Damaged Wire Blowing a Fuse

1 in 20 500MCM Wires

Commercial heating and cooling systems can be extremely complex. Everything about large systems takes extra time from the installation to maintenance and troubleshooting problems.

Craig successfully diagnosed a 1000 ton chiller that was blowing a fuse intermittently. The customer previously had spent a large amount of money including replacing the motor (per another recommendation) at the cost of $50,000 with no success. The fuse continued to blow on occasion leaving the buildings hot and the occupants and customer dissatisfied.

Craig started troubleshooting the parallel wire runs and identified a potential wire issue in 1 of a possible 20 large conductors. Although the testing was fairly consistent, Craig noticed the intermittent issue occurring on one of wires. While the reading on this wire came and went, Craig stayed persistent in his testing where others may have moved on. This one small section of one single wire proved to be the problem to the blowing fuse. What started as a pin-hole size puncture on the wire, turned into an eroded section of wire. The damaged 500 MCM wire was replaced, all at a fraction of the cost of the prior, unsuccessful attempts.

Here is the damaged section that was removed.