lewis, it's not that easy getting a load of fuel to Antarctica you know...', you're trying to drill a hole 3km through a solid chunk of ice! Getting fuel on a plane is/should be the easy bit! COME ON!

Stop giving up you wimpy namby pamby bastards! Get on with it, get the bloody hole dug, let's have a look at some alien bacteria and put the Great back into Britain. This "oh dear, we tried a little bit, but it's just too hard, let's all go home and have a cup of tea" mentality is killing this bloody country everywhere from primary school to south pole.


Edit - sorry, that was a bit of a late night rant...