CB Watch 3 User Manual
v6.3 - May 2019
Page 54 of 100
Setting Alarms
Notice:
It is the customer’s responsibility to decide whether to set alarms or not and to
decide what thresholds to set alarms at, as this will depend on the customer’s
operational priorities and risk philosophy. However, here are some guidelines that may
prove helpful in deciding what threshold values to use:
Alarm summary
This table summarises all the alarms that can be set in terms of contact wear monitoring.
Figure 82
–
Contact wear alarm summary
Threshold values
Arcing time
In the absence of any other value, a maximum arcing time of one complete power cycle
should be set (20ms for 50Hz in Europe/Asia, 17ms for 60Hz in NAM). This gives two
chances for the arc to be extinguished when the current crosses the zero point.
Contact wear
Contact electrical wear thresholds T1 and T2 should be entered in accordance with the
arcing contact manufacturer’s recommendations and based on
the operational planning
lead-time required to purchase new ones and go replace them:
-
T1 - approaching contact wear limit - for example 120 KA
2
s
-
T2 - contacts need to be replaced - for example 150 KA
2
s
When installing on an already operational CB, we may need to enter during setup an
estimate of the cumulative electrical wear to date. This is very tricky to do and should be
avoided if possible as an incorrect guess may lead to an incorrect assumption as to the
status of the contacts:
However, if the number of operations already performed is small and the history is
known from the relays and fault recorders, you can rebuild the history and calculate the
starting contact wear value.
As a last resort, a rough estimation can be made using a formula along these lines:
Multiplying the (standard line current x 2) squared, by the standard arcing time
The factor 2x is there to take into account that an estimated 1 in 10 operation will have
been under extreme fault current 10x greater than normal. An even greater factor may
be used (more conservative in terms of contact wear) depending on the operational
history of the CB.
Min Alarm Max Alarm
Digital
Relay
Arcing time, per pole
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Cumulative contact wear, per pole
No
Yes, 2x
Yes
Yes
Data obtained from CBW3
Thresholds
Alarms available