Corroded switchgear

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karn

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Electrician
Side cover was left off main transfer switch, some items are partially corroded, wires, bus bars, fuses, etc, any idea on how to clean this up for the inspector? A possible power wash or chemical bath?

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Mechanical debridement is the only way to clean the conductors, at least the bus bars. Is the insulation still good after getting wet? What is the conductivity of copper oxide versus metallic copper?
 
I'm sure the installation will work as is,,,, I'm not sure about the other stuff, it really just needs to look good I'm guessing, its probably been exposed to the weather for about 2 weeks and been through a couple of rain showers
 
It is likely that the conductors inside the lugs are fine. Probably all the bus bar connections are fine too. It is hard to get liquid between properly made up connections.

Vinegar works pretty good I am told. I suspect you can find instructions if you google it.

Personally, I would not get to worried about it.
 
replace the side cover, re-terminate all lugs and re-crimp all burndy's and wire wheel the busses. 2 wrongs and 3 jokes will not help you sleep at night. what do you think it will do in 2 years?
 
More like Rambojoe, they make a rust stopper for the steel after you clean it up ,do a low ohm on the gear, all lock/ belvile washers need to be replaced; was this under water or just poured upon?
 
After hurricane Katrina, I had to help out a number of people with their gear that had been exposed to water intrusion (not the people in the direct hit zone, but on the edges). I found this, it was very helpful in justifying what needed to be scrapped and what could be saved and how.

https://www.nema.org/Products/Documents/guidelines-handling-water-damaged-elect-equip.pdf

http://www.disaster-resource.com/articles/what_now_smith.shtml

I had about 5 other useful links, but they're all broken now. One of them wwas from Square D, that's probably still available but has been moved and there was no redirect. Google might be able to find it though.
 
karn said:
I'm sure the installation will work as is,,,, I'm not sure about the other stuff, it really just needs to look good I'm guessing, its probably been exposed to the weather for about 2 weeks and been through a couple of rain showers
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Just 2 weeks? Salt water or salt spray? Near the ocean?

Hard to think that level of corrosion is just from 2 weeks of non-slat spray or condensation.

20 years ago or so talked to folks at a dam that had been flooded, fresh water. 25 kV generators flooded . 2 of 3 were reclaimed to good megger test levels and put back in operation by tenting and dry air for a month. They did replace the 3rd, but probably could have reclaimed with a few more weeks of dry air after a clean water wash.
 
junkhound said:
Just 2 weeks? Salt water or salt spray? Near the ocean?

Hard to think that level of corrosion is just from 2 weeks of non-slat spray or condensation.

20 years ago or so talked to folks at a dam that had been flooded, fresh water. 25 kV generators flooded . 2 of 3 were reclaimed to good megger test levels and put back in operation by tenting and dry air for a month. They did replace the 3rd, but probably could have reclaimed with a few more weeks of dry air after a clean water wash.
Click to expand...
I had to re-commission some 2300V VFDs in a pump station that was flooded once. The guy I worked for had me pull all of the PC boards and power device stacks out, take them home and put them in the dishwasher, dry them in the oven at low temp for a day and put them back in. Everything worked. Someone else had done all of the power side of this, I don't know how hard that was, but it couldn't have been easy for sure.
 
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