Bus Plug Real Life Stories
Buy Square D PQ3640 Bus Plugs
All too often our little friend the bus plug ends up making the ultimate sacrifice resulting in a catastrophic failure in the line of duty.
Not long ago we got a call from a customer asking for a bus plug replacement for one of theirs which failed in service. The circumstances surrounding the bus plug failure cannot be discerned.
The bus plug involved was a Square D PQ3640 (3 phase, fusible, 600 volts, 400 amps), the older version of the Square D PBQ style bus plug. One can only speculate as to what happened exactly, but the evidence told of a frightening scenario. A hole the size of an orange was burned completely through the bus plug cover. The inside guts burned beyond recognition, copper splattering along with carbon residue scattered throughout the inside of the bus plug.
Oddly enough the extent of the damage was confined to the bus plug itself and did not affect the bus duct proper. As mentioned many times before, bus plugs often operate under highly stressed conditions seriously compromising their life in service.