3 phase electrical receptacle on fire, explosions
Ignoramus23561 wrote:
I had a little bit of a new experience today.
My new place has cables dropped from the ceiling, with receptacles
hanging somewhat above my height.
I was moving a crane and bumped into one of them, nothing big, just a
minor bump. Then I saw that the receptacle was on fire (or rather,
flames were coming out from inside), with small explosions inside.
I ran to the electrical control panel and turned off electricity to
the whole building. The fire stopped.
After a short while, I opened up the receptacle. It turned out that it
was full of grinding dust (! -- how did it get inside) -- and,
apparently, the dust shifted and shorted the contacts. It was a short
circuit, but with a lot of resistance from the dust, so it caught
fire, but did not trip a breaker.
I cut it off and taped the individual wires, but I am now thinking
that I need to take all of those things apart and blow them out with
compressed air.
Comments?
i
Well I would probably commit overkill myself and grab a manlift and a
pressure washer and give all the open utilities a good bath. Wash down
the pipes/conduits and let the place dry out. While it's drying I would
check EVERY outlet and switch in the place for wear/damage/proper
installation. Then paint the walls with some good white paint. Dryloc
wouldn't be a bad thing to keep moisture out.
Then I would probably set up an area where you can inspect/test incoming
gear. Another where you can strip stuff for parts (and dispose of the
common/worthless pieces) Another area for crating/palletizing and shipping.
Barcode software and inventory tracking is not expensive these days.
--
Steve W.
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