http://www.mikeholt.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/000684.html

the entire FPE thing is a conspiracy of sorts.

more interesting is the concern here for the series AIC rating, how about expanding on this some?

Is the X-former a close pad mount?

Yes, a big xfrmr mtd on a slab box about 20' away. The xfrmr also serves a strip mall.
All the panel feeders are also oversize and less than 20' long.
Here's a little known FPE fact, you might be surprised to see where they are now, and who their cousins are:
www.schneider-electric.ca/www/en/products/stab-lok/html/cb.htm

Look like they'd make a great subpanel for someone's Christmas display

electure;
actually a good link, thanks. the thing is, all the hoo-haa created in the early 80's never did amount to much, i sense there was much CYA going on. There was no point , to my knowledge, where the company rolled over and admitted to a bad product. There certainly was no point where the powers that be required replacement of millions of installations. This , to me, remains a golden example of the NRLT's ineptitute ,and corporate bias. If you really think about it, how many products even those unrelated to the trade have you held in your hand and in 5 seconds determined to be of inferior design?, only to roll it over and display an NRTL sticker....

I've had plenty of experiance with FPE breakers since they were really popular here in the Mountain State because they were so cheap, note I didn't say inexpensive.

No electrician I have met has had anything positive to say about the stab lock breakers. However, I've never seen or heard of any complaints about the large frame circuit breakers that were usually bolted to the bus. I've run across a few of these installations & the breakers appear to be well made.

I don't think you'll ever get enough data on the FPE stuff to help you out. You'll probably have to count on the Siemans equipment to do it for you.

I don't know how many years back 380-7 goes, maybe you could make a plea that this is unsafe & should be brought up to modern standards.

Good luck, I wouldn't touch this job with a 10' hotstick.

I've had bad experiences with them 1st hand w/
ground faults failing to trip them. Unless they've made some serious modifications, instead of just dyeing the plastic, they're still junk.
We're just going to wait it out, as we've already made our stance known, & when they can't get it signed off, it'll be another 6-8 wks. while they wait for the new gear. The inspector in this town is good.
BTW, I also put in lots of this Stab-lok garbage in in the '70's. The breakers disappeared off the market for a while, & then reappeared with a purple UL sticker on them. Previously, the sticker was yellow.
(the Christmas reference was to an absolutely horrible pic of Xmas lights some of us saw)

I have found that it doesnt matter where you put the xfmr wrt FPE you can weld with those breakers regardless, we have always referred to them as FPE-No-Blow.