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MOELLER CONTROLS DUNE DREDGING

Low voltage panels built and donated by Moeller Electric to consulting engineers Dario Campetti & Associates have enhanced safety training at several local mines.

The four panels, three low voltage starter panels and one feeder panel, are providing practical experience for classes attending safety training courses compiled and conducted by the consultants at the mines.

The courses are a corrective response to accidents and incidents resulting from mine personnel experiencing difficulty relating physical electrical components and circuitry to the engineering drawings defining them.

Moeller Electric's panels are helping students to bridge this gap between theory and practice.

Dario Campetti, a professional engineer with more than 20 years' experience in mining electrical engineering, explained that the fully portable Moeller panels are useful and efficient classroom tools when visits to surface or underground sub stations are not possible.

"These panels allow the trainees to have the complete, physical interpretation of a particular engineering line drawing in front of them, to examine at their own pace within a classroom environment.

"They facilitate practical identification of physical components such as circuit breakers, contactors, overloads, push buttons, indicating lights and earth leakage relays," Campetti said, "and we can take the panels from mine to mine as required.

"We hold hands-on sessions in which we apply power to the panels while students identify the components, isolate the various sections so that it is safe to work on them, switch the components on and off, see how they work, and test where there is power and where there is not.

"We also train the students in limited fault-finding," he said.

Campetti explained that the need for the panels was realised soon after an associate within the consultancy had defined the content for the new LV training course.

"We began with improvised visits to sub-stations while we made approaches to several companies to help us build the panels.

"When Moeller Electric asked for drawings, we submitted four and requested help with one, but Moeller Electric built and donated all four," Campetti said.

According to José Ruivo, director for sales and marketing at Moeller Electric, the donation followed logically from the company's commitment to industry training as a whole.

The company last year partnered with Northlink College in the Western Cape to design and equip a training facility for formal courses in PLC technology and its applications.

"We recognised the effectiveness of Dario's mine safety programmes, and were glad we could contribute," Ruivo said.

Dario Campetti & Associates is a small and tightly focused consultancy providing specialist electrical consulting services and competency training to mining and industrial clients.

Clients include BHP Billiton, Xstrata Coal and Exxaro.

The consulting arm of the business focuses on reticulation and substation design for opencast and underground coal mining operations, on power engineering, instrumentation, automation and control engineering, explosion protected apparatus for underground mines, and on medium voltage indoor and outdoor substation design.

Project management, safety compliance audits and risk assessments are also undertaken.

The low voltage training on mine safety procedures and practice is one of several programmes run by the consultancy.

Other training covers medium voltage reticulation, electrical protection, electrical explosion-protected apparatus, and underground transformers with neutral earthing restriction panels.

All training is undertaken on site at the mines.

PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Low voltage panel built and donated by Moeller Electric to consulting engineers Dario Campetti & Associates are (left to right) José Ruivo, director sales & marketing at Moeller Electric, Dario Campetti and associate Willy Ashwell, both of Dario Campetti & Associates.

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