Industry insights | Four hidden Dangers behind low-cost power cabinets

In order to reduce costs, some non-standard manufacturers often replace the design requirements of international first-line brand circuit breakers, contactors and integrated protectors with refurbished parts, miscellaneous parts or low-profile models. There is a widespread phenomenon of false marking of the parameters of such components, and the stability is extremely poor. When lines are overloaded, leaking, or shorted, they often fail to act in time, resulting in rejection or malfunction. This will not only cause frequent equipment downtime, but even burn down the entire line in severe cases.In overseas construction sites, the procurement cycle of spare parts is long and the loss of downtime is large. The cost of such hidden dangers far exceeds the equipment price difference.

According to national standards, complete sets of cabinets need to use high-quality steel plates of specific thickness to ensure mechanical strength. The low-cost cabinets are mostly made of ultra-thin iron sheet, and the rigidity is seriously insufficient. After installation, problems such as frame deformation, misalignment of cabinet doors, and lax bite of locks can easily occur. In harsh environments with high vibration and high dust such as mines and ports, the failure of the cabinet seal leads to ash ingress and moisture, which will directly accelerate the aging of internal components and shorten the expected life of the equipment by half.

The quality of the insulation material determines the survivability of the equipment in extreme environments. Low-cost cabinets often use inferior insulation partitions and ordinary insulation paint, and often ignore the verification of electrical clearance and creepage distance. After long-term operation, the insulation material is easy to age and crack. Especially in Russia, Central Asia and other areas with huge temperature differences between day and night, the alternation of hot and cold can easily induce insulation breakdown and interphase creepage, which has become the main cause of electrical fires.

This is the root cause of the cabinet explosion accident. Low-cost complete sets of equipment are often equipped with circuit breakers with insufficient breaking capacity (KA value), which simply cannot match the actual short-circuit current on the site. In the event of an instantaneous failure, the switch cannot cut off the arc, which will lead to contact welding and arc deflagration, which will not only damage the entire cabinet of equipment, but also directly threaten the safety of on-site personnel.