Lazy cowboy sparks and 3phase don't mix

[yorkspark]

Came across this yesterday when inspecting something else, i know federal mcb's arn't cheap but who bolts 16mm swa direct to a 200a 3phase busbar!

1. board view

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• yorkspark
• 15 Oct 2011
• 1

2. busbar view

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• yorkspark
• 15 Oct 2011
• 1

3. m4 bolt mcb!!

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• yorkspark
• 15 Oct 2011
• 1

and yes there are no blanks so fingers can touch all 3 phases - nice

 

[RF Lighting]

What does it feed?

 

[yorkspark]

it's not marked up but believe it could be either the leisure club Db or leisure plant room Db

we are starting a 100% test of hotel soon so will no doubt trace it but makes you wonder about the installs quality

 

[RF Lighting]

Ahh right. I was going to say if it just fed into a switch fuse, then it's not really that bad.

 

[janner10]

Ahh right. I was going to say if it just fed into a switch fuse, then it's not really that bad.

Its hideous workmanship whatever it's feeding.

 

[Adam_151]

Ahh right. I was going to say if it just fed into a switch fuse, then it's not really that bad.

Still have to check the protection against fault currents though rob... in the past when I've come across similar arrangements to supply a switchfuse unit off the busbars in SWA (in my case 35mm 4C off the busbars of a panel fused at 300A), The cores were ok against faults, but the armouring wasn't.

I was left shaking my head as to why they had run SWA and located the switchfuse unit the otherside the head and CT chamber, whereas if they'd gone to the other side of the panel board they could have simply put up some uni strut and bolted the switchfuse unit to the side of panel with 50mm galv coupler and run 35mm tails or 6491x straight in!

But it sounds like this feeds straight into a final DB, so obviously didnt know what they were doing anyway!! - and to leave blanks out the board

As OP says whatever the lugging to the busbar is for, still **** to be doing it off the busbar stabs, theres normally somewhere instide where the busbars are suitable for drilling and lugging to

Not only are federal MCCBs not going to be cheap, I'd imagine them to be like rocking horse excrement these days!

 

[ricicle]

Voila.....

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Federal-E...UK_BOI_CircuitBreakers_RL&hash=item2c5e90e19f