There are a few lights in the pump room that adequately light it, but it does need a few more bulbs. You have to turn the lights on once you get down there. There's a switch panel near the ladder.

I haven't been in the motor room, yet. Rick has been down there lots of times. The motor room is useless to us as far as getting the hydraulics and electronics running in the control room/conning tower. The hydraulic pump and motor are located under the control room and the power more than likely comes from one of the switch panels above... or we can rig it up to do so.

The maneuvering room and motor room are tied into the diesel engines and batteries (which no longer exist). It's basically an electrical sub station that determined if power came from the generators or batteries and what motors to send it to, as well as other shipboard equipment. The control room has two A/C busses that we can tap directly into from the museum, essentially bypassing the maneuvering room altogether. We might have to disconnect the lines going between the maneuvering room and control room, so that we don't back-feed a generator and cause a fire.

Yea. When Rick and I were in the Pump room it was the first time he had been down there so we were just looking at how things were. Im sure he has found alot more stuff since then.

Does Batfish have a rectifier? The Hydraulic system motor, and everything else (EXCEPT the lighting, interior communications, radio, radar and sonar systems), runs on 145 to 345 volts DC. Attempting to run any of those systems on 120 volt AC will result in at best chattering contactors, and quite possibly serious equipment damage and or fire.

I would suggest looking at raising the scopes with a hand pump connected directly to the hydraulic cylinders themselves. If you only intend to raise them once, I would avoid the extra work on getting the rest of the system operational.

Most of the equipment in the control room runs on 120 VAC from the circuit boards in that room - the frequency is mainly 60Hz with a few exceptions. We will have to see where we need to attach shore power to the A/C Bus #1 located in the control room switch/circuit boards to get the right results, since we are no longer converting the power from the generators. We have a lot of electrical schematics and we're in the process of getting more from the Torsk.

If the hydraulic motor requires a different voltage and frequency, we could always install a transformer and anything else needed to make the conversion or maybe use a 120V motor in place of the existing one.

The periscopes were raised with high pressure water a long time ago and then metal posts were placed under them in the conning tower to keep them raised. As a museum, we're trying to restore equipment to its original functionality.

I'm wondering if they pumped the water into the hydraulic lines or used some other means. My idea is to disconnect a lot of the hydraulic lines to the dive planes, steering transmission, outer torpedo doors, etc. and replace the ones needed to operate the scopes.

Take a look at Chapter 4 of the Submarine Electrical Installations book of the Fleet Type Submarine Training Manual for details on the electrical auxiliary equipment.

http://www.hnsa.org/doc/fleetsub/elect/chap4.htm

But suffice to say, you will need a 250 Volt Direct Current rectifier to energize the appropriate switch boards.


As for the hydraulic system, when we got Hornet and started work on restoring the aircraft elevators we quickly found out that the hydraulic fluid already in the system was rather caustic stuff. That fluid was likely from the 1960's, I believe the fluid used in WWII was probably more dangerous, as well as being fairly flammable. Please use appropriate caution.

X15, Chapter 4 is for the switch boards in the maneuvering room. According to the I.C. / Alarms Chapter, high voltage alternating current was supplied to A/C Bus #1 from the main generators or to A/C Bus #2 from the back-up generator. Both A/C busses are located in the I.C. Switch Board, which is located in the control room (con). The I.C. switch board then converts the power to 120 VAC 60Hz and also I think 45Hz, depending on the application. From what I have read, the 1MC needs 120 VAC/60 Hz to operate. Same with the radio gear in the radio shack. Lights, alarms, engine telegraphs and many other con room equipment ran on 120 VAC and were powered through the I.C. switch board.

A long time ago, the museum decided to disconnect the lighting from the I.C. panel and wire it directly to shore power. Very little conversion was required, since it used the same voltage and current as house power. Some day we might switch it back to the way it was.

You are correct that other parts of the boat use oddball voltages and current and if we ever decide to get the ice cream maker going, for example, then we'll have to rig up some electronics to convert the power for those applications. I'm assuming that the hydraulic pump located under the control room (pump room) also uses the 120 VAC from the I.C. board, since it's an 18hp motor, but it could be directly taking its power from the maneuvering room. I haven't studied the hydraulic system enough to figure that out.

I'll ask the museum if any of the original hydraulic fluid is still in the system. They said that they used pressure from fire hoses to get the periscopes up to their present position. That tells me that some or all of the system was bled before pumping water into the lines.

Mark,

I'm unclear as what you're referring to when you mention high voltage AC, the main and auxiliary generators produce Direct Current, in order to charge the batteries and run the main motors without the need for any conversion.

The pumps should be supplied from the Forward Auxiliary Switchboard, the Pampanito virtual tour has this to say about the board:

I meant high voltage direct current. My bad.

Yeah, after talking with the USS Torsk electrical guru, he said that he thought the hydraulic pump needed 250 VDC. I think the auxiliary switch board also runs the gryo compasses. He said that they were still waiting for the City of Baltimore to hook up their 240 lines.

So, it looks like we'll have to run 120 VAC and converted 240 VDC power to the con to get a lot of this stuff running, again.

Ok, I'm glad we're on the same page.

I know from following Razorbacks progress that they put a 250 VDC rectifier in one of their battery compartments, and I believe that Pampanito is setup the same way.

We'll have to do the same, then. We'll probably put it down in the pump room, since we plan on converting the aft battery into a work shop and possibly the forward battery into a rec. room for youth groups.

I've started picking the Torsk crew's brain for how they specifically have things hooked up. No sense in reinventing the wheel.

Do you know roughly the size, weight, and cost of the rectifiers that Pampanito and Razorback used? I visited several websites of suppliers and some of those cabinets are pretty big. I would think that stepping up the voltage from 220 to 250 and converting it from AC to DC wouldn't require a large piece of equipment, but I'm not an electronics guru. I know enough to be dangerous. :yep:

Here's the posts from the AIMM blog on Razorback:

http://aimmatnlr.blogspot.com/2005/0...situation.html

http://aimmatnlr.blogspot.com/2005/0...continues.html

I would imagine that Pampanitos unit is a similar size, but you would have to get a hold of Len Vaden, her chief electrician.

The first photo looks similar (in size) to a lot of other rectifiers that I have seen advertised, but this one was for running HVAC, which needs a lot of juice, and it looked pretty vintage. It probably just barely fit through the stairwell.

Yeah, being a California native I'm really only familiar with west coast weather, and we certainly don't need air conditioning here. Working ventilation blowers are nice to have though, if only to clear the air the morning after a youth liveaboard.

LOL! Yeah, getting rid of the funk is a bonus. :) They installed HVAC on the Batfish, but no heater. So, it's like being in an icebox in the winter. The wool blankets come in handy that time of year.

I sent out a few emails to companies selling modern rectifiers to see what the dimensions and price would be for a 250 VDC rectifier. Since they are normally used commercially, I would expect it to be somewhat expensive as opposed to something you could buy at Lowe's or Home Depot as a consumer.