played with a 108,859 cubic inch engine today!!!

I started my job as an electric engineer on monday... today I took a tour of our back up generator plant in town... they run 5 diesel engines and can output 14mW. The specs of one engine are:

21.5 inch bore, 15 inch stroke, and 20 cylinders... turbo charged of course.

Puts out a measely 7800 horse power. It really does basically run like a big engine. Timing is 38 degrees BTDC. These things were built in 1972 and still run like they were new, pretty good huh?

Only difference is that there are no cylinder heads. The pistons fire at each other. They fired ONE engine up while I was there.... holy shinto.

Figured you guys might get a kick out of that.

- Adam

donjohn said:

so how much power do they output?

i'm just messing w/ you, do you know what you'll be donig there? cuz you can't really list the name of the company. I'm an EE too, except i'm giong into my 3rd year for a BS... is that what you've got or did you go grab ur masters too? and want to share any salary figures?

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With all 5 engines running, the plant outputs 14 Mwatts. They consume diesel gasoline at 1000 gallons per hour.

In terms of salary, I'm making 56K a year which is 3700 dollars more then our industry average. (Entry level EE makes 52300) What is awesome is that its a town job, so I don't pay social security and get a ridiculous pension plan instead. And town benefits rock.

But the absolute best part is.... its exactly 1 mile from my house. I have a 3 minute commute. I can't even finish one song off a CD before I get there.

Joe, you're absolutely correct on how they run, and it is wild.

mootang said:

the most amazing part is that those huge diesels make that power at like 98 rpm.

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Actually, the engines run at 100 rpms, 2 at 400 rpms, and 2 at 720 rpms, but yeah you're right its really low.

My degree is actually a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from WPI. A couple colleges offer it, not only do we do the standard EE courses but we also take several computer engineering / programming courses. It makes the degree marketable. And I have a minor in applied mathematics.

If you guys have any other questions regarding the field and what not, please feel free. As to how I got the job?? Put your resume on Monster right away. I listed my stuff on Monster on a Thursday and I got this job the next Wednesday. 6 days later and I couldn't have asked for a better job / pay.

Out of all my friends, only two guys make more then me. One works at BEA engineering and the other at Raytheon. Most people from WPI with my degree are either equivalent or a grand or two lower.

Power engineering pays big time, I strongly recommend you look into it when you apply for jobs.

- Adam