ITE Breaker Reverse Engineering
Retrofit circuit breaker that produced some unique challenges due to its size and unusual racking mechanism.
Problem
A Siemens client needed this breaker replaced and upgraded, but it had a very unique racking mechanism that would need to be replicated on the new retrofitted breaker.
solution
Another intern and I were responsible for retrofitting this breaker. For reference, this breaker was probably 8 feet tall and about as heavy as a car. To start, we had to disassemble the breaker without damaging it (it was a rental) and remove the racking mechanism. This alone was a few days worth of work. Once that was complete, we modeled each part and reverse-engineered it. We then modified one of the existing Siemens breakers to fit in the same space as the old breaker and designed a new sheet metal frame. The racking mechanism was recreated with updated parts but still had to function the same way as the old one. After completing the model of the new breaker, we re-assembled the rental and created drawings for each of the new parts we modeled.
