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.