What's inside a SYNCHROSCOPE and how does it work
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2022
- Today I explore the mysterious mechanism of an old synchroscope that was used to synchronize a power plant AC generator with the power grid (mains).
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Many synchroscopes also have two lightbulbs in parallel (for redundancy) connected between mains and the generator (which have a shared neutral connection). If they are flashing and the needle is twitching or not moving (in whatever position), it means that the frequency is way off. It is only safe to take the generator online when they are off and the needle is at 12 o'clock position. They are a cheap addition that makes operation less prone to error but are an epileptic hazard to some.
I think the bulbs are for greater differences in frequency too, because synchroscope starts to show properly the difference when both frequencies are almost the same (as far as I know).
The old 727's had a similar setup in the cockpit. You had to sync the flashing lights to parallel the generators before you put them online.
It would have been cool if he added how the light version works also, ive seen some that have both displays
Whenever I've seen one of these it always has a bulb strobe right next to it.
The manufacturers of these probably figured it's better to just implement that separately, it lets you use whatever bulb is convenient and you don't always have a tied neutral anyway.
I can't imagine how much time and effort to put together analog meters such as this one especially the given limited technology back then, really appreciate the work from back then
and intelliiiigenceee. absolutely mad
I've wondered how power companies handle timing difference between lines. Amazing! Thanks for sharing!
@@rollbot yeah if timing is wrong they could cancel out and possibly could lead a catastrophe
It also shows how difficult it is to design a product that’s reliable and reasonably easy to manufacture. The principle of a synchroscope is very simple, you could build a prototype using just a 3-phase stator and one extra coil with brushed contacts. But getting a product out the door is the hard part.
@@MC-01 Whatever size you generator is, the grid will always overpower it by far. If you connect the generator to the grid out of phase, the grid will force the genrator into phase immediately, no matter what mechanical force it takes to do so, or whether the constructiono of the genrator can handle the stress. The results of that can be quite amazing indeed.
As a young 15year old, we used to use 3 lamps connected between the 3 phases of the supply and the generator. We had to adjust the speed of the generator until the 3 lamps went out then throw the switch to connect them together.
The generator was about 1m long and 1.5m wide and driven by a very large motor. if the tutor left the room we would see who would throw the switch with the brightest lamps, the generator would try and rip itself out of it mount. 🙂
Once the switch the generator is phase locked to the supply and it’s very hard to change the speed of the motor driving it.
What fun we had in those days🙂
i'm always amazed how these clever engineers were able to develop everything back then, but also had the knowledge how to produce it, i mean it looks good and solid, better than many that you can buy today. thanks Dany and kiss to your cat!
Well it says on the synchroscope made in czechoslovakia, so you can assume it was made in the 80's. Also czechoslovakia was back then part of USSR so if you haven't done something, you will be forced to do it. (even if it's working partially) So some electronics were really sh!tty.
Very cool Dany. You continue to amaze me with the older technology which when explained seems like it shouldn't be obsolete.
Big thanks ;). Everything that doesn't contain heaps od chips is now obsolete. Maybe just because it's a fashion, who knows. We've lost the ability to do things the simple way.
@@DiodeGoneWild I completely agree
Thank you for quality content. Love the simplicity and principle of these devices
Nice!
So simple and clever design. It will be interesting in the next episode to see it run on an inverter set to for example 49 or 51 Hz on one input and mains at the other. If you don't already have such an inverter, a simple way (since not much power is needed and the frequency range of interest is only within few Hz from mains frequency) is to use a speaker amplifier (and feed the input with a sine tone at the desired frequency, generated by the computer, an app on the phone or a function generator) and then connect the speaker output to feed a small iron core transformer
- which will rise the voltage from about 5-10 V (typically used to drive a 4 or 8 ohm speaker at about 1-10 W) up to 100 V or what's needed for the meter.
Excited to see the next video. This thing's really neat!
That's really nice! I recently noticed that you can see power plants falling out of sync in a video of the 2011 earthquake in japan; you can see the lights beginning to flicker faster and faster in sinusoidal fashion right before they fade out completely. As though perhaps a generator lost steam power yet was still on the grid! I'll post the link here if anyone's interested.
If a generator or turbine losses sync, protection devices are supposed to disconnect it from the grid.
that is a beauty device - I really like the way you explain and show these old devices
You could cascade two low voltage transformers to create another low-power 230 V to 100 V convertor (assuming you only have one variac). Then, you can try to sync an actual gasoline generator to mains!
Wow! I heard of these but never seen one actually work. Thank you man!
Thank You for a great video and explaination of the synchronism meter. I was an electrician in the navy and ran the generators and had to switch them on and offline on board ship.
For load transfer switching at the moment the supply's phases are in sync, indicator light bulbs will do just fine. For parallelling generators, this synchroscope will not only tell you when they are in phase like lightbulbs do. It will also tell you which generator is faster or slower than the other. And it is more accurate than lightbulbs.
For demonstrating this synchroscope, you can use a generator driven by a motor with speed control and try to sync that to mains. But if you happen to have an amplifier with vacuum tubes, you can just use a function generator. Take the output to the synchroscope from the primary side of the output transformer. Or use a transistor-based power amp and drive the secondary of a mains transformer to get a nice controllable sine wave at the primary.
From the other room my fiance yells "Was that english the entire time!?!"
Great video about the phase Sync meter, they were used with marine engines and dual generators back in the day! Can you bring out the over-unity transformer / MEG unit and show everyone how to build it Sir. I found some old ballast transformer cores like you used. Thanks
Thanks for making this video. Very interesting.
Thank You! This was genuinely interesting!
i was waiting for this or too long. thanks.
Very nice presentation. I was curious how this device is in fact is built inside and your movie shows everything in clear and simple way. Thank you for sharing
Very important in a power plant, as putting a big alternator online with the wrong phase can be expensive. When online you adjust power output by controlling steam input, or fuel input for a diesel powered plant, as the alternator stays in sync with the grid, and extracts more power from the energy input instead of changing frequency, feeding it into the grid.
Quite a few incidents where a generation set got connected in the wrong synchronisation, and the result was at best a burnt out alternator winding, from it trying to put too much power in before the fuses blew, or in a few cases of the entire turbine and alternator exiting the building via the one wall and the roof. When they get connected the first time careful power plant engineers will have, in a set of disconnects on the grid connection, a set of 3 very high power resistors, so that in case of error, all that you have is a set of instantly burnt out resistors, and no damage otherwise. Once you are sure the plant is in phase, and correct you then can remove the resistor banks, and connect the links in place on the 3 bus bars. always possible to have a wire pair in a 3 phase system get swapped when installing, and this prevents this from being a very expensive and loud mistake. My father was involved in the civils side of a few power stations, and those repairs were both expensive and embarrassing to the ones who were in charge. Normally something drilled into them during training, make sure it is done correctly, and that there are measures to limit the fault current first time.
Great explanation sir thank you for sharing
A robot voice with a foreign accent. I guess the Italians are also going to have avatar bosses.
Having run emergency standby generators at my past job, the syncroscope can be reversed in use between generators and line with a switch. In this manor, when transferring from generator to line, the generator is on the primary on the synchroscope so the generator would be run slow resulting in the line being higher in frequency, resulting in clockwise rotation. When not in a blackout condition, but unstable with glitches such as a windstorm, the syncroscope is switched to line on the primary and the generator is run slightly fast resulting in clockwise rotation again. When on generator, the secondary is then switched to any additional generators that need brought online for the full load, again rotating clockwise as generators being added are run slightly fast. Once in sync and the breaker closed, the governor are adjusted to pick up the load. When the load is picked up and the offloaded source is at low power, that breaker is opened, either a generator or line as the case mandates. This allows transfer without a glitch in power to the critical load.
Great presentation on the Syncroscope. 3 phase units simply have 3 coils instead of 2 pair and an inductor. Never saw the workings of an antique single phase Syncroscope. Thanks for the tear-down and generation of the 90 degree lag phase. The resistor is to make the power factor of the other phase nearly 1 instead of a reactive phase delayed current. Nice tear-down and description. Thanks.
Analog mechanical multiplier!
Czech is a smart and meticulous country while Slovakia prioritizes the beauty of art. What a beautiful blend!
Very cool stuff.
As a lovely aside. The way you speak english is great. I always enjoy listening to people speaking english as a second language. I’m also very impressed as I’ve never really spoken much but english my whole life.
nice explanation, thanks!
Ok. I really like this one. Nice piece of equipment. Would have liked to see the phases move in and out and monitored by oscilloscope(s).
I am also dying to see a 3 phase merc-arc rectifier operate. I think they used to use them for old elevators - at least here in NA.
I worked in a power station built in 1957. It was an "event" to watch a generator being synchronized onto the system. A very serious moment.
Nice video! There isn't much content about such things on RUclips.
I watched it! Im a big fan
Looks like something you'd see nearby one of those harmonic comb gages that shows an operating frequency as each of the tines becomes more or less responsive to an input from a voice coil. Not sure if I described that one right, but I recall it from some other RUclips video.
Cool never herd of such a scope
Metra Blansko, the company who made these meters, is still in business but I don't think they sell to end customers.
Wow I expected to see simple drag contacts or power thru the bearings. This must have been an expensive device back in the day. Nice!
They were only useful in power plants, so I think only thousands of this model got made. DiodeGoneWild is very lucky to have found one.
It does seem expensive but not overly so for a power plant. The build quality is outstanding, considering it must have been handled terribly (broken glass) and it works perfectly after 50+ years.
@@vaclavtrpisovsky There would have been multiple of them in grid switching stations as well, as you also have to make sure that a grid segment you are putting online also has matched phase, especially if there are a few power plants separately feeding each segment, and they might have drifted in phase during the disconnection. Yes but likely only a few thousand of each model were made, probably over a period of a decade or five, as power station instrumentation very rarely will be upgraded till they put in entirely new power generation equipment, as the training to use a new meter type is very expensive, and can take a year or more to complete, simply because you have to build a near full scale mimic of the control room, with them in the correct location first, then do a lot of repetitive training of all shifts.
Plus all manuals must be updated to a new version, along with all training, maintenance and instruction material. There is a reason the all digital LCD type units have a display that almost exactly mimics the old instruments they replace. Power plant operators tend to be conservative, mostly because the plant is likely going to be there and in continual use for close to a half century at a minimum, and some are over the 100 year mark as well, and still running on the original machinery. Might have been rewound and maintained a few dozen times, but a lot of the machinery and building is the original, and still in use. With copies of the original manuals in use as well, and a century of records of every bit of maintenance as well on the rotating plant. There is a reason even a light bulb change in a corridor is recorded, and signed off on as well, with an inspector stamping that it is verified to be correct.
These are still available, analog (like this on the movie) new cost about $1000 and more modern (with LEDs) about 500. At least my recent searching was like this.
You can see these in operation if you search on RUclips for: Authorized Personnel Only - How to Start and Sync a 400,000 Watt Turbine Hydroelectric Generator
There is a great video by Chris Boden "How to Start and Sync a 400,000 Watt Turbine Hydroelectric Generator" that shows this in operation.
Love your accent! Very unique.
@DiodeGoneWild -
YES & if not syncronized the "fun" begins incl. sparks , channel "ElectroBOOM" has demonstrated it with a Non-Sine inverter connected to the home grid while mains power was ("accidentially") still on
This is some very old and cool stuff. I've never seen something like this, and I was wondering if you could make an AC or synchronous motor out of this somehow? It probably isn't even possible but that would be really cool.
It is, you just replace the rotor coils with a permanent magnet. You would need to spin it up manually or slowly raise the frequency to bring it up to speed.
I think a better idea would be to connect the psychroscope to a sound amplifier, where it would be useful to change the phase on one of the channels.
This is such a clever design. Nice!
Nowadays those signals would just get digitized to extract the amplitudes, frequencies and phase in software. It works, but it feels less creative.
...And the frequency match and sync happens automatically. Synchroscopes have been replaced by electronic phase-sensing circuitry for the past 30 years in new installations, or are only used as backups if an EMP pulse or something takes the digital system down. And of course, frequency is very carefully maintained and overshoots and undershoots are compensated so that 4.32M cycles happen every day on average (in Europe) and mains clocks remain synchronised.
I already wanted to write it last time under the video with power factor meters.
Mankind now faces two basic tasks:
1. To clone this great person and distribute him to every electrotechnical school on the planet.
2. To do something with the average human intelligence, so that he has someone to teach at all.
Can you make a video about tracking preregulators for linear voltage regulatros? Something like an SCR (thyristor) doing phase angle control at the bridge rectifier. That keeps the dropped voltage of the linear regulator small (2 - 5 V), so it doesn't heat up as much.
niiiiiice....
Krásný synchronoskop i fázoměr. Dovedl byste, prosím, poradit, kde by se dal sehnat?
thanks !
Yeahp, we had one similar for each generator group in the power plant I used to work...!!!
Believe it or noooot, I love your accent.....
This thing is epic
Love it. 👍🇮🇪
Interesting. I might have thought there would be an angle scale on the dial face, for determining how far out of sync the two sources would be.
Awsome
Just...wow.
So, when the magnetic field from the orange and blue coils are equal the pink coil attached to the needle with counterweights will always point vertical or opposite the counterweight orientation as if there was no magnetics causing any pull. Otherwise the pink coil will spin. Is that correct?
Jezis, to je prizvuk :D
There are four quadrant cosfimeters. Also power factor is not the same as cosfi, a distorted current may have it's fundamental in phase, showing unity cosfi but less than unity power factor
That's what I would call a smart meter.
you can also use a simpson voltmeter to parallel generators
My grandma was warking in Metra (the manufacture in witch this thing was made)
Can you design a capacitor leakage tester? Your design and general opinion. Please
This guy sounds like he needs to synchrononize his own voice's phase
Someone posted your video on Hackaday man.
Pozdrowienia z Polski :-)
It has been bugging me forever and I would really like to know why metal plates like the hexagonal one inside this device are textured with a grid of indentations like that.
It is super common in old electronics but I have not seen it in anything since the 90s, tends to be on zinc-chromate steel or aluminium plates, always on punched pieces and never on cut and drilled pieces so maybe it was part of the punching process? Is it done to introduce stress and prevent warping?
Here’s a fantastic example of a synchroscope in action to being a a shut down power station (in this case a modest hydro station) back online and synchronised to the grid: ruclips.net/video/xGQxSJmadm0/видео.html
Vídeo great!.
wait aren't you the guy that had some electrodes in a glass of water and kept adding more salt to it while its like about to explode?
amazing piece of analoug technology, the ui doesnt do it any justice tho, it just needs a microcontroller, lcd and bunch of useless stats and then id buy one even tho i dont need one
👍👍
@6:44 meow! 🐱
Valeu!
What is your native language? I find your accent very captivating and I'm generally pretty good at recognizing them; my best guess would be Italian, but there are definitely some serious differences compared with a typical Italian accent. I also saw that the scope was made in Czechoslovakia...and now I'm thinking maybe northeast Italy, close to the borders with Croatia/Slovenia, for some unexpected Slavic influence that I'm not used to...?
🤷🏻♂️
Or maybe I'm way off! Please let me know 🙏
He is Czech (formerly Czechoslovakia)
Errrr...
That magnetic coupling for the rotor....
Surely it will change phase as as the rotor turns..
Obviously it isn't a problem, but how?
What happen if you try to connect your generator when phase is out of sync with mains ? Lots of spark and possible damage to the generator ?
Generator will blow up.
In a good installation, the breaker will trip instantly because you are essentially making a 'worse than short circuit'. Look at the videos of Chris Boden to see what happens when you do it only slightly wrong.
If there's no proper protection, or if the fuses are particularly slow to blow, the generator will generate a massive counter torque to the engine driving it because the grid WILL instantly lock the generator in sync, with a much larger power/force than the generator will ever be able to make. This can cause great damage to the mechanical bits.
If you search youtube for 'Aurora Generator Test' you'll vind a video of a medium-large generator set being intentionally connected out of phase to the grid multiple times. Lots of magic smoke.
Wouldn't connecting the generator to the grid via extra high power resistors synchronize it for you?
It would attempt to rotate the shaft while limiting the torque, but you have to also consider the needs of the motor connected to your generator. These things dont have clutches so how would you bootstrap a hydroelectric turbine for example? It would either end up being more complicated or mechanically intensive
Interesting equipment. Thank youbforbsharing.
But I am really struggling with your pronunciation.
Impressive technology. Tesla would be proud.
What's that indian european accent
Nikola Teslas first motor looks the same
Yes, except he used a two phase generator and not single phase with phase shifting. The first polyphase system was 2 phase 4 wire. And he used a shorted rotor.
Another great video DiodeGoneWild! And I suggest a nice video to see where Synchroscopes are used and how : ruclips.net/video/xGQxSJmadm0/видео.html
dude talks exactly like roswaal from re:zero
You sound funny. What's your native language?
Awesome content. But i got headache after a minute listening to how youre speaking. Sorry
i love the things he does, but i hate his accent lol
I wish my English would sound Russian as his
It doesn't sound even remotely Russian. It sounds more like Italian mixed with Arabic.
He's Czech.
you sound like a welsh Pakistani
To big and long commercials in your video
in my country no commercials appeared.
Get an ad blocker, how do you live without it? 😂 I haven't seen ads in ages.
How well things were designed and made back in the day before the Chinese imposed their paradigm.
If you won't narrate in English, why did you put it up with English titles?
Without wishing to offend you, would it be possible for you to draw a little more professionally, please ?
Even my 8 year old doesn't draw like that.
In kindest possible way, the video is unwatchable due to horrid English :(
Watch again and again until u get used to it. Then u'll discover that what is said is pure marvels. DGW is some kind of both tech and comm genious man - but it indeed requires some effort from reader (yeah that's you)
We're not here for linguistics.
It sounds like a mix of Arabic and Italian 😂
Valeu!