Electrical Switchgear
Modern engineering applied to 70 year old relics
In the UK a lot of electrical switchgear in grid sub-stations are very old, many of them originating in the 60s. In this time maintenance was all manual – a technican with a bag of tools often taking many hours to solve problems leaving houses without electric.
Our client designed a remote actuator which can be retro-fitted to old switchgear to allow remote monitoring and control of the switchgear, significantly reducing downtime to houses.
We worked on the mechanical side of these projects, designing tooling and fixtures to allow their actuators to be fitted to multiple different switchgear around the UK.
We also re-designed the epicyclic gearbox inside the actuator which is being used as a step down gear reduction. The customer had some design, manufacturing and durability issues.
We performed testing on the gearbox to identify route causes, re-designed elements of the gearbox then prototyped it with 3D printing to ensure fitment.
To design the brackets & fixtures we physically had to measure them as no drawings exist for these old switchgear. Our process was to take physical measurements on site, draw the switchgear as is then create 3D CAD of brackets to suit.
We prototyped the brackets using a 3D printer, any tweaks were made as necessary to confirm functionality and fitment.
Then low volume production runs were made with a local fabrication company.