Industrial Hydrogen Generator Gurus! Can I Bug You For a Sec?

My company just bought the assets of a smaller tech company that had run out of cash. We've brought back a few of the people and started things back up. My job is to triage the situation for a few months. The facility is located in the SF Bay Area, California.

One of the aspects of this business is they use hydrogen gas. The gas is supplied by an industrial hydrogen generator made by a company in Italy called Erredue. We're having problems with the unit and problems with efficient communications because - Italy.

Most of the peeps that were in on the original decisions to buy from Erredue (instead of US or major global mfrs) are gone and there's several different versions of who/what/why/when. But it looks to me that for some reason, Erredue thinks that the US runs 3phase power no higher than 400v. So the 480-ish of California was a "surprise" to them. Meanwhile the peeps here in California tried to avoid pulling a long run of new wire and instead took an abandoned 208 circuit, bought a step-up transformer and powered the Erredue unit via the step-up circuit.

The unit seems to have run OK for about a year but now we just blew one of the three AC/DC converters (1/phase) and are enjoying the shenanigans of wire transfers and international overnight shipping to attempt to get a new converter. Even when we DO manage to get the replacement part, I am concerned that we'll just watch the same thing happen over again.

So...

Has anyone had experience with Erredue?

What are the recognized leading brands of industrial hydrogen generators?

Am I right in thinking that it's not good to step-up because any fluctuations in the supply voltage will amplify through the step-up transformer? For example if the 208 3ph has a +/- of 10volts, the input to the Erredue will have a +/- 20v or more.

I dont know much about hydrogen generators, but I know a little bit about hydrogen. Looks like that generator's main selling point is a pretty pure output, which must be important for... whatever it is that you need it for. But Central Welding can supply the same, and geez I cannot imagine the investments are even close to similar. OTOH you alrdy have the machine, soooo :/  I'll let the electrical engineers answer the power supply issues but I'd guess that yeah, supply voltage better match! Isolation transformer? 

Can you get a picture of the main nameplate on the unit itself?  What voltage is it intended to run on?

In reply to Jay_W :

Gonna agree with where Jay was going with that last line.  Sounds like you need to make sure the power in is nice and clean.  I know just enough electrical to be dangerous, so I'll leave it there.

Hell, maybe wander to SF's little Italy and ask for a translator for any planned call?

In reply to Sparkydog :

I don't think the transformer would make a difference. European equipment is very common, they make transformers specifically for those applications. I'm guessing it was stepped down to 208V and then back up again. If you have dirty power, it shouldn't matter if you are stepping it up or down, it's dirty. That said, most dirty power is a result of electrical issues on site, not from the utility. Is the hydrogen generator on it's own circuit? If it's a result of dirty power- the best solution is to correct the cause. A power quality survey can point you in the right direction. Here is some info, links on power quality...

PG&E Power Quality

I met with "their" electrician and he's solid. After he helped familiarize me with the basic layout of the facility and what's going where, we homed in on the details. This is a big 60k sqft building chopped up into 3 or so 20k sqft office spaces. Back in the day, for whatever reason, "the guy" who selected the make/model of the hydrogen unit also felt that it would be too expensive to run a new 480v pipe and wire for the unit. He thought they were out of 480v panel capacity and would need to make a really long run from the main elect room to our address. He was right, that would have been expensive. Except they actually had/have some spare existing 480v space and amps - so in 20/20 hindsight he was wrong for what he did next.

Next he took an empty 208v circuit and added a stepup 208->480 transformer and then connected the Italian job to 480v. And btw, according to the electrician - a stepup transformer definitely amplifies the variation of the input power. More on that later. Now again in 20/20 hindsight, he COULD have used a 208->400v transformer instead of 208->480. That would have been a better match for the Erredue. But the ideal way would have been to step DOWN from 480->400.

So as of now I'm looking at two scenarios. 1) replace the existing 208->480 stepup with a 208->400. It's the least expensive option and sort of fixes the main boo-boo. However it still allows the input variation to amplify. 2) put a relatively short new run of pipe and wire from the newly discovered empty 480 panel, replace the stepUP with a 480->400 stepDOWN and benefit from a slight reduction in voltage variation into the hydrogen unit.

We also found out that they hung a data logger for a week on a 280v circuit (not the actual 208v that they used). According to that data, the voltage variation was JUST BARELY in PG&E spec at around +/- 7 volts. But that was upstream of the stepup transformer, so the stepped up 480 into the Italian unit probably had around double that variation. And so now of course I want to hang a data logger on the actual circuit at the input into the Erredue and see what the heck is actually going on.

Meanwhile I have to get up tonight at 11:30pm and zoom with the Italians! 

That 400V equipment is likely rated at 50Hz. You can run a 400V 50Hz motor off 480V/60Hz power, but you end up with an approx. 20% increase in speed at the motor. Whether that is acceptable or not depends on the load type and how close that load gets to, or over, the motor's rated max. If you are burning things up, I'd address that before I worried about power quality. 
 

It doesn't matter if stepping it up amplifies any variation in the voltage, because you already stepped it down prior- you are just back where you started. The only difference would be whatever noise the XT's introduce. 
 

How long was the logger running? Long enough to see a variety of different load changes on the building? It would be best to log that particular circuit, but- if you are already over the rated voltage by 80 and running 60Hz Vs. 50, I wouldn't focus on the +\- 7V. Any other power quality issues besides voltage? 

All those posts are why we need to see the nameplate of the machine in question.  Can advise once that is posted.  Otherwise we are pissing into the wind.  

Replacement ac/dc converter is finally on its way from Italy. ETA Tuesday. Data logger is lined up to get installed at the same time as the swap out of the converter. We're going to log voltage and current at the unit instead of somewhere else in the building. And also try to log upstream of the stepup transformer. Depending on how long our electrician can loan out the logger. Once I find the name plate I'll take a picture. I don't think there's much in the way of motors on a hydrogen generator. 

The only place you should connect the data logger is at the input to the machine you are interested it troubleshooting. 

Sparkydog said:

Replacement ac/dc converter is finally on its way from Italy. ETA Tuesday. Data logger is lined up to get installed at the same time as the swap out of the converter. We're going to log voltage and current at the unit instead of somewhere else in the building. And also try to log upstream of the stepup transformer. Depending on how long our electrician can loan out the logger. Once I find the name plate I'll take a picture. I don't think there's much in the way of motors on a hydrogen generator. 

There isn't one by the main power connection?  Thats usually where they are here in Freedomville.