ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion I wonder what is on his mind? Please tell us!

What was he thinking?

"I'm glad I was not here when that happened!"

So does anybody know what this was, besides cooked, looks like an ATS or something along those lines.

"The Yellow tape ? " Well why does it read,' Crime scene'." If it did say that, he'd be thinking, "Shhhh, don't tell anyone that I'm involved."

Ian A.

Bump

Well, since the top tape is upside down, and the bottom tape is right side up, there is only one logical answer:

It's Medium-Voltage Switchgear!

This looks surprisingly like the remains of some industrial gear which was given "Destructive testing."

Many years ago in a trade mag, they showed the before and after pics of switchgear that underwent such testing. Beautiful copper busses as big as one's leg (think 3 times the size of the ones in this pic) were twisted and broken free from the supports, lots of flash damage, etc. The test pad is outdoors, everything controlled from within a bunker. (Think like in the old nuke test films.)

The blast was so powerful it reportedly knocked the engineers out of thier chairs.

The test current was IIRC in excess of 5 million amps! Test voltage was 4kv.

[I digress here to let everyone know that from here on the smiley at the head of my post doesn't apply at all to the following:]

It also reminds me of the complete failure of an MCC at a plant in Long Beach some years ago. I was working for a company servicing cinemas and CCTV cameras, we had a call that some cameras were out. One in particular was mounted on the end of a 6" pipe about 20' out and 50' above a driveway. [I hate heights!]

The sr. tech and I were on our way up to the roof when I noticed a lot of SO cords snaking up the stairs from 2nd floor up. Around 3rd floor I caught a wiff of that familiar smell. Round the corner of the 4th, the cords turned into the room. I walked in the see an entire wall about 40' by 10' high completely charred and melted metal remains. The entire room had smoke/flash damage and melted metal sprayed everywhere. An inquiry to the plant enginer revealed that they had been acid washing the floor above, it followed some bad sealing of conduits into the MCC. (I think it was 480v) As the first fault killed some motors, two workers came in to investigate. As a third person entered the room the whole thing let go. Tragically, one person was killed instantly and the other two were severely burned. The fault cascaded into a panel which killed the feed to the transformer serving the circuit our cameras were on.

It made both of us think twice about how we work around live panels and switchgear.

[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 08-16-2005).]

Bumpa-bumpa....

the look on your boses face when he sa your handy work go up in flames. "PRICLESS"

for a new switch gear "VISA"

26% interest on the balance.
Ruthless.

I don't think this was a test. The fronts of the breakers look like someone tried to put the fire out with a fire extinguisher. Kind of like putting a bandaid on a shotgun wound.



[This message has been edited by electure (edited 09-09-2006).]

Relocated from the Violations Photo Area

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 09-09-2006).]