# Exercise breaker's



## hooch (Sep 18, 2010)

has any one been asked to do this,and how the hell do you do that?In a report i got for a survey of a hospital they ask if the breaker's have been exercised.


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## wildleg (Apr 12, 2009)

tell them they need to take the breakers to the exercise room, and play this video






seriously, though, sounds like they need to call someone like Brian and schedule shutdown and preventive maintenance (unless they just want to precipitate a scheduled _failure._


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## bthesparky (Jan 23, 2009)

They want you to open and close the breakers a couple of times. Simple as that.


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## hooch (Sep 18, 2010)

in a critical care hospital do you tell mr. johnson to hold his breath to see if his breathing machine goes down wile i throw this breaker? labeling is poor at best


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## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

hooch said:


> has any one been asked to do this,and how the hell do you do that?In a report i got for a survey of a hospital they ask if the breaker's have been exercised.


Nice easy money..


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

hooch said:


> in a critical care hospital do you tell mr. johnson to hold his breath to see if his breathing machine goes down wile i throw this breaker? labeling is poor at best


We regularly shut down hospitals for maintenance and testing, has to be done.


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## bthesparky (Jan 23, 2009)

Exercising breakers is something you only do during a shutdown. I've never had the pleasure of being involved in a hospital shutdown before.


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## Zog (Apr 15, 2009)

hooch said:


> has any one been asked to do this,and how the hell do you do that?In a report i got for a survey of a hospital they ask if the breaker's have been exercised.


That is minimum requirement for all hospitals, scary really because it does nothing. Hospitals have the wrist maintained switchgear you will find anywhere. If I am ever admitted long term I am bringing my own generator.

However some hospitals know better and do real maintenance and testing, like Brian John I have done several of these shutdowns.


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## Wirenuting (Sep 12, 2010)

Zog said:


> That is minimum requirement for all hospitals, scary really because it does nothing. Hospitals have the wrist maintained switchgear you will find anywhere. If I am ever admitted long term I am bringing my own generator.
> 
> However some hospitals know better and do real maintenance and testing, like Brian John I have done several of these shutdowns.


When I worked in the Naval hospital people would ask what's the best day to have surgery. 
I told them to do it the same day I ran the generators. The load was always ready to shift with no start-up wait. 

We had a lot of redundant systems but even then, things go from bad to disastrous real quick. 

They just put the wreckers ball to the 15 story hospital today. I'll post pics as soon as it looks good.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Meh, operating them is better than absolutely nothing, but not by much.

At the bare minimum I'd want contact resistance or FOP readings before and after that.

Will expose failing breakers, and if it does any good at all, you'll see that, too.


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## Zog (Apr 15, 2009)

Big John said:


> Meh, operating them is better than absolutely nothing, but not by much.
> 
> At the bare minimum I'd want contact resistance or FOP readings before and after that.
> 
> Will expose failing breakers, and if it does any good at all, you'll see that, too.


If all they do is exercise them at least use this 

http://www.circuitbreakeranalyzer.com/


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## zwodubber (Feb 24, 2011)

I think you misunderstood, they meant exorcise. Have you ever tried to work on a possessed breaker? It's a PITA


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## BBQ (Nov 16, 2010)

Zog said:


> . Hospitals have the wrist maintained switchgear you will find anywhere.


It appears you are not aware of commercial installations, they are almost always on a fix it if it breaks plan.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

zwodubber said:


> I think you misunderstood, they meant exorcise. Have you ever tried to work on a possessed breaker? It's a PITA


 The power of Stab-Lok compels you?


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## BBQ (Nov 16, 2010)

Big John said:


> The power of Stab-Lok compels you?


:lol::lol:


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

BBQ said:


> It appears you are not aware of commercial installations, they are almost always on a fix it if it breaks plan.


Or the, come fix the half ass fix we tried ourselves when the original broke a year ago plan.


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## xlink (Mar 12, 2012)

Any time I worked a scheduled shut-down there was scheduled work. No one ever thought to flip a thousand breakers that were passing current. If breakers started tripping, they would have been up-sized to prevent future problems.

I suppose what they really wanted was short circuit protection, because a breaker tripping for anything less would be considered a catastrophic failure.


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## Spark Master (Jul 3, 2012)

Every time we have a blackout I exercise all our main breakers in the shop. 60amp - 225 amp. I wouldn't try that under load.

And the health care facility stuff, I wouldn't deal with that. One would think the hospital has it's own maintenance staff.


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## frenchelectrican (Mar 15, 2007)

I have done few hospitals shut down before and there were few hospitals did have more than just two stand by generatours and when I start do the shut down I will useally force one of the genratours on spinning mode aka running stand by mode so in case one of the breakers fail to reset and go with stand by mode and by pass it.

I useally try to shedule it on latter part of the week ( useally thursday is the best time I don't know why but that useally the quiest time to run it.)

Note : normally most hopistals will useally have some kind of record of what they ran the test and the actual shutdown test and actual power outage to see the result.

Merci,
Marc


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

Zog said:


> That is minimum requirement for all hospitals, scary really because it does nothing. Hospitals have the wrist maintained switchgear you will find anywhere. If I am ever admitted long term I am bringing my own generator.
> 
> However some hospitals know better and do real maintenance and testing, like Brian John I have done several of these shutdowns.


IN MY AREA, Major hotels are by far the worst, followed by many hospitals, resturants, stores and malls.

Commercial office buildings actually are very good about having regular maintenance completed due to local code rules.


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## dthurmond (Feb 7, 2011)

We do switchgear testing every three years . We have all the 4160 and 575 breakers racked out and put on a test station . 
This makes for a very long weekend and a crappy Monday start up .


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

dthurmond said:


> We do switchgear testing every three years . We have all the 4160 and 575 breakers racked out and put on a test station .
> This makes for a very long weekend and a crappy Monday start up .


We do this almost every weekend and on Monday due to startup issues we send a guy to the site to assist should there be issues.

Sure as heck everything goes right except somehow the CFO's, CEO's, President's coffee pot 20 amp branch circuit seems to be off.


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## Ultrafault (Dec 16, 2012)

Breakers just arent worth the hassle. Modern fuses beat them on every front. No nuisance tripping, no maintiance, current limiting, forensic fault analysis, huge fault current capacity, true easy selective coordination. Plus you can close one on a fault without potentialy blowing your hand off. Breakers are a scam we all got pulled into unfortunatly. They are only good for nuisance trips and they are the only cause of nuisance trips.


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## BBQ (Nov 16, 2010)

Ultrafault said:


> Breakers just arent worth the hassle. Modern fuses beat them on every front. No nuisance tripping, no maintiance, current limiting, forensic fault analysis, huge fault current capacity, true easy selective coordination. Plus you can close one on a fault without potentialy blowing your hand off. Breakers are a scam we all got pulled into unfortunatly. They are only good for nuisance trips and they are the only cause of nuisance trips.


Wow, hard to believe so much misinformation in so few words. :laughing:


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## Ultrafault (Dec 16, 2012)

BBQ said:


> Wow, hard to believe so much misinformation in so few words. :laughing:


How so?


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Ultrafault said:


> How so?


 Because breakers generally aren't a hassle.

In low power applications just about the only thing a fuse brings to the table that a breaker does not is higher reliability. Given that molded case breakers are pretty reliable for at least a couple decades, this is a small sacrifice for the convenience, safety, and cost reduction of not having to replace fuses.

In high power applications, yes, there are issues with coordination, interrupting ratings, and current limiting that fuses can easily perform with great reliability. But there are also modes of fault detection and automatic operation that only breakers can accomplish, which is why many systems incorporate both fuses and breakers in the same circuits.

Is there a ton of maintenance in high power breakers? You bet. But folks who aren't having their high power fused equipment tested and maintained are also playing Russian roulette.


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

Ultrafault said:


> Breakers just arent worth the hassle. Modern fuses beat them on every front. nuisance tripping, no maintiance, current limiting, forensic fault analysis, huge fault current capacity, true easy selective coordination. *Plus you can close one on a fault without potentialy blowing your hand off.* Breakers are a scam we all got pulled into unfortunatly. They are only good for nuisance trips and they are the only cause of nuisance trips.


You had me until you hit this spot in the road. Arcing ground faults on systems with higher than 250 VAC to ground can have devasting explosions and the fuse will sit there dumb and happy.


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## Control Freak (Mar 8, 2008)

Once a year we do maintenance of the entire electrical system in a major bank building down town near Wall Street. Just about everything gets tested and cleaned. You can literally eat off the bottom of the cabinets that's how insanely clean the equipment is!


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## Control Freak (Mar 8, 2008)

We spend an entire weekend there in order to do this. Starts about 6pm on Friday night and ends about the same time on Sunday! It's a nice boost in the paycheck around Christmas time. Just in time for shopping for all my Christmas gifts!


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## Ultrafault (Dec 16, 2012)

brian john said:


> You had me until you hit this spot in the road. Arcing ground faults on systems with higher than 250 VAC to ground can have devasting explosions and the fuse will sit there dumb and happy.


I dont understand. I beleive you but I dont undestand the principle.


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## Ultrafault (Dec 16, 2012)

Big John said:


> Because breakers generally aren't a hassle.
> 
> In low power applications just about the only thing a fuse brings to the table that a breaker does not is higher reliability. Given that molded case breakers are pretty reliable for at least a couple decades, this is a small sacrifice for the convenience, safety, and cost reduction of not having to replace fuses.
> 
> ...


Ok you guys found me out ive been a bussman rep this whole time.


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## wendon (Sep 27, 2010)

What about the fact that when the breaker trips, all three phases are de-energized?


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Ultrafault said:


> Ok you guys found me out ive been a bussman rep this whole time.


 I knew it. I also think _Voltage Hazard _works for every meter manufacturer except Fluke.


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

Ultrafault said:


> I dont understand. I beleive you but I dont undestand the principle.


GFPE (Ground Fault Protection for Equipment) was instituted for this very reason. 4000 amp service protected at 100-1200 amps, At instantaneous -1.0 second delay, WHY? To protect against ground faults. 

On systems where the voltage is 250 RMS to ground ground faults can result when impendence through the fault is insufficent to trip a CB or blow a fuse this results in a sustained arcing ground fault, theses faults are as stated arcing; burring from the location of the fault back to the source or until the ground fault goes phase to phase, by this time damage can be horrific. I have been involved in many cases of arcing ground faults due to the GFPE was inoperative. In many of these cases (one last week) the fuses sat in the FSS and did nothing.

I posted this in another forum in 2008.


An arcing ground fault occurs when the impedance of the fault through the arc does not draw enough current to trip the OCP.


WHAT IS GROUND FAULT PROTECTION OF DISTRTIBUTION EQUIPMENT:

1.	The Ground Fault Protection (GFP) system is designed for equipment protection, NOT PEOPLE PROTECTION as some may think.
2.	GFP was first adopted into the NEC in 1971 NEC article 230.95. The reason for this new Article was the increase in sustained arcing ground faults resulting in system burn down that accompanied the increase in the use of 480/277 distribution systems.
3.	The basic NEC rule for the mandatory installation of GFP is on Main Line Switches 1000 amps and larger and more than150 volts to ground.
4.	Setting for the GFP relay is a maximum of 1200 amps with a maximum of 1.0 second delay. 
5.	While arc faults occur at all voltage levels sustained arcing ground faults occur at a voltage above 370 VAC. The peak voltage of 208/120 VAC system to ground is 169 VAC, while for a 480/277 VAC system the peak voltage is 391 VAC above the 370 VAC threshold. 120 X 1.414=169 and 277 X`1.414=390 (numbers are rounded off).
6.	The nature of this sustained arc is the impedance of the arc is high and the fault does not generate enough current to operate the OCP. But this arc has damaging energy and can burn down switchboards, turn busways into a mass of molten metal and KILL IN the preverbal flash of less that a second.
7.	Switchboards AIC ratings are designed for the worse case fault, this is a bolted phase to phase fault, in reality this type of fault, bolted; is rare. Studies have shown most faults start as ground faults and then if the OCP does not clear the fault they may become phase to phase but not bolted.


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

The convenience of circuit breakers and the safety involved in utilizing CBs (harder for HO’s to Jerry Rig) out weighs anything fuses bring to the table.


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## Ultrafault (Dec 16, 2012)

We all know johnnny homeowner would not benefit from fuses. However interchanging wrong size fuses is a thing of the past. I guess im just dreaming of installing full panels of type ccp fuses. NON are actualy the only type fuses that are subject to fatigue. 
The problem is most people associate fuses with the 100 year old tungsten monstrocities invented by edison (NON).


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## Ultrafault (Dec 16, 2012)

brian john said:


> GFPE (Ground Fault Protection for Equipment) was instituted for this very reason. 4000 amp service protected at 100-1200 amps, At instantaneous -1.0 second delay, WHY? To protect against ground faults.
> 
> On systems where the voltage is 250 RMS to ground ground faults can result when impendence through the fault is insufficent to trip a CB or blow a fuse this results in a sustained arcing ground fault, theses faults are as stated arcing; burring from the location of the fault back to the source or until the ground fault goes phase to phase, by this time damage can be horrific. I have been involved in many cases of arcing ground faults due to the GFPE was inoperative. In many of these cases (one last week) the fuses sat in the FSS and did nothing.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the detailed reply I dont see how breakers are better In This situation since, from my understanding, essentially the ocpd is bieng shunt tripped by the gfp.


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

Ultrafault said:


> Thanks for the detailed reply I dont see how breakers are better In This situation since, from my understanding, essentially the ocpd is bieng shunt tripped by the gfp.


Or the GFPE can be intergral to the circuit breaker. But your point was you can close one (a fused switch) into a fault, I have had to inspect, repair, temporary and replace quite a few BPS's that were closed into a fault and in some of thses cases the individual closing the device into the fault paid dearly.

These did blow???? But the 1600 amp fuses in the main did not the GFPE was inoperative and the switchgear sustained damage that required major repairs and will need to be replaced.


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## Ultrafault (Dec 16, 2012)

brian john said:


> Or the GFPE can be intergral to the circuit breaker. But your point was you can close one (a fused switch) into a fault, I have had to inspect, repair, temporary and replace quite a few BPS's that were closed into a fault and in some of thses cases the individual closing the device into the fault paid dearly.
> 
> These did blow???? But the 1600 amp fuses in the main did not the GFPE was inoperative and the switchgear sustained damage that required major repairs and will need to be replaced.
> 
> http://s159.photobucket.com/user/brianjohn2580/media/KENNEDY2.jpg.html


Ahh i see good point


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

Ultrafault said:


> Ahh i see good point


What is amazing is how these faults happen sooooo fast. From zero to light speed in the 1/10 of a blink on an eye.


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## magneticpersona (Apr 28, 2012)

sometimes, but very rarely, will you have to do some preventative maintenance on electrical equipment.

I say this because usually nobody cares until it breaks, and they don't even think about it until stuff stops working!


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

magneticpersona said:


> ...I say this because usually nobody cares until it breaks, and they don't even think about it until stuff stops working!


 I worked for a manager who sincerely could not understand how things broke. Every single time I told him something was broken, his response would be _"Well, it used to work!" 
_


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

Had a customer say how can I tell my boss this is going to cost 10,000.00 to fix a 3 year old switch.

This was 4 months ago and the main is still inoperative.


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## mdk (May 31, 2013)

Entertaining answers on "exorcising breakers" however in newly constructed military hospitals backup power would be refrencing Med UFC and in that it states:

"Where any concentration of inhalation anesthetic or intravenous sedation is used or any electrical life support or resuscitative equipment is used in medical or dental clinics, an alternate source of power is required in accordance with NFPA 70 and NFPA 99. The alternate source of power shall either be a generator, battery system, or self-contained battery internal to the equipment and shall have the capacity to sustain its full connected load at rated voltage for a minimum of 1½ hours. The system shall be arranged such that the alternate source of power shall be automatically connected to the load within 10 seconds. The essential electrical system shall supply power for task illumination related to life safety, which is necessary for safe cessation of procedures and all related anesthesia and resuscitation equipment. 
In Hospitals the alternate power source shall consist of two or more engine generator sets designed to provide electrical power for hospital essential electrical systems, plus 20% future load growth at 100% demand during the interruption of the normal power supply, as required by NFPA 70 and NFPA 99. Where the essential electrical system load is less than 150 kilovoltampere (kVA), one generator may be considered."


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