Things you don't want to hear on a start up.

[yam785]

"Hey ! Do you smell that ?"

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but any "startup worst moment" involves the sense de odor of burning up things, which will lead you to the scene of the rising smoke.

LED = light emitting diode. SED = smoke emitting diode.

 

[Blijj]

The four-bay motor control panel turns up at the customer's site on a low loader and we arrive in cars and vans. The vista before us is a swamp of 3-foot deep mud stretching from the site boundary by the road way over to the newly built pump house.

Us: You said the tarmac would be ready. The truck can't cross that.
Site manager: That's OK, we'll use the digger and sling it from the end of the arm.
Us: Well OK, but let's look at the pump house first.
We navigate the swamp and peer into the hole where the door should be.
Us: There's no floor, it's open down to the basement.
Site manager: Is that a problem?

Six weeks later and before we had signed-off the project and handed it over, the customer decided to turn it all on and run it overnight. A loose joint blew off, the basement -and the first two feet of the control room above- flooded and a nearby resident called them the next morning to say that water was pouring out of the door vents...

 

[Lancie1]

The worst thing that I have ever heard on a start up was silence.

The best thing I ever heard on a nitroglycerin reactor startup.... was silence!

Only two people were allowed in that bunker at a time. The nitro readctor was only 5 gallons, but that was all I wanted to worry about.

 

[OkiePC]

Wow, you guys have had all the fun.

This wasn't a startup, but I was a mold and bladder tech in a rubber tire curing department and I watched a McNeil (42" I think) two cavity tire press twist itself in half and crack and twist both sidelinks, because the guy holding the jog open button was a clipboard monkey reading his labor list, and "didn't hear it"... One side drive shaft snapped and the other one didn't and right between the Gemco cam switch extremes, so it built up some speed in high speed mode...I was fifty feet away on foot, and I ducked behind the next press row, but there was no shrapnel. That press was down for 6 months and had to be complete removed...two less tires to have to load every 11 minutes.

 

[leitmotif]

OK it is not a start up but sea trials which is close enough. Submarine I was on would not stay submerged - they fouled up the weights and balances. Shipyard loaded a bunch of lead that night.

Dan Bentler

 

[Dua Anjing]

OK it is not a start up but sea trials which is close enough. Submarine I was on would not stay submerged - they fouled up the weights and balances. Shipyard loaded a bunch of lead that night.

Dan Bentler

Better that than the alternative...

 

[leitmotif]

That is for sure. Of course you might get the idea she just might be a little heavy when she has difficulty or wont lift off the keelblocks when you flood the drydock.

Thresher went down doing sea trials.

Dan Bentler

 

[idell]

Staff reaction, after start up an automation system - "well and why do we need this, we can do it in MANUAL mode"

 

[Chris Taylor]

A few from me,

In Nigeria, (a brewery so not all bad), attending to commission two 2MW generators, on arrival "when would you like the packing crates sent from the docks"

The Cairo waste water project, “it’s going to be hot one today”




What do you mean "the 24V PLC has not passed it’s 1000V insulation resistance test"


on one gerneator start-up in Sri-lanka, the system had been tested by myself a few weeks before and basic commissioning was complete but synch panel was missing so I went home, went back and checked the installation and looked OK, went for first starts after all checks, engines sounded very laboured so I stopped them before reaching full speed. it transpired that while I was away the exhausts had been extended but they had forgotten to put holes in the gaskets, two engine rebuilds required.


The bed frame on this plant is 2.5M by 6m, so how wide is that doorway?


Not a start-up but one of my favorites, in an open silica mine, “So you run generator without air filters because they get blocked quickly, but now the engine is smoking and using a lot of oil and you’d like me sanction a replacement under warranty”



Chris

 

[Mrslipmat]

My best one was, a multi batching system used for block paving, attended site and went to run batching panel during commisioning, the company were all set and ready to run trials... ran the system and found no product being loaded from the hoppers, went to have a look and found no sand, aggrigates, cement or colour in any of the hoppers, none had been delivered... there reponse, we did,nt think we needed to run product through so did,nt order any !!! needless to say i ended up going back a week later.......

 

[JoeFin]

Worked for a contractor that "thought" they were having trouble with vibration monitors on the Boiler Feed Pumps - couldn't figure out why they were giving them false alarms. So some "Einstein" came up with the idea to dampen the vibration with sand bags

Wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't done it twice and burned out pumps on both HRSG 1 and 2

Oopps ...

 

[leitmotif]

The bed frame on this plant is 2.5M by 6m, so how wide is that doorway?

Who has not done this one?

Dan Bentler

 

[SteveBeckman]

A boss I used to have like to say that the 4 dirtiest words in the English language are "oh, while you're here..."

 

[rguimond]

"Wasn't that supposed to be a 575 volt motor?"

 

[daba]

At start-up - silence is OK, at least nothing has happened, so there's just a delay while you get it going. But silence later can be a big issue.

At first product run on a juice pasteuriser, I had just about finished "tweaking" the flow and temperature control PIDs to usable settings, when everything suddenly stopped, and the whole area was engulfed in deathly silence.

I started to investigate (trying not to panic, and had just found the right place in the code, and saw that it was a remote E-Stop that had been tripped (they weren't individually wired - cost saving).

Just then a young red-faced lad came through the control room door, and identified himself as one of the team putting the flow-coding labels on pipework. He was obviously climbing all over the plant to label the pipes - his words - "I think I kicked an e-stop...is that why it all went quiet?"