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Re: On board fires
In a message dated 4/30/99 5:32:38 PM, shawl@torchlake.com writes:
<<Hi Vance,
OK, I agree, no water extinguishers, I wasn't trying to say there would be no
shock hazard, I just meant It may not add to the short circuit problem. Just
thought I would bring it up for discussion. I'm still wondering what gas is
used
in the dry chemical type extinguishers? I know it's NOT oxygen. What is the
safe
% limit for CO2 in a sub?
Could you tell us what specifically what kind of problem caused the smoke and
or
fire in the sub or subs you where in, you mentioned earlier? Bad design,
faulty
parts, crimp on connectors, bad workmanship, human error, water shorting out
something, unforeseen problems??????
Jon>>
Jon,
Won't matter about the CO2 (which is the propellant in some fire
extinguishers) as the clever and forward thinking psubber will be on BIBBS
until the crisis is over or the sub surfaced or whatever.
The fires I had were a paper wrapped bayonet fuse for main propulsion
in the old PC-8 which smoldered and sputtered for a few seconds while it was
in the act of committing suicide. The second was in PC-9 and was a light
circuit overlapping a thruster wire. Under heavy useage, the overlapped 120
VDC wires got warm and melted/burned the insulation which made a nice little
puff of smoke before the fuses snapped and then the whole thing went away on
its own.
One other thing I was mulling today after all that writing about
fires was the psubber thinking of his/her vehicle as a UNIT. I remember my
first sub (Amersub 300) was really just one puzzle after another for me. I
did not finish that one, but moved to the Florida submersible mecca of
Riviera Beach to learn from the experts, and what I learned was that the
vehicle(s) were subsystems making a system. Yeah, yeah. I know it's
obvious, but I had been so focused on learning about the bits and pieces that
I had not really gotten around to thinking of the INTERACTION of all those
parts as a functioning whole.
That's where all those pesky little details really start to pay off.
Vance