Evidence of rising incompetence in my field.

[Darkwood]

Over the last few years I have found more and more so called companies supplying machinery and control systems that are at best functional but don't meet most of the requirements set out in the LVD.

Take this morning, I agreed to pop to a factory to do what was said to be the final connection to the motor (star/delta) as their own sparks were not competent in that field, fair enough went along, noted it was an extract system and was all ready for the motor connectior connections so checked the phase order of the 6 cores against the manufacturer marked terminations to my motor connections and tried it.... Bang! on delta

Closer look it turns out the star contact was jammed in permanently and the NC aux' had a broken clip so didn't pull in to isolate the delta from change over... turns out panel had been returned already for a jammed contactor, and to confirm all pre-wired controls were correct... moving along we sourced and fitted a spare contactor and been complacent (was my day off tbh) I started it... this time on delta change over the supply mcb took out.... so decided to stop all the expectation of a working control system and decided to confirm their wiring against their own provided diagram which I confirmed the diagram was correct...
Turns out the phase ordering across main contact and delta contact was wrong effectively 2phasing motor in delta. Now usually you house a little trust in brand new marked up equipment but Im finding a lately the market is getting flooded with incompetent companies to get into a lucrative market.

I also noted the shaker motor had no O/L protection.
The control wiring 400v was not fused down against the supply mcb for the 22Kw motor.
No control transformer as the unit supplied multiple motors so requires one.
+ various what I call cosmetic breaches ..non safety related but thngs like numbering of cables missing etc.


Any one else seen a rise of what I suspect are general Electricians trying to hone in on the industrial sector control and machinery... I suspect the recession + influx of short course sparks driving wages down has something to answer for but in the past 2 weeks Ive given a reality check to 3 companies not complying to LVD and totally ignorant of its existance.:nonod:

 

[Robotstar5]

There have been a few threads asking how to get into industrial maintenance, won't be long before there's a 5 week course on it!

My pet hate is unmarked cables, what good is a drawing with all the terminal designators when you've got to change a safety relay with 20+ unmarked cables the same colour going to it?

 

[Knobhead]

There's a three day course on 3Ph.

What make is the dust unit? I've had more than my fair share of problems with some of them.

Got an on going one, no provision for static discharge.

 

[Darkwood]

Its got a Chinese motor on it, no real ID company markings just a prefab housing and duct inlets... from all accounts the company who installed it build their own control panel for it well I say control panel as before its functional but not fail safe and has missing O/L protection. I was called in because they blew the first motor up and had it rewound by a company I sub' to and the extract unit comapny weren't confident enough connect their own controls to the motor in case they did it again.... I just can't believe the checked the control wiring on the star/delta and returned it for connection for me to find it was incorrectly wired phase sequencing between the Main and delta contactor supplies.


Its a bag of manure tbh and a 22Kw motor sat on top ofthe main filter unit sounds like Boing coming into land as it sits in the factory in production area not at all the best set up IMO.

 

[Marvo]

Sunds like a real class-act. I assume the pictures are following shortly

 

[shanky887614]

Please upload some pictures

 

[Darkwood]

Sadly not this time it was a sat morning half hour job that took all morning and the last thing on my mind was taking pics TBH wish I had as I wanted to look up the brand of contactors used as I had never heard of them and 2 had failed.

 

[SheffSimon]

There have been a few threads asking how to get into industrial maintenance, won't be long before there's a 5 week course on it!

My pet hate is unmarked cables, what good is a drawing with all the terminal designators when you've got to change a safety relay with 20+ unmarked cables the same colour going to it?

Typical of panels on machinery manufactured in continental Europe, especially Germany.

 

[joel89]

all the extractor systems we've got, which are pretty new none of them had overloads or breakers on the shaker motor or contactor I had to add them in !

 

[Bobster]

How big was the motor?

There are a few exceptions in not fitting O/L protection. If these extraction systems are part of a safety system, you may well not have needed fitting them. In fact you now may be breaching regs.

 

[Darkwood]

How big was the motor?

There are a few exceptions in not fitting O/L protection. If these extraction systems are part of a safety system, you may well not have needed fitting them. In fact you now may be breaching regs.

He said on the shaker motors not the extract motors, these only come into play after the main extract has shut down normally.

 

[joel89]

yes they do darkwood, run off an aux contact off the stop to feed to a timer relay to energise the shaker contactor !

 

[Bobster]

need to read slower!

 

[Robotstar5]

Typical of panels on machinery manufactured in continental Europe, especially Germany.

Good guess - panels were built in Germany.

 

[Clive P]

Hi,
Not done a lot on panels, mainly fault finding. Did have one where I knew there was a fault because the whole system had gone down ( basically a boiler house controlled by one panel ). There were about 20 grey cables going into one connection point, took me ages to sort out which went with which cable. If only they were marked, would of saved me hours of work. For interest the fault turned out to be a blown pcb in the gas solenoid valve.

Regards.

 

[Darkwood]

Even marked cables mean nothing if you have nothing to refer them to, it only speeds up identifying the 2 ends and some numbering systems on add confusion to the problem in MHO as they were labelled by an idiot in design.

20 grey cables?.. try 400-500 with rear panel routed cores to hinder physically tracing them... hate the old panels that have all the cables routed on the rear of the chasis plate with no access and as they are routed and string tied you can't tug and locate

 

[Besoeker]

Even marked cables mean nothing if you have nothing to refer them to, it only speeds up identifying the 2 ends and some numbering systems on add confusion to the problem in MHO as they were labelled by an idiot in design.

I'm relatively new here so maybe a little background.
I work for a fairly large multinational corporation. Mainly what my bit of that does is variable speed drives and drive systems. Our customer base is primarily in the industrial sector including petrochem.
To that extent I may come at this from a different angle to some others here.

Everything we do has to be documented to the nth degree. Drawings have to have final approval from the client before the build phase can legitimately commence. Every revision of the drawings have to be retained and revisions clearly marked. All conductors and terminals are numbered. All fitted components are identified with a label that corresponds to the drawings. Certificates of conformity, certificates of origin.......the whole nine yards....I could go on.

Marked (numbered) conductors are essential. Not just because they are a contractual requirement. It would be night on impossible to be accurate at the build stage and during testing/faultfinding. Maybe not so much on the power side. But on the controls - one black 1.0mm[SUP]2[/SUP] looks like any other black 1.0mm[SUP]2[/SUP]. So mark them we do.

And we try not to employ idiots at the design stage......

So, I'm not entirely in agreement with your point about cable marking.

But I am with you on your other thread about dumbing down.

 

[Clive P]

Hi,
DW, 400-500! I'll leave that to you, looks like i've only played with baby ones.

Regards.

 

[shanky887614]

Even marked cables mean nothing if you have nothing to refer them to, it only speeds up identifying the 2 ends and some numbering systems on add confusion to the problem in MHO as they were labelled by an idiot in design.

20 grey cables?.. try 400-500 with rear panel routed cores to hinder physically tracing them... hate the old panels that have all the cables routed on the rear of the chasis plate with no access and as they are routed and string tied you can't tug and locate

nothing like laughing at other sparks when they are hitting the cables with blocks of wood to try to get the lid on lol.

last big job we did had at least 10 panels with say 200+ beldens in each in one building.

we usually have multiple panels instead of one big one.

I like them because we use a magical item called panel trunking that a lot of people dont seem to have heard of, it would make many a db a lot neater and very cheap.

ill be honest I struggle more with 50 cat6 cables on 3" basket on a wall than a couple hundred beldens.

panel drawings are useless because there either missing or wrong

 

[Knobhead]

I’ve only ever worked for multinationals and never had a problem with core identification in panels, even in 50 year old gear.

It was in our terms and conditions. If you don’t issue a specification then tough luck, it’s your fault!
We had preferred suppliers that knew our standard.

 

[Darkwood]

Hi,
DW, 400-500! I'll leave that to you, looks like i've only played with baby ones.

Regards.

This is not an uncommon sight to me ... when you get used to faulting these you tend to get a 6th sense ....I have quite a sharp analytically thinking mind now and can fault these with any plans and just using my head no pen and paper etc .... Yes a lot of the time I have to walk away as its clear the customer is not willing to pay.

 

[Robotstar5]

I used the hate getting called to machines like that, never seen it before and expected to get it working in a couple of minutes.

 

[Besoeker]

I used the hate getting called to machines like that, never seen it before and expected to get it working in a couple of minutes.

That is truly horrible,

 

[bossian]

My pet hate with all panels is the inability for the last fault finding engineer not putting the slotted trunking lid back on! Really boils my nuts grrrrr