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Thread: Active cooking show room

  1. #1
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    Active cooking show room

    We have just wired a show room for a well know white goods supplier. Usually when we do these jobs they have there appliance on demo mode (e.g. the oven lights and the display comes on with element disconnected). This time its fully active cooking area with numerous active appliance. Now what has happened in the past is that when they have had active ovens and hobs connected (for the purpose of training and demos for the public) members of the public would come in and fiddle with the ovens and there were a few incidents of the ovens being left on and even setting light to the papers/polystyrene etc inside.

    This is obviously not a good situation.

    To overcome this we supplied all the sockets and isolators for the active cooking appliance (all behind the ovens, just there for purpose of connection - not accessible) via a contactor. This contactor basically energises a wall of ovens or disconnects them. The switch to operate the contactor is, in some cases, a little further than 3 meters from the appliance.

    My point is, I understand an active cooking appliance needs a method of being isolated and it should be with in 1.5 meters and not more than 3 meters and must be in the same room but we also don't want members of the public to switch switch active appliance on, possibly leaving the oven on when the shop is unattended (members of the public do fiddle a lot).

    These ovens are only supposed to be operated by trained members of staff only who know where the switch which operates the contactor is, giving them control of bank of ovens. The switch is easily accessible but on the end of the display stand out of sight.

    Seeing as the cooking appliance are to be operated only by trained staff only would you consider it acceptable to not have a directly accessible isolator for the cooking appliance as the risk of a dangerous situation caused by a member of the public fiddling outweighs the risk of something going wrong when the appliance are operated by a trained person who knows about the contactor switch.


    Go.

  2. #2
    Diamond Member AndyD's Avatar
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    The switch disconnector (isolator) referred to in the regs is there to allow safe isolation in the case of an emergency. The contactor and it's associated switch, as it's presently installed, is there to prevent inadvertant energisation. They're performing two completely different task and I can't see how one would negate the need for the other.

    Hee hee, just to throw some oil on the fire why not have the contactor wired on a remote stop/start arrangement (similar to a DOL starter) with a single start button concealed at the end of the bank of appliances and multiple stop buttons each located within 1.5 meters of each of the appliances?
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    I like putting stuff like this on here just to see reactions.

    There is greater danger of problems because the isolator is accessible to the public. The sockets and isolators are behind the ovens (if you want to change the oven or do maintenance - take the oven out and there it is). The hobs isolators are accessible but "hidden". If they need to kill the power to the stand the contactor switch is easy to get to. It stops the power to the appliance if there ever was a problem whilst doing cooking demo's.

    Its supposed to only be used by "competent and trained persons" - clearly written on the COC and hand over documents

    Maybe I should add an e-stop - that's there for emergency purposes?

    Besides the contactor is 4 pole (so breaks the neutral as well), goes through an earth leakage before going through a circuit breaker before going to an indidually wired socket/isolator circuit.

    Anyway, it's the only way I could do things. Its as safe as I can make it - "common sense". I like using that expression because someone who is ingested the SANS 10142 book comes up with something. I'll leave here for a while see what comes up.

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    The other funny thing. The one time we did put an e-stop on a active cooking stand (which shut the whole stand down) we got called so many times because the public were drawn to the big red shiny button, especially kids. Oooooh shiny. Clunk! All off.

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