GE Customer Training

Greetings to all of you

I am asking about the F-Class turbine operation (advanced) course offered by GE Customer training in Texas. Any one tried it before? is it worth the cost? because it costs 3500 dollars.

The course is 5 days, 8 hours a day. The Agenda is as follows

Day 1 Introduction
F-Class Turbine Component Review
Documentation: Device Summary and Control Specifications
Turbine Devices and Operating Conditions

Day 2 Startup & Shutdown Sequence Procedure
Control Functions: Speed, Temperature
Protection: Over Speed, Over Temperature, Vibration
Variable Inlet Guide Vane Operation
Exhaust Temperature Spreads and Combustion Monitoring

Day 3 Primary Operator Interface < HMI >: Menus & Screens
Alarms, Trips and Troubleshooting
Tour of the gas turbine manufacturing and assembly areas

Day 4 Generator Component Overview
Generator Off Line & On Line Operation Fundamentals
Hydrogen Generator Hydrogen Gas and Seal Oil Systems

Day 5 Advanced Topics:
DLN 2.6 / 2+ Fuel System Operation
Inlet Bleed Heat Protection
Temperature Matching

Thank you
 
Aptx489,

Based on the questions you have previously asked here on control.com, I wonder if you would get the knowledge you seek. I would venture that the class is geared more for operators with little or no knowledge of F-class turbines and auxiliaries; I presume the material is geared more toward the new operator than an experienced operator.

You might be very lucky and the instructor is very knowledgeable and has the time to answer in-depth individual questions, but the agenda seems pretty ambitious for a five-day class. As it is described as an operations course, it will probably NOT be very in-depth on the Mark*, so if you're expecting to get some controls training you might be disappointed.

I'm sure you will leave with some new information and insights and knowledge, just be sure you have reasonable expectations of a more general and somewhat fast-paced course.
 
I have taken GE's Mark V Control Systems (with HMI), EX2000 GENERATOR EXCITATION MAINTENANCE, and Innovation Series LCI for Turbine Static Start all at their Salem, VA facility. I have not taken the class that you speak of, so I will share my personal experience with the other classes.

The Mark-V training was very fast paced. I was familiar with the operator screens and the physical layout of the hardware. It was like drinking through a fire hose for me. Others in the class who were already modifying logic and doing downloads seemed to be bored by parts it, but for someone who doesn't work with it everyday it was very beneficial for me. The trainer who I had was retired but returned to teach this class. He was not too motivated to stay after or help with peoples specific issues. We had around 20 students in the class and at the time they had I think 11 Mark V units. I had looked into other training facilities and they usually have only 1 Mark V if they have one at all and you will get less hands on time with the unit. Most of them really pushed "lets do the training at your facility" like we have a spare mark V sitting around that we can play on.

GE only had 1 running LCI at the time so we all had to share the LCI. There usually aren't very many people who want to get up front of the class and do anything on it. Out of 10 students, I did about half of the testing and troubleshoot and the other half was shared amongst the rest of the students.

They had a live running M Frame EX2000 that was connected to a dummy load. The class experience was about the same as the LCI class. I did about half of the hands on portion and the rest of the class shared the other half.

After taking the three classes, I will say, you can show up and just sit back and get the bare minimum or you can ask question, show up early, catch the instructor between breaks and before he gets out the door in the evenings and get any questions you want answered. For the most part the instructors were very interested in helping the students out. Also it was training, most of the people in there know less about than you do, so ask those obvious questions that you think everyone should know, you'll find out that most of them don't.

Make sure that your instructor covers all of the content in the syllabus too. They try to pack 2 weeks of training into one 40 hour week and tend do move quickly or skip parts when students don't step in and stop them. I attended the courses in 2012. At the time I had about 2 years of power plant IE experience and picked up a lot, but I am convinced that I could take the classes again and still pick up something new out of each one of them.
 
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