Kathmandu power conundrums

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The Calibration Team were due to arrive last night, so we put in a concerted effort yesterday to try and get the lab finished before they arrived. We had reckoned on about 2 whole days to put it all together, but Paul was having a real headache with the power supply.

?The Victron?s broken?, he sighed as he looked at the shiny blue box, secured proudly to his freshly painted table. ?It must have taken a knock on its return from Cho Oyu last year?. I tried to offer some positive words of thought, but in comparison to Paul, I know next to nothing about electrical systems. After a few minutes, I thought it would be best if he was left alone to mull over the situation.

I came back half an hour later and he looked even more despondent. ?Nope, definitely bust. What a pain?. I started throwing ideas at him, anything to try and offer a spark of hope. ?Maybe the guys on Cho Oyu had it set up differently and you need to re-programme it??

?That?s it!? Immediately, his chin came off the table and his eyes lit up. ?Can?t trust these part-time electricians?, he chuckled to himself. The Victron unit burst into life, with a series of alternating flashing lights and reassuring clunks from inside. Paul looked at his multi-meter and all systems looked good. Without warning the system died. ?What now?!? It just wasn?t his day and I called him away to break for lunch.

Power is key to the whole expedition, for without it, we cannot run any of our research equipment. Paul has taken on the entire responsibility for organising the power for every lab and has devoted hundreds of hours to planning; circuit diagrams and ordering the huge amount of equipment needed. This includes no less than 2.1 kilometres of electric cable! So after all the hours put in, to be falling at the first hurdle was a huge blow.

Back to the lab and Paul knuckled down again. ?It?s the mains power?, he bemused, ?it just won?t let me run the equipment?. We knew that there were regular power cuts and that?s why we had the bank of batteries as back-up, but for the mains power not to be up to the job, was quite frustrating. It was decided that we would take the spare generator and use it here, coupled to the one already allocated. A few tests with regards to power output and the automatic switch-over to batteries and we were good to go. It had taken us all day.

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