Why is American standard switchgear expensive

When it comes to the price of American standard switchgear, everyone thinks it's particularly expensive. It doesn't look anything special, it's similar to domestic switchgear, and some are not as beautiful as domestic switchgear.

So why isn't it beautiful and expensive? As the saying goes, steamed buns have meat but not on the folds, and there is food in the belly but not on the mouth. This is a true portrayal of American standard distribution equipment.

Domestic switchgear is claimed to meet the requirements of internal arc faults and can resist them, while about half of American standard medium voltage armored switchgear customers do not require an internal arc fault level.

However, in reality, there are almost no domestic switchgear that can successfully pass internal arc fault tests using engineering project products. However, American standard customers do not require internal arc fault capability. They improve reliability by requiring the most basic insulation material of the product to be resistant to electrical traces. Auxiliary switch contacts are silver plated, busbar epoxy resin is fluidized with full insulation treatment, NEMA 1 (IP2X) protection level is improved, and ventilation and air convection inside the switchgear are reduced to avoid temperature rise and condensation. RELT reduces the allowable current requirements to avoid internal arc faults caused by human factors. These are all scientific and accurate safety measures.

The environmental and operational requirements for the installation location of NEC standard switches ensure that the likelihood of internal arc faults occurring in the switchgear is extremely low. The safety and reliability of the product itself, as well as a good external installation environment, are important guarantees. The product itself has high requirements, but the operation and maintenance environment is poor. Even switch equipment with high standards cannot guarantee that internal arc faults will not occur.

I've said a lot before, but it also means that American standard switchgear does not have low requirements, it's just that there are some things you can't see. According to the IEEE C37.20.2 standard, the epoxy resin material that has passed the insulation material resistance and flame retardant V0 tests is 3-5 times more expensive than ordinary materials, which means it costs 60-100 yuan per kilogram. The weight of epoxy resin for a contact box is generally 3 kilograms, and the cost is close to 300 yuan. However, the price of conventional contact boxes in China is only a few tens of yuan. The total cost of a switchgear with 6 contact boxes, 6 insulators, 3 wall bushings, and 3 circuit breaker poles increases by 5000 yuan.

The American standard UL certified auxiliary switch contacts are required to be silver plated with gold. The more contacts there are, the higher the price. A 5NO/5NC auxiliary switch costs over 1000 yuan, which is more than 10 times the price of our commonly used switches.

Copper bars are used in large quantities, which is based on the requirement of low temperature rise upper limit of American standard switchgear. Whether it is the connection of copper bars or the contact points, the temperature rise upper limit is 10k lower than the national standard. What does this mean? The heating of copper bars is inversely proportional to their cross-sectional area. As the heating increases, the temperature decreases by 13% from 75k to 65k. Therefore, the cross-sectional area required for current carrying copper bars needs to increase by 13%. Currently, the price of copper bars remains high, with a low-voltage 4000A switchgear bare copper bar costing over 30000 yuan. An increase of 13% would result in nearly 5200 yuan.

The cabinet is made of 3mm thick steel plate bent and formed, and the thickness of the partitions between all compartments is greater than or equal to 3mm. The 600 hour salt spray test for painting is a huge cost increase.

above 👆 What is said is basic, but the certification fees, annual inspection fees, and other huge expenses of North American UL, CSA, ETL, etc. all need to be paid. Imported circuit breakers, transformers, and other components with North American certification are even more expensive, and the key is that they are difficult to procure, which will increase the cost of producing American standard switchgear domestically.

Since we want to export to the North American market, we need to produce products in accordance with North American standards, respect standards and market rules, and not use the game rules of domestic switchgear to compete. Low prices, lack of integrity and other vicious competition will ultimately result in a painful price.