Quick background. Site has spare parts of dubious origin; rebuilds, parts that were previously used to trouble issues in the field then placed back in stock, etc.
The problem. A Mk V started getting ETR1 Loopback diagnostic alarms for <S>/<Y> and common ETR1 alarms in all cores as all cores monitor all ETR's and all PTR's via a common on JLY, JLX, and JLZ. This leads me back to a bad ice cube in K5 on the TCTG. I replaced the TCTG, but upon doing so <Y> dropped down to A5 and would not return to A7 on power cycle. Okay. I've replaced the <Y> TCEA, triple checked my bergs, double checked revision level, powered it up , and it went to A7. I forced the cross trip to energize the TCTG, and no diagnostic alarms. I check diagnostic counters and see my ETR's and PTR's are all behaving properly in all cores. Unforce logic, master reset, and turn it over to site. The world is healed, or so I thought.

Unit gets dispatched and it won't synch. The 25's (K1, K2, and K3 on the TCTG) aren't working on the "new" TCTG. Okay, I go out and put the just removed "old" TCTG back in. "I may run with a bad ETR1 Loopback diag and know that a second failure will trip me , but at least I can synch" is the sites philosophy. Go through the steps to replace the "new" TCTG with the "old" TCTG. Again when I remove the TCTG, <Y> (The "new" TCEA) loses its mind and won't boot past A5. <X> and <Z> are fine through this whole evolution twice in under an hour not dropping out of A7 on loss of TCTG. IONET is fine as the TCDA's are going to A7 and they are further down the IONET daisy chain than the TCEA. I doubled checked it as well.

I have site getting "brand new" (new old stock I'm presuming) TCEA and TCTG cards hot shotted in overnight. Am I just the victim of bad spare parts or am I missing something as to why JUST <Y> keeps losing A7 just because of TCTG replacement? Again, <X> and <Z> went through the exact same condition without losing A7. I plan on checking continuity on all of the pins of JLY between the <Y>TCEA and TCTG tomorrow, but I've already successfully gotten <Y> to A7 once after the initial "new" TCTG/TCEA fiasco. Thoughts?

 

@White,

What you describe about the spare electronic cards in far too many places these days is one of my pet peeves, and has caused me many man-days of frustration swapping out cards repeatedly to find one that actually works. And continually being asked, "Why is this taking so long?!?!!??!!" People are often so quick to swap a card for just about any problem, only to find swapping the card for one from the warehouse didn't solve the problem, and instead of reinstalling the original card back in the panel they put it in the box the new card came in and send it back to the warehoue. (Usually, subsequently they either discover they replaced the wrong card in the beginning OR (more likely) it's a field device/field wiring issue, so a card swap wasn't ever really required.)

Based on your description you probably had a bad card from the warehouse/spares--one that may have suffered some poor handling during the card swap and was simply returned to the warehouse.... I've seen some printed circuit cards that were seriously abused during removal (likely because it was (incorrectly) believed the card was bad/faulty anyway!) and the person doing the replacement didn't understand how the cards are held in place and just kept applying pressure and twisting the card to get it free of the card carrier. I think very often when it's determined the card is not the problem, it simply gets put in the box and sent to the warehouse as a spare, even though it was seriously abused during removal.

It seems you understand all of the required jumpering for TCEA and TCDA cards and have properly verified that. I hate to keep sounding like a broken record, but just last week I helped a site with a problem that was solved by unplugging ribbon cables, wiping a small amount of conductive grease across the ribbon cable connector face and then plugging the cable in and unplugging it several times before firmly, but gently, seating the connector in the cable. The site didn't have any spare cards and so we tried a couple of things before applying conductive grease (to a ribbon cable that was carrying analog input signals from a terminal board)--and it worked. Now the site has (supposedly) put together a plan to do this for the entire panel at the next major outage at the end of the year.

I find most problems with ribbon cables is the connectors are not unseated correctly. People don't use the pull tabs and they don't pull evenly. (And don't get me started on the 3PL cables!) They just yank on the pull tab--if they use it--or they just grab the ribbon cable and pull. And often when re-inserting the connector in the receptacle they don't check to make sure it's properly seated, evenly, and just stick in the connector and call it good. I've seen some of the contact output cables from DTBC and DTBD cards be damage from arcing because they weren't properly seated when reconnect the cable to the TRLY cards. I will be interested to hear if you find any cable damage.

Anyway, best of luck!

 

@White,

What you describe about the spare electronic cards in far too many places these days is one of my pet peeves, and has caused me many man-days of frustration swapping out cards repeatedly to find one that actually works. And continually being asked, "Why is this taking so long?!?!!??!!" People are often so quick to swap a card for just about any problem, only to find swapping the card for one from the warehouse didn't solve the problem, and instead of reinstalling the original card back in the panel they put it in the box the new card came in and send it back to the warehoue. (Usually, subsequently they either discover they replaced the wrong card in the beginning OR (more likely) it's a field device/field wiring issue, so a card swap wasn't ever really required.)

Based on your description you probably had a bad card from the warehouse/spares--one that may have suffered some poor handling during the card swap and was simply returned to the warehouse.... I've seen some printed circuit cards that were seriously abused during removal (likely because it was (incorrectly) believed the card was bad/faulty anyway!) and the person doing the replacement didn't understand how the cards are held in place and just kept applying pressure and twisting the card to get it free of the card carrier. I think very often when it's determined the card is not the problem, it simply gets put in the box and sent to the warehouse as a spare, even though it was seriously abused during removal.

It seems you understand all of the required jumpering for TCEA and TCDA cards and have properly verified that. I hate to keep sounding like a broken record, but just last week I helped a site with a problem that was solved by unplugging ribbon cables, wiping a small amount of conductive grease across the ribbon cable connector face and then plugging the cable in and unplugging it several times before firmly, but gently, seating the connector in the cable. The site didn't have any spare cards and so we tried a couple of things before applying conductive grease (to a ribbon cable that was carrying analog input signals from a terminal board)--and it worked. Now the site has (supposedly) put together a plan to do this for the entire panel at the next major outage at the end of the year.

I find most problems with ribbon cables is the connectors are not unseated correctly. People don't use the pull tabs and they don't pull evenly. (And don't get me started on the 3PL cables!) They just yank on the pull tab--if they use it--or they just grab the ribbon cable and pull. And often when re-inserting the connector in the receptacle they don't check to make sure it's properly seated, evenly, and just stick in the connector and call it good. I've seen some of the contact output cables from DTBC and DTBD cards be damage from arcing because they weren't properly seated when reconnect the cable to the TRLY cards. I will be interested to hear if you find any cable damage.

Anyway, best of luck!

Bad refurbs. JLY pinned out for continuity just fine. Brand new TCEA and TCTG installed. New <Y> TCEA went straight to A7. <X> and <Z> never lost A7 just because the TCTG was removed. With the new TCTG installed and power I forced the cross trip and observed ETRs and PTRs in diagnostic counters, beautiful. Now we just need to synch to prove the 25's work. Thanks for giving it consideration, I've been putting in 80 hour weeks for over a month and was starting to second guess myself.

I'm, still a little confused as to how yesterdays refurb TCEA dropped to A5 just because of the loss of TCTG. It's literally just the JLY that interfaces the two. I've pinned out all of the relay driver IC's on the TCTG, but never tinkered with TCEA's that much.

 

@White,

I've always had difficulties with the <P> core. I once had TCEB Diagnasty Alarms and replaced the TCEB, ribbon cables, TCEA cards and the alarms just wouldn't clear. Finally after many complaints from the site manager (who was a dick to begin with) I just swapped out the TCTG--and voilá! The alarms cleared. I spoke a couple of times with GE Salem engineers, and I have a suspicion they knew what was going on--but they wouldn't let on. I had similar problems on a couple of other sites and replacing the TCTG worked both times. Very strange.

And, yes, there are some BAD refurbs out there, not to mention "old" cards getting sent back to the warehouse....

Thanks for the feedback!