Pantograph repair and test bench

The bench is designed for repair, adjustment and acceptance testing of mainline electric locomotive pantographs in the depot pantograph section. It checks the static contact force of the collector head against the contact wire during raising and lowering, the time to reach working height and the lowering time, smoothness of travel, leak-tightness of the pneumatic actuator and the absence of collector head skew.

The pantograph is fixed to the bench's tilting table, which turns it to a position convenient for replacing contact strips, pivot joints and springs and then returns it to the working position for testing. Contact force is measured by a strain-gauge sensor on a contact wire simulator that is moved in height by an electric drive. The controller plots the contact force characteristic over the full height range and compares it with the permissible limits for the given pantograph type.

The set includes a frame with a tilting table, a column with the contact wire simulator and force sensor, a pneumatic block with a regulator and valves for actuator control, and a control cabinet with an operator panel and a report printer. On request the bench is extended with adapters for pantographs of several series, an insulation test unit for the support insulators and a service platform.