Electrical

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offshoresnipe
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Electrical

Post by offshoresnipe »

I have sailed on more then one vessel that has had the ground to the welder bolted right to the hull, then in locations through out the vessel there would be hook ups for the stinger, nice set up all I have to drag around with me is maybe 50 feet of leads and not the ground lead too. This is the way most dredge's are set up, we weld almost every day to repair something.

Was talking to a engineer and he said that this is not a good practice.
If I am welding say on a crane boom or some such thing I will have a ground clamp to jump around the bearings,etc.
He said you still have the hull acting as a gound wire with current, working it's way back to the welder and this can mess up other equipment in the path and that you don't know you have current runing through it.
I do alot of welding and would rather drag the leads then damage something, any input would be great.
I have seen this setup for many years, someone is misinformed.
Thanks for any input.

"There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting and enslaving than the life at sea".
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JK
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Re: Electrical

Post by JK »

I double checked with one of our senor electricians and he confirmed the engineers comments about not being a good practice. That is the nice thing about being in the office with all the subject matter experts, it is 2 steps to get the rest of the info!
He confirmed the currents could knock out PCs, electronics and ruin transducers if they were subjected to the current. If you were working on a handamatic dredge from the 60's you probably wouldn't see it as much as the modern ships with electronics everywhere.

We then digressed onto VHF radios in the enginerooms and how they will trip machinery off when you key the mike. Since both of us have run into it after using the radio, it was a good laugh for first thing in the AM.
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