Bus Plugs Blog – Expert Safety and Usage Information

SB323R General Electric Bus Plugs For Sale by MIDWEST

On MIDWEST’s list of “Ten things we will not do with bus plugs” is “We will not sell a bus plug that we have tested only.” In other words, we are not going to take a Square D bus plug and just test it and say it is okay. We are not going to take a Cutler Hammer bus plug and sell it without reconditioning it.  We are not going to sell a GE General Electric bus plug unless we have reconditioned it and tested it first. We are not going to sell an ITE bus plug after doing only a “smoke test,” as one really old time electrical contractor was fond of asking us. An old timer’s really scary minimum specification. When he turned it on, he just didn’t want to see any smoke. That was all he was concerned with. So he said. Actually we worked with him for decades and he always came back because he knew we did everything, including reconditioning and testing the bus plugs, anyway. We are not going to sell a Siemens bus plug as is, even for temporary use. We are not going to sell a Westinghouse bus plug after reconditioning and testing, if it still does not pass our final quality control inspection. All these statements are a repeat of the basic same “We Will Not Test Only” from the list of ten things we will not do with bus plugs. Sometimes it can be enlightening to say one thing six different ways, if it is making an important point. For quality and safety, pleonasm may be your friend.

MIDWEST was asked how we can tell if a bus plug has been water damaged. What if a brand new bus plug is exposed to water, say rain. How can we tell after it has already dried off? If it’s new, how would MIDWEST even know it was exposed to rain or water? The answer goes to the heart of why MIDWEST fully reconditions bus plugs. If a bus plug has been exposed to water, we would know as soon as we disassemble it for reconditioning. The old or new bus plug hardware, nuts and bolts and washers, would have some rust. The exposed surfaces of bolt holes would have rust at the edges. This is more obvious than you might think. In addition, between the inside of the new bus plug enclosure and attached interior parts, we find dust that has the visual pattern of water exposure. Like spilling water on a surface that had just a little dust on it. After the water evaporates, you can still see the pattern of the water exposure on the surface. Usually all this is pretty obvious to the engineering technician doing the work, if they are actually reconditioning the replacement bus plugs. But, if a company is just giving it a shoe shine, meaning a little inside cleaning with a little outside painting, they may never detect the water damage. Even an insulation resistance test pole to pole and pole to ground may not reveal the damage. But it is there and it shortens the reliable life expectancy of the bus plug. Rust especially is insidious when it starts at support hardware. MIDWEST’s best suggestion is to buy fully reconditioned equipment if you are buying obsolete bus plugs, used bus plugs, or new surplus bus plugs. This is true whether buying Square D bus plugs, Siemens bus plugs, ITE bus plugs or any other manufacturer’s product.    

200 Amp PKA36200 Square D Bus Plug For Sale

About the craziest bus plug MIDWEST’s field services have seen was a circuit breaker style bus plug that had the circuit breaker removed and replaced with wire jumpers. Apparently this was done as an extreme emergency temporary fix. It was a 200 amp bus plug. To do this, the entire bus duct must have been turned off, otherwise the jumpers would have had to be installed hot, which would be crazy.  The circuit breaker had been removed and insulated building wire used to connect the line side copper bars, of the 200 amp bus plug, to the feeder cables. The jumpers were connected to the feeder cables using taped up split bolts. The feeder went to the main fused switch for a very large molding machine, so there was fault protection at the machine. But the line side of the main switch could have had an extremely high arc flash hazard level, since the only protection was the main breaker for the entire 1200 amp bus duct. It could have been a Square D bus plug or a Cutler Hammer bus plug. Actually it wasn’t either, but the manufacturer of the bus plug doesn’t make any difference. MIDWEST’s Field Services runs into some of these nightmares now and then. The danger of temporary fixes is they often are forgotten and take on a permanent life within the power system. For temporary repairs, we suggest attaching yellow warning banner ribbon, or other safety measures, until the permanent repairs can be made. In this case though, the temporary fix was too dangerous and should not have been done.

MIDWEST was asked by a retired electrician why we bother disassembling a bus plug to recondition it. He worked for a contractor for years and they serviced bus plugs and bus duct a few times. But all they had to do was clean them off and operate them a couple

ITE RV366 Bus Plugs Available at www.swgr.com

times. They never found any problems. They didn’t bother removing them from the bus duct. He said he worked on GE General Electric bus plugs, Square D bus plugs and westinghouse bus plugs. He wanted to know what we would find that they didn’t. The obvious area of concern would be the disconnect fingers on the back of the bus plugs. These are not visible unless you remove the bus plug from the bus duct. It’s not unusual for disconnect fingers to be misaligned, bent or damaged by overheating due to improper fit on to the bus duct. In addition, we often find fuse holder supports or operating mechanism supports actually broken. A broken support for an operating mechanism is a disaster waiting to happen. It’s especially dangerous because it will fail right when you are operating the bus plug. And that’s a bad place to be if you are the one switching the bus plug. The concern is for the safety of the person doing the switching. It’s easy to repair or replace equipment. But it’s not so easy to repair or replace people or body parts.

Square D PBQ4640 Bus Plugs Available at www.swgr.com

Whether it’s an ITE RV366 bus plug or RV364 or Square D PBQ4640 bus plug, any bus plug can have these defects. Many defects are more related to the installation and environment than to the particular manufacturer. The big deal is we know all the things that can go wrong with electrical bus plugs and most of these failures can not be found with a quick visual inspection of an installed bus plug by someone inexperienced, who has never tore one apart, or repaired one after it has broken or failed mechanically or electrically.

We asked MIDWEST’s Switchgear Shop for an example of a replacement bus plug problem or defect that would not be picked up by standardized reconditioning and testing procedures.  Procedures that might be found in published data. We were looking for something that went directly to the value of experience. The value of quality workmanship.  Here’s a quick example from one of MIDWEST’s switchgear Engineering Technicians.

He spoke of a Federal Pacific bus plug, catalog number LSP 1436SN, 600 volt, 400 amp, just as an example. He said it could just as well be a Cutler Hammer Bus Plug catalog number HD 1364N, or a replacement Square D bus plug or Westinghouse bus plug. It didn’t make a difference.  A service company could simply test, or repair or completely recondition a bus plug. Then perform the tests that look for current or voltage related problems. Do the quality control physical and mechanical inspection. The reconditioned Square D bus plug could look and perform so well that you might think it was brand new. But as part of the quality control, veteran Engineering Technicians

Cutler Hammer HD1364N Bus Plug For Sale by MIDWEST

 know to double check the nameplate of the reconditioned bus plug with what they actually have. They said this could very easily be missed, because the nameplate is always correct, almost. The last error he found was a bus plug that had a neutral indicated in the catalog number on the nameplate, like the two just mentioned, but actually did not have the neutral bus. It had been removed. It came into the Switchgear Shop that way, as was determined by inspecting other bus plugs in the same lot. Just a detail, a really big detail. So standardized tests can not replace experience and quality workmanship.      

Cutler Hammer CP2HD366 Bus Plugs For Sale by MIDWEST

Much of the demand for reconditioned and new surplus bus plugs is because the user has to replace bus plugs that are defective.  One of the worst things that happen is the bus plug operating mechanism breaks when you try to open or close it. It is very dangerous if the bus plug is half open or one pole opened and the other two are half closed yet. This type of failure is due to the lack of maintenance, specifically the lack of exercising the bus plug operating mechanism periodically. The other enemies are dirt, moisture, heat, and, as we have said many times, fork lifts.  Sometimes folks are very surprised that so many reconditioned bus plugs are used to replace damaged or defective bus plugs rather than just for additional load or expansion.

Federal Pacific LSP1432 Bus Plugs For Sale by MIDWEST

For every Cutler Hammer CP2HD366 bus plug purchased for an expansion project, we might also replace a Federal Pacific LSP1432SN bus plug because the customer’s existing bus plug failed to operate properly. When it comes to bus plugs, run to failure is the standard operating mode. The perception is they don’t need maintenance because the never do anything. They just sit on the bus duct. And that is true, but it is also the reason they eventually may fail to operate properly when needed.

The only real pattern may be the use of newer style replacement bus plugs for expansion projects than for replacement of defective equipment

Bus Plug Square D PKA36200

If you read the recent information on Facebook beating Myspace by managing in “white space,” rather than in a formal business management environment, you have a good idea how MIDWEST makes many decisions to improve its web site for our customers. We make so called guesses based on conversations and suggestions from our customers.  They tell us what they like. And in doing so, they are the white space between all the seasoned directives we get from the marketing professionals. The ‘world wide web’ is still exciting uncharted territory.  There are not many years of prior art.

In response to customer white space chatter, MIDWEST set up a web site specifically directed at those looking for buyers of bus plugs. Hence, the domain name www.busplugsbuyer.com. You see here the results of white space management. This specific target site makes it easier for those that have bus plugs to sell to find us in general. Of course, they could find MIDWEST specifically if they already knew we existed. But, for those that don’t know who MIDWEST is, they might make a general search for buyers of bus plugs. Then go from the general to the more specific. Specifically, whether a GE General Electric bus plugs, Square D bus plugs, Cutler Hammer bus plugs, ITE Bus Plugs, or Federal Pacific bus plugs, it doesn’t make a difference.  According to our customers, they would first search for a bus plug buyer and then go from there. This is all very simple from the seller’s point of view.

Square D PQ3206 Bus Plug

It is not unusual for MIDWEST to get a call because a company is having numerous problems with their old bus plugs. Things go along okay for years and then one year they have one failure after another. It seems to make no difference who the manufacturer is. They could be old Square D bus plugs, GE General Electric bus plugs, Westinghouse bus plugs, Cutler Hammer bus plugs or ITE bus plugs. The problem seems not to care who the manufacturer is.  When this pattern appears, it is usually because a chronic mechanical or environmental problem has been present for many years and has been getting progressively worse. Soon or later the mechanical problem or contaminate reaches a critical stage and the bus plugs collectively start to fail. Usually the failure seems to be caused by overheating, or by mechanical failure between the bus duct and bus plugs, or by moisture.  The problem isn’t just moisture or dirt. It’s the accumulation of dirt over many years or the presence of moisture over many years. This means there is a chronic condition causing you to replace bus plugs. One typically doesn’t have to suddenly replace Square D bus plugs or replace Cutler Hammer bus plugs because of normal operating conditions. And replacing Westinghouse bus plugs one after the other without addressing the root cause, will not make the problem go away.  So if you find yourself having to repair or replace numerous bus plugs, look for a chronic cause. If you just don’t find something, then look for a recent acute change that would affect all the bus plugs.

MIDWEST’s Switchgear Shop received an unusual request for blue Square D bus plugs and black General Electric bus plugs. Plus, we were asked if we could paint ITE and Cutler Hammer bus plugs other colors and if we could put a unique label on each bus plug. Of course the answer was yes, but this was different. We have reconditioned Westinghouse bus plugs and Cutler Hammer Bus Plugs that were already painted black and we had to repaint them gray.  We had some Square D bus plugs and General Electric Bus Plugs that were a 1950’s kitchen cream color and looked like they had been repainted every ten years. But this was the first time that a customer requested a specific color, other than the manufacturer’s original color, which is usually gray.

They had a lot of 30 amp and 60 amp bus plugs. Quite a few 100 amp bus plugs and a couple 200 amp bus plugs and one large 400 amp bus plug. But what was really unusual was their reason for the color coding and labeling. It appears that, in some states, bus duct and bus plugs that are used only on a specific manufacturing machine or production process, are exempt from state tax. If they buy replacement bus plugs or have service on the existing bus plugs, the replacements and service is non taxable.  If the bus plugs or bus duct are used on something other than a specific manufacturing machine or process, service and equipment is taxable. They wanted the bus plugs for a specific process to be all the same color. They also wanted the bus plugs to be painted the same color as the bus duct and to be labeled for the specific manufacturing machine or process.  We are not state tax experts, but, as they explained it, it seemed to make sense.

PQ3620G Square D Bus Plug For Sale

Sometimes you couldn’t write the script for the strange things that happen in the real world.  At least in our world of reconditioning old used bus plugs and selling them to folks that tell us they couldn’t tell the difference from new.  The technical world seems so boring to outsiders, but MIDWEST has its share of action. For example, a large food processing facility called at 6:15 PM on a Monday night, in a screaming panic, because they needed a replacement 200 amp bus plug and they needed it right away. They couldn’t get a new one immediately and the electrical suppliers for most of the US were already closed for the day.  The cracking in his voice changed to audible relief when we told him we had a fully reconditioned Square D PQ3620G bus plug, boxed and ready for shipping pickup. It was set to go to another customer, but it was part of an order for over 100 bus plugs and there was no urgency for it to ship. It was a shipping scramble but the food processing plant had their like new Square D bus plug the next morning. What’s the chance MIDWEST would have a Square D PQ3620G bus plug sitting at the shipping dock, ready to go, and someone calls and needs it “right now.”  The answer to that question is that it’s much more common than one would ever guess. It seems improbable, but it happens fairly often. The odds may be higher because of the number of bus plugs, transformers and circuit breakers we ship.  But it’s always a nice thrill for MIDWEST to defy the odds. And it gives the Engineers something to argue about, the odds versus reality.