As followers of the blog remember, a few weeks ago we were given a project to duplicate some switchgear that had been involved in a fire.
Power Plant: The accident occurred at the DeCordova Power Plant in Granbury, Texas. The plant operates four natural gas-fired combustion turbines that generate 260 MW total.
The Accident: It is believed that operators or electricians energized the 4160-volt switchgear while a ground was still installed following a maintenance activity. While initially it had to look like there was not much chance of a "quick solution" or perhaps any solution (they had to think they needed magicians not scientists), fortunately the power plant called on the right service group who knew how to solve the problem.
By combining resources, our two companies were able to respond to this project in the time frame required by the customer. There are way too many folks to thank here on this blog entry but about everyone on staff was involved in some little way either in working on the project direct or covering another job while we allocated that person to the project. Pretty easy for the author to say it was fun, but I heard at least one tech say "let's not do that again for a couple weeks". Scientists not magicians, this time we were magicians. This switchgear went from the left to the right in about 3 weeks.
That's what we call CBS Emergency Response. Check out the wire, tape, termination care package we also sent along. We even think of the little things. Hopefully you will not need us, but if you do, you will be glad we are there.
UPDATE 3/11/12 - Check out this video (posted in 3D if you can handle it! I think you have to download the "wmv" file and then watch it with NVidia on a 3D enabled monitor). But we are the first to have some 3D Video.
Circuit Breaker Sales will closed July 4 & 5th in observance of the Independence Day Holiday. (Emergency services always available, just call)
During the recent down economy, we have seen many "bean counters" try to skip a maintenance cycle or "cut corners" in an attempt to save money. Our experience says that these savings are usually temporary and in many instances non existance (replacing something that catastrophically fails almost always costs more than normal maintenance). Just like in football, sometimes the best defense is a good offense.
“At one point in
history, Federal Pacific was one of the largest providers of residential and
industrial circuit breakers in the United States. CBS’ growing library of
historical records, card files and drawings will give our engineering staff the
tools they need to help customers determine whether they need replacement
parts, repairs, remanufactured components or retrofit upgrades to get their FPE
and ITE electrical equipment safely up and running.”
Congratulations to Billy Zimmerer on his Retirement after 21 years of service. Billy has been a valued member of the CBS staff and the void of his absence will be hard to fill. 
In addition to the skilled American jobs that remanufacturing & reconditioning creates, the environmental benefits of resource conservation and landfill management are too significant to ignore. And if you do the "total cost of ownership calculations" on top of these things, there is nothing but positive benefits for society from the promotion and consumption of re-certified goods. But presently the government (specifically GSA) precludes the purchase of any reconditioned or remanufactured goods. And that is what we aim to change. 
