Eaton 1000 amp breaker nuisance tripping

[Joethemechanic]

Been there, done that! Busted a pharmacist!

Guy that they trust with big bottles of Oxycontin and cases of Fentanyl patches can't be trusted around a breaker

Probably shouldn't trust him with the hillbilly heroin either

 

[Deltaforce]

It’s not fixed- since 6-22 the power has tripped 34 times. We were without power last night from midnight to 7:30 am - the breaker was reset and it tripped again around 11:50 -all attempts to reset the breaker failed until 14:30. I just got back from the office and the “ plan “ is to continue to reset this breaker. I’m thinking there should be some sort of troubleshooting / monitoring elimination of possible components to move this towards a solution. At this time I would just like to have reliable power. I did notice the settings on the breaker differ significantly from those buildings not experiencing a loss of power. Possibly this is contributing to the tripping of the breaker?

As breakers changed, they not have any inherent defects to trip
Increased power consumption residents may also a cause. Check POCO energy bills.
Breaker settings to set right

 

[tortuga]

Been there, done that! Busted a pharmacist!

Wow thats crazy, just a disgruntled employee?

All Ground fault protection uses load side current sensors.
A ground fault on the line side is usually seen as a voltage problem.

Intermittent, but of unkown origin, tripping of breakers is usually some protection feature other than overcurrent and short circuit, with ground fault bring the most common.

One situation I ran into involved a fairly often shut down of the main breaker to an insurance company.
After several months we narrowed it down to some new duct heaters. The system could handle about 50% of the heaters being on, but after that a GF trip occurred. We noticed tripping was happening on cool, 50°F, weekend mornings when the full HVAC was not running and enough areas of the building were coming on line.

Was that from capactive coupling from the heaters?

I'm an EE by schooling

Since your an EE can you share and data logs, thermal scans or other test reports from the utility or engineers you building hired?
Sketch us a approximate 1-line diagram? Showing type of service phase , voltage , amps? 208/120 120/240 etc, kVA of transformer, breakers and feeders?
Photos showing the condition of the service and distribution equipment?
Type of ground fault protection system Zero Sequence or Residual (Presumably its not a old Ground Return)?

 

[jim dungar]

Was that from capactive coupling from the heaters?

No the heaters had an internal fault to ground which was not enough to trip their branch breaker. I don't remember the specifics, it was somebody else's problem.
On top of it the heater panel had been installed 9 months before, so when we asked what changes had been made recently, no one remembered this.

I believe we added GF to the heater panel feeder and coordinated it with the main. Of course this would have been much less expensive and easier to troubleshoot if 2 levels of GF had been included in the original install.

 

[Deltaforce]

Since your an EE can you share and data logs, thermal scans or other test reports from the utility or engineers you building hired?
Sketch us a approximate 1-line diagram? Showing type of service phase , voltage , amps? 208/120 120/240 etc, kVA of transformer, breakers and feeders?
Photos showing the condition of the service and distribution equipment?
Type of ground fault protection system Zero Sequence or Residual (Presumably its not a old Ground Return)?

Better a checklist be prepared by board for he along wih electrician to tick locate issue