The 2009 Electrical Safety Workshop sponsored by the IEEE Industry Applications Society was recently held at the Hyatt Regency Union Station in St. Louis, Missouri on February 3rd through the 6th. Eaton once again demonstrated clear leadership in electrical safety by authoring and presenting two new white papers as a part of the technical program. "Selective Coordination versus Arc Flash—The Great Debate and Update" was presented by Thomas A. Domitrovich, Application Engineer at Eaton Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Aidan Graham, Power Systems Engineering Manager for Eaton Engineering Services & Systems in Bellevue, Washington. "Proper Application and Maintenance of Molded Case Breakers to Assure Safe and Reliable Operation" was presented by David B. Durocher, Industry Manager at Eaton Corporation in Wilsonville, Oregon and Mark Higginson, Electrical Maintenance Manager at North Pacific Paper Company in Longview, Washington. Over 400 engineers and safety managers from across the globe attended this event, considered by safety professionals around the world to be the leading event of the year in progressing through the journey of electrical workplace safety standards. The workshop included an exposition with 37 exhibitors. Eaton sponsored the largest exhibitor booth, showing a host of electrical safety solutions. Included were the new Magnum™ DS 85 kA-rated arc-resistant low-voltage metal-enclosed switchgear, the PowerXpert family of metering and monitoring solutions, the RPR2 universal remote power-racking device, the FlashGard® low-voltage motor control center, the low-voltage breaker retrofit trip units and replacement power circuit breakers with ARMS capabilities, FP5000 overcurrent protective relays with multiple settings groups, and many more. 

 
The Arc Flash Reduction Maintenance System is a unique patented Eaton offering, available for both new and retrofit applications.




The Power Xpert metering family with the PX400 gateway were displayed, offering the industry's first meter with a built-in web server, allowing monitoring of all electrical parameters across any enterprise LAN or WAN.

Eaton's newest safety based offering, the Magnum DS arc resistant low voltage metal enclosed switchgear product was a big success. The assembly is rated for up to 85kA for both Type 1 and Type 2 applications. One big advantage is the ability to install this new switchgear in a room with 10 foot ceilings without requiring a plenum. Competitive models require 11 foot ceilings, or higher!

Eaton's FlashGard MCC platform has recently been expanded to include replacement MCC buckets. The exhibit included a typical fusible design, attracting many interested observers.

View from the end of Eaton's 30 ft booth. Shown are the FP5000 suitcase demo with multiple settings group capability and in the background, a 42" plasma screen showing the web browser capability of the PowerXpert meter.

A customer inspects the updated door construction of the new Magnum DS arc resistant low voltage metal enclosed switchgear.

Eaton's FlashGard MCC platform has recently been expanded to include replacement MCC buckets. The exhibit included a typical fusible design, attracting many interested observers.

Customers gather around the FlashGard MCC before the exhibits opened to get a first-hand preview of this new technology.

During the exhibits, Eaton passed out 2GB flash drives to attendees, each with over 800MB of Eaton safety solutions content.

The RPR2 Universal Remote Power Racking device was a big hit at the electrical safety workshop exhibit.