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OT Serious Goof in GE superbowl commercial _ can you spot
- Thread starter Kingbob
- Start date
- Replies 46
- Views 6,410
bcstractor
Titanium
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2004
- Location
- Monument CO USA
What that they didn't invent steam turbines?
Chris P
Chris P
You got it, seriously bothers me
bet that works out well....
atomarc
Diamond
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2009
- Location
- Eureka, CA
They're dial calipers so they could be set to zero using that inside set...ain't necessarily wrong, AND it allowed the gentleman doing the measuring to see the dial when he measured the part.
It's not how we might do it but I can't believe they hired a actor just to shoot that part of the commercial and he got it wrong! This may be a trick of the trade the fellow at GE has mastered.
Stuart
It's not how we might do it but I can't believe they hired a actor just to shoot that part of the commercial and he got it wrong! This may be a trick of the trade the fellow at GE has mastered.
Stuart
Nope....they are DIAL calipers not digital calipers
Forrest Addy
Diamond
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2000
- Location
- Bremerton WA USA
Couple other goofs too. The steam turbine originated in England before WW I by Charles Parsons. Before they had efficient (and durable) reduction gears steam turbines were direct coupled to their loads. In marine applications where the propulsion shaft turned about 150 RPM it took a hundred stages to develop the torque. Early naval ships benefitted because the engines were very simple and relatively light in weight requiring much less headroom. The Queen Mary had Parsons turbines and they were direct coupled.
Look you the Parsons turbine., There;s some interesting technological history there.
And na, GE is a Johnny come lately in the turbine business. Even though they mande countless improvements to their turbine products and to advanccements in technology GE was not "first". Not by 40 years. The history is interesting for us techies
Look you the Parsons turbine., There;s some interesting technological history there.
And na, GE is a Johnny come lately in the turbine business. Even though they mande countless improvements to their turbine products and to advanccements in technology GE was not "first". Not by 40 years. The history is interesting for us techies
Greg Quenneville
Hot Rolled
- Joined
- May 26, 2005
- Location
- Gold Coast,Queensland Australia
I sit between a couple of GE turbines at work, and I am mighty glad of it. If it said RR on the engine I'd find something else to do.
Bbqualls
Plastic
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2011
- Location
- Englewood, Colorado
Sure, one could set zero, but we all know of instances of when someone was using a caliper monitoring a dimension, say, +/- 0.005" and then signed off on a stack of parts (when they were actually off by 0.100"). This must just be camera angle junk for the commercial...
Kyle Smith
Stainless
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2008
- Location
- Helmer, Indiana, USA
I have a dial caliper on my desk right now. When the external jaws read 1 inch, the distance between the wrong sides of the internal jaws is aprox 1/2 inch. How, on a dial caliper, is anyone going to "set zero" so that using the wrong side of the internal jaws reads a correct external measurement ?
I suppose it would be possible to take the calipers apart, skip the normal indicator position on the gear rack, and "set zero" that way....but who on earth would actually do that ? Not to mention the fact that would be a problematic method of reading an external measurement anyway, since, unlike the normal jaw setup, the jaw edges would not diametrically oppose each other. In fact for that reason it would be a dumb method to measure externally, even with digital calipers that could be easily set to zero anywhere in their range.
9100
Diamond
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2004
- Location
- Webster Groves, MO
The basic problem that Parsons solved was that in a single stage turbine the blades have to moving away from the nozzle at 1/2 the steam velocity so that they turn the steam direction around and leave it essentially motionless. Doing it in one step requires the wheel to be turning at googolplex to the N RPM. DeLavel improved the situation with expansion nozzles, but it still was inefficient. Parsons realized that he could beat the problem by expanding the steam in stages. Then he ran into the factor that so often plagues inventors. Once you have the grand idea, the details kill you. What is so fascinating to me about his first turbine is not just the basic invention, but the way he solved the peripheral problems. For example, the fairly long shaft would hit a resonance as it spooled up and wreck things. He put a bearing in the center mounted on alternate washers that had an ID that fit the bearing, then one with a larger ID and an OD that fit the housing, looking sort of like a multi plate clutch. The friction between them would kill the resonance. If he left the turbine running at that speed, it would wear the washers out quickly, but just passing through, the wear was small enough to last through many startup cycles. Scientific American had an article about it many years ago and reading it I just sat there amazed at the guy's brilliance.
Bill
Bill
ScrapWood
Aluminum
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2007
- Location
- Marion, Ohio
Would love find that write up. At first glance a turbine is a very simple machine, espically compared to a reciprocating engine. The devil is in the details in this case though.
A couple of summers ago the field guy took us to the old AEP power plant where they train the new millwrights. Soon to be shut down. They only ran the 100mw in the summer anyways. the small 60mw was used for training. (Westinghouse I belive)
It was great to see were the packing and other seals we make fit into the machine even though it was old and very small.
The rotor was only about 20 feet long all in a single housing, high to low pressure in one shot. Nothing like the big monsters at more modern plants with mutiple housings and LP reheats, etc.
The best part of the day was watching them set the rotor and to see all that goes into a job like that.
And yeah, GE should have found some that knows how to work the calipers in the ad. Their job must have been outsourced already.
A couple of summers ago the field guy took us to the old AEP power plant where they train the new millwrights. Soon to be shut down. They only ran the 100mw in the summer anyways. the small 60mw was used for training. (Westinghouse I belive)
It was great to see were the packing and other seals we make fit into the machine even though it was old and very small.
The rotor was only about 20 feet long all in a single housing, high to low pressure in one shot. Nothing like the big monsters at more modern plants with mutiple housings and LP reheats, etc.
The best part of the day was watching them set the rotor and to see all that goes into a job like that.
And yeah, GE should have found some that knows how to work the calipers in the ad. Their job must have been outsourced already.
Perhaps not all the same. But on my Mitutoyo caliper, you can adjust the face to zero it. But, all in all, it's just a dumb think to think anyone would want to do that anyway, especially the risk that no matter where the needle points, you would always have to compensate for the starting position along the scale, your "1/2"" example given. Be too easy to mess up somewhere
You can adjust the face to zero on any dial caliper....how is that going to help ? You still have to read the printed scale on the shaft as well as the dial to get a proper reading.
Btw, below is the exact caliper used in the video... a Starrett no. 120 series.
APD
Stainless
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2005
- Location
- Hudson Valley, NY
I agree that it is not practical or likely that anyone would ever do it this way, but it could be done like this:
Use the calipers as a comparator...close the backs of the jaws around a gauge block of desired size; Zero the scale; measure actual part. It will tell you how much plus or minus the target size the part is.
In reality, the reason they probably shot the commercial that way was because the viewer can see the dial and it was easier to shoot.
I agree that it would be dumb and impractical to do it that way as shown. Was only saying what I assumed was meant by zeroing the dial caliper. Which is only zeroing the dial, not the scale, which is why I said it would be a bad idea since one would have to compensate. Even if the scale was adjustable like a vernier height gage, the surfaces doing the measuring are offset so to pass by each other, so acurate measuring would be impractical anyway
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