Kurt
Fascinating story and valuable information. This is the kind of real world
experience we need to draw on. Reality can change quickly under extreme
conditions and one's education is not complete without this understanding.
Thanks for this post.
William Miller
PS: You are fortunate your client had a proper fire suppression system. I
doubt many of us can count on that to minimize damage.
Wm
At 03:13 PM 5/16/2010, you wrote:
Voltage is not the issue here, it is current, and battery fault currents
can be staggering - far more than one would ever encounter in a typical AC
system fed from a distribution transformer. I have seen a 200A Class T
fail to act on an 48V inverter fault which resulted in welding the metal
tabs of the fuse holder (which had been greased with copper-laden Penetrox
E) to their sockets. That indicates a fault current well north of 200,000
amps, quite possibly sseveral times that. A fire ensued, which triggered
the gas protection system and fortunately resulted in almost no peripheral
damage. It did cost about $10k to recharge and recertify the Inergen
system. The inverter manufacturer was quite cagey on warranty replacement
until they saw the photos - at which point a replacement miraculously
arrived by overnight air.
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