Bus Plugs Blog – Expert Safety and Usage Information

Cutler Hammer Bus Plugs For Sale – Cat. #CP2HD465

Sometimes the biggest challenge MIDWEST runs into, when reconditioning old bus plugs and obsolete bus plugs, is rust. Ironically this biggest challenge usually has the easiest solution, scrap out the bus plug. Sometimes healthy parts can be harvested from the rusted bus plugs, but care has to be taken to assure the recovered parts have not also been damaged by rust. The problem with rust is that it can be very insidious. Let’s say we want to recondition a Square D bus plug, Siemens Bus Plug or Cutler Hammer bus plug. It doesn’t make any difference. The rust doesn’t care. The problem is, we frequently don’t know the extent of the rusting until we have disassembled the bus plug and started the metal refinishing. The surface preparation may reveal severe structural rusting that was not fully apparent cosmetically. Now we’re not talking about full blown metal failure where you could push your finger through the metal. That’s obvious. We are referring to non cosmetic deterioration that prevents professional surface reconditioning. And this is not always visually apparent. It might not even be discovered if a company just repaints on old ITE or Westinghouse bus plug, for example. MIDWEST is very carful of equipment from facilities that have been out of service and unheated for any period of time. Extensive moisture damage can occur and not be visible until MIDWEST begins the full reconditioning process. This is another reason we recondition and test our equipment. There can be hidden defects. Some structural, some functional, some electrical, and any of them could turn a bus plug into a piece of scrap metal.

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.    

XLVB322 ITE Bus Plug

Once in a while MIDWEST gets phone calls that are just scary.  For example, a maintenance electrician called to ask what he should do. He needed to turn power off to a production machine. It was fed directly from an old bus plug. But the bus plug handle was broken so he couldn’t switch the bus plug. He tried using a vice grip, but the whole bus plug was moving and it still would not turn off. Production said they could not turn off the whole line just for one lousy switch. He said the bus plug was obsolete and he just wanted to get it out of there. It was kind of hanging at an angle and the pipe for the feeder going out the top was pulled out. He thought he and another guy could use a lift and pull it off live. He thought that might be okay because they would make sure there was no load on it.  He said he had worked on broken bus plugs before.

This man was in a big jam between making a bad decision and doing what his boss wanted. He needed help. Our answer was simple and we told him we would send a letter if he needed. There was danger of serious injury or death if they tried to remove that live bus plug from a live bus duct. The bus duct would have to be turned off. The danger of shock hazard and arc blast hazard was too great under the circumstances. In addition, the situational danger was extreme because they would be working from a platform lift with no way to escaped from shock or arc blast. Plus they could be knocked right off the platform. And they were in a position that no one could immediately help them.

We were sure his boss did not fully understand the level of danger and just saw the problem as simply mechanical. We have been through this before. Once everyone understands how dangerous it is, they work out a safe solution, like turn the power off on third shift.

The big danger is beginning to think you can do something that you know is too dangerous. Sometimes, the longer you think about it, the more you convince yourself that maybe this time it would be okay. You’ll just be careful. When you start that line of thought, you just have to stop yourself.

If you know there is a danger of serious injury or death, you are not allowed to do it.

MIDWEST was asked what electrical equipment was the most colorful.  Certainly a strange question, But the answer may seem even stranger.  The most colorful equipment is electrical bus duct and bus plugs. We’ve seen a thousand manufacturing plants over the years and many, especially the older ones, have painted their old electrical bus duct and bus plugs specific colors to identify the specific electrical system or the specific load being fed. Here are a few examples.  One plant painted the 480 volt bus duct and bus plugs blue and painted all their old 240 volt system orange.  It would be hard to mix these systems up. Another plant, a huge facility with over a thousand old Square D and Westinghouse bus plugs, painted everything black. It was pretty impressive, until you tried to read some of the labels on the obsolete bus plugs. Some facilities will paint a particular bus run a specific color to identify it as belonging to a specific manufacturing process. They want to separate the process load from general building load.  Blue seems to be the choice of colors for equipment feeding specific processes or manufacturing cells.  Critical processes may use red.  Some may paint their GE General Electric bus plugs one color and the Cutler Hammer or Westinghouse bus plugs a different color. And then there are those facilities that had a color code many years ago, but have added other manufacturers’ equipment since then.  And now you find different old colored bus plugs on the same bus duct with plain grey new bus plugs.  We have seen some pretty strange stuff. There are some facilities that were former manufacturing plants that had their own electrical engineering staff and maintenance electricians working all three shifts. Everything was well maintained. Things were labeled. Equipment, including old and new bus duct and bus plugs, were maintained and repaired or replaced as needed. They even had up to date electrical drawings. Those were the days.  Now some of those same facilities are multiple occupancy buildings with light assembly, storage, office space and, too frequently, abandoned space. And the colorful electrical distribution systems all seem to have become one color. We’ll call it sad grey.