EECO Asks Why Podcast
EECO Asks Why Podcast
Smart Protection For Safer Control Panels
Faults don’t wait for a convenient time, so it's important to design panels that are ready when they arrive. We start with the core of electrical safety inside an industrial control panel—overcurrent protection—and make the difference between short circuits and overloads crystal clear. From there, we break down where fast-acting fuses shine, where adjustable circuit breakers win, and how to coordinate both so you protect sensitive electronics, ride through inrush, and isolate power safely for maintenance.
Then we turn to motors, the real workhorses on your floor. You’ll hear how a contactor and overload relay form the backbone of a motor starter, why thermal overloads have served for decades, and where they fall short when you need answers, not just a tripped flag. We unpack intelligent electronic overload relays that monitor current, voltage, phase balance, temperature, and even system conditions like dry-run or jams. With real-time data, trip histories, start counts, and programmable thresholds, these smart relays help you prevent damage, cut unplanned downtime, and extend motor life.
Finally, we share practical ways to bring this intelligence into your plant without tearing everything out. Learn retrofit strategies that add diagnostics to legacy panels, how to align setpoints with your process, and how to publish data to SCADA and OEE dashboards for better energy tracking and continuous improvement. If you care about safety, reliability, and getting ahead of problems, this is a roadmap to designing for faults before they happen and turning your panel into a source of insight, not mystery.
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Host: Chris Grainger
Welcome to Eco Ask Why, a podcast that dives into industrial manufacturing topics and spotlights the heroes that keep America running. I'm your host, Chris Granger, and on this podcast, we do not cover the latest features and benefits on products that come to market. Instead, we focused on advice and insight from the top minds of industry because people and ideas will be how America remains number one in manufacturing in the world. Welcome to Eco Ask Why. I'm your host, Chris Granger, and I'm looking forward to spending some time with you today. And we're continuing our look into the heart of industrial manufacturing. And for us, that's the industrial control panel itself. So we're really the last episode, we took a kind of one-on-one overview, if you will, of what's inside an industrial control panel, what to look at, what are the primary components. And we're and for this conversation today, what we're going to try to do is take it one step further. Because we really want you to feel extremely comfortable when you walk up to an industrial control panel. And for this, let's focus on safety through overcurrent and motor protection. Okay, so when you think about industrial control panel design, electrical safety and long-term reliability depend on effective protection strategies. That's what it said. And two of the most critical areas to think about in terms of protection are overcurrent safety and motor protection. Because these are so essential for preventing damage, to prevent downtime, and to keep people safe from the hazards that exist within industrial manufacturing. So we're going to explore how traditional protective methods have evolved into now intelligent systems that enhance both safety and operational insights. And I think that's what you're going to find most interesting as we dive into this is like how can we start learning data and using data from our from our control systems to make better decisions? Okay. So again, at Electrical Equipment Company, we're passionate here, okay, about helping manufacturers, OEMs, and maintenance teams, all of that. Understand these concepts. So again, if you're designing your first panel, hey, this could be great for you. Or if you're just refining a complex automation system, some of this may be good reminders as well, because our focus is always on helping you make the most informed decisions and ultimately prioritize safety and performance within your facility. Okay, so let's start thinking about overcurrent safety really around two areas fuses and circuit breakers. Okay. Now, just as a reminder, overcurrent that really happens when electrical current exceeds the rated capacity of the equipment or the conductors that it's working with, right? And what does excessive current do? Well, it generates heat. Uh, it can increase the risk of fire. Uh equipment can be can fail. Excessive current can even create personal injuries. So fuses and circuit breakers, they are the first line of defense, if you will, against these conditions. And they're going to interrupt that current before damage can occur. And that's the whole key with all this, right? So inside in a typical industrial control panel, incoming power is routed through a main disconnect. Okay. And that disconnect is just really doing that. It's disconnecting the line from the rest of the panel. That's what it does. Then from there, the power is routed through fuses and circuit breakers. And this arrangement allows power to safely be isolated. So, like if you're performing maintenance, you want to be able to do that without a risk of getting hurt, right? So this is what this does. And it also, when designed correctly, gives you protection against short circuit. We're going to talk about that. And overload conditions. So there are two separate conditions right there. You have short circuit and overload. So now what's what's the difference between the two? Well, a short circuit condition occurs when current traveling along an unintended path of very low resistance, right? So really what happens here is you have a surge of current, and that can instantly damage, and I mean damage lots of stuff. Conductors, components, you can see wires just getting blown up, you can see break all sorts of things getting damaged. So you have productive devices in line, like fuses and circuit breakers, to respond when this condition occurs to break that current and prevent the extensive damage that's there. So that's that that's a short circuit. Now, overload is a little bit different. Overload occurs when the equipment is operating above its rated current. Here's the difference for an extended period of time. Because think about a short short is pretty instantaneously, like it's going to surge right now. Overloads build gradually, and quite often it builds heat gradually. So overload devices use an inverse time response, and they're allowing short bursts of current of starting up, but tripping the condition, trip, but tripping if the condition persists long enough to hurt the equipment. So there's a difference there. So you got to figure out if you got both of those conditions that you're trying to protect against, what's the best mechanism and way in order to do that? Well, that's when you have to start making decisions between fuses and circuit breakers. And it's not a one versus the other, quite often, it's a both and situation. Because fuses and circuit breakers, they essentially serve the same purpose. They want to interrupt the current. That's it. They want to interrupt it when that condition exists. But the way they function in certain situations, they they're different and they serve differently. And understanding this distinction is the key to designing safe and reliable control panels. So fuses at the basic fundamental level use a thin filament enclosed in an insulated material. And when it's exposed to excessive current, those filaments heat up and they melt. That's why when a fuse blows, what do you have to do? You don't go and reset a fuse, you pull a fuse out and put a new fuse in, right? That's how it works because it's a permanent disconnect. And the advantages of a fuse, quite often they're less expensive, and they react to extremely fast fall conditions. So if you're thinking about trying to protect sensitive electronics or circuits that really require this level of precise, fast acting decision making on overcurrent, fuses are where you want to go. Now, there's with with with every you know one one decision, you have another uh type of implication as well. So what it is, well, one limitation with fuses is they are really a single-use device. You're not going to reuse a fuse, right? Once it's blown, it's blown. It has to be replaced. And at the wrong replacement, you know, like maybe if you have the wrong uh fuse type or the long the wrong class installed, then you could be setting yourself up for damage because at that point, you know, you've you've you've you've circumvented the purpose of the fuse. Okay. And conversely, if you don't put the right, maybe you put too low rate rating in, you may be blowing fuses more frequently, right? And then this this is something to consider. So you have to be careful because fuses can also blow frequently if you have a lot of high end rush or or or startups uh on the circuit. So you not that you can't use them, but it needs to be taken into mind when designing the right type of fuse, right? And that and that's a whole that's a whole podcast on itself on fuse selection, but this gives you a high-level overview. And for you, circuit breakers, think of that as more as the the mechanical device. Okay, so the circuit breaker is using a magnet and thermal elements. Often it's a it's a solenoid or or bimetallic strip. And really, what is it trying to do? Interrupt the circuit. That's it. It literally is the name is and the naming convention, circuit breaker, right? So when excessive current flows, the the strip bends and it triggers a solenoid, and next thing you know, that breaker trips. And the advantage of a circuit breaker is pretty simple when you think about it. Breakers can be reset. Think about when a circuit breaker trips at your house. What do you do? You don't just you know panic and never and never have power again. No, you reset the breaker, right? You don't have to pull in, pull it out or anything like that. You can just literally go and reset it. So this avoids the need for quite often replacements. And you can adjust these breakers for different trip curves and time delays. So they can help you when you're designing system that systems that experience high in rush currents, like a motor circuit. This is very suitable here because the breaker can be adjusted to handle and to not interrupt that in rush current. And they also include lots of additional features that you can get on circuit breakers these days for arc fault or ground fault protection. You maybe heard like like uh ground fault protection receptacles in your home, but you can have ground fault type of breakers as well. So uh again, with with every pro, there's a there's a uh associated con, right? And I guess the only limitation, well the primary limitation to consider when you look at the circuit breakers, is they generally respond slower than fuses will. Okay, they can also be more expensive. A breaker is more expensive than a fuse. So just have to keep that in mind. So if you're looking for stuff that needs a fast response, circuit breaker, you may need to have uh some some fuse types of engineering in that process as well. But their reusability and flexibility, man, that that they're really it often offsets the how the higher initial cost when you're thinking about long-term applications. So selecting between the two really comes down to considering the application sensitivity and the operating profile of what you're up of what's installed, right? So if you have systems with delicate electronics or fast reacting components, you may want to consider having the right fuses design for that uh application for precision and quick response. If you have systems or circuits with high-end rush currents requiring frequent resets, you may want to consider a circuit breaker there. And ultimately, the correct selection ensures that overcurrent protection operates as intended because you want to preserve the equipment, you want to maintain the uptime, right? You want to keep everybody safe and and operating there correctly, right? So again, eco right here is if this is where we step in and we help. We have engineers that regularly have these conversations to help you navigate these trade-offs and to start thinking about uh the right protection method for your specific application. And obviously, you have to take in consideration cost and maintenance and long-term reliability. So if we're looking at a single control panel to a full plant monitorization, we always are trying to help you make the safe decision, the smart decision, and one that's sustainable as well. Okay, so that that kind of gives us a breakdown between uh overload, short circuit protection, and fuses and circuit breakers. Now, let's transition. Let's now think about the core of motor protection. Okay, and you're gonna hear this quite often. You'll go to an industrial control panel, you open up, you'll see overload relays. Because at the end of the day, it's quite often electric motors are the backbone of industrial operations. They just are, and so you want to safeguard them, right? And this is a big part of my career for a long time with Eco, which is we when we were doing motor service, was understanding the motor circuits. This is something that's I've seen come for just so far, so fast, and it's incredible to see the advancements in technology. These overload relays are incredible. And a motor starter, we just want to think about a motor starter, you really have two primary components of a motor starter. You have a contactor, okay, and that's used for switching, and then you have an overload relay, and that's used for protection. And without the rope, the relay, the motor starter can't protect the equipment, right? At that point, whatever happens, that motor that's at the end of that line is is open and susceptible to whatever conditions that have come across that that motor circuit, and that can be very damaging. It could cost you a lot, a lot of downtime, okay? So let's just think about when it when we think when we open up a lot of control panels, particularly in older manufacturing, you're gonna see traditional overall relays, and typically they're probably thermal, okay? So you'll see them as like uh they're called thermal overall relays, usually has like a bimetallic design, and they've been used for a long time. Why? Because they're simple and they're effective. They are right, and they're also very cost effective, they respond to heat generated by what? The excessive current, and they trip the circuit to prevent the motor from overheating. So when you start thinking about this a little bit deeper, they're reliable for basic protection for sure. They definitely are, but they have their limits. Let's just be honest. Quite often they can be respond after a fault occurs. Okay, so it's not giving you that immediate, you know, short circuit the way that we typically would think. Uh, so it doesn't give you a lot of uh a standard thermal relay, it's not gonna give you any type of predictability, right? They lack diagnostic capability as well, because they're not gonna tell you why, they're just gonna tell you that it trip, that's it. So advanced motor control must be handled externally. So this is gonna require additional hardware or equipment or programming or things like that to give you that insight. So the industry recognized that this was a gap, like it worked for a long time, and these things are still out there, y'all. I mean, don't think that there's no you know uh biometallic overloads out there, they st they still exist, but we recognized there was a need for evolution, okay, and this evolution took us to intelligent, or you may even call uh may even hear them called smart overload relays, okay? Because we recognized that industry was trending towards connectivity, huge, huge component, and predictability. Like the predictive maintenance is a big deal. So a lot of that, uh those efforts along those those lanes led to intelligent electronic overload relays. Okay, so these devices combine the protection that we're looking for along with communication and analytics in one package. So it's really cool when you start thinking about it because predictive and diagnostic capabilities are huge. And smart motor, uh smart overload relays, what they can do is detect abnormal operation conditions early on. Okay, that's that's pretty cool. It does that with phase when it's by monitoring phase imbalance or ground faults or sustained overloads, and those items account for nearly half of all motor failures. They just do. So they monitor voltage, current, temperature. They can even have relays out there now, different types of relays and points that can monitor vibration, and they can give you real-time insight into your motor health. So start thinking about stuff that you can could can get out of this these devices. You can look at trip causes and event history, go back and look at that catalog. You can look at how often are you operating the equipment and how often are you starting it up? So operation hours and start counts, right? You can see what the faults were. Like what were the last five faults for this piece of equipment? Was it under voltage? Did something jam up on it? Was it an overload, right? And it gives you early alerts for elect for mechanical issues, like as a low load or dry pump conditions. I'm telling you, these things are incredible. And this visibility allows your maintenance team to identify, and here's the important part correct issues before they escalate so you can minimize that unplanned downtime and exceed that motor life. Really cool stuff. Okay, so now let's talk about how we can enhance motor protection uh with these relays. Because these relays often include programmable alarm thresholds and automated restart logic as well as load monitoring. So think about it this way: these capabilities help you and the operators manage multiple motors efficiently and hopefully prevent some unnecessary trips. There's nothing worse than having to go restart a motor for and you're not sure why, right? So let's prevent that and let's let's start balancing these systems overall to have better performance. And then when you have systems like uh, or applications rather, like pumping systems with the right type of smart overload relay, you can detect low current uh in these areas, which is really uh valuable because it could help you prevent conditions like dry running or deadheading your pumps that can cause severe mechanical damage, right? So these early alerts will give you and your maintenance teams time to intervene before that thing fails. And I mean, once it fails, you know, at that point the work has to be done. Down downtime, and it becomes a reality, and you have to move into it. Okay. So another kind of cool part with these smart motor overload relays is the real-time data and integration that it comes with. So through network connectivity, we've talked about the importance of that on EcoSY for a long time. These intelligent relays can give you operating data up to your systems that you're up that you're executing your your manufacturing plan in. And this allows you and your plant personnel to monitor performance. Maybe you want to look at your energy usage as well. And here's the trick in real time. We're not just looking back, like we're looking at what's happening now, and you can start forecasting forward. And when you start doing that and you integrate to with your modern automation systems, you can really start enhancing remote diagnostics, continuous improvement, and energy efficiency initiatives out there. So when you start leveraging this side of data and this and these components within the industrial control panel, you can start strengthening safety, you can have better performance, and really, at the end of the day, increase your overall equipment effectiveness. We're talking about OEE all the time, right? You can do all this without sacrificing any reliability. So I'm telling you, this stuff's out there now. It's absolutely unbelievable. It's pretty cool. And at the end of the day, we recognize at Eco that you are continuing to modernize, you're continuing to prioritize safety, and you're continuing to look forward to how you can be more predictive in nature, right? Because they they cannot be uh goals that we're not focusing on. They have to we have to focus on them to remain competitive in the markets that we serve. So when we focus on reliable overcurrent protection and we get that right, like we get the breakers and the and the fuses designed correctly, you're really building a strong foundation. Okay, a strong foundation to ensure that you're protecting your assets. And then when you start integrating intelligent motor protection systems, man, you're taking it to the next level. Because then you're starting to bring foresight and diagnostics and smarter control to the forefront of your design. So we're not just talking about new installation here as well. This could be retrofits. We do it all the time. So it could be existing equipment as well as new equipment and bring this new technology together because it's all about prioritizing protection to really, it's not only about compliance and uptime, but it's also think about the long-term health of the equipment that you're counting on to keep your production running. And we recognize that's a big deal. I mean, as someone who worked in the service industry for a long time, I know how uh stressful unplanned downtime can be to any organization. So if we can do things on the front end to prevent that in areas that we can control, we want to do that. And that's what this is all about. And we love at Electrical Equipment Company talking control panels. We just do. I'm saying from the novice to the expert. We are we will meet you where you are. We'll offer as much insight as we possibly can to help you along the way, whether it's design guidance or technical expertise. We're here to make that process so much uh easier for you. Okay, so look, reach out to us. There will be links in the show notes and all that stuff for ways to reach out to us to connect with us. Again, we have our labs and all our geography. So if you want to come talk directly or test some technology, we'd love to do that. If you'd like for us just to come take a look at your industrial control panels and understand what your current install base is so we can help you make more informed decisions on particular areas of high risk or or areas that that you just really need to put as much emphasis on as possible to do everything that you can to reduce that downtime, we're here to help. We have experts, we have just a wonderful team. So again, if you're listening to Eco AskY and you're in our our service area, reach out. We would love to talk to you about this and see how we can come alongside you to identify areas that we can help improve in the and particularly when it comes on the motor circuit and protecting your industrial control panels. So we hopefully you guys are enjoying these. We're really we enjoy putting this together because we recognize everybody's at different stages in their journey, right? They just are. So, yeah, industrial control panels are such a key component. We don't just want to fly by it. We want to take the time to unpack these at length to give you the insight so that you can build your confidence when you're walking it through your facility up to an industrial control panel to better understand what you're looking at, to to and and to ultimately do it in a safe manner. All right. So again, thank you so much for listening to Eco Ask Why. If you wouldn't mind, just share this stuff out with others, particularly others that are that you think they're that are in their journey that would be interested in these topics. We know this is not for everybody, but for the ones that find interest here, we're we're really hopeful that we're bringing you value and helping you just build your confidence and your skill sets up uh so that you can just do more in the industry. Again, if you have questions or want to talk further, reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you. So, all that's you can find us at ecoonline.com. That's how you connect with us there. Obviously, we have the podcast, we have all our resources, we have our shopping, all the stuff from the online shopping experience. So you can even go look at some of these overloads and start comparing them side by side. We'll have links to all that stuff as well. So check it out, all right? So I hope you guys have a great day. Thank you so much for listening, for hanging out with us, and just remember to keep asking why. Thank you for listening to Eco Ask Why. This show is supported ad-free by Electrical Equipment Company. EECO is redefining the expectations of an electrical distributor by placing people and ideas before products. Please subscribe and share with your colleagues and friends. Also leave comments, feedback, and any new topics that you'd like to hear. To learn more and to share your insights, visit ecosy.com dash E C O. A S A S W H Y dot com.