Crap Panel Manufacturers!

[johnboy6083]

Hi all,

Today i have been working on a small pumping station. One of my jobs was to look at the discrimination between two sets of fuses. I open up both sections of the panels, and have a look. I see whats happened and decide on my course of action. (63A fuses feeding 100A fuses, so the second set are redundant, and im gona put solid links in instead).

I didnt have the links on me, so i measured up for them and then renergised the switchfuse. The lights dont turn on, and im getting a phase failure alarm on the panel. I check power to the first sw/f and its ok. I check the loads side of that S/f and its ok. Chjeck the live side of the downstream sw/f, and again ok. Check the load side, and L1 is down. I turn the power off, and im getting continuity on the fuse. Im a little bewildered by this. I decide that beofre anything else, im gona check any terminations id done that day. all ok. I decide to have a proper look at the offending fuse, so i go to unbolt it. The bloddy thing only needed half a turn on my socket, and it fell out. The panel firm who installed the pane ldidnt tighten up the fuse, or check it!!!! Its a good job that the gear trhe panel was feeding hasnt been running for months, or else we would have had a fire!!!!!

I reinstalled the fuse and tightened it up, and everything was hunky dory!!! Its lucky that it went open circuit really, because i had no reason to check the fuse until i remove it to install solid copper links.

 

[ACDC]

I hear your pain! remember once i was asked to test a panel within a steel kiosk, turn up and the manufacturer didnt even have a main earth installed, just the 3 lines and neutral....I walked away.

 

[Knobhead]

I’ve got to ask, what commissioning trials were done?
If they had been done correctly this would have shown immediately, so be careful where you point the finger.
I’ve had the same situation, new panel f**ks up, trials, non done because production came first.
YES a loose connection is inexcusable, but have you ever built a panel from scratch? 1000’s of connections, this is where commissioning comes in.
House bashers would call it snagging. If you can install a panel with over 10000 external connections without fault your

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[johnboy6083]

i have done panel wiring, and one of the things i was taught to do is to check every cubicles terminations before moving to the next, and when testing somebody elses panel to check them all. Obviously this is a crap boring job, but a neccesary one. I do understand that the odd connection may be loose, but fot the main incoming feed to the panel; to be loose, thats a stupid mistake, albeit a dangerous one.

 

[aiden251181]

biggest mess ive ever had with a panel was when i was working at a factory in birmingham and we'd subbied the panel out, it arrived on site and i'd contacted the company whod sent all the paperwork and test results sheet. i connected all the line i'd wired to the new panel, and checked all my wiring (4 weeks worth) and all of the mains connections to the panel ( it was a 4 double panel and a single panel joined together ) so a decent size. switched it on without the drives and checked everything over. all ok. next morning switched the breakers on for the drives and BOOM 5 panel tops hit the roof and around 40 braking resistors blew to pieces. when i calmed down and checked it over the single phase drives had been connected on different phases (with a dc bus)
the phone call to the panel wirers was a bit of a shouting match which they still insisted had been tested completely, so i just had to assume the lorry driver had decided to reconnect the drives on his way to delivering the panel.