power factor correction, help?

[brookster]

I've seen these power factor correction units capacitor banks catch fire.

 

[Engineer54]

I've seen these power factor correction units capacitor banks catch fire.

Something must have been very wrong with the installation if it actually caught fire!! lol!!

 

[brookster]

Something must have been very wrong with the installation if it actually caught fire!! lol!!

its actually a very common fault LOL!

 

[Engineer54]

Is it indeed??

I've only known of one such case in 30 odd years!! And you would have understood why, if you'd of seen the state of the installation!! lol!!

 

[brookster]

They can catch fire for quite a few reasons and not bad just installation, bad operating temps, over voltage and bad harmonics.(well these things probably could come under the remit of install to be fair.) But there is a wide range of things which can pop them.

 

[Knobhead]

I'll add another 40 years. Only had two fail.

One at 433V, that blew a hole in the cap of a 200A BS88 fuse. Still got the fuse in my black museum.

The other was spectacular to say the least, 11KV goes with a bang.