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The EAST 1552 extended or VAG 1652 also supports reflashing by its log memory card and a 422 serial interface too, indeed with CAN functions + wide character screen to show data of DTC's and I have that too with authorized licensed EOLE level access!



Show me someone in USA besides me with a VAG 1267!

Chalk full of nuts and not coffee!


Use CHALKS!

It's spelled "chocks", Jack.


-Uwe-

Remember when a Veryon doing 250 MPH was considered absurdly fast?


-Uwe-

This Car shpould make a lot of fun

vagtuning said:

This Car shpould make a lot of fun

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For $110,000, it guess it had better be.

-Uwe-

^^^^ Right. As a general rule, residential meters only measure kWh, not kVAh. However, industrial meters often do measure kVAh, and power-factor correcting capacitors (as well as other power-factor correcting technology) can provide big savings to industrial customers who have big loads with poor power factors.

-Uwe-

Didn't you know some guys who made a power supply for large industrial heat treat furnaces that corrected power factor? At least one of those guys was very clever as I remember. Whatever happened to them?

Uwe said:

^^^^ Right. As a general rule, residential meters only measure kWh, not kVAh. However, industrial meters often do measure kVAh, and power-factor correcting capacitors (as well as other power-factor correcting technology) can provide big savings to industrial customers who have big loads with poor power factors.

-Uwe-

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Uwe: So - do US energy retailers actually offer KVAh tarrifs to "industrial" customers, or are these KWh tarrifs with a separate charge for excessive Kvar?

Don

DV52 said:

do US energy retailers actually offer KVAh tarrifs to "industrial" customers, or are these KWh tarrifs with a separate charge for excessive Kvar?

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It varies from one utility company to the next, or at least it did back when Bruce and I were involved in this stuff ~25 years ago. Heck, some didn't do either and just charged by the kWh.

-Uwe-

DV52 said:

Uwe: So - do US energy retailers actually offer KVAh tarrifs to "industrial" customers, or are these KWh tarrifs with a separate charge for excessive Kvar?

Don

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Those that charged for reactive power did so with a power factor ratio charge. I actually presented a paper on it at a trade fair. Most heat treat operators had no idea how their power bill was calculated and did not know they could do something about their charges. Not only did Uwe and I come up with a solution to a problem, but we also had to tell the industry about their problem. I wonder if my paper is still on the MSi web site.... nope.. they finally took it down! I might have a copy on my office computer.

The way most worked is that if the power factor was a certain value, then they multiplied the KWhrs by a factor. They also applied an oversized equipment factor. By law in most states, they could only charge by the KW - the work actually performed. But, the utilities are permitted to recover cost of having to oversize the system to handle the reactive component.

Capacitor banks work great for fixed loads. The problem for heat treat shops is that their load varies depending on which furnaces are running. To achieve unity power factor using capacitors would require a system to dynamically switch capacitors in and out. Not a trivial task.

Uwe's idea was to solve the problem on each furnace. Using zero fired SCRs, and switching these between power taps on transformers, we delivered the power needed but always at unity power factor. It worked well. Using the controls Uwe designed, I created a 1.5 Megawatt power supply for one application. That was some big power. The power was delivered in sections, the largest being 300KW (there were 4 of these). The other (2) were 150KW. We supplied all of the power equipment for several of these furnaces.

Fun times! I miss some of that. We have fun doing what we do now. Biggest difference? Success! We have had business success doing VAG-COM/VCDS!

Bruce said:

Uwe's idea was to solve the problem on each furnace.

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No, it was not my idea. The idea already existed when I came on board at MSI. I just implemented it, starting with a model in a spread-sheet, then a scale model that used a bank of 100W light bulbs as a load. The tungsten filaments in conventional light bulbs also have a huge temperature coefficient of resistivity, just like the molybdenum elements used in many vacuum furnaces, but due to their very low mass, they're much more "dynamic". I figured if I could make that work, I could scale it up. Using that small model, I quickly discovered the reason why nobody else had taken the approach we were using. When you switch taps on a zero cross, there's a big surge due to residual flux in the transformer core. OK, let's try delaying firing that SCR for 15 degrees, just on that first cycle after switching tapes. Hey, that helps! OK, let's try 30 degrees. Problem solved! This is easy if you have full control over your SCRs with a microprocessor and software, but back in those days (early 1990s), nobody else was doing that. Several other companies in the furnace control business saw what were were doing and flatly stated, "That's impossible; you can't do that!". That's right, you can't, at least not with the analog controls you guys are using.

Oh, and one of the design criteria from our first customer was the system had to be able to withstand a dead short ("drop a crowbar across it") at the output without damage, even to the (giant) fuses on the input, because sometimes things inside a furnace fall off the racks and short out the elements. When he came in to see the first full-sized one run, we handed him an actual crow-bar to test it. He wasn't willing, so we did for him. The system was running at full power (50 kW, IIRC). It simply stopped on the next zero cross of the input. We removed the crowbar and it gently re-started and ramped up again, without anything else being touched.

Good times indeed. Except for the small detail that despite having a better mousetrap, the world did not beat a path to our door. Our systems were more expensive than the traditional ones, and we could show that they would pay for themselves in 12-18 months, but very few potential customers were willing to invest in that "unproven" technology that they didn't understand.

-Uwe-

Bruce said:

By law in most states, they could only charge by the KW - the work actually performed. But, the utilities are permitted to recover cost of having to oversize the system to handle the reactive component.

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@Bruce: I've worked on both sides of the regulatory divide here in Australia for my sins and I spent a few years with energy retailers designing tariffs for large industrial customers who couldn't care less about their power factor. My single abiding memory of that time was my incredulity at the penalty costs that these customers were prepared endure in their tariffs. Those were the days when I was young and naive - and it was important to me to have tariffs that accurately reflected actual costs - but they simply didn't work to incentivize correct behavior!

I've long wondered how tariffs are approved in America - seems like the US regulatory (legal?) system has similar elements to Australian practices. Both countries use privately owned companies to provide monopoly services to captured customers!

Bruce said:

Fun times! I miss some of that. We have fun doing what we do now. Biggest difference? Success! We have had business success doing VAG-COM/VCDS!

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hmm..........sounds like Uwe and Bruce have been a dynamic duo for a good many years !!!

No disrespect intended to your current/past employers - but "fun times" achieving another shareholder's objective pale into insignificance compared to the fun times that await in retirement (when you can concentrate solely on your own objectives). Do it quickly - perhaps on your 65th birthday?

Uwe said:

Oh, and one of the design criteria from our first customer was the system had to be able to withstand a dead short ("drop a crowbar across it") at the output without damage, even to the (giant) fuses on the input, because sometimes things inside a furnace fall off the racks and short out the elements. When he came in to see the first full-sized one run, we handed him an actual crow-bar to test it. He wasn't willing, so we did for him. The system was running at full power (50 kW, IIRC). It simply stopped on the next zero cross of the input. We removed the crowbar and it gently re-started and ramped up again, without anything else being touched.

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@Uwe: I'm sure that it's not only me that sees a pattern in your work history (might have something to do with thinking outside the box)!!

Had you tried the "crowbar test" before the first customer build? It's one thing to design the device on paper and to build a prototype that theoretically is short-circuit proof - but I suspect that it must be an entirely different thing to throw a crow-bar into something that wields that much energy and to hope that theory and practice align! Of course hindsight always down-plays risk and emphasizes success - but I bet that there must have been at least a modicum of doubt in your mind as the iron bar left your fingers?

Don

DV52 said:

sounds like Uwe and Bruce have been a dynamic duo for a good many years !!!

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Yep, Ross-Tech is the third business where Bruce and I have worked together. The first, starting in 1993 was a division of Avery (a company best known for sticky labels).

DV52 said:

Had you tried the "crowbar test" before the first customer build? It's one thing to design the device on paper and to build a prototype that theoretically is short-circuit proof - but I suspect that it must be an entirely different thing to throw a crow-bar into something that wields that much energy and to hope that theory and practice align!

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Of course! I tested that starting with the very first prototype, and on the second, bigger one, and on the first customer build well before I asked the customer to try it.

-Uwe-

DV52 said:

@Uwe: I'm sure that it's not only me that sees a pattern in your work history (might have something to do with thinking outside the box)!!

Had you tried the "crowbar test" before the first customer build? It's one thing to design the device on paper and to build a prototype that theoretically is short-circuit proof - but I suspect that it must be an entirely different thing to throw a crow-bar into something that wields that much energy and to hope that theory and practice align! Of course hindsight always down-plays risk and emphasizes success - but I bet that there must have been at least a modicum of doubt in your mind as the iron bar left your fingers?

Don

Click to expand...

Uwe said:

Of course! I tested that starting with the very first prototype, and on the second, bigger one, and on the first customer build well before I asked the customer to try it.

-Uwe-

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Fun Sales story: was making a sales presentation to a Chrysler part manufacturing plant on our idea and system. As part of the presentations, we always told about the safety protect of the system. We had a demo rig with a small high temp furnace that had a 2 or 3 volt, 700 amp output.

I am giving the dog and pony show to both tech and business people the features of our product. I turn to the audience and asked them did they ever have a part fall off the conveyor belt in a furnace and short the heating elements? Their reply: Sure.. all the time. I then asked if they thought a power supply that could detect the short and safely shut down output power to protect the elements and the parts would be an asset to them. Tech stands up and says, "There is no 'Fing way' a power supply could safely shut down without damage."

The wise ass Bruce says, "Would you like to see that?" Indignantly he replies, "Yes I would!"

I asked if he had a screw driver. He hands me a tiny thin screw driver. I asked, "Are you sure you want to see what happens to this screw driver when we pump 700 amps through it before it shuts down?" "Yeah, I don't care about the screw driver." I take it and short the output terminals. The tip of the screw driver is blown off but the power supply ground faulted and as soon as the tip was gone, went back to working.

The Tech said, "A part has been damaged...'

Bruce, the wise ass says, "Now, can you get a real screw driver and let me show the unit shutting down?" He did, I repeated the test and his jaw dropped. I repeated the demo and then handed him the screw driver.. He tried many many times...

We sold the tech people but the suits didn't trust a small business like ours. A sale was made 3 years after I sold the business and the guy who took over the business did not know how to make the electronics run. He is a great transformer engineer but knows nothing of electronics. The Smart Power Supply is now gone... He killed the product and the idea.