TCP040 smoking at end of spin up?

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RobertMendelsohn
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TCP040 smoking at end of spin up?

Post by RobertMendelsohn »

Hello,

My TCP040 turbo pump controller is starting to emit smoke after it finishes spinning up. Has anyone else encountered this? Or have any ideas about how to fix it?
I think it might be time to get a new one. I don't think it's an over-current due to higher gas load than expected, because it only happens as soon as the pump comes up to max speed.
The smoking component is a metal box, and it's not obvious that that can be easily replaced. All ideas welcome.

Sincerely,

Robert
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Richard Hull
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Re: TCP040 smoking at end of spin up?

Post by Richard Hull »

Where there is smoke there is charring of electronic components or physically ruptured Integrated circuits. Why not look and see what among these are not looking pretty any more. This will lead one with a good schematic to the area of difficulty. However without electronic knowledge and trouble shooting skills you are probably dead in the water. You are most fortunate that you had a fire. Such horrid nastiness in death serves as an indicator to a good engineer or technician.

My TCP 040 controller died due to high power arcing within the fusor! My controller merely died quietly without explosion or fire while working perfectly. I took the shotgun approach around what I thought might be vulnerable areas of the circuit and replaced 5 IC's of perfect appearance at removal, and luckily got it going again. Not much use of my engineering degree was brought to bear, just lots of experience in the real world of electronic component frailties.

Good luck.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
RobertMendelsohn
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Re: TCP040 smoking at end of spin up?

Post by RobertMendelsohn »

Thanks for your help Richard, I found and replaced the offending components.
Matt_Gibson
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Re: TCP040 smoking at end of spin up?

Post by Matt_Gibson »

So what can we do to prevent arc overs from damaging our sensitive electronics such as these pump controllers? I’ve had many arc overs (external and internal) lately yet no failures. Could this be from me mounting everything on an aluminum frame that is grounded to earth?

-Matt
Chris Giles
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Re: TCP040 smoking at end of spin up?

Post by Chris Giles »

RobertMendelsohn wrote: Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:13 pm The smoking component is a metal box...
What was it exactly that failed?
So what can we do to prevent arc overs from damaging our sensitive electronics such as these pump controllers?
Protection could be provided with diodes, MOVs, chokes and X/Y rated capacitors, depending where the problem is.

I guess there is a transient in one or more of:
* AC line power to the controller
* controller<>motor cable
* control cables if you have any

MOVs are easy and cheap to put in place, could do that as a precaution
RobertMendelsohn
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Re: TCP040 smoking at end of spin up?

Post by RobertMendelsohn »

Some electrolytic capacitors, which I presume were simply old and dried up. They were (ostensibly) part of the circuit that kicks on when the turbopump is at speed. I should mention that this was not triggered by any arcing, I really suspect age.
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