Machine telegraph
The engine telegraph was in the Marine used machine commands from the bridge to the engine room to transfer. It was not used to control the drive directly, but merely to transmit the desired speed range and the direction of rotation of the machine to the personnel in the machine room or control room. This technology, which now seems cumbersome, represented the highest possible technical standard in the era of steam engine drives .
For this purpose, the nautical officer on watch had a lever device with which he could transmit the individual commands (usually full speed ahead , half speed , slow speed , stop , slow speed back , half speed back and full speed back ). The lever apparatus was added to the screening provided the appropriate position and usually a pointed ringtone in noisy engine room to the new command out. The machine personnel on watch acknowledged this command and then carried it out. Usually a return line from the engine room, designed as a pointer element behind the disk of the control lever, indicated the acknowledged speed and direction. Since it can be of interest in larger ships with several screws to run the individual propulsion systems at different speeds (for example to be able to maneuver more closely and more precisely or to use the roll effect when mooring), machine telegraphs with several command levers and one corresponding Number of feedback indicators.
The signals were transmitted via brass ropes and chains, which, however, stretched by up to 14% and often had to be adjusted. In some cases, for example, on warships, rods were used instead of ropes. Later, resolvers were used as machine telegraphs.
In modern ships there is no longer an engine telegraph in the traditional sense. The ship's drives are now controlled electronically and directly from the navigating bridge using a speed step controller. This eliminates the task of recognizing and executing the commands that were transmitted by ship's telegraph for the machine watch, which, even in the ideal case, was associated with an unavoidable delay. With the introduction of direct control of the machines, a significant source of danger has been eliminated, because this time delay, or even overlooking or incorrectly executing machine commands, can have fatal consequences. The officer at the wheel has no way of directly influencing the engine (and thus the speed). Another reason to abolish the machine telegraph is to save machine personnel.
The engine telegraphs are also used on those steamships that are still in their original condition, such as the city of Lucerne on Lake Lucerne .
Nuclear submarines also have machine telegraphs, as the reactor control can be complicated and is done in the reactor control room. In addition to the information provided by the telegraph, the nautical officer on duty can, however, use the communication system to order a precisely defined number of revolutions for the propellers.
Web links
Via machine telegraphs on the website of the historical ferry Konstanz
Footnotes
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Submarine Electrical Installations, Navpers 16162 ( online ( Memento of the original dated December 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , Accessed on January 16, 2013)
- ↑ Tom Clancy: Atom-U-Boot, Munich 1997, pp. 96-97.
