PLAN No. 1081. TESTING GENERATORS AND OTHER DEVICES
The methods used for testing generators are somewhat similar to those used for the motors. Other devices, such as transformers, potential regulators, circuit breakers, switches, controllers, and one thousand and one others, involve test methods of their own.
In every test the object sought is the same, namely, to subject the device, before it leaves the shop, to practical working conditions. The testing department records readings from instruments during tests and “works these readings up” into the final test data. This working up involves considerable calculation. Hence, in all testing departments there are computers who spend practically all of their time figuring results. They use slide rules for many of the operations.
Special Training Courses
As is the case in some other lines of work, companies may maintain training courses in which test-department candidates are given instruction in the essentials of the work which they are to take up. Such courses afford a splendid opportunity for men who have had only a high-school training. They are for the most part operated on the company’s time, but they may be supplemented by night courses, to which the man must devote his own time several nights a week. Many of the most successful and best known electrical engineers and electrical factory men in the United States started their practical careers in the testing departments of electrical manufacturing companies. It appears to be a relatively easy matter for a man who has had a thorough test-course training to obtain a new position with advanced responsibilities and salary. The new work may be construction or erection with some organization other than the concern with which he obtained his testing experience. Usually the testing work is so arranged that each tester spends only a few months on each class of test, so that after completing the course he is reasonably familiar with many different kinds of equipment.