Has anybody ever dealt with a 3 phase GVR recloser that is made in U.K.? It is round and doesn't really hang straight out from the pole. It leans down a little. I can't seem to find a brand name. 2 of these were installed somewhere and the people that programmed it are telling me that we have a 230 amp fault on the neutral and one of the reclosers is locking out........never even going to the second shot. I rode that particular circuit out and found some trees in the primary, cleared them, but the damn thing still will not reset. Last week, the other recloser locked out. I rode that circuit out, but didn't find anything unusual. So, now we have 2 brand new reclosers that are being by-passed thru the solid blades and I think there is a problem in the programming of these things. I have put a split core on the neutral and always got a reading of 0 to 1 amps. The primary amperage is pretty well balanced between all 3 phases.....38, 38, 39 amps.
I heard from somebody else that some utility had tried these same type of reclosers and could never get them to work properly, so there were replaced. Anybody? Does the desciption ring a bell?

Is this the beast your talking about ?
http://www.fki-eng.com/DynamicFrameset.cfm...&company=whipps


They have software upgrades that you may need.

http://www.fki-eng.com/DynamicFrameset.cfm...&company=whipps

Yeah, Quebec Lineman, that is the one! I won't be doing any of the programming on it. But, the people that are doing it are saying that we have a 230 amp fault on the system neutral on both circuits. The neutral is 1/0 acsr......thats pushing it and anytime I took a reading, I never got anything higher than 1 or 2 amps on the nuetral. I am thoroughly convinced that they have the reclosers programmed wrong. There is a set of loadbreaks about 2 spans away on the line side of the reclosers and have not had them drop out yet while these reclosers are being by-passed. I don't know partner........I'll leave it to the engineers. But thanks for getting that info for me. I do remember seeing a Whipps & Bourne name on one of the invoices, so this helps a lot. Y'all don't use these, do ya?

No it was the first time i saw one of these .Think the ones we use are GE Westinghouse & McGraw Edison.

Yeah, Tex, I'm with you on the programming. Gotta get those engineers to get their act together! Maybe they need to change the batteries in their laptops.If you really had that much current on that neutral it sure would be sagging pretty low!

230 amp fault on the system


They are saying that is the available fault current on the system, don't know if they are talking minimum or maximum. Prolly max is way away from sub. Fault current and load current are different. The closer you get to the sub the higher the fault current. I know our system will have fault currents in the range of 7000 to 10000 amps and we are coming out of the station with anything from 336 to 556 acsr.

When it is said that there is 230 amperes fault current to the neutral, that means that if you have a dead (bolted) fault from phase-to-neutral then the capacity of the sytem is such that it can supply 230 amperes between the phase and neutral. Most faults are not dead-shorts so reclosers are set to trip at about half of the available fault current to provide a safety factor. If the peak load current on the line is approaching about half of the fault current then the recloser could be going out on overload. A transient fault like a tree branch will probably not generate enough fault current to be seen by a recloser on lines less than 12kV and should not go through the complete cycle to trip out.

Wayne

Good to hear from ya Wayne. I've had both reclosers at this place by-passed for about a month now. Still have 200 amp fuses on the line and have had no problems. We seriously think that the problem is in the programming or software for these reclosers.

On the subject of programmable reclosers, a couple of years ago gotta call out of a line outage, had a circuit off coming out of the substation. Got in my truck and was heading to the location when the dispatcher came on radio and said I could cancel that the power had came back on!!! This got the old wheels turning in my head so I went on out to the location and contact a few members about what happened. Seems the power blinked three times then went off for around 5 mins. To make a long story short seems that when OCR was programmed it was set to reclose on itself after a 5 min delay!!! I had this changed pronto! This goes back to the old saying if its not grounded its not dead!

Amen to that Bro. That's how to "live long and prosper"

You ain't lying Larry! Good thinking on your part Dist. Lineman!