School of the Boat 1 Dec 08 (electrical power)

[Darrin]

Ok folks seein how the Chief is playin hookie at a brewery that may or may not have been bought by a foriegn company and the brewery may or may not have the initials AB (and no it isn't the After Battery), I am going to try to tackle the AC part of the power on the boat.

While I was NEVER a submarine electrician, I am however a Attack Helicopter electrician so I can understand what happens when you touch a live wire against a piece of metal and the damage that it will cause to the equipment and not just the ET's whom have to fix it

DC power is a great thing to have onboard and not something you would really like to play with unless you really know what you are doing and are well insulated to keep from getting electricuted and or dead.

So with that being said... HOW do we get the AC power onboard to run the cool things in life like the MOVIE PROJECTOR and other cool things like electric razors???  And yes I know that there is more gear that uses AC power I don't want to burst the Chief's bubble by letting out all of his secrets that it has taken him decades to learn

Good luck all,

[JTheotonio]

Does this help? 

[Darrin]

Ahhh not so much John,
Go put that wiring harness back in your car and get back to work

[JTheotonio]

  I think the red end connects to the blue end that connects to the yellow end - hum!  trying to be helpful

(back to work aye-aye!)

[Darrin]

Ok folks looks like I messed up with this one, I had forgotten that the early WWII boats didn't run AC power on board. Later classes the did but not the Balao's, SORRY

Now with that being said there are some pretty cool things that you can do with the lighting feeder voltage regulator and you can also really get into the shore power connections and how that system works.. And for the boats that still have their Aux Diesel onboard you can also turn your propellors with that (IF you still had them and your batteries and NAVSEA's approval of course).

What has surprised me most about the electrical system is all of the stuff that we have taken for granted while onboard the museums, most of us will never play with the electrical system but there is nothing wrong with us having an idea of how it works because it isn't that hard at all and the fleet submarine manual also gives you brief descriptions on how things are checked and tested along with showing us how the "sticks" were placed to make the whole system work correctly.

[Mark Sarsfield]

Batfish is a Balao and she has A/C power from the I.C. Switch Board.  The lighting and a lot of the elctrionics gear runs on AC.  There are two AC buses.  Usually AC Bus #1 was used and got power from one of the main generators by selector switch.  Bus #2 was connected the dink engine, if I remember correctly. 

According to the manual...

"The alternating current power supply to this switchboard is obtained from the I.C. motor generators which are comprised of either 250-volt d.c. motors and 120-volt a.c. generators, or 120-volt d.c. motors and 120-volt a.c. generators, depending upon the type of installation. The former would take its power directly from the batteries, the latter from the lighting system. If the supply is taken from the lighting system, the installation is also equipped with an emergency supply obtained from a center tap off the battery through a double throw switch, for use in the event of failure of the lighting motor generator set.

The direct current power supply to the switchboard comes from the lighting system. An auxiliary supply of direct current for the gyro compass and torpedo data computer may be obtained from a rectifier which receives its power supply from the alternating current bus.

Fused switches are supplied for the primaries of each of the two 120/8 volt transformers for the 6-8 volt circuits, and for the searchlight. One spare fused switch is provided, wired into the direct current bus, and 2 spare switches are wired into the alternating current bus."