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787 Lithium Batteries

03/15/2013 7:30 PM

As your are well aware, Boeing has grounded their fleet of 787's due to battery fires. I am not an aeronautical engineer, but if I worked at Boeing and was asked "what caused the problem?", without knowing anything about the workings of the airplane or of battery technology, my answer would be: Aircraft design tries to save weight for more payload. Therefore batteries, being heavy, have to be kept as light as possible. That being the case, the problem I would think is less batteries being used to save weight, resulting in excessive load on the batteries, hence failure. This is my layman's take of the situation. What do you think?

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#1

Re: 787 lithium batteries

03/15/2013 7:55 PM

I'd say the whole world works that way. Everyone tries to get the most for the least.

As an engineer you make all of your calculations and make your estimates within a stated safety margin. My guess is that the engineering team ran their tests but still underestimated the temperature rise of the battery when used in that configuration under those loads.

In the final analysis, there is always some risk; there are 'unknown unknowns' that are only found in full-scale real life situations. If engineers designed for every possible problem, nothing would ever go into full production. It's unfortunate for Boeing, but it's a 'lesson learned'.

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#2

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/15/2013 9:38 PM

I think it may be a possibility that the batteries are picking up excess charge from static buildup or lightning strikes...

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#3

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/15/2013 10:22 PM

So was saving 150 pounds on a 553,000 pound gross take off weight aircraft that costs $220+ million worth it?

They could have just taken one persons seat out and solved that weight issue or just not put the last 30 gallons of fuel in its 36,500 gallon fuel tanks.

Or is that too obvious?

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#5
In reply to #3

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/15/2013 10:47 PM

When you run the numbers for every pound you have to get airborne over the life of the aircraft, you introduce a paradigm lock that locked them into using the lightest possible battery technology. And getting rid of seats would have been the absolute last choice, same with giving up flying distance.

Back in the late 80s, Boeing wanted my former company to produce avionics that never had to be removed from the aircraft. They were going to provide special avionics bays that held the temperature in a very narrow range to reduce thermal temper change from causing solder cracks. This was for the 7J7 program (development title). We were supposed to reduce power consumption. That was canceled then the 777 became the replacement. Boeing had a marvelous systems organization, and it was going down hill starting with the 777. what's interesting is initially when microprocessors were introduced, the power consumption went down, and major increases in functions took place. Now because of modern real time OS, and "virtual machines" running on one processor (up to 16, these are isolated functions, if they crash or run amok, they will not interrupt the other machines running). But these processor burn lots of power. So to recreate the same functions, you burn more power. And as window type Gui's are defacto, as well graphical generation of synthetic vision, 3D FMS navigation etc., you need more processors then previously. So the power consumption is increasing requiring more generator capacity, and stand by emergency battery power.

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#13
In reply to #5

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/16/2013 3:43 PM

What I am getting at is everything has a built in relative tolerance. At some 553,000 pounds max gross weight its not like adding one more pound is going to keep it from lifting off or for that matter I doubt that even a 1000 extra would keep it from becoming air born.

So is nit picking 150 pounds out of 553,000 [a .027% variation] really that important opposed to just changing the specs to say it has a gross take off weight rating of 552,850 pounds?

Same with the comment of just not putting that last 30 or so gallons of fuel in. If you are down to your last 30 out of some 36,500 gallons your already screwed anyway.

Or for that matter a 1 degree temperature difference in that volume of fuel is going to make up for far more than +- 150 pounds variation in the fuels total mass. If I am reading my aviation fuel density charts I found on line right the difference in fuel mass between fueling up in Minneapolis MN at 0 F over fueling at Orlando FL at 75 F would equate to around +- 20,000 pounds difference in fuel weight alone!

To me this sounds like more OCD level managerial semantics and nit picking to justify cheaper batteries than justified weight reduction necessity.

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#9
In reply to #3

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/16/2013 10:23 AM

When I worked at the Ship yard, our yard among two others had contracts consisted of building that Mark V special operation craft (SOC) for the navy seal.

This boat, had to be deployed quickly, so it had to fit into a galaxy C5 aircraft transport. So weight was a huge concerned.

As an example, We weighed our filler rod daily, as well as our dead filler rod. To address a possible weight issue. So the C5 would not be over loaded.

I think this is normal for a large project such as the 787. Because it comes down to, what do you cut. Passengers are your payback?.... Redundent safety Equipment?, its can be difficult, because, the cuts of your necessaries, have already been made. But the positive of this, can be advancement to battery technology.

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#18
In reply to #3

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/17/2013 8:49 AM

I'd say grounding the fleet has cost a whole lot more than carrying around that 150 pounds for the life of the airplane. Penny wise and pound (sic) foolish.

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#21
In reply to #3

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/17/2013 12:25 PM

There seems to be too much emphasis in big weight as opposed to little- as the 787 is a passenger aircraft the luggage component allowance should easliy cover 150 lbs, as usual we are thinking too hard instead of the simple answer.

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#4

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/15/2013 10:27 PM

It seems that even Boeing isn't quite sure what happened:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/business/boeing-details-its-fixes-for-787.html?_r=0

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#7
In reply to #4

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/16/2013 1:27 AM

"Boeing said that more than 500 engineers had worked with outside experts to put in more than 200,000 hours of analysis, engineering work and tests to understand what might have caused the batteries to overheat in two aircraft in January. "

You just need one good troubleshooter.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/15/business/boeing-presents-fix-for-787s-battery-problems.html

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#6

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/15/2013 11:14 PM

Dear Mr. ronseto,

I concur with your views, expressed by you,which is carefully worded.

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#8

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/16/2013 3:13 AM

Lithium batteries would not have been my 1st choice for supplying power for the backup systems. Only because they have not been around a long time and not many have been used in this manner. I had an MU-2 that had Ni-cads in it and the learning curve for these units at the time was steep. During a clod start you could over heat the batteries as well, doing some pretty good damage to the units in the process. Now never saw a set on fire, but!

So given the nature and learning curve to these I might as I said waited a bit before jumping in to far with them. Especially since they are heat sensitive to start with.

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#10

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/16/2013 11:33 AM

Personally I think their solution is terrible. Encasing a battery in metal is turning it into a potentially lethal munition, there's no way that venting it to the atmosphere will relieve the internal pressure fast enough under some runaway conditions.There has to be at least one engineer there that feels the same.

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#12
In reply to #10

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/16/2013 1:42 PM

Maybe the whole team feels how wrong this is, but Boeing is bleeding out, and $ will over ride common sense. The FAA needs to feel comfortable with the solution, BUT the FAA does not have the technical know how, these batteries are beyond anything certified to date. Interesting that Gulfstream and Cessna both went back to conventional battery technology on their latest aircraft, I think it was Cessna that had an airworthiness directive to replace the fielded batteries.

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#42
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Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/22/2013 12:21 PM

You know...I concur, mostly. Like, what happens when the vent tubes get clogged with ice? However, a thermal runaway condition is NOT a bomb....it is a chemical reaction which causes the electroyte to boil off. What you get is steam. Lots of it. Contaminated in the case of a ni-cad with KoH. (you know, second cousin to lye but twice as nasty) Before they vented battery cases, you would get a pressure buildup which split battery cases and put holes in the sides of helicopters. Now they vent them, and surprisingly enough, no explosion!

I think the explosive proof containers we would wheel out to choppers with thermalling batteries scared more people than the "explosion" did.

So I am not being pedantic (an explosion is an explosion right? Um....no actually.) the fact is that when I would load munitions onto a military aircraft, THEY had the potential for explosion, such an explosion did not resemble a battery "explosion" in any meaningful way. Vent the blessed things, they will self destruct, and everybody will be fine. If they are spittin' and frying, then a guy in a hazmat suit will drag it out and drop it into an open steel drum.

It would be nice (because it was ME in that hazmat suit and this is the curse I made at the time) if it was nice and easy to get the darned thing out of there without crawling all over sharp corners, delicate wire bundles and taut control cables! A jettison system would solve a lot of problems!

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#11

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/16/2013 12:51 PM

Thanh you all for replying to this thread. It's good to know that there are some who give thoughtful responses where the majority of the world wouldn't give it a second thought. Personally, I would have gone with Ni-Cads that have a long history of dependable service. Boeing probably went with Li-Ion trying to get the most with the least weight. Any new design will have it's share of bugs, but Li-Ion technology hasn't been around long enough.

I'm trying to make a point with this thread, and that is; technology is moving too fast and is being embraced with little track record to back it up. I can recall back in the 60's, the military clung to vacuum tube technology for quite a long time before switching to solid state electronics. Reliability was the key then and the old technology served them well. I even recall that a Russian MIG pilot had defected from Russia and when his aircraft was examined, they found it still used vacuum tube technology when we had switched to solid state. Was that because the Russians were stupid? I don't think so. They were probably looking at reliability as being most important.

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#14

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/16/2013 10:44 PM

regardless of the problem or the solution advanced particle monitoring could help to warn of potential failure before the situation becomes critical. Please email me -

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#15

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/17/2013 1:06 AM

My guess is they couldn't get the licences to use NiMH. Those are the safest rechargeable with the best power to weight etc, but the patents are locked up tight. Only Toyota has a licence to use them as far as I know these days. That's what kept most other car companies from competing with the Prius for so long, and they STILL have problems with their batteries because they can't get the NiMH!

If Boeing is using big Lithium batteries on an aircraft then they have replaced one problem with another. I would not want to stuck in a damaged vehicle of any kind with Lithium batteries. NiMH is much safer.

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#16

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/17/2013 1:14 AM

I worked on the PM's aircraft...in the battery shop. A crisis occured sometime in the '90s....and the aircrafts were needed, they started doing many more starts than was usual. The batteries would warm up by about 8 degrees with every start, and would cool down about 5 degrees per hour. When the cabinet started doing short one and two hour hops all day long in response to the crisis, the batteries would overheat. They were Ni-cads, and will go into thermal runaway if they get too hot.

Because a situation changed, we lost several dozen perfectly good batteries to TR. Why? because the situation had deviated from the design parameters. As well, the reputation of that particular manufacturer was unfairly tarnished.

My subsequent report noted that temp monitors on batteries were to be taken VERY seriously, and that batteries should be swopped out on A check. That recommendation was followed for the duration of the crisis, then forgotten about when the next crisis happened. Ah well.

My bet is that lithium ion batteries are no better at handling "situations" than ni-cads, and likely have fewer ways to detect problems or to deal with them. Their high price makes them less likely to be replaced "on spec", and no doubt they thermal just as easily as any other. Well, its an incentive to come up with a heat proof permeable intracellular membrane I guess.

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#19
In reply to #16

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/17/2013 10:20 AM

NiMH is not the same as NICd. I wish they would open the licence on NiMH up again.....A lot of radio control guys would like that too, and E-cars would not be the problem they are for everyone but Toyota.

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#17

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/17/2013 8:04 AM

I wonder why this problem did not show up when aircraft's prototype was being type tested. What about field trial reports?. How come it has shown up latter on?. It means that field trials were not undertaken fully or there was great hurry in announcing arrival of new aircraft.

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#20
In reply to #17

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/17/2013 10:50 AM

During the shake down testing, only simulates issues, and they (Boeing) may have been expecting it. Remember getting the craft out in production and in industry making profit may have taken precedence.

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#22

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/17/2013 7:46 PM

Here's something that puts a bit of perspective on weight saving in an aircraft - it's far greater than you might imagine:

We learned in back in high school physics that it takes energy to move a mass, and the more mass, the more energy. Paul Kedrosky (http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2008/07/14/the_slimfast_di.html - sorry, link no longer available) lists some of the tiny moves that airlines are making to squeeze every ounce out, which add up to big savings in fuel.

  • One airline saved over 17 gallons/year per pound of weight per airplane after shedding inflight phones, ovens, excess potable water, and some galley equipment on an older fleet
  • In removing seatback phones from its MD-80s and B737-400s, another airline shed 200 pounds per airplane, translating into 3,400+ gallons saved annually
  • Alaska Airlines indicated in March 2004 that removing just five magazines per aircraft could save $10,000 per year in fuel; also, the airline has reduced the weight of catering supplies
  • Air Canada considered stripping primer and paint from its 767s to save 360 lbs. per planeJetBlue and US Airways and others have moved toward a paperless cockpitBy removing six seats, JetBlue reduced A320 weight by approximately 904 pounds
  • Airlines have been able to remove ovens, trash compactors, or even entire galleys, due to the elimination of hot meals on selected flights; others are using lighter seats;
  • they have also removed magazine racks and replaced hard cabin dividers with curtains
  • AirTran ordered carbon fiber Recaro seats for its 737-700s to shave 19.4 pounds per row, resulting in estimated fuel savings of $2,000 per year per aircraft
  • Alaska's new beverage cart, at 20 lbs. lighter, could save $500,000 in annual fuel costs
  • Some airlines flush lavatories during extended ground delays to minimize takeoff weight
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#25
In reply to #22

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/18/2013 2:21 PM

Weight saving is most interesting. I didn't realize airlines were shaving weight that close. Do you know what factor is used for calculating payload of an aircraft. Passenger weight varies widely from infants to overweight adults.

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#27
In reply to #25

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/18/2013 3:46 PM

The problem can be looked at equivalent to scope creep. If you don't keep an eye on what seems to be small and insignificant numbers, before you know it, you've failed with no chance of recovery.

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#28
In reply to #27

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/20/2013 12:39 PM

To a point that is true but in realistic terms too often its just being nit picky for numbers sake to keep people from focusing on the large picture of the system as a whole.

For example give the numbers given by energyconversion in post 22 say that the airline industry saved $10 million a year by doing those things. Sure that sounds like a lot of money but factor that against the whole gross annual fiscal value of those members of the industry as whole which has a estimated annual value of some $50+ billion world wide.

To put it in perspective its like you saving $10 a year on a $50,000 a year income.

If not spending that $10 is what is keeping you financially afloat you're probably already in trouble because you are wasting far to much money elsewhere and that elsewhere is what really needs the nit picking first in order to save your butt.

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#29
In reply to #28

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/21/2013 8:40 AM

To a point that is true but in realistic terms too often its just being nit picky for numbers sake to keep people from focusing on the large picture of the system as a whole.

To put it in perspective its like you saving $10 a year on a $50,000 a year income.

If not spending that $10 is what is keeping you financially afloat you're probably already in trouble because you are wasting far to much money elsewhere and that elsewhere is what really needs the nit picking first in order to save your butt.

Congratulations, your have missed the point that is typical to scope creep. And just contradicted yourself.

You have to keep in mind, that the large items is usually not the one that brings you under. It is the nickel and diming that will. I have been brought into a number of companies to give them alternate practical business option, due to one viewpoint of what was initially seen as a perspective was actually a misconception of a perspective that a small cost of $10.00 will have no effect.

And to bring it in real life perspective to use as an example.

$10.00/plane - Battery upgrade

$25.00/seat - Cushion upgrade

$5.00/seat - lighting upgrade

$5.00/seat - emergency light upgrade

.... ect. This all adds up.....

And to say that $10,000,000.00 should not be taken in account. And that $10,000,000.00 is a nickel and dime from an over all perspective that it was addressed.

No, even as a project engineer you have to do a risk analyst..... sure in hind sight that decision may have been wrong.

But by going and singling one item out such as the battery component, especially in hind-sight, that is nothing more that fence sitting politics.

  • Was it a bad decision? yes.
  • Does it pay to say that was foolish? Only if you been in the decision making committee, and actually know what ALL was involved, otherwise we are uninformed, and being fortunate to see the effects that we are just sitting on the fence telling others what we should have done.

We both know that kind of people, and that's people we do not what to be.

I have been brought in to OEM companies that fell in non-performance projects, some of the equipment were poorly engineered and did not performed, but all had sever scope creep, that was not followed through.

The actual cause, is people putting so much effert in saving their butt, that they fail to do their job and leave a trail of destruction behind them. And when I see the pain and devastation from from these deeds. I'll put an edge in my remarks and draw a line

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#30
In reply to #29

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/21/2013 8:59 AM

There were times where if the foundation of the design was sound enough, the project was salvageable to a break-even point, or the loses where,........... acceptable. (Losses were acceptable, ugly business term)

On the businesses I was called in to realign, there were two businesses that come to mind, that all of their projects were in excess of 30% scope creep, all because the project engineer did not rein in the nickel and dimes issues. On those two companies, the recommendations was to salvage what was there, secure a large order, Develop the piece of equipment that performed, and sell the company and one company had to declare bankruptcy even after doing this. Mainly because scope creep nickel and dimed it to death.

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#34
In reply to #29

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/21/2013 5:26 PM

What I am saying that far too often the paper shufflers and pencil pushers will nit pick the money makers and work horses of the company to death over the nickel and dime stuff to keep everyone's attention away from the fact that the administrative costs and waist of a company are where the big money is lost.

How many here have worked with or for a company where it was very clear that the workforce at the bottom doing the actual work was carrying multiple dead butts in the admin dept? I have multiple times.

Yes nit picking the working system may save them $10 million a year but how much more could be save instead if the offices got the real work over and stream lining detail done to them? Do they really need to cut $10 million over hundreds of tiny details or would drop kicking a few upper level management execs that pull a few million a year bonus pay serve far more of gain in cost overrun prevention?

In my life I have been at a few places where a guy like myself in the service department who is doing that actual work for the customers that pay for our wages breaks or looses a $20 tool and gets a royal butt chewing while at the same time one or more executive level blockheads mismanages $100's of thousands of dollars of company money and walk away untouched.

That's what I am talking about when I say that nit picking the less relevant is often used to draw attention away from the big expense loosing areas and actions within a company.

Also when a company says they saved X amount of money nitpicking something they rarely if ever admit to how much that nitpicking actually cost them which in many cases can and does add up to more than what just leaving everything alone would have cost. Spending dollars to save dimes in the end for no real gain.

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#35
In reply to #34

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/22/2013 6:38 AM

It is called 'Kaizan".Japanese technique of saving money by making small improvements.

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#36
In reply to #34

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/22/2013 7:58 AM

Good Morning tcmtech:

Yes, I understand about the distraction....., look over here and this pebble, so they avoid the boulder. Eventually they will have to address the boulder. That's is just incompetence, Theres a few other words I like to add........ but I rather direct it at those pos.

But the little items,not keeping a pulse on them, they'll compile, combined to become a big item, thats what they call it scope creep and not a scope sprint.

What happened at Boeing, they made a comprise that did not pan out. And they will get criticized for it. But we'll see what final viable solution they'll come up with. It may work out to their favor............. but it may not seem that way as they are going through it.

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#43
In reply to #36

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/22/2013 2:15 PM

I follow the concept of many little items adding up to be more than one big item rather well.

With my own personal finances I look at that stuff all the time. Especially now that I am married.

The thing is finding and keeping track of 1000 little items I may have spent a few cents too much each on every year is lot of small but continual work. Whereas looking at my finances as whole and saying that all of those little things only account for less than 10% of my annual net expenditures and the other 90% is where the big money goes and gets taken up.

By auditing my big money experiences first that's how I manage to save the most money and do the most good for my efforts.

I could car less about saving $20 a year by not buying that candy on occasion while standing in line at the store when if I had driven the car to town, for $10 a trip, over driving the fuel hungry flatbed truck to town once, at $40 a trip, more than makes up for the whole years candy budget and then some.

For another example with my tools and my home heating. Which do you think is a better focus of my efforts over a year. Not buying $500 worth of tools I probably wont need every single day but that will make my work easier by having multiple tool sets in different locations or changing my primary home heating system to use what is basically free fuel sources like wood and used oil over paying for propane that could add up to $5000 or more a year in expense alone?

BTW because I have all those tools and equipment in my shop I have been able over the years to do larger major financial saving projects like build my multi fuel boiler system for heating my place and convert my primary driving pickups over to use cheap LPG fuel over regular gasoline which over the last decade cost me around $10,000 to do but have in return over that same period saved me 5 - 6 times that in return!

That $50 - 60K I know I have saved over the last decade really makes buying that unneeded $20 a year in candy and the $500 or so in extra tools really not such a big concern. Sure I didn't need them but given what was saved by focusing on the big picture first over the nit picking the little things they become happy little feel good perks that give me more motivation and reasons to further concentrate on the other annual big ticket expenses and try and reduce them more.

Yes I agree a lot of small savings do add up but finding and implementing each and every one of those adds up a lot of time and effort that can in most instances be easily and greatly eclipsed by focusing the effort to save on one or two big ticket expenditure items instead.

To me anyone arguing that the small stuff needs to be nit picked first gives me suspicion that they are probably in a job where their position is largely supported and or justified by wasteful administrative paper shuffling and related financial bloat over actually serving a gainful purpose for the company as a whole.

The point is let Ed and Bob in the service department buy their extra $10,000 in tools to replace lost and broken ones and to upgrade the service dept every year and look at drop kicking Ralf, Jerry, Frank, and Sally in middle management, each pulling down $80K a year, out the door and replacing all four of them with Jose who will happily do all their jobs combined for $90K a year.

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#44
In reply to #43

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/22/2013 4:14 PM

on a personal note. I'm the same with buying groceries, or other items at the store.

I buy it and go., My girlfriend would ask, how much you paid for it?... I tell her, Oh she'll say, it 2 dollars cheaper elsewhere....... fact is, The extra 15 minutes or hour, I'll spend trying to save that, I rather spend it, and be home and having a frosty cold one......... I'm so much more ahead. ;).

Which do you think is a better focus of my efforts over a year. Not buying $500 worth of tools I probably wont need every single day but that will make my work easier .......

I see your point, as far as buying tools, I was always the one to buy the best......

Now, if I could save by doing it myself, but its a specialty tool, I'll rent or buy a HR tool and treat it as a consumable.... (such as a SDS Hammer Drill) and do it. I still have Milwaukee and DeWalt tools. But some of my friends would see some of the HF tools, and make fun of me for owning some of these....... but those same people have no quams about borrow it from me.

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#37
In reply to #34

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/22/2013 11:11 AM

I tend to agree with you....the technician "on the floor" has made this complaint a thousand times. We have all seen six men stand around a hole while only one is working because some bean counter only provided one shovel.....looks bad to onlookers, and the technicians don't like looking like burks. I personally have never seen an operation fail because there was too much equipment...but I HAVE seen several operations fail because worker time was spent doing "work arounds" all day instead of getting the job done. My friend Henry picked up a grass cutting contract (hey don't laugh, he employed 21 men!) when the existing guy lost his contract through poor performance. Although Henry did get some new machinery, he didn't so much increase the number of cutting machines as made a maintenance schedule to ensure the ones he had performed to standard. His operation was a case study on how to do it right for sure.

Another operation I was heavily invested in failed to make enough money and was shut down because there was just too much start up debt. It made money, but not enough to maintain the millions in interest this debt load racked up. I think if I had been the accountant, I would have liked to have seen less start up costs, less trucks, tractors and such. When us "employees" took the operation down the road, we nearly succeeded, but there were just not quite enough customers to self-fund our poor operation, and we failed. Lots of emotion went into the subsequent analysis, but it boiled down to incompetent management and insufficient focused capitalization.

In both these case studies, I saw the operations fail because of excessive bean counting. In the first case, it was a guy who cut corners on maintenance, and his machines failed him when he needed them most. In the second case, we saw a very profitable business which was over capitalized, and as such,was worth more in fungible assets than in R.O.I. and when the owners all suddenly needed triple bypasses and new houses, the business went to the auction block. When we tried to keep it running, we failed, but not because of the small things, but because we didn't want to pay for a real bookkeeper to sort out the payroll (to name one thing of many)

We just didn't keep our eye on the prize...the purpose of doing all this effort. Does that mean to ignore the "little things". No...not really. The little things do add up. However, we found it worth the expense to have an extra (pick one, say, a garden hose or oil filter) hanging up there on the wall instead of making a special trip into town three or four times during the day to get one "just in time". The trouble with discarding the little things is that they are ALL little things. Maintenance is a little thing which can be put off until the fall. Sharpening blades is a little thing which can be put off until the weekend. Payroll can be put off until three days into the next month so we can get the interest. All these things are "little" things until they rise up to bite you in the arse.

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#38
In reply to #37

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/22/2013 11:30 AM

that is a problem when you have a limited operating cash reserves

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#39
In reply to #38

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/22/2013 11:48 AM

If I had to do it again, even knowing I might fail, I would do it again in a heartbeat. Sure it cost me (an extra 10 years on a mortgage) but the skills and knowledge I picked up were priceless!

The guy that says he never had a chance never took a chance!

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#40
In reply to #39

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/22/2013 11:52 AM

Very good attitude, which confirms what I always say:

"That your worse experience is usually your best, but it may not seem that way at the time." ;)

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#41
In reply to #34

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/22/2013 12:03 PM

Large corporations, (can I say all?) are notoriously "top heavy". They all follow the tree structure with the president (CEO) at the top. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and does what needs to be done to get it. As a result, they end up with a lot of dead weight that is only id erested in protecting their jobs at the cost of employee jobs furher down the tree. They are just mini-governments operating within larger governments.

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#26
In reply to #22

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/18/2013 3:42 PM

Not to forget to Mention removing one (1) olive from the in flight meal

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#23

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/18/2013 5:10 AM

I've been watching this whole new application of Li ion progress and I don't know if they determined for sure if their specific cause was the packs too close together, bad connection or wrong connection...or, my favorite, and the one they don't talk about because it's a weakness in this battery type, charging and discharging at the same time. Even if you have decent batteries for their evolution, that overheating damage is largely cumulative, and adding turbulence drops and landings makes for a short lived set of batteries that are higher in risk each time they are used once that damage has started setting in. I know Boeing is banking a lot on these batteries, but I just don't know if they are mature enough in evolution for the FAA to be rating them for aircraft. Whether these could have been charging abnormally in some way like in software? Who knows.

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#24

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/18/2013 6:08 AM

Here is link about news item in "gizmag" about changes made by Boeing:-

http://www.gizmag.com/787-lithium-ion-safety/26676/pictures#1

Very interesting article with pics.

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#31
In reply to #24

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/21/2013 3:45 PM

I read the article. Boeing added 150lbs more weight to the battery pack, negating the use of Li-Ion batteries in the first place. I don't see why they need the main battery pack. Why can't they they just start the engines from a ground power source and use the auxiliary battery pack for emergency use only? This is how they start military jets.

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#32
In reply to #31

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/21/2013 4:19 PM

Why can't they they just start the engines from a ground power source and use the auxiliary battery pack for emergency use only?

Being uninformed we can only guess........ My guess is that it used up the reseuve of of the aucillary battery pack that was probally already strained.....

This is how they start military jets.

If you were ever in the military......... more times than not.......... the equipment is always pushed to the limit.

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#33
In reply to #31

Re: 787 Lithium Batteries

03/21/2013 4:37 PM

I think this may not be the forum to ask that very specific question since all you will get is speculation. But the speculation can be very plausible...for instance I would speculate that there were problems with the cutting edge battery design, and they rightly decided to go with a more tried and proven design. Personally, after having lived through 4 different thermal runaway events in my lab, I developed a distaste for most "new" technology. It takes a long time for tech to become mature.

I am quick to point out that my expertise is not in lithium ion batteries. However, when you look at the construction of such batteries, I cannot see how you avoid it any more than you can avoid it on nicads. Here is the battery all laid out in all its sleazy glory...

The battery in this aircraft seems part of an electrical re-engineering to replace P-3 (bleed) for many systems. It actually eliminates the on board APU (auxilliary power unit) which will result in a serious reduction of complexity. This is supposed to translate into fewer missed launch times. Missed launch times are more important to an airline than a few pounds of weight!

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