Arc Flash Documentation

[TimWilborne 108]

How about the label position. I can find nothing saying the label has to be on the front of the panel. Does anyone see any problems with putting the label on the side of the panel?

[GerryM 2]

I've never seen anything that said that you couldn't. If you are going to train everyone to look on the side then that sounds reasonable to me.

[TimWilborne 108]

Our disconnects are on the side of the panels so it may make more sense anyway. I'm thinking about putting them right below the disconnect

[TimWilborne 108]

You guys getting tired of all these questions yet? Several points in our system are a category 0 or a low category 1. Our safety director wants to make the minimum flash protection category 2. Does anyone see a problem with increasing the category requirements? The reason he wants to do this is to discourage working on panels live.

[GerryM 2]

What a safety guy he is!! [That's an insult] I would label the panels with what they truly are. At my facility we only provide PPE for Cat. 2 & 4. because of cost. So if its cat.1 then you have to wear the Cat. 2. If its Cat.0 and you wore short sleeves that day, then you wear the Cat. 2. Cost is a much better reason than discouraging people. Its discouraging enough without his help. Technically you need an energized work permit to work on a panel live. If thats not discouraging enough then I don't know what is. We fill these out once per year for troubleshooting purposes, right after the refresher training. No, in a sick sort of way I'm glad others have the same issues I have. As it is I feel like our business is the only one in the county doing this stuff.

[TimWilborne 108]

Didn't think about how much of a pain the work permits are going to be. That will be discouragement enough. Thanks for all of your help. I'm sure I will have more questions

[TimWilborne 108]

Ok, couple more questions. 1. Is a crane with an exposed feedrail considered a movable or fixed conductor when when figuring the Limited Approach Boundary for shock protection 2. Where in the world should we put the Arc Flash Labels on our Buss Duct. We are usually standing on our head when we are working on them, there is a 1/4" of dust on top of them, and a lightening bug puts out more light than we got up there. I know they say you have to put them on, but I'm beginning to wonder if we would not be better off to put these on the entrance points to go up to the buss duct.

[GerryM 2]

We are putting them every so many feet(I think every 10') on the side where the disconnect box would go. I don't think it is necessary to label them though. I can't find in the 70E where it says you need to label anything. It says you need to document, and the permit is supposed to state the hazard, and its supposed to be communicated to the workers before they begin work. We agreed amongst ourselves to label everything in our facility.

[TimWilborne 108]

Thats true, 400.11 states that it "shall be field marked to warn qualified persons of potential electric arc flash hazards" I guess a simple arc flash symbol would work but seems kind of worthless if thats all the info it gives you. I'll go with your method and put them every 10' or so and make a label at the access point also giving the information. That should cover it and while they say you must have them on the panel, they don't say you can't put them somewhere else also so it should be ok. Plus they will actually be able to read them at the access points

[TimWilborne 108]

Whats your take on this one. I thinks it's a little overboard but I could be wrong. I was looking for some info on our fuses and found the following faq at http://www.ferrazshawmut.com/arcflash/faq/#1 http://""' target="_blank"> Obviously this is not from any agency and the only justification I can find for it is a very strict reading of the NFPA 70E. My problem with this is many of our guys who are qualified for lockout/tagout are not, and don't plan to be, qualified for working on live parts. They turn the disconnect off, lock it out, then test for voltage. They are mechanical guys. We are going to familiarize them with flash protection but don't feel that they should be working on live equipment. Are we suppose to train them and provide them with arc flash equipment to fill a tank up with oil?

[TimWilborne 108]

Beuwolf_1 - I forgot to tell you, I got the NFPA 70E Handbook of Electrical Safety in the Workplace (Blue Book) and it gives so very helpful interpretations. You may think about getting it.

[GerryM 2]

400.11 There it is. This reminds me of all the other warning labels in the world. Sometimes I think we should junk all the labels and go back to using darwin rules full time. Ahh! Another sore topic. I think this is going too far, but our plant policy is to do this. I personally rarely do this, because i know if something can be backfed or not, and i have dozens of lights, etc. that turn off when I turn the power off. There is my indicator. Another indicator is visually seeing if a disconnect switch is open or not. They now sell windows in disconnect switches to help with this. After all that I can still check for voltage just to make sure all three phases are off, but without my PPE. That's my opinion, not the rule. Some european cabinets that I have seen, have a bright red light indicator(one light for each phase) when you open the panel, warning you if the power is still on. http://www.elfin.it/english/bima/security.html Click on the Systems for Lighting and Signalling Catalog Edited 9 Mar 2006 by GerryM

[TimWilborne 108]

I don't think we will implement the PPE for lockout. Getting them to wear the PPE while working on live equipment will be a major safety step for us. Again thanks for all your help

[Beuwolf_1 0]

I hope you all realize that this went from what I had hoped to be a rather simple question to a whole mess... LOL I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that reads like mad, digs a deeper hole the more I read. I guess now to go back to another topic for just a moment. Who makes the best design engineer? At this moment, I'm gonna reflect on that and go with the advise of WWSD? (What would Scotty do?) Time to read some more, and I really thank all of you with all the fine info that has me lap deep in reading material.... Thanks, Beuwolf

[TimWilborne 108]

Well after looking in the NFPA 70E blue book, looks like PPE is required during lockout procedures. It states in the notes for 120.1(3) Well that sucks. Will have to think about that on, might implement it later but I think the Flash protection will be more important when working on live equipment. Beuwolf_1 - It's really not very hard. Go ahead and get the blue book, it clears up some of the grey areas. But mainly, use some common sense. We push lockout procedure more here and I get the feeling after we impement this Arc Flash protection will not be a big issue because what you have to go through to work on live equipment. I would say most will opt to shut the power off.

[robh 12]

I went to a electrical safety seminar that these guys offered. It was more of a sales pitch but some of their products may be helpful for the programmer that has to open a box with live parts to connect to a controller. Plus they also offer voltage indicators that are visible from the outside. http://www.grace-eng.com So if you have an outside the cabinet indicating device like what is on this web site, is that considered a valid test for present voltage? Can you then open the door and use, say, your ohm meter to check a fuse, ( I would check for voltage first anyway, always), without PPE?

[TimWilborne 108]

[GerryM 2]

Actually, the voltage indicator has a redundant circuit, so lamp brunout probably wouldn't be a big issue. I think that i would still double check before working on something electrical. But, it looks like a good device just to use for lockout/tagout verification.

[TimWilborne 108]

I don't think I have seen what you are talking about. I have seen panels with power present lights but no redundancy. What is it, multiple light bulbs?

[GerryM 2]

http://www.grace-eng.com/VoltageVision/DS-R-3W.shtml This one. Or, a window in a disconnect switch would accomplish the same thing. Edited 10 Mar 2006 by GerryM

[TimWilborne 108]

Ok, thats a lot different than what I've seen on panels. I think I will look into them on our cranes. Depending on where the crane is parked and what they are doing, the service disconnects can be very hard to see. This would give them a little more assurance.

[coolhand 0]

I was also awarded the task of helping with implementation in our plant. It ended up being a lot larger project than we anticipated and is still in the works after two years. We ended up hiring an outside firm to work with us. The first thing we did as a plant was to update our plant one line power prints from the out side transformers to the main switch gear to the supplied device. We gave the firm these prints and every panel was opened and fuse brand, type, and size was documented. This info was used with the SKM software to give the ratinings. We also hired them to give training, update our print library with the documentation for calculations and creating and installing about 1000 tags for the plant. The cost was about $35,000. All was stamped by a certified E.E. Implementation in the plant is a bit dificult. About 90% of our panels came back as a Cat. 0 -long sleaves and pants. Work has provided all maint personel with FR uniforms for daily wear. We also provide each man with a pair of gloves, insulated screwdrivers and a new meter. None of this is something that was provided before. We have two Panel Rooms and I speced out 2 Cat 4 suits for each room and am in the procces of getting a hot stick and voltage "sniffer" (like the utility guys use) for each room as well. Our plant has yet to establish a "policy" so I still see guys working foolishly -panel doors open and not within sight, etc. I am fortunate in that I work for a large corperation that had a couple engineers train a guy from each plant and answer/interpret questions along the way. As far as working in panels with gloves, etc. there are exceptions and they are in the book. One thing to understand is that the Cat rating is for the power feeding the disconnect itself -not after. If this is understood and I am not at that part of the panel the risk is far less -the panel would be a zero after the disconnect. If you look at the "aproach boundries" and read through that portion you can see that if I am programing, adjusting a drive, or other such work and am 12" away from an exposed terminal I am alowd to have the gloves off. If I am checking for voltage at fuses, etc. then I need gloves to protect from shock hazards. If I turn the panel off for Lock Out I need to verify lack of voltage at the disconnect with the specifed PPE. Until our plant implements a work policy I think I will still see broken disconnects, panels left unatended, or guys checking voltage without PPE. On the flip side I hope the training and focus on this project will help some of the rookies realize the hazards of electricity and respect the hazards. Luke

[TimWilborne 108]

Yes, that is something the Gerry stressed earlier. You must have a policy that employees must follow through on and be held accountable for violating. And at $35,000 dollars, I would think someone would be pushing for it to be implemented.

[robh 12]

This is a basic description of arc flash hazards that our maintenance supervisor had all maintenance employees, production supervisors and operators read. A bit technical for some people in places, but still some good info. Also I am not sure about the enforcement part it talks about. We just had a OHSA consultant in our plant and we asked him if any of the arc flash stuff was being enforced yet and he said no, but soon. What_is_Arc_Flash.pdf

[TimWilborne 108]

Thanks for the document. It has some good explainations I may use for introducing Arc Flash to the employees. We just about have all of our panels labeled and we have done some brief explanations of what is coming but we still need to have a class and explain details of Arc Flash protection.