Published

2 years ago

July 25, 2024

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Pearce Renewables Training Center: Expert Wind Instruction

Allen Hall and co-host Joel Saxum discuss Pearce Renewables’ new state-of-the-art training facility in Dallas, Texas with John Hornbeck and Travis Dees. Pearce is addressing the growing demand for skilled wind turbine technicians through innovative hands-on training methods, including the use of real equipment and cross-training opportunities across renewable energy sectors. Learn more at https://www.pearce-renewables.com/training/.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Pardalote Consulting – https://www.pardaloteconsulting.com
Weather Guard Lightning Tech – www.weatherguardwind.com
Intelstor – https://www.intelstor.com

Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. The wind energy sector is booming, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts wind turbine service technicians will be the fastest growing job this decade. But with great growth comes a need for skilled workers, and training enough qualified technicians is vital to keep wind farm projects up and running.

Pearce Renewables has been a leader in technician training, and they recently opened a new training facility in Dallas, Texas. And if you’re not familiar with Pearce Renewables, and boy, you’re missing out. They are the largest ISP in the U. S., and they have a great need for well trained technicians. Our guests are John Hornbeck, Manager of Learning Organizational Development, and Travis Dees, Senior Vice President of Operational Support.

John and Travis, welcome to the show.

Travis Dees: Thank you, Al. Happy to be here.

Allen Hall: Joel and I visited your brand new, fancy training facility in Dallas, Texas. Man, is that thing impressive.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, we were there while you guys were still building things, right? You had people climbing around, you were installing TVs and stuff.

And at that time it was impressive. We walked in, we’re like, wow, look at this place. Look at the size of it. The, I think that to be honest with you, the layout of the training rooms and everything. There’s a lot of things going on there. You’ve got capabilities to run people through a lot of different training mechanisms as well.

Travis Dees: Yeah, when we started the design in the facility, it was trying to build for the future, not for what our needs were today, right? As you said before, we’re growing very quickly and the need for technicians is definitely upon all of us, but us specifically. Making sure they’re trained and equipped properly before they go out in the field is our goal.

We’re trying to build a facility, not just in Texas, but other places as well. Starting in Texas and growing our California facility where the technicians actually want to come. They come there to get their training, but we want them to want to come back. I want them to go to the field, get some hours under their belt, and be like, hey, when do I get to go back to Dallas and hang out at that place?

That place was cool, the trainers are great, they’re really informative. We’re trying to set out, for an awesome vibe. We want it to be. something that our people are proud of. Therefore they take that with them in the field and they, it rubs off on our other technicians and it’s building our culture.

You know what I mean? Like it’s the, we have one opportunity to shine for our employees and this was our opportunity. So we took it and working with, incense and other companies to get all of the equipment inside of the facility was amazing. They designed an awesome jungle gym when I call it, man, that thing is awesome.

And John and the work that he did getting our wind turbine and everything put together and the time frame and the layout works, the flow is really cool. I think it really helps the technicians, keep and retain all the information that we’re feeding them versus them losing it, and what you guys didn’t see is We have a section in there now where all the technicians that come through can autograph a wall which has been fun because some people like to draw some pictures and box letter their names And there’s some really cool signatures and at the same time We wanted our trainers to have a place.

They wanted a training, you know Don’t get me wrong. It’s dallas. It’s hot. Like it was hot there yesterday and those guys were all over that tower. But And we put some big fans in there. It’ll cool it down. And, I keep saying, Hey, it can’t be air conditioned because then they’re going to get they won’t be working in their elements.

The wind turbines, they’re out in all of the elements. So when it’s cold, it should be a little chilly and when it’s hot, it should be warm. So you don’t want to spoil them. No, absolutely not. They, I think they’re already spoiled as it is, but but no, I think the team and John specifically and his team have done a great job with making sure that we had the right equipment, to give our technicians and, even some of our clients they’re people, the best training we could possibly offer up and we’ll continue to grow and improve.

I think there’s always opportunity for improvement, but we’re really excited about the Dallas facility. Everyone that comes in there, we bring a bunch of clients in and yeah. Wow. That jungle gym is, it is a wow factor.

Joel Saxum: So Allen and I came to the facility back in April and you and John welcomed us in and John was giving us a tour of basically the, you have a bunch of classrooms.

Of course, there’s some, of course you have a, then it’s a little bit of a Pearce facility, right? So you’re going to have some meetings or something. You’ve got really nice conference rooms and stuff in there, but training rooms that were air conditioned and nice for certain things. But then when we walked out into the The big facility, right?

The big warehouse type facility. The first thing I saw on the corner was a legitimate nacelle. Sitting there ready to and John was like, we’ll get to that in a little bit. We’ll take a peek at that thing. Let me show you some other stuff. And also, there’s a freaking nacelle in here. That’s amazing, right?

We’ve been to a lot of places. Training facilities and such. And you don’t see that very often for one, right? They’re tough to get ahold of. Nobody wants to that’s expensive. It’s a piece of kit, right? That could be used in something else. So people don’t really want to get it, get you get rid of it.

But the guys are really going to have the capabilities of doing some hands on training. John, you want to walk us through some of the other things that are out in that warehouse?

John Hornbeck: We’re training our employees to be the best they can so that our ISP can keep growing. But the way when we first landed the building, even when it came to the jungle gym, we contracted, worked with ENSA to sell some materials.

But they were open as a company and they said, Hey here’s what some other designs look like. I visited a couple of facilities. I looked at some of other training centers designs. So the team and the trainers and I, we sat down and we drew up, Hey what makes ours different? And we came up with a big U shape.

And that was a little bit too big for what we needed at the time, which was fine, so we cut it down, but just the way that we put thought into it of, hey, here’s all the ladders going up underneath. The deck that, that simulate coming up into a wind turbine main shaft and how we shaped the advanced rescue training section and put things on the second level made it different than everybody else’s and it made it cooler and it looks amazing, and then with you pointing out the wind turbine, that was the other thing, not everybody has a fully, can be powered up or in the middle of powering it up right now, getting it wired to, to put power to it.

at a low voltage so that we can do training and and teach everybody how to work on it without actual high voltage in front of the cabinets. But there’s only a couple of facilities out there that will have that ability to train on a live wind turbine inside their shop. Not just the wind turbine that’s in there that sets us apart as we’re gonna be able to do live power loop training on that.

So we have the same thing. For the solar and the battery storage in the divisions we have partnered with some folks and given us battery storage cabinets and inverters that and helping us power those up so that we can do live training. Not only for customers, but to highlight that to potential clients and things that other partners that we work with.

Allen Hall: So at Pearce Renewables, when you train somebody up, they’re training on real live active equipment. It’s not a simulation. It’s just not a box on a bench. You’re actually using real equipment, especially like battery storage, which is really interesting too because there’s not a lot of training facilities doing that at the moment.

That is a unique piece, I think, because the worst time for a technician is those first week or two or six months where they’re, everything is just new. You’re trying to, to de-risk that in a sense, by giving them access to real working equipment.

John Hornbeck: E Exactly. And that’s what I said that earlier, we wanted to.

Do the things that set us apart from just your, I’ll call it the cookie cutter trainings. There’s plenty of great training facilities out there and there’s, they all do a great job, but there’s a cookie cutter method there. You come in, do the standard training and go out to the field. We wanted to change that.

And add that additional, real live training for our technicians so that, they leave not only knowing how to work safer, but they’re actually getting out there and working smarter right out the gate. So then our customers benefit from that because we’re delivering employees that have been trained on most of the things that they would end up doing in the field for their first few weeks.

Now, there still is field training and very specific. Equipment training that, that not anybody can offer because you might need 15 or 20 different kinds of, cabinets in your shop to train on. But when we offer up that live aspect of training, it’s just that, that one more step, towards getting your cut your technicians out there and just having them hit the ground and work safe and do a great job.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, and you mentioned the components, but you also touched on like a grease nipple. Another thing you showed us, John, was the slew of tools from all kinds of different manufacturers. You guys have there, right? So it’s, they’re not going to be, it’s not gonna be the first time they pick up, a torque tool or something like that.

They’ve handled it. They know the ins and outs of it. They probably already used it, let alone handle it. But they’ve used it on those test facilities that you have. And I know that you were saying, Hey, I’ve got this, we’ve got this set up. But I’ve got these tools coming in and these tools coming in and those tools coming in.

So you, I know you had a lot on the plate there as well.

John Hornbeck: We talked a lot about electrical, but yeah, one of the other things that set this apart too, is you saw all those bolting stands. We built those out of bearings and flanges that are completely simulated to, putting up towers and bolting on hub bearings and putting blades together.

But not only that, it’s exactly the same as getting that live training. We can go into the turbine and we do this. We’re working on the G. W. O. bolting standard, which is pretty new to the industry going across all the training centers. We can, we go into the wind turbine, put the hydraulic or electric, large powered torque tools on the actual main shaft in the pillow block and pedestal blocks.

And so those are common things that the technicians are going to have to check in the field. So they literally are going to walk in there, go into the turbine. Put the tools on these actual bolts and, get a feel for, Hey, I got to watch where I’m stepping, and I’ve got to carry this tool and, get things in place and not leave my cords out where I’m going to trip.

So we’re really proud of the, the bolting and torque class that we’re able to teach there.

Allen Hall: I think one of the issues for new people to enter into the industry, become wind turbine technicians. Is I think there’s a thought, at least I’ve talked to people who have done this, they thought that they needed to have a lot of mechanical experience before they apply it.

Like they needed to be a NASCAR mechanic or they needed to be working for a utility before they decided to apply. Like they thought they had to bring all this expertise to the job. That’s really not true because of all the work companies like Pearce is doing right now, right? You guys are training up people that have general basic.

Mechanical skills to then go off and serviced wind turbines. And I think they miss that point. This is a little bit different than showing up at an auto mechanics place. You’re going to get trained up in wind. You’re going to get trained up in solar. You’re going to get trained up in, in battery storage before you go out to the field.

And that just, I think if a lot of new people to the industry knew that. They’d be much more likely to apply because we’re like, we need like roughly a hundred thousand more technicians over the next couple of years. That’s a crazy number.

Travis Dees: Now, anybody that has a mechanical, electrical or just the want to have a career, call us up, man, call us, we’ll help you get there.

We will get you the training you need. To be safe out in the field and you’re really going to gain the knowledge with time in the field Working with individuals that have that experience, but we’ll make sure before you get out there On your first day, you’re not going to just run away. You’re going to be safe You’re going to know what you’re looking at.

You’re not going to be afraid to get dirty you’re going to have that knowledge with you. So that’s really our goal

John Hornbeck: I would say to say you can go people right out of high school They might have only worked on their bikes when they were young You But we’re going to provide what they need to go work in the field.

So they don’t necessarily need to have any, background. You can be, fresh and looking to go into a different industry because you were an IT person. They’re pretty valuable nowadays, but. It doesn’t matter. We give the training that people need to join our industry.

Joel Saxum: So you have this fantastic training facility that can do solar, battery storage, wind, all the above. We know that there’s some of these industries, like wind, that have this shoulder season, right? Where you’re busy spring, summer, early fall, and then winter comes and you’re, you might not have that much to do.

So if you have the capability of, Training your in house technicians to be able to take on extra tasks in their downtime. That’s a wicked strategic advantage as an ISP.

Travis Dees: Yeah. So that’s one of the things that we focused on and we’re talking about now is how do we’ve done it in the past and we are a smaller company, is you could take a wind technician and go put him in the field, helping solar, but you can’t take a solar tech and put them in a wind turbine because they got to have the ability to climb safely and understand all the safety equipment.

Now with the GWO standard, it takes us time to get them trained up, but we’re looking at abilities to where the technicians that want to transition between wind and solar is to give them that opportunity and bring them in for the additional trainings. We’re also a telecom company. So we are we’re working with those guys as well.

And we like, there’s not just wind towers. There’s also telecom towers, EV as well. That’s another sector we’re big in. We’re a lot, if not the largest EV service provider. In the market today, and we are actually working diligently with another client of ours and we’re gonna be installing several ev charging stations outside the facility that will actually, the public will be able to use.

But our technicians that come in to get trained, they’re gonna go out there and get hands on. actual operating EV stations. So we do offer and continue to push and to grow the ability to cross train all our individuals.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. So guys, we’ve we’ve talked to a lot of training centers. We talk with a lot of people that are involved in the veterans communities on the, in wind or outside of wind.

But what we hear from them is man, when we get vets in, they’re fantastic. They’re ready to work. They’re used to tough conditions. They’re used to traveling. And most of them come with some technical aptitude straight out of whatever branch they were in. So they end up being rock stars on these renewable energy crews out in the field, whether it’s solar storage, wind, it doesn’t really matter.

How are you guys engaging with that community to help boost up peers?

Travis Dees: We have a recruiter. His name is Frank Martinez. He’s an actual veteran himself. His one job as a recruiter is fully to go find veterans that are either already retired or getting ready to retire and getting them into Pearce.

Like we are dedicated to working with the military. Frank’s an outstanding recruiter. It’s awesome. And I believe To what everybody else is saying, I’m gonna jump on the bandwagon, man. These guys coming out of the military, they understand what it is to be organized, they understand the importance of being part of a team, showing up on time and delivering, like they’re amazing.

And we do up here, we have dedicated an individual, his only job is really to recruit vets that were part of all types of other organizations. That, that are specialized in recruiting veterans straight out of the military, or even those that have been retired that are finally like, Oh, all right, I gotta go find something to do now.

So we’re pinpointing it. We’re finding it. And our COO was given a, an award this year from the veterans for our continued participation in recruiting vets. So that was a pretty cool moment for for our new COO this year.

Allen Hall: Travis, I’m new to the wind industry or an experienced technician.

How do I connect with Pearce Renewables to get enrolled in some of these things and get up and get out in the field?

Travis Dees: Yeah, I think the easiest way to find us is on social media. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, like we’re everywhere. Obviously our website at PearceRenewables. com or PearceServices. com. Either one of them, I’ll take you to the home page.

Allen Hall: So Travis and John, thank you so much for being on the program. The Pearce Renewables training facility is amazing and we will definitely have to come back out and visit it again.

https://weatherguardwind.com/pearce-renewables-dallas-training-center/

Renewable Energy

MotorDoc Finds Bearing and Gearbox Faults in Minutes

Published

10 hours ago

May 21, 2026

Alice Rush

Weather Guard Lightning Tech

MotorDoc Finds Bearing and Gearbox Faults in Minutes

Howard Penrose of MotorDoc joins to discuss current signature analysis, uptower circulating currents wrecking main bearings, and full drivetrain scans in minutes. Reach out at info@motordoc.com or on LinkedIn.

Howard Penrose: [00:00:00] Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy’s brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Howard, welcome back to the program.

Howard Penrose: Hey, thanks for having me.

Allen Hall: It’s about time everybody realizes what motorDoc can do. There’s so much technology, and I’ve been watching- Yeah … your Chaos and Caffeine podcast on Saturday morning, which are full of really, really good information about the motorDoc as a company, all the things you’re doing out in the field, and how you’re solving real-world problems, not imaginary ones- Yeah

real-world problems. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and

Howard Penrose: whatever annoys me that week. Exactly. And, and whatever great coffee I’m trying out. Yes. Except for a few. We’ve had the ReliaSquatch down our- Yes … um, a couple of times. Uh, yeah, no, I, I enjoy it, and we gotta get you on there sometime. I don’t do- I, it- … a lot of interviews other than an AI character we put in.

Allen Hall: It’s a very interesting show because you’re [00:01:00] getting a little bit of comedy and humor and s- Yeah … and a, and a coffee review, which is very helpful because I’ve tried some of the coffees that you have reviewed, that you’ve given the thumbs up to. But if you’re operating wind turbines and you’re trying to understand what’s happening on the drivetrain side, on the generator, everything out to the blades even, main bearings, gearboxes- Yeah

all those rotating heavy, expensive parts, there’s a lot of ways to diagnose them-

Howard Penrose: Yes …

Allen Hall: that are sort of like we can look at a gear, we can look at a joint, we can look at roller bearings, whatever, but motorDoc has a way to quickly diagnose all of that chain in about- Yeah … 15 seconds.

Howard Penrose: Well, a little longer than 15 sec- more like a minute.

A minute, okay. It feels like paint drying. But- Uh, in any case, yeah. Uh, uh, and, and what’s kind of funny is, um, back in the ’90s, uh, EPRI actually accidentally steered the technology away from its [00:02:00] core purpose, which was in 1985, um, NAVSEA, the US Navy, had done research on using current signature analysis for looking at pumps, fans, and compressors, the bearings, the belts, the components, all the rotating components using the motor as the sensor.

Not too much different than we are now. I mean, mind you, we got better resolution now, we’ve got, uh, more powerful– I mean, I look at my data from the ’90s, and now it’s completely different. Um, and then Oak Ridge National Lab, same thing, bearings and gears in motor-operated valves. So in 2003, we were the first ones to apply electrical and current signature analysis to some wind turbines in the Mojave Desert.

Wow. Yeah. So, um, nobody had tried it before. Everybody said it couldn’t be done. And, uh, that was a bad thing to say to me because- … it meant I was gonna get it [00:03:00] done. Right. At that time, um, we were looking at bearing issues and some blatant conditions with the, um, with the, uh, generator using a technology called Altest, ’cause I was with Altest at the time.

And, uh, I had taken an EMPath software and blended it with a, a power analyzer, and they still have that tool to this day. I was using that technology all the way through 2015. 2016, I should say. And then- And then switched over to the pure EMPath, which was more of an engineering tool. And then more recently, in 2022, uh, made the decision to ha- to take all the work we’d done on over 6,000 turbines, uh, looking at how we were looking at the data and what we were doing on the industrial side, and took a, uh, created a current signature analyzer that would do one phase of current to analyze the entire powertrain.

Allen Hall: So when you tell [00:04:00] operators you can do this magic, I think a lotta times they gotta go, “

Howard Penrose: What?” Oh, yeah, yeah. They don’t understand it because they’re used to vibration- Right … which is a point analysis system. Right.

Allen Hall: Vibration at this- Yeah … particular location. Yeah. One spot- Even if it’s- … or a couple

Howard Penrose: spots

triax, they’re reading through material, up through a transducer. Hopefully, they put it above the bearing and not in the middle of the machine like everybody is now, because everybody’s trying to sell a sensor. Right. True. They’re not selling a- they’re not selling accuracy. They’re just selling sensors.

Right. So, um- Yeah … you know, uh, I, I’ll, I’ll even talk about one of the companies here. We’ve got Onyx here, and they do it right. I mean, they’ve been doing it right pretty well because we’ve been doing some of the same towers they’re on, and we can match the data they’re getting. Oh, good. Right? Yeah. Uh, so but they get it in multiple spots, and there’s areas they can’t quite reach, so we’ll detect those areas as well.

So it’s a good melding of two technologies.

Allen Hall: Oh, sure. Sure,

Howard Penrose: sure. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you have electrical signature and you have vibration, but in [00:05:00] cases if you don’t have vibration, we’re a direct replacement.

Allen Hall: Because the generator- I

Howard Penrose: dare say that.

Allen Hall: Yeah. Whichever–

Howard Penrose: I dare say that, um, with- Well, the

Allen Hall: generator is acting as the sensor.

Howard Penrose: The air gap. The air gap in the generator s- specifically, yes. Yeah. Generator, motor, transformer. Right.

Allen Hall: Yeah. So any of those- Mm-hmm … you can clamp onto, look at the current that’s on there. Everything that’s happening on the drivetrain, in the gearbox, out on the rotor- Yep … main bearings, all of that creates vibration.

Creates a torque. T- a, a torque. Yeah. Yes, more exactly a torque. Yeah. And that’s seen in the generator, in the current coming out of the generator. Yes. So those signals, although minute, are still there. Yes. So if you clamp onto that current coming out of the generator, you’ll see the typical AC sine wave sitting there.

But on top of that- Is all the information about how that drivetrain is doing

Howard Penrose: Absolutely, and everything else. Anything electrical comes through [00:06:00] that. So what you do is just like vibration, you do a spectral analysis. So every component has a frequency associated with it, just like vibration. It’s, as a matter of fact, I, I keep having to try to explain to people electrical and current signature analysis is no different than vibration analysis.

It’s the same concept. We use the same tools. The signature looks just a little different. It’s a little noisier, um, but you need that noise in order to see everything. But we have a time waveform, and instead of, um, inches per second or millimeters per second, whatever, you know, uh, velocity, acceleration, and displacement, uh, what we end up with is decibels is the optimal method.

You can look at straight voltage signatures at those points or, or current signatures, but the values are so small that you have to look at it from a logarithmic standpoint. Right. There are some benefits to it versus vibration, and there’s some things that aren’t as good as vibration. [00:07:00] So, you know, we, we do…

You have to… Any technology is gonna have their strengths and weaknesses. Sure. So we will see everything all at once. Load doesn’t matter. Right. Speed doesn’t matter. It’s… Only reason speed matters is the location of the frequencies. Uh, so the higher the resolution, meaning the longer you take data, the less chance you have on a lightly lo- loaded machine of blending the peaks together.

Right. Um, on the flip side, if I have two bearings turning at the exact same speed, I couldn’t tell you which one it is. Because they’re the same. Right.

Allen Hall: And the mechanical features of that bearing is w- what creates the signal that you’re measuring. Exactly. So if a bearing has five rollers versus 10, just imaginary thing.

Yeah, yeah. Five rollers versus 10 has a different electrical signature, so you can determine, like, that bearing, that 10 roller bearing- Yes … has the problem, the five is fine. Yes. Yeah. That’s the magic, and I think people don’t translate the mechanical world into the electrical world. That that’s what’s [00:08:00]happening.

They,

Howard Penrose: they don’t because, because what’s happening is they named it wrong.

Allen Hall: Yes.

Howard Penrose: A majority of our users are mechanical folks. Sure. Our vibration analysts and stuff like, ’cause they know how to look at the signatures. Right. Everybody tries to force it on their electrical people, and electrical people go, “We don’t know what this is.”

Yeah. And it’s, it’s, it’s a matter of that training and, and, you know, in the electrical world, you’re not taught to look at that. Right. Yeah. It doesn’t matter. Mechanical world, you’re taught to look at that. So our intern, we were trying to bring in electrical engineering interns and found out that just wasn’t working.

So last year, I brought in my first, uh, intern that’s, you know, he’s been with us now since I brought him in. Okay. Uh, and, uh, Amar, and, uh, you know, he’s helped us develop our vi- uh, vibration software to go along with it. Guess what? It’s the same thing. It’s the exact same sy- system Um, but we just take in a vibration signal instead.

But he picked up on it immediately as a [00:09:00] third-year college student. I can take somebody with a decade as an electrical engineer with a PhD and they can’t figure it out.

Allen Hall: Well, because you’re, you’re taking real- Because it’s different. Yeah. It’s r- well, it’s real-world components-

Howard Penrose: Yeah …

Allen Hall: creating electrical signals.

That’s hard- Well, you have- … to process for a lot of people. Yeah,

Howard Penrose: yeah. It’s

Allen Hall: just not

Howard Penrose: something that we do every day. But that’s… If they, i- if we sa- i- i- if you’re looking at vibration and you start looking at the sensor, it gets complicated too, ’cause guess what? It’s an electrical signal. Right. It’s, it is technically electrical signature now.

It’s converting a

Allen Hall: mechanical signal- Right … into an electrical signal, which is what’s happening in the generator anyway. Yeah.

Howard Penrose: Whether it’s a piezoelectric cell that’s generating a small signal- Yeah … on top of a small waveform that you then take out, you demodulate, uh, or it’s, uh… So you take that carrier frequency out, or it’s a MEMS sensor, which is the same thing.

You know, the, it just sees some slower s- It, it does more of a digital output. So you, you, you know, you have those, or you [00:10:00] have this, which just basically uses a component of the machine to, to, as its own sensor. There is one other difference between them, too, and, uh, I find this very useful when I’m going out troubleshooting something that other people can’t figure out, uh, ’cause we use all the technologies.

So in this case, it would be, uh, the structural movement. Okay? So, so say I have a generator and there’s something wrong with the structure, and the whole machine is vibrating. So y- well, if I put a transducer on it, they might think that’s vibration or something else. We don’t see it. Right. We only see directly exactly what’s happening with the machine.

Sure. So a lot of times when we go in to troubleshoot something that people have done vibration on and everything else, it’s been pro- a, a problem for them for years. We walk in, and all of a sudden we’re identifying whether it’s the machine or it’s something else right off the bat. Then we can take a look at the vibration data and [00:11:00] say, “Okay, it wasn’t the bearing or the bearing, um, structure.

It was, you know, the mounting.” Right. It wasn’t

Allen Hall: fastened

Howard Penrose: down properly. Yeah,

Allen Hall: yeah. Right.

Howard Penrose: Go tighten that bolt. Right, exactly.

Allen Hall: Well, I mean, that’s the cheap answer. Yeah. I’d rather tighten a bolt than rip apart a motor or a generator- And, and- … every day …

Howard Penrose: and that’s the whole point. Now, there are other strengths that go with it.

So for instance, on the powertrain of a wind turbine, I can tell you if you’ve lubricated the bearings correctly. Wow. Because part of what we do is we do take those electrical signatures, and we convert those over to watts. Watts is an energy conversion. Sure. So you see that as heat or some type of loss.

So whatever, whatever’s being lost there is not being sent to the customer. To the outside. Right. Making money. So, um, if I’m taking a look at, say, a main bearing, I might see watts or kilowatts of losses. So you’re gonna have some ’cause you have friction, right? But when we see it increase on, say, a roller, [00:12:00] or the rollers, or, or the cage, that’s usually an indicator that I have a lubrication issue.

Or if we only see it on the outer race, that means that they didn’t clear out all the old grease when they were lubricating it, ’cause the rollers then have to ride across it- Right … ’cause it dries up.

Allen Hall: Sure.

Howard Penrose: Uh, and will carry contaminants. So if you see that, you go up, clean it up, you’ll extend the life of the bearing.

Absolutely you will. Without having to do a lot of work. So, uh, we, we look at our technology as more so early in the, in the stage of a condition. I don’t wanna call it failure, ’cause it’s not a failure. It’s something that’s mitigable. And I made that word up. You can mitigate it. Meaning you can go up and correct it and extend the life of that component.

Sure. Uh, in gearboxes we’ll see problems with, um… Well, the, the one we’re talking about here a fair amount is all the circulating currents going on uptower. We did that research. The current signature analyzer we have is a direct result of doing wind turbine [00:13:00] research just on circulating currents uptower, ’cause we conferred everything over to, to sound at 48 kilohertz.

And so that gives me a 24-kilohertz signal. That high-frequency stuff, which we’re researching in CGRE, and IEEE, and IEC, is called supra harmonics, which I– we talked about that before. Yes, we have. Yeah. And, uh, so when you start seeing that in the, in, in the current that’s circulating uptower because the ground that goes from the top of the tower down is for- DC

lightning protection. And lightning protection, yeah. It’s not meant for, um- Not for

Allen Hall: high frequency- Yeah …

Howard Penrose: currents. Yeah. Uh, we, when we measured it, when we mapped out dozens of towers of all different manufacturers, we found that the impedance about halfway down the tower is where it ends. Sure. The, the resistance.

And then the increased, uh, the high-frequency noise turns any of your shaft brushes into resistors. And at about 15 kilohertz, no current is [00:14:00]passing through them. It’s all passing the bearing, which becomes more conductive the higher the frequency. So with 60% of main bearings failing due to electrical currents, it’s actually currents that are circulating uptower.

It’s not static. There is some static up there, but it’s not static. It’s coming from the controls, the, the generator, and everything else. Inverters,

Allen Hall: converters.

Howard Penrose: And we’ve seen up to 150 amps passing through a, through a bearing.

Allen Hall: So I– We run across a lot of operators who have been replacing main bearings, and they don’t know the reason why.

Yeah. And I always say, “Well, call Howard at MotorDoc because I would almost bet you you have the f- high frequency running around uptower in the nacelle- And the next main bearing you put in there is gonna go the same way as the- Yeah … first one you put in there. Until you cut off that circulating current and then the cell, you’re just gonna continue with the problem.

Then you haven’t eliminated the problem, you’re just fixing the result of that problem. Yes. But it takes- Yeah, you’re, you’re- How, [00:15:00] how, well, how long- You’re replacing

Howard Penrose: a fuse.

Allen Hall: Right, you’re replacing a fuse. Yeah. How long does it take you to s- to determine- An expensive fuse. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, ’cause you’re taking the rotor down.

Yeah. Well, how, how fast can you determine if you have harmonics uptower that are gonna be causing you problems? 120 seconds.

Howard Penrose: Okay.

Allen Hall: So that’s the thing. I think a lot of- I mean,

Howard Penrose: that’s of the actual data collection time. So you clamp on uptower, uh, and then you can… Well, the way we have it set up now, you just tell it you wanna collect data every five s- uh, five minutes, and then you go downtower, let it collect its data, go back up, grab it.

Um, it’s like…

It’s huge. It’s this size. So, um, and then you connect- It plugs into a laptop. Yeah. Plug it into a laptop or any type of tablet. Um, it, it’s Windows now. I’m trying to get away from Windows. We’re gonna have Linux systems, uh, as well. Uh, and then you use that to, um, just collect that data, and then you press another button.

Now it pops up, and it tells you if you’re in danger or not, [00:16:00] the amount of current passing through the bearing, and the frequencies all the way out.

Allen Hall: So the ideal is you’re gonna have this kit with you in the truck. Yeah. And as you see these problems pop up, you’re gonna clamp on uptower. Yep. You’re gonna measure these circulating currents, and you’re gonna know immediately if you have another mechanical issue, a, a lubrication issue- Oh, yeah.

It’ll look at- … some kind of alignment issue, or- You’ll get all

Howard Penrose: of this information at once. So you- Right … if you go on the power side. So certain turbines, like anything that has the transformer downtower, you don’t have to climb. Right. GE. I mean, I don’t climb. So, uh, uh, you know, th- and that was part of the, the concept behind when we started down this path because I’ve been in the wind industry since 1997.

So one of the things I always saw was, and, and we talked about even, you know, here when it was called AWEA, and we were talking always on the health and safety side about wearing out the technicians. Um, so we discovered that, you know, what was it? Almost 60% of the [00:17:00] turbines you didn’t have to climb. Right.

Oh, yeah. And even the ones you do, you go up, you set it up, and it’ll tell you where you need to focus. The other thing in the powertrain, let alone the generator, when we do a sweep of a site– Now, if we do a straight electrical signature analysis, I’d term that one as a technician’s tool. Sure. That’s more of an engineer’s tool.

Uh, a lot more data, a lot harder to set up. But even though I’m saying harder to set up, it’s still pretty easy. It’s still minutes. Right. Yeah. Most technicians will collect data with, like, a couple hours worth of training. Yeah. You g- You basically gather that data, and if you’re getting a site, so we’ll go out– I love going out in the field.

So we’ll go out in the field, especially if it’s a tower we don’t have to climb I’ll knock out, uh, well, let’s just say I’ll, I’ll, I’ll name one. Say a GE 1.6. I’ll knock out one of those every eight to 11 minutes, depending on how you get to the tower.

Allen Hall: So that’s a full diagnosis of drivetrain- Yeah … plus anything odd happening- Yep

with circulating currents and all that [00:18:00] can- Oh, no, no. Circulating- Or just- … current, that’s a- That’s a separate thing at tower … separate study that- Okay … you have to do that uptower. But anything, anything drivetrain-wise, you can be in and out- Yeah … in a couple of minutes. Yep. Okay. So there’s a lot of operators that have end-of-warranties coming up, right?

Yes. There’s been a lot of developments, so they’re kind of running into the end-of-warranty, and they don’t know the health status of their drivetrain. Same thing for a lot of operators that are in- Yep … full service agreements, and they’re questioning whether they’re getting their money’s worth or not.

Yes. I always say, “Call Howard at Motordoc. You guys can have a whole site survey done maybe in a couple of days, and you will know all the problems that are on site for the lowest price ever”. Yeah. It’s crazy how fast you can do it and how accurate it is. I talk to operators that use your system, so I hear you.

Yeah. Your podcast, listen to your podcast, I’m calling your customers to find out what they say, and they love it. Oh, yeah. They can’t believe how accurate it is. Yeah. Well, the thing about that is we as an industry need to make sure that our turbines are operating at [00:19:00] maximum efficiency. Yep. And if a simple tool like the Motordoc EMPath system exists, we need to get customers, operators in line to start doing it worldwide.

Australia- Oh … Europe-

Howard Penrose: Yeah. We- … Canada. Australia, we’re trying to get into, but right now we even have OEMs using it through North- That’s good … and South America, Asia. Good. Uh, Middle East, um, and, uh, and some of Europe. Good. So it’s, it’s, it’s really taking off. Uh, I’d say probably our biggest market right now is Brazil.

Sure. They’re going crazy. Well, the, the turbines are- They’re having a lot of problems. Yeah.

Allen Hall: Right. And the, well, those turbines have a h- high usage, right? So because- Oh, yeah … the winds are so good, they’re operating at, like, capacity factor is above 50%. Yes. It’s insane. Yeah. So there’s a lot of wear and tear.

There’s no downtime for those turbines.

Howard Penrose: Yeah. Well, and, and people think it’s all the starting and stopping. It’s not. No. It’s a grid-related issue. So we have- Sure … we have a low frequency. And you know some of the stuff I volun- I, I’m, I’ve been volunteered for- [00:20:00] Yeah … uh, including the CIGRE thing. Um, so I get to sit in the grid code committees for IEEE and put my, and our input into that, uh, and kind of watch the back of the IBR industry, right?

Mm-hmm. ‘Cause there’s a definitely bias against our industry. Um, and I also, uh, get to hear what’s going on in the grid side of things from CIGRE worldwide, and it’s all very similar, and it has to do with low-frequency oscillating currents- Yes … called subsynchronous currents- Yes … which are low enough not to damage large synchronous machines.

And they thought, and there’s books written on this, by the way, multiple books written on wind turbine impact- Uh, and they’re seeing now, um… Well, we detected it first, along with Timken. Hank, uh, and, and I went out to a site, and we detected for the first time, because of how they wanna do the testing and where the site was located, we saw the oscillating torque [00:21:00] in the air gap, ’cause that’s one of the things the technology does.

It actually measures the torque, air gap torque. Sure. So we were watching the oscillating torque as a tower started up. And so we did, we went through the rest of that site looking at the same stuff in the same way. It increased our time and data collection, and time on site. But then we started looking for it at other sites, and going to pass data because I don’t have to go back and retake data.

Right. And we’re like, “Oh my God. It’s everywhere.” 16 hertz, 21 hertz, and 50 hertz. And we found a paper that specifically identified that as the sub synchronous frequencies for 60 hertz. So we know what they are also for 50 hertz. Once we identified that and we saw how much the torsi- torque was oscillating, we worked with Shermco, who got us some information on Y-rings that were failing.

Yeah. And they were all failing… When the metallurgy was done, they were all failing from fatigue. And you’re like, fatigue how? What’s fatiguing these connections? [00:22:00] Well, the fatigue is that air gap torque- Exactly … because you’re basically causing the, the, everything to oscillate a little bit, and that causes the windings to move slightly.

It’s a living,

Allen Hall: breathing machine-

Howard Penrose: Exactly … this generator

Allen Hall: is.

Howard Penrose: Yeah.

Allen Hall: It’s not

Howard Penrose: static. It’s definitely not sta- no electric machine is static. No. Even a transformer’s not static. Right.

Allen Hall: So- There’s a little

Howard Penrose: bit of wiggle going on there all the time All the time. And it’s minute, so it takes a long time. Right. And what, uh, uh, everybody…

Well, first people thought it was a particular manufacturer, which it wasn’t. Turned out every defig’s failing the same way. Sure. You’re fatiguing it. Yeah. Every bearing is failing the same way, even in the gearbox, main bearings, and everything else. Right. All of these conditions are happening across all the OEMs, but they’re not allowed to talk.

Well, this is, this is the thing that

Allen Hall: I like watching your podcast.

Howard Penrose: Yeah.

Allen Hall: The Chaos and Caffeine. It comes out Saturday mornings. It’s on YouTube. If you haven’t- Yeah … clicked into it, you should click into it

Howard Penrose: because a lot of these issues are discussed there. It’s definitely, um… [00:23:00] Let’s just say I’ll speak Navy quite a bit.

Allen Hall: It’s a great podcast, and I think what you’re doing with the EMPath system- Yes … at motor dock is really a game changer. Yeah. I’m talking to everybody, all the operators I know. I keep telling them to call you and to try the system out because it’s so inexpensive and it does the work quickly and efficiently, and it’s been proven.

There’s no messing- Oh, yeah … around when you’re talking to MotorDoc. I…

Howard Penrose: Somebody dared tell me that there’s no standard for it. There’s ISO standards for it. Yes. There’s IEEE 1415- Yes … which I chair. Uh, and there’s other standards coming out- This is- … associated with it. And there’s a document that I also chair for Sea Gray- Called A178, which is the practical application of the technology.

So it’s well-documented. There are traceable standards for it. I need more

Allen Hall: operators to call you- Yeah … and to talk to you and get systems in the back of the trucks that they can use to check out the health of their gear boxes and their drive trains and their generators. How [00:24:00] do they do that? Where do they go?

Where, where’s, what’s- Well- … the first place they should look for?

Howard Penrose: Uh, info@motordoc.com. Okay. I get all, I get all of those as well, so do my people. Um, or, uh, LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s really good.

Allen Hall: Look up anything. Yeah.

Howard Penrose: Yeah, yeah. So, so either the company at Motordoc, or, uh, I’m, I sh- I’ll show up either searching for my name or, uh, linkedin.com/in/motordoc.

Come straight to me ’cause I’ve been in, on LinkedIn forever, so- Right, just- … I got to do that … look up

Allen Hall: Howard Penrose, P-E-N-R-O-S-E. Yep. Or go to motordoc.com is- Yep, motordoc.com … the website address.

Howard Penrose: Yep. There’s a lot of great information there. And we have partners, and we have people. We’re growing the company.

You know, talk to me. I, I’ll- Yes … I like answering the phone and talking. It’s, it’s a thing. My people go, “Can we answer the phone one?” No. Um, but, but yeah, we, we, y- when you call us, you’re not just dealing with a single person. Right. The Motordoc is far more expansive. Right now, we [00:25:00] just got our partnership with, uh, Hitachi and, and Juliet- Yeah, that’s great

and stuff like that. Uh, we’re helping them with certain things. Uh, we’re partnered with some of the big OEMs, almost all of them, um, you know, helping identify the issues, you know. And, and when users contact us, often they’ll tell us what’s going on, and we’ll, we can, uh, sometimes say, “Yeah, it’s this, and here’s how we prove it.”

Allen Hall: Yeah. That’s the, that’s the beauty- Yeah … of calling Motordoc. So I need my operators that, that watch the show- Yeah … worldwide, go online, go on LinkedIn, get ahold of Howard, get ahold of Motordoc, and get started. Yep. Howard, thank you- And- … so much for being on the podcast. Yeah. This is fantastic. I love talking to you because-

it’s, it’s like talking to, you know… Uh, no, really, it’s talking like someone who’s a real good industry expert, who’s been there a long time, and understands- Yeah … how this

[00:26:00] works.

MotorDoc Finds Bearing and Gearbox Faults in Minutes

Renewable Energy

The Fine Art of Appealing to Idiots

Published

20 hours ago

May 20, 2026

Alice Rush

The fascism of the early 20th Century taught us all the key elements of the playbook (see below).

In particular, when a leader identifies an enemy like Islam as a grievous threat and pledges eliminate it, one might think that such a position would generate suspicion, rather than adoration.

No so here in the United States, where tens of millions of uneducated Americans would happily elect Trump an absolute leader for life, in the way of Putin and Xi.