Papakura 4-Sided Tower Clock 2011

As the authorised agents for NZ for the equipments powering the tower clock, we were asked to check on the Papakura clock in July 2011 following a report from an independent contracter employed by the new Auckland "supercity" council. That report advised that the clock was showing the wrong time and the four faces were on different times from each other. In addition it reported that the electrical utility room below the street which houses the street-lighting cables and the clock electronics was flooded, the safety lock on the trapdoor was missing, and the electrical switchboard was hanging loose in a dangerous condition.

Our investigation indicates that following the transition from Papakura City Council to the new Auckland "supercity" in 2010, the plant maintenance program had been overlooked ("fallen through the cracks") and when the permanent sump pump in the electrical utility room below the clock tower stopped working, the problem was not discovered for some time until the independent contractor found the room had filled with water. We have to assume that unauthorised activity accounts for the unsecured access trapdoor, damage to the electrical switchboard, and the fact that the permanent sump pump was not found when the room was finally emptied of water.

We were not able to confirm the report of all faces being on the wrong times. At time of inspection they were all accurately aligned to the Master Controller except for the South Face display which was consistently tracking about 30-degrees of arc behind the other three faces suggesting the south face mechanism had been held back while the rest of the clock mechanism continued to advance.

Close examination with electronic diagnostic equipment showed that the Tempus Controller had suffered a huge electrical power surge and had gone into "safety mode". When it was removed and dismantled, black carbon powder marks were found in the upper case region which houses the electronics. The possible explanations include a lightning strike on the tower (does it have a lightning conductor and is it working?) or a previous unrelated fault condition in the Papakura street lighting circuit which caused a big power spike. The fact that the Tempus LCD screen had blanked out and the Controller was running in "safety mode" points to there having been an excessive EM pulse.

Physical inspection of the upper tower with a cherry-picker showed that the minutes hand on the south face of the clock (the one running behind time) had deep scratches in the paint. Clearly it had been impacted by a foreign object which the hands had tried to force their way past and had been "held back" until the object fell away. From the nature of the scratch damage to the minutes hand it is believed that an object such as a tree branch or similar would have been responsible rather than an object thrown from the ground.

In light of our findings and the earlier independent report, the best way forward was to remove the Master Controller and the upper Tower mechanisms for a full workshop assessment of all the components. No permanent damage was found to any component parts and we were able to clean and restart the Tempus Controller. We also submitted a full report to the manufacturer in Belgium whose recomendation was to replace the Tempus Controller with a new unit to ensure best reliability because of the stress on the original unit. In addition the manufacturer offered free upgrades to all the 2008 equipments to bring it to 2011 specs and to provide a new warranty appropriately.

The equipments are currently held at our workshop in Waimate whilst our official report and recommendations and offers are considered by Council.

Update.

On Council initiative the affected parts were replaced as per recommendation and the clock returned to full working service with the addition of GPS timeserver synchronisation to ensure best long term accuracy.