after demming our 2400v magna blast breakers a cat 4, we came up with a way to rack breakers from 30' away, the concern is that we have to open door to breaker and engage racking motor. the d.c. circiut has been deengerized, breaker is open and there is no way breaker can close or racking motor start racking breaker while i am in cubicle. should i still put cat 4 ppe on to engage racking motor? there are no tool's involved and no loose parts, once racking motor is engaged that also activates another mech trip so breaker can't close. once racking motor is engaged i go to racking device that we made that is 30' away and rack breaker down with cat 2 protection. this device was made to keep us out of the cat for suits and stay uot of blast zone while racking breakers.

Opening the door is still "Interacting" and requires PPE per your study. That is why we designed our remote devices to work wirelesly, not only do you avoid opening the door to install the motor, but also allows you to be completly outside the arc flash boundary with the wireless range.

Why would you consider simply opening the equipment door to be interaction? They are not racking or operating the breaker at that point. There's no exposed energized bus. If the breaker is racked out then the shutters should be closed.

we rack breakers very often, so we designed a system that the only thing we were doing was engaging motor in cubicle, all our cubicles have a motor, just opening the door with breaker open and no way to close it or move it while we have door open to engage motor was okay at time. since we are not able to be in cubicle without cat 4 suit, we have changed our design to allow us to engage from outside door and we still remain 30' away when we rack breaker. with your sys is there away to verify shutters open/closed

There are a few different versions and methods, in some cases the MOC/TOC switches are used, in others video is used. Sounds like you have the opening of the door issue figured out though.

it seems to be worked out, only thing left to do is put trap door in cubicle door, this is to put wireless camera in front to watch shutters open and breaker travel up. camera set up is already done, we have been using it when we were racking with cubicle door open. thanks.

How do the TOC/MOC switches enable you to verify that the shutters are closed? I can see the camera being used for a raise/lower type (GE) breaker as they are visible, but what about the ones that are racked in/out?

What your picture shows would be very compelling if permanently installed and aligned; and with torque specifications matched to the subject breaker type. Not unlike GE vertical lift breakers of old, my opinion is this should be included in all switchgear.

Single use racking devices are available for most breaker types, with torques set up for that specific type. I suppose you could permantly mount one on each breaker if you wanted to but they are easily moved from breaker to breaker and pretty fool proof. They are a compact remote racking device that attach to the front of the breaker and are designed specifically for that breaker type.

Permanently installed would raise the price considerably. And when the motor fails with the breaker still racked in, you will need to replace it inside the boundary.