400A Main turns off by itself

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petersonra said:
I saw two videos where nothing happens. Am I missing something?
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I think the OP is saying that the end of each video (which looks a lot more like the camera being bumped than power off "blooming") comes just before the breaker turned off. And that it seemed to start recording again on its own a bit later, with the breaker off by then.

Any idea exactly how many seconds are missing from the time line?
 
big john said:
This thread is long on words and very short on any systematic evidence. At the very least that's needed because you can't troubleshoot by guessing.
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no, you can't. he's also gotten a fair bit of BS assessments here, ranging from delusional, to troll, that
seems to be a bit undeserved, and unwarranted.

so i sent him a private message, with my phone number, and asked him to give me a call.
we talked for half an hour the other day.

he's put in THREE new breakers, and has a less than tolerant corporate client giving him
grief, and no solution in sight. it's a shame he hasn't documented things well enough to
satisfy some folks on here, but he has this job thing that gets in the way, y'know?

he's real, he's legitimate, and he seems like a pretty good guy, and a capable sparky.
i told him i've got two 400 amp breakers sitting on the shelf, used, and if one of them fit
his form factor, he was welcome to it for the price of the postage... he could change his out
with an old breaker that isn't in the same production run of the four he's tried.

then we got down to details about this thing.
this is his story to tell, but the nut of it comes down to this:

this breaker can only turn itself off by tripping, and that places the handle amidships.
mechanically, there is NO way the breaker can move it's own handle to the "OFF" position.

short of pushing a trip test button, there is NO way a person can move the breaker handle
to the "TRIP" position. you can only move it to "OFF".

so there is no overlap between the cause of the two non energized conditions.

there has been two separate sessions with a power analyzer. no anomalies noted.

so, there has been an external force applied to the breaker mechanism, to move the
lever to the "OFF" position. it has not been tripped. it's been turned off. repeatedly.
with nobody near by.

he said the worst day, was 13 times during the store being open. one day. 13 times.

the breaker is located at the top of the gear, and can't be inadvertently pushed off.
as if a 400 amp breaker could be nudged off.

he had a camera set up, and was going to record it, and i'm not sure if the two video's
he posted were the ones he and i discussed, but the video camera was stopped right
before the breaker was opened, and then restarted. there were TWO separate video
segments recorded. it was not paused. it was stopped, and then restarted.

and nobody was in the room. it's the back of store in a starbucks. i've been in lots of
them. there is not really anyplace a person could hide to perform some prank.

by all reasonable logic, the breaker was NOT being activated by any electrical parameter
being violated. it's not being tripped. it's being moved to the OFF position by an external force.

chew on that.
 
GoldDigger said:
I think the OP is saying that the end of each video (which looks a lot more like the camera being bumped than power off "blooming") comes just before the breaker turned off. And that it seemed to start recording again on its own a bit later, with the breaker off by then.

Any idea exactly how many seconds are missing from the time line?
Click to expand...


Honestly, I do not know how much time. If I had to guess, it would be very quickly as every time it went down we were back in that room within seconds to see if it was indeed an employee within the vicinity of the breaker. I do have the other footage of the second clip to both those videos, but it just shows a dark room with me or my guy getting back there to turn the system on again with the camera placed in the exact same spot.
 
Ride the Lightning said:
Honestly, I do not know how much time. If I had to guess, it would be very quickly as every time it went down we were back in that room within seconds to see if it was indeed an employee within the vicinity of the breaker. I do have the other footage of the second clip to both those videos, but it just shows a dark room with me or my guy getting back there to turn the system on again with the camera placed in the exact same spot.
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Correction, I do not have the secondary footage for these particular vids. I do however, have the secondary footage to other, longer clips.
 
OK, the breaker looks to be about 80 inches above the floor from the videos.
We can see the OP or helper with grey cap walking past in a few frames.

In one video at 3:18 time there is a black triangular movement past the panel in both direction that is VERY smooth, not like a person walking - if it is a person then have black hood or peaked hat on. No idea if that is a person or not.

Query? Is the cover always open, or has the breaker moved with the panel cover closed?

On one video, there appears to be a piece of something stuck on the upper RH corner of the cutout for the breaker, it is not there on the earlier video - reflection or ?

What is on the ceiling above the panel ? What is in or on the crawl space or floor above the panel?

I could not tell from the videos if there are any scratches on the panel above the breaker, looks to be none. E.g. something from above ??

I did not see anytime in the video when the breaker was in either the tripped or off condition, just the tripod being bumped at the end of one of them.
 
The camera was placed on a wire rack that their coffee grounds are stored on. The rack is very stable due to the weight it is enduring. There is a drop ceiling above the panels with 2x4 lay in fixtures providing light in the room. We have been in that ceiling numerous times since this ongoing dilemma started because there is a trough mounted above the ceiling allowing the MC cables to enter, then transitioned over to conduit nipples into the panel. Yes, the panel is mounted high, yet the main switch is within code for switch height, though just barely by a few inches, I believe about 6'4". I stand about 6'1" and the guy with me is about 5'9" or 10".
 
petersonra said:
I saw two videos where nothing happens. Am I missing something?
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The last few frames show the camera moving just before the end of the video.

The first video shows the camera being moved both horizontally and vertically. The second video shows the camera moving only horizontally.

My limited experience with frame by frame video analysis is that in the first video, the camera was being handled in a way that would indicate it wasn't on a stable platform. Either the camera was just sitting on something, or the tripod it was sitting on wasn't stable enough to prevent 2 dimensional movement while being handled.

The second video only shows horizontal movement, like what would happen on a stable platform, like a tripod that was a bit more stable. Horizontal only movement is called 'panning' and most tripods are set up to do flat panning so no up/down motion is noticed.

I didn't notice any image distortion that was not due to camera movement.

My opinion is that the camera movement was due to someone handling it in order to turn it off. I can easily duplicate the effect with my own video cameras, and have actually done so many times by accident.

The audio feed had voices and or noises at the end of both videos. That is inconclusive, as the sounds being recorded could be at a distance or up close as audio levels are dampened in video recordings.

Looking for and watching mirror like reflections didn't add any clues. Like watching at the shiny screw heads and looking for changes in the reflections that may be from someone near the camera. The reflections seemed to be stable.

I will poke around a bit more and if I notice anything I will post it.

Thanks, RTL, for taking the time to upload the vid to YouTube.
 
Ride the Lightning said:
Honestly, I do not know how much time. If I had to guess, it would be very quickly as every time it went down we were back in that room within seconds to see if it was indeed an employee within the vicinity of the breaker. I do have the other footage of the second clip to both those videos, but it just shows a dark room with me or my guy getting back there to turn the system on again with the camera placed in the exact same spot.
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Please, upload them.

Nothing can hide from a camera and I can look at videos frame by frame. I would be happy to do this. ANY info you can give me will help. What kind of camera was used, for instance.

We have been focusing on the breaker and what it takes to shut it off. The big picture is that there is a sequence of events involving machines in a manner that 'just can't be'.

RTL states the following all happened and he seems certain that no person was near the machines.

1) Video camera moves
2) Video camera stops recording
3) 400 A main moves physically to the 'off' (not tripped) position
4) Video camera starts recording again.
 
RTL:

In one of the videos I heard someone say that since the panel was being lit with an LED type light, the video camera would still be able to 'see' after the breaker shut off.

You also mention that you have the videos that were made by the camera turning back on. One of those should be the one with the LED. Did the LED stay on or did it get shut off leaving the second recording black?
 
Yeah, I am still very much of the opinion someone is shutting this off manually.

I know you said you watched it happen, but what evidence I've seen from the videos suggests a person screwing around. So until you catch video of it turning off by itself, that's where I stand.

Put a lock on the breaker or put some sort of tamper indicator on the handle.

Again, it's a lot cheaper and faster than stuff you've tried so far.
 
re: screw head reflections:

RTL: tape a mirror to the front of the panel, that way you can have a photo of the camera itself also, similar to a much earlier suggestion to have a hidden camera.

Anyone know what the handle force required is, thought for this type breaker it is in the greater than 10 pound range to turn it off, not a trivial 1 or 2# force as a QO or similar breaker.
 
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Thoroughly clean the breaker handle, let it be shut off again and dust for fingerprints. If you're being pranked, I doubt they would be smart enough to wipe the handle clean of prints.
 
sparkyrick said:
Thoroughly clean the breaker handle, let it be shut off again and dust for fingerprints. If you're being pranked, I doubt they would be smart enough to wipe the handle clean of prints.
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Unless the person doing the prank is reading this thread.

There are many ways to move the handle without leaving prints. Using gloves or some kind of tool or handle or stick, for instance.
 
junkhound said:
re: screw head reflections:

RTL: tape a mirror to the front of the panel, that way you can have a photo of the camera itself also, similar to a much earlier suggestion to have a hidden camera.
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I like that idea. With the camera recording an image of itself, it would be much harder for a person to turn it off without their image being recorded.
 
The mirror idea is a hell of a thought, simple. I will try that if I have to record again. So far, so good. No outages since Weds. the 6th. It is good, yet infuriating that it doesn't happen as I cannot identify the cause.

I will upload another video with the sequential "black screen" and provide a link to them.
 
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