stab lok circuit breakers

[industryspark]

hi guys, opinions please.

has anybody come across a company called federal electric before or their brand of stab lok circuit breakers? believe their a U.S company or were.

we've got 2 boards at my place of work where the circuits have failed zs, these boards & breakers( type 4/D) are fed electric stab lok, must be 20 year old at least.

the panels are really ancient things and ive been argueing the case for ripping the lot out and putting new panels & breakers in. the md however has seen some stab lok replacement breaker type's which would get the zs so wants to go down this route.(smaller down time & cost less as well, sure thats not an influence though! )

iv read somewhere however that these breakers are a serious hazard (googled it) wondered if anybody had any experience with them?

ps, took one out of the board that the fault current had blown to bits & its not even a particulally high fault current. this set the alarm bells ringing.

 

[breezer]

wasnt one like

this was it?

 

[RF Lighting]

Personally, rip them out and start again.
These boards and breakers are well obsolete.

Are the boards full or overloaded?
Often boards of this age have been added to over the years, and are at full capacity now.

I have seen some new federal MCBs which do just fit the old boards, but the cover does need modifying to get them to fit.

There is no Ipsc on the breaker casing of the one that I have got, but from the age and style I would imagine a rating of aroung 1.5 - 3kA

There were some fine examples of these boards at Leeds train station, complete with bodged new MCBs!

 

[jeepmadmike]

i've seen alot of these boards they where available until the early ninetys as far as im aware, i would say unless they are the late design which was IP2X with the cover removed i would bin them.

 

[jeepmadmike]

Thinking about this i did replace one of these boards which had blown up in a big way, it was very close to a 2MVA transformer and had a 250A incomer so it was hardly supprising it when bang when the roof leaked onto it.
i have never seen another fail and have seen every other make have various melt downs. i would recommend a yearly thermal image survey on heavily loaded distribution.

 

[industryspark]

pretty similar to that one breezer yeah.

really poor stuff, no BS marks or equivelent or no ipf rating. the boards are well overloaded to be honest, they appear about twenty years old.

think its going to be a board change then by the looks of things.

 

[breezer]

pretty similar to that one breezer yeah.

I was hopping you would say that, i got the picture from a meuseum site

 

[RF Lighting]

I got the photo of the breaker from the one on my desk

 

[industryspark]

I was hopping you would say that, i got the picture from a meuseum site

thought you'd been to my work for a minute then breezer and took a photo!