Meltric’s switch-rated plugs/receptacles have positively impacted motor installation, maintenance, and changeout productivity at the Remington Seeds production facilities in Remington and Francisville, IN. The sites are two of several Remington Seeds facilities that produce, condition, and package high quality corn, soybean, and wheat seed. Utilized on the motors of production equipment as varied as conveyors, huskers, shellers, dust systems, and hydraulic power units, Meltric’s plugs/receptacles have improved maintenance efficiency by reducing the downtime on motor driven equipment due to the time savings these designed-for-maintenance plugs/receptacles provide.
At the heart of the maintenance efficiency improvements is the plug-n-play capability of Meltric’s switch-rated plugs and receptacles. Meltric plugs are constructed with an integral switching mechanism that ensures the safe make or break of live connections and makes certain that the contacts are electrically dead before the plug can be removed from its receptacle. They are UL approved as a ‘motor circuit disconnect switch’ (UL Subject 2682). Due to the plug’s integral switching mechanism, the need for expensive interlocks and the mounting of a local disconnect switch is eliminated. (Photo right: Installing a Meltric Decontactor Series switch-rated plug/receptacle between a motor connection box and the power line feed eliminates all hardwiring tasks during motor changeouts. Load breaking is performed in seconds by pushing the red spring-loaded pushbutton pawl on the plug’s casing.)
Reduce Electrical Maintenance Downtime by 50%
Meltric’s female receptacles are designed with a safety shutter, which ensures protection from live parts. The disconnected plug provides visual verification of deenergization and it can be easily locked out and tagged out by inserting a lock in the plug’s lockout hole. An NFPA 70E-defined hazard risk category ‘0’ is maintained when connecting or disconnecting electrical equipment so workers can avoid having to suit up.
The impact on downtime for motor changeouts or any task requiring motor deenergization has benefited the Remington facilities where Meltric’s plugs and receptacles have been installed on production equipment. (Photo left: Auxiliary [pilot] contacts are an optional feature on most of Meltric’s motor plugs. These integral aux contacts give users the convenience and flexibility of controlling auxiliary equipment, monitoring parameters such as motor temperature, and/or communicating alarms through the same plug and receptacle used to supply power to the equipment.)
“Motors can be changed out quickly and safely with Meltric plugs,” says Greg Schneider of Greg Schneider Electric, the electrical contractor who performs the installation and maintenance work at the Remington and Francisville facilities. “They are easy to install. There’s no need to mount a disconnect switch nearby. They meet the code requirements for a line of sight disconnect switch. As an all-in-one plug, they’re a safe and flexible connector ideally suited for fast motor changeouts.”
