Hydroelectronic Governors

The two Hydro-Eletric facilities I've been around were on the Ohio River and water flow was controlled by a Hydraulic Pump sending oil through Servo Valves to cylnders that contrlled the opening for water flow.

They had Nitrogen Filled Oil Accumultors to enhance response of the oil flow and when they were not properly charged the system got slower and slower response as the Nitrogen Pre-Charge deteriorated.

Also, the oil may be contaminated or deteriorated from heating, water ingest or old age and making he valves sluggish and over react when they finally break away.

I would be looking for some advice from the local Fluid Power distributor.

I would check all connections for corrosion and screws for tightness, then position and speed transducers to make sure there signal is not noisey. If noisey you may see it with volt or ohm meter or may need oscilloscope.

You may also ask to find out if new equipment has been added that could contaminate the power supply to the governor. Or high voltage lines installed near the governor position or speed transducer signal wiring can get noise into the signal if there are poor connections. If AC wiring is in the conduits or a junction box with the position or speed pick-up wiring and the AC has a loose connection it can interfere with the signals.

Is the problem after an extended outage or lack of operation ? or after a bad lightening storm ?

If there is a battery problem you may see battery charger "noise" getting into the governor power.

Is the hydraulic system oil and filters OK ? Any sticking in the servovalves ?

<there is too much hunting>

Means the System Response settings have been set up to overcorrect.

Governor's Manuals would tell you how to Slow down .

And how to reduce the error amplification(GAIN). Try Reducing that in small steps.

And study a bit of Control Theory-particularly Tsebytcheff 's Criteria(Optimal Overshoot)

You will overcome.

mm

Maybe its because it's deer hunting season and your Governor is a hunter? Sorry. Couln't help myself!