Analytical Test Equipment Repairs
The repair services provided by the electro technology laboratory helps to run the test services at ITI in full time in order to provide uninterrupted test services. As a result the laboratories could continue with their test services as well as research work. During the past year the ETL electronics repair team was able to handle 25 services worth of Rs 543,360.00. In addition to above large scale repairs were undertaken from government research laboratories mostly belongs to Department of Agriculture. Most of the services provided to the Bathalegoda, Mahailuppallama, Aralaganvila and Agunakolapelessa are onsite services. By undertaking these repairs we were able to save millions of rupees to the government. Electo Technology Laboratory continues to offer this service to several private sector laboratories. In year 2012 a total of fifty four (54) external repairs were handled bringing an income of Rs 1,536,802.00. Also the large scale repairs under taken from departments were considered as separate projects in order to maintain the flexibility of the repair jobs.
"M9 on Rail" Again
In order to improve the train service in year 2000, ten Class M9 locomotives were imported from ALSTOM France. These were the first set of SLR locomotives having AC-AC traction system with microprocessor based control systems. As the new technology was not well known repairs and maintenance work was not done as required and eight locomotives were out of operation for last few years.
A request was made to ITI in September 2009 to inspect the standstill M9 locomotives at the electro loco shade at Maradana. The faulty units were identified as – the VIKING units (engine controller), CRT Units (the driver units of the IGBT’s) and the Dynamic resister grids (used for dynamic braking). Among these units the VIKING unit is the most important part because it is used to drive and control the engine of the locomotive.
In spite of inadequate technical information except for the User Manual, ITI engineers diagnosed the faults and repaired the three units within a reasonable time frame. As a result SLR was able to launce another M9 locomotive for service which help a lot to keep on going service to the public.
