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Chornobyl control panels

DougM

DougM

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2023
Messages
245
Location
Bellevue, WA
I don't know if you guys are fans of the youtube channel but these displays, to me, are absolutely gorgeous. If I ever did home automation I'd do the whole thing in those green/blue glowing panels at the top of the display.

1744056917824.png

Old computer displays such as this are the part of vintage computing that I really appreciate. That and Paper Tape.
 

How Chernobyl became Chornobyl​

After declaring independence from Russia in the 1990s Ukraine adopted the new English spellings​


I learned something today. Being American I had only seen the "Chernobyl" spelling.

Yeah! Neat displays!
 
Must be modern shots of Smolensk or Ignalina as the RBMK didn't have displays like that when they were built but after the west helped them out. The original computing wasn't up to doing graphical displays. There was a machine that did reactivity calcs and printed them out on a teletype style device.

I was at Smolensk as part of the Department of Trade and Industry operator exchange in 2005, was really really interesting poking about a running reactor. Just to the left you can see the core map which had indicators of all rod positions and fuel channel contents. There were some that were unmarked and when asked, we were told they were 'for special scientific purposes'. Probably tritium cartridges for their Hydrogen bombs.

We did an onload fuel exchange. That was fun. We connected the fuelling machine to the reactor then had to leave the area to sit in a concrete bunker to operate it. Radiation on the pilecap would be enough to kill :), thing is, the way out was back onto the pile cap. Can't remember if there was an emergency exit if the fuel got stuck in the machine.

The desk controls are very similar to my first power station but where I am now had graphical displays from the start (ask Daver2 all about them !) but uses Honeywell DPS 6 superminis and used to use Sigma Graphics serial driven graphics drivers (the size of a suitcase)
 
Gary C said:
The original computing wasn't up to doing graphical displays.
Click to expand...

The green indicator panels up on the wall, which I think are what the OP was talking about, aren't graphical displays? Playing just a couple moments of the video they appear to be indicator lights behind plastic or glass panels with the shapes blacked out. IE, they're basically like the "trouble lights" you have on a car dashboard arranged into schematic flows. I've seen similar panels at hydroelectric dam powerplants.
 
MAZter said:
Chevrolet, but not Chovrolet
Click to expand...
Well, now you sent me down the rabbit hole of the etymology of Chevrolet. Which I admit I always thought was French.

Turns out it's Swiss. Louis Chevrolet. So it's a surname.

Chernobyl/Chornobyl, otoh, is of Slavic root and translates to "black wormwood"
 
Eudimorphodon said:
The green indicator panels up on the wall, which I think are what the OP was talking about, aren't graphical displays? Playing just a couple moments of the video they appear to be indicator lights behind plastic or glass panels with the shapes blacked out. IE, they're basically like the "trouble lights" you have on a car dashboard arranged into schematic flows. I've seen similar panels at hydroelectric dam powerplants.
Click to expand...
They are, they have lights behind each element. For instance, if the graphic is a pump it will light up when the pump is running. There might even be two lights, one on the outline of the pump and one at the center of the pump. Guess maybe the outline is "it should be running" and the center is "it is running"

That's why it would be such a cool panel for home monitoring. I could have a graphic of the stove and see at a glance if I left it on, or a graphic of a faucet to indicate whether water was currently flowing.

I might actually go down this path if I can ever clear my plate enough to make the time. At the very least make a sample panel to see if I can reproduce that color and segment the lights to eliminate bleed.
 
You should be able to make quite a decent panel using electroluminescent tape and/or panels cut out to make the shapes.

Dave
 
Eudimorphodon said:
If the Ukrainians say it's Chornobyl then I'm inclined to try to update my brain with that information. Just like they'd rather you spell Kyiv "Kyiv", not "Kiev".
Click to expand...
If you want to get technical how about this: Чорно́биль
 
Eudimorphodon said:
The green indicator panels up on the wall, which I think are what the OP was talking about, aren't graphical displays? Playing just a couple moments of the video they appear to be indicator lights behind plastic or glass panels with the shapes blacked out. IE, they're basically like the "trouble lights" you have on a car dashboard arranged into schematic flows. I've seen similar panels at hydroelectric dam powerplants.
Click to expand...
I think u might be right (just like our PTSE display eh Dave) thought they were the later added displays (I need a new phone)
The current t rbmks have graphics
 
I also have an excel 'model' of our AGR reactor. It's crude in many ways but you can take it from shutdown to full power then trip it and watch the cooling systems operate.
 
DougM said:
Chernobyl/Chornobyl, otoh, is of Slavic root and translates to "black wormwood"
Click to expand...

I only really noticed the "Chornobyl" spelling a few months ago, in the titles of YouTube videos, and I hate to admit that my first thought was it might be some kind of a meme thing, like "Doge" or "Dorg" for household canine. In my defense, the Internet just randomly gloming onto a TV show or whatever and meme-ifying it is a thing that regularly happens, and HBO *did* have that miniseries a few years ago.

But no, I should of known better. From outside these tweaks to the anglicized spellings in places in Ukraine might seem like not a big deal, but to the people living there getting out from Russian domination is, well, pretty important.(*)

(* I mean, obviously people will be spelling it the old way... forever, for practical reasons, but... that's not really a reason to pick on trying to correct something moving forward. There's a *long history* of place names having their English spellings evolve over time. Not a lot of people call Beijing "Peking" anymore.)
 
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DougM said:
might actually go down this path if I can ever clear my plate enough to make the time. At the very least make a sample panel to see if I can reproduce that color and segment the lights to eliminate bleed.
Click to expand...

I actually have a vaguely similar project on my idea plate, that I'm trying to work out a good strategy for. I recently found a discarded tape of those addressable RGB lights; I think someone stuck it up as a christmas decoration and decided to just peel it off and throw it away. Without ratholing too much... those strings come in two common forms, one in which the individual lights are addressible (with the control chip built into each light), and higher power versions running on a greater feed voltage that cluster "dumb" RGB lights into groups of three controlled by a separate chip. The string I found is the latter. So...

The stupid idea I've been hashing around is cutting the string into 3 LED segments and arranging them into 7 segment displays. I have enough lights on the string to make enough digits for a clock, so I was thinking it would be fun to use arduino to build a silly RGB clock with digits around 10 inches tall and play with color cycling the digits in "interesting" ways. Where I'm a little stuck is figuring out how to build a good diffuser to put in front of the thing that isolates the segments and smoothly blends the light from the 3 LEDs on each segment into a solid line.
 
Gary C said:
The desk controls are very similar to my first power station but where I am now had graphical displays from the start (ask Daver2 all about them !) but uses Honeywell DPS 6 superminis and used to use Sigma Graphics serial driven graphics drivers (the size of a suitcase)
Click to expand...
Off topic, but I would love to attend a combined presentation (or just a nice discusion) from you both about computing in UK power stations :)

I enjoyed TNMOC's recent supporters' day presentation about their new Ferranti Argus 500 exhibit, which has a considerable number of ex-nuclear power station bits in it. As a layperson, I also like their power station alarm prioritisation demo running on the TAC.

The endurance of these systems in such a critical role (back in the power station, I mean) thanks to the effort of their caretakers --- it seems like it would yield an interesting story or two.
 
A similar display shows up in this video at 26:08. (YouTube can automatically translate the subtitles)
There's a video on the same channel about how to make electroluminescent displays that's worth a watch.
 
stepleton said:
Off topic, but I would love to attend a combined presentation (or just a nice discusion) from you both about computing in UK power stations :)

I enjoyed TNMOC's recent supporters' day presentation about their new Ferranti Argus 500 exhibit, which has a considerable number of ex-nuclear power station bits in it. As a layperson, I also like their power station alarm prioritisation demo running on the TAC.

The endurance of these systems in such a critical role (back in the power station, I mean) thanks to the effort of their caretakers --- it seems like it would yield an interesting story or two.
Click to expand...
Daver2 is the real expert on power station computing, especially our system.

I just used to fix it and program it a bit :)

Then I just used it a lot.

Now I am just trying to remove from site as much as I can...
 
DougM said:
Well, now you sent me down the rabbit hole of the etymology of Chevrolet. Which I admit I always thought was French.

Turns out it's Swiss. Louis Chevrolet. So it's a surname.

Chernobyl/Chornobyl, otoh, is of Slavic root and translates to "black wormwood"
Click to expand...
Cherno also could be tranlates as "Black" (cherny)
byl translates as "What actually happened"
So Cherno byl translates as "Black, what actually happened"

черно - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org en.wiktionary.org
 
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>>> Off topic, but I would love to attend a combined presentation (or just a nice discussion) from you both about computing in UK power station

I have offered to do a talk at the next DEC Legacy event in Windermere... It will be more aimed at PDP-11 machines (for obvious reasons).

I could mention a certain power station on the Lancashire coastline (in passing)...

Dave
 
Gary C said:
Must be modern shots of Smolensk or Ignalina as the RBMK didn't have displays like that when they were built but after the west helped them out. The original computing wasn't up to doing graphical displays. There was a machine that did reactivity calcs and printed them out on a teletype style device.
Click to expand...
That was my thought--computer control for nuclear plants tends to be somewhat retro (needs to be thoroughly mission proven) The photo shown would not coincide with the shutdown of the installation (1986) of the reactor near Pripyat.

Also note that the color of the panel in the included photo is slightly different from that of the main panel. Points to the possibility of a later add-on.
 
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