Hi guys, Kind of an intro and a request for help. Name is Jeff and I am an industrial electrician at a manufacturing plant in Fl. I recognize some of you guys from over at E.T. I have several years experience as an industrial elec. but about zilch with arc flash. The plants I have worked at previously did nothing about training, ppe, surveys, etc.. and now the company I am with is making some effort (half hearted) to comply... Anyway, so a few months ago, our company attended a webinar. That with some of the other discussions that we had led me to believe that there would be a survey conducted at not just our plant but company wide. Now, it seems that due to the cost of such survey, it will not be accomplished and either, we go by the default tables in 70E, or the plant elecs do it ourselves. Now for my part, I personally don't feel comfortable undertaking this task. The other guy I work with says he has done them at plants he worked at and has software to do the survey and print labels. My gut, along with what I have read on SKM's site tell me this is all wrong and that if he or I screw the pooch on just one minute detail, we are forever on the hook... Thoughts? suggestions??

Trust your gut, it is right.

Your plant needs to understand that to use the tables you need to abide to the notes of the tables, which means you still need to know the available fault current and clearing time of the OCPD. So some "engineering analysis" is still required. They also need to understand this is not optional.

The problem with using the tables at a large facility is often you will not meet the limits of the notes in the tables in a typical 480V substation, and in other parts of the plant the tables will get you in more PPE than is needed, which can be a hazard in it's own right.

Zog, thanks for the input. Recognize you from E.T. So I had a discussion with the corp. elec. engineer about the subject. He used to be lead man here at the plant so we have a good working relationship. Told him about the plant eng. and other elecs. decision to go ahead do the data collect and plug it into his arc flash software. Corp. guy loses his SH@T!!!! The data collection is the single most important aspect of the process and must be done correctly with trained, qualified people (of which we're not). So at least for the time being, that is on hold.... Yes, it absolutely needs to be done, I concur. Just needs to be done correctly....

I concur. Without accurate data your analysis is worthless, in fact, could be dangerous. What is this "arc flash software" you are refering too? I am guessing it is some free calulator on the internet, I hope I am wrong.

Zog, I don't know for sure what AF calc he has, It's on his personal computer but I am pretty sure it's not professional grade software...... Problem is, this cat has a "can do" attitude about everything. Not saying it's wrong to be confident about your abilities, just sometimes need to slow your roll and take a measured approach. Funny thing is, this dude is in his late 50's, early sixties, and I'm 45. Figure I would be the hot head and him the "old bull"....

"FlashTrack" for the data collection. It is easy to use and a qualified worker can quickly collect all the data needed for the engineer it do the analysis using (in our case) SKM.

Note: FlashTrack is not for doing calculations, it was designed for the qualified worker to capture the data needed to model the system.

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