52 Power Systems

So violent.... Simple short time delay test on a 5kAF Wavepro with STP set to 10kA. Far below her capacity, but still a violent action. I know there are even more violent brkrs out there. What else do we see out there that has even more explosive action during trips? I think we were sending about 11kA through her here after some repairs (hence the uncut tyraps).

AI slop... We're jumping in!!! I'm seeing a ton of AI slop nowadays from people. Its honestly embarrassing (I just spelled 'embarrassing' wrong, my grammar is good... not great, thank you spellchecker AI! Ha!). A few years ago NFPA changed 70B to make PM required. Many in our industry thought it would be great because it'll, rightfully, force facilities to perform their PMs. While they weren't wrong, I felt as though it may create a ton of headaches for us swgr dudes. I knew the ECs would see goldmines, and were going to jump into the fray. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. Every EC thinks they can do IR scans and convince their customers that they're compliant. Why? Because that's what's easy, and that's what they know. But when the real problems come up... they're usually clueless. Stay in your lane, or get some specialized help. Us swgr dudes aren't trying to sling troughers or rip romex because its not what we do. Can we? Yes, many of us are fully licensed and experienced to do so. We don't do it because there are people that specialize in it. They're better at it. We stay in our lane. I'm seeing people pushing AI slop as though its real, and any experienced professional can see the DOZENS of errors in the pictures. Its embarrassing that these people are trying to push into a field they don't know anything about. They're trying to learn on their own. Good for them. But they need to understand that they are doing a disservice to the real professionals, and honestly DANGEROUS to their customers. There are many many things that I don't know (good Lord soooo many things), but a strength of mine is that I know what I don't know. Heck, I'm a one man show, and even I don't use AI for my content because I know the OGs will see right through it and call me out. Credibility is worth more than the few minutes it takes to write posts like these. Credibility is the opposite of debt. It takes years to earn, but can all be thrown away in a blink of the eye. This means that I create less content, but at least I can sleep at night knowing that I'm not pretending to be something that I'm not (other than the impostor syndrome that creeps in sometimes, but that's another topic altogether). It actually took me longer to make the AI image in here than it did to write this post. And I think its probably more realistic than some of the other posts that are being pushed as real images. What do you guys think? Real-looking? I honestly had a lot of fun making it. CoPilot does NOT want to make a human with three hands. Four hands is fine though... Couldn't resist posting this on April 1!

She just sits there for days, weeks, months, years, even decades... And then... it jumps into action in tiny fractions of a second. I installed this phase loss and ground fault protection system years ago, and recently she saved a school from burning... with kids in it. Back when I was at Siemens, our local office had dozens of building automation techs, fire alarm techs, security, etc. You know how many electrical power techs we had?.?.?. One. Why? Well, our systems sit there seemingly doing nothing, all day, every day. Quietly monitoring the very element that makes civilized life possible. No flashy buzzers, no HMI panels when you walk in the door, no fans or vents keeping us comfortable. The biggest difference is that our gear typically has few moving parts to wear out... until they have to move... and don't. Flashover, arc flash, green genie, copper cloud, or whatever you call it. When our gear is called into action, it has to work. If not, the consequences can be fatal. Our switchgear sits in the deepest, darkest, most remote sections of these bldgs. But its there providing the stuff that drives 95% of the other systems for these customers. No love. Think about it... no fire alarm system, no sprinkler system, no lights, no exhaust fans... nothing, without this gear. I modified this system years ago to upgrade the failed ground fault relay and phase loss relay. For years it sat idle, only being actuated during our PM tests. Then one day, it had to work... and it did. Literally saved lives. Was this my best work? NO! I mean look at those mounting holes on the GFR. Ugh. Did it save the day? YES!!! The moral of the story: - Good design has a long memory. - Proper commissioning matters. - Preventative protection and PM is always cheaper (and safer) than recovery. - THE BEST SYSTEMS ARE THE ONES YOU FORGET ABOUT ENTIRELY!!!

New toy... We got a deal on a brand new Edwards ironworker recently that was too good to pass up. While I'm definitely not looking to get into the custom bussing business head first, we do get a ton of requests for simple bus fab here and there. When we do our breaker retrofits, we'll still be using The Black Hammer. But for simple little projects like this, and other fun stuff, our ironworker is perfect. This little job can be done much more nimbly and quickly when we keep these things in house. While I'm not in love with the quality of copper we got from our supplier (I'm open to suggestions for new suppliers), overall it came out great for the first time using this machine. Any suggestions for a new bus supplier or any tooling for this beast? How about maintenance or operation tips?

It had already been a long day, when I got the call... I had just hopped into the van and was driving home from Manchester, NH when I saw a good customer's name come up on the caller ID. As soon as I saw his name on the ole Samsung, it hit me that this would be a conversation that would require some time onsite. It had already been a long day, and I knew what the conversation was about to start with. It was going to start with something along the lines of 'hey bud, whatcha up to?' in a super sarcastic mom talking to a 5 year old tone. Dude has a sense of humor. I like this guy alot, and knew that he wouldn't be calling me in the late afternoon to head to his site in Western CT if it wasn't serious. The customer runs a large school system in Western, CT and isn't one to cry wolf. He explained that the school had a sprinkler head burst earlier in the day, and they thought they had cleaned all of the water up until they got the call that the school had no power. After a few minutes of describing what they found, and what they did, we decided it would be best for a site visit. So I drove an extra couple hours to his site, found the main brkr had tripped on ground fault, but still had good utility voltage. We opened this panel that had some scarring from the outside knowing, generally, what awaited us on teh inside. Looks like a relatively small amount of water formed a rather focused stream over this brkr, and gave us a nifty lil arc flash. We relocated the load wire to a different brkr since it was a life safety ckt, inspected the rest of the board, cleaned it all up some, gave the board a quick test, and got it fired up before the school could freeze on this very cold New England evening. Following up with some PM and repairs soon. It turned into a very late night, but this is what we do. We answer these calls and take care of our customers. Period. It's what I would want if I was in his shoes. It is after all what I call 'ground fault season' in New England. This isn't the typical way we get our ground faults here in New England, but it is certainly ONE way. What do you guys think? 👉 Spit on it and send it? 👉 Or should we maybe — just maybe — replace the parts that used to resemble bus straps, brkrs, and some squeaky clean sheetmetal? Don't forget to smash the like and subscribe buttons! Ha. I couldn't resist.

Bruh... I juuuuust cleaned this transformer like 6 months ago. Why do you have to go and muck it all up by dying? Customer called with a complaint that the switchboard I had just retrofitted a 1600A brkr in was having issues with the meter mounted directly overhead from where I was working. Yeah, there was a bit of 'there is no way you had nothing to do with this' in his voice. So I headed over to the site, found a blown primary fuse on the upstream air switch pretty quickly. Took a gander in the switch, swapped the fuse, and moved on down the line to the xfmr. And there was this little critter all mummified and crispy. We cleaned him out, gave him a nice little funeral service where we all said a few nice things, and tossed him into the trash. What, too soon? We did suffer a little bit of damage to the transformer, and are working to install some phase loss monitoring as part of the repairs. This board serves some cooling loads, so up here in New England... we've got some time. Ha. For now, the upstream switch is locked out while we're waiting on some parts and admin stuff to clear up. But the lesson from this one is that we had just performed some PM on this xfmr, and noticed no signs of intrusion. Also, we looked all over and can't find a way for these little buggers to get in there. So with that in mind, we're bringing an exterminator with us when we go back for repairs to see if a professional in THAT line of work can help us. The last thing we want is eqpt damage and more wildlife pain when the solution is probably going to be very simple. I'll try to update on this post once we get some clarity. Any ideas? Have you ever seen this before? Most all of us have, and I'd love to hear about some other experiences.

Who can relate? This is why when my wife asks to see my phone... I ain't scared. 95% of the pics on my phone are work. The other 5%... nonsense, just straight up nonsense. Anyone else? I have to think most of us... Also, is hand modeling maybe in my future?.?.?... pfft!

We value our customers, and aren't afraid to show it. Many or our customers will be receiving one of these guys for Christmas. There's nothing more insulting than receiving cheap gifts from vendors. It really seems like a slap in the face to me. I'd literally rather have nothing than to have someone give me something that shows that they had the thought to do something nice for me, but equate my value to a cheap tchotchke. Kinda like when you're expecting a nice Christmas bonus, but get something resembling more of a Jelly of the Month. I thank God for our customers and partners. Especially those that I've had the privilege of working with for decades now (go ahead, do the math... time flies). I appreciate your confidence, loyalty, and amazing hospitality. It is NEVER lost on me. We try to slow down this time of year, and it never works. But if you know me, you know that I'm a big Christmas softy, and want to make sure I take some of the very precious time that I have to thank those who help us, in any form, and to show our appreciation for them. I want to give away a few of these to some of our followers. Please comment or DM me, and we'll enter you into a drawing we're having for a few of these bad boys. They do sound pretty good. If you think we may have forgotten you, just drop me a DM. Thank you and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It seemed like a good idea at the time.... Some things don't go EXACTLY as planned. IYKYK. Insert forehead slap emoji here.

🏈 Ticket Giveaway Alert! 🐾 Hey LinkedIn peeps! We’ve got 4 tickets to the UConn vs. Duke football game on Saturday, November 8 at 3:30 PM at Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field — and we're giving them away! Whether you're a die-hard Husky fan or just want to enjoy a great fall afternoon of college football, this is your chance to cheer on the team and eat some Bear's BBQ. There's nothing better than a Bear's sandwich, cold local beer, and a first down at the game! What coach Mora is doing is phenomenal turning this team from perennial cellar dwellers into back to back bowl seasons. College football is where its at. 🎟️ Want the tickets? Just follow the 52 Power Systems page and drop a comment or DM me — we'll be holding the random drawing later this month, and will DM the winner. Good luck!