Continuing the blog on an electrical theme, ladies and gentlemen I give you the main switchboard. It is a live front switchboard with live knife type breakers. Dinnae touch them.
Explorer is (was) powered by three diesel powered dynamos. Two 80kw units and one 24kw harbour dynamo. The centre circuit breaker is the harbour dynamo’s breaker which is running. The two red lamps are earth indicators. The slightly dimmed one on the right indicates a slight earth The amber lamp indicates the dynamo is running. To the left and right of the lamp are the ammeter and voltmeter respectively for that machine The section on the left is the breaker for the forward 80 kw dynamo. The after 80 kw dynamo breaker is out of shot to the left.
The circuit breaker on the right is the load shedding breaker. It might more properly be called an interconnecter The devices below the scary yellow sign measure the load on each generator and if they detect an overload it will open the interconnected thus disconnecting non-essential services such as the starting air compressor and other non-critical services.
This diagram will give any geeks a picture of Explorer’s electrical distribution system.
