Heineman 3 phase bussbar

[ians]

Installing a 3 phase bussbar to connect 3 phase heineman circuit breakers ... either i am an idiot or the design engineers got this terribly wrong.

The old one was rather tricky if you got it wrong there was a huge explosion at the back of the breakers where the wires slotted behind the bussbar ... happened once ... after that i steered clear of heineman 3 phase busbbars ...it seems they do have an upgraded version which is a little safer to work with.

The problem with the newer breakers ... the connectors pulls from the back towards when you to tighten the wire/bussbar ...so if you turn the bussbar to the back and insert your wires from the front ...the bussbar bends ... if you turn it the other way the copper strips are not long enough ... so you have to cut back the top of the breaker ... the newer breaker literall break into pieces when you attempt to do this.

The solution ... ABB

A couple of years ago i started using ABB ...what a plasure to work with... not only do they have a slot specifically for the bussbar ... the wire and the bussbar dont fit in the same slot.

I might be doing it all wrong ...please share if you have installed them and havent had an issue.

[ians]

I learnt someothing new yesterday (never too old to learn something new) ... i have to add 3 phase sockets to a new machine ... it has a make of circuit breaker which are not available in SA ... and the machine supplier left 60 % space in the control panel to add stuff ... however the 3 phase bussbars are cut to fit the already installed equipment.

i had to figue out a way to add a couple extra triple pole breakers to the earth leakage unit (which is fed via a 3 phase relay ... a dicussion for another day).

3 phase bussbars generally supplied from the wholesaler are single pin not forked ... so I would normally push them into the same place i fit the wires ... however if you look at the new designed circuit breakers ... you will notice a slot above the screw (which wasnt availabe on the old breakers) ... this is where the forked bussbar fits ... which frees up the back of the breaker where you would normally install the wires and bussbar ... it seems it has become a standard across all circuit breakers (one size fits all makes if you using din for example) ... you can order a forked bussbar in single phase or 3 phase ... it has probably been out for a couple of years but i only found out about it yesterday when i checked all the differnet makes of circuit breakers ... it even works on heineman ... so you no longer have to fight with the wire and bussbar in the same slot ... i wish someone had told me about this years ago ... i have been fighting with these bussbars for many years and had few nasty experineces and also seen some nasty blowups in 3 phase DB's related to this problem.

[ians]

I finished installing the new triple pole breakers with the forked bussbar this morning ... i have to say compared to the 7 other single pin..3 phase bussbars i installed during the shutdown in December... what a pleasure.

Whoever came up with this new standard (ABB has a similar setup ... but not compatible with other din breakers) of installing 3 phase bussbars ... clever boy ... you deserve a bells.

It only works on new circuit breakers and can be used on both standard din and new heineman breakers.

anyone know who came up with this concept?