Electric Gate Wiring Question?

[Deuce]

I’m confused why no one said to change the LO (logic) of the board from A (Automatic) to EP (Semi Automatic Set by step). Means automatic closing time will be turned off and the only way to shut the gates will be by remote or what ever is in the start input, no wiring needed. Also don’t mess around with gates if you don’t know what you doing, as soon as you work on that gate you are responsible for that gate. Stupid I know but that is what I was told by HS bloke on my DHF course.

I'm not at all an electric gate expert.. but I get what you're saying from other firms of automation. The OP was stuck at the principal of latching though so.. not the right person for this particular job.

To pick up on the last thing, about liability, that kinda thing does get said a lot. And to an extent it's true. If a spark replaced a plastic CU with another plastic one, and there was a resulting fire then it would be their problem - even though it was a like for like replacement and they had done nothing to increase risk.

But in more general cases, you can't just send a chap to court and it be a foregone conclusion it was all their fault simply because they were the last person that worked on it. If it can be proved the fault occurred due to something they had not interfered with, or was an inherent design fault, they would quite rightly walk away. Or I'm reality such scrutiny would probably reveal something minor they hadn't got quite right, and they would get a fine.

But as an example.. if I design an electric gate control that relies upon sensors to detect if it's safe to close the gate, but fail to build in failsafe for a damaged/missing sensor, then I would have created a dangerous potential situation. If between me doing that, and someone's car getting hit, you happened to come along and work on it, it wouldn't be very tough in court for an expert to point to the real reason the claim arose. In the end, in almost all cases, it's the person that caused or chose to maintain the danger in the first place. There is just so much fear and caution around H&S these days that instructors make sweeping, simplified statements to both scare you into not taking risks and also to cover themselves.

At the end of the day, I follow my own rule. If I know it's safe, be useful and do the work. But if I don't have sufficient knowledge to be certain that my work won't undermine existing safety measures, I won't do it.

 

[Average Installer]

With gate automation it is a complete mess at the moment and most of it is not clear but for your example....

I will change it slightly as gates hitting cars are not a issue it’s more gates hitting humans is the issue.

If you was called out to a job with a defective photocell, you will need to carry out a RISK ASSESSMENT on the gates to see whether there is any crushing or shearing points in the current gates, if there is a issue, you need to turn system off, notify the customer of why and how you turned off the gates and give them a report of why the gates are unsafe and how to make them safe. Failing to do so could put you in a predicament, as in a event of some one getting injured or killed. All parties that have worked on that gate (I’m guessing via invoices and what not) will be looked at, even tho you didn’t design the gate but only fixed a issue with the gate, they would investigate you because you didn’t bring it to the attention of the customer, you could of prevented something from happening and because of that you could be prosecuted.

Best practise for anyone who haven’t been on the course and know about safety, DONT TOUCH GATES. It really is not worth the hassle

 

[Deuce]

With gate automation it is a complete mess at the moment and most of it is not clear but for your example....

I will change it slightly as gates hitting cars are not a issue it’s more gates hitting humans is the issue.

If you was called out to a job with a defective photocell, you will need to carry out a RISK ASSESSMENT on the gates to see whether there is any crushing or shearing points in the current gates, if there is a issue, you need to turn system off, notify the customer of why and how you turned off the gates and give them a report of why the gates are unsafe and how to make them safe. Failing to do so could put you in a predicament, as in a event of some one getting injured or killed. All parties that have worked on that gate (I’m guessing via invoices and what not) will be looked at, even tho you didn’t design the gate but only fixed a issue with the gate, they would investigate you because you didn’t bring it to the attention of the customer, you could of prevented something from happening and because of that you could be prosecuted.

Best practise for anyone who haven’t been on the course and know about safety, DONT TOUCH GATES. It really is not worth the hassle

I was thinking more along the lines of: A gate either configured poorly or poorly maintained is potentially dangerous for years, but like most potential dangers nothing bad actually occurs.. but then one day it starts regularly tripping the circuit, so eventually a spark is called in. Said spark identifies the gate as the issue, pulls the cover on control box and spots a poor quality/deteriorated termination on the supply as an obvious cause of tripping. Upon cutting back and re-terminating and test, the circuit is all good. It'll probably be the 200th time this guy has opened up some sort of outdoor enclosure and discovered and corrected some form of bad connection.

All this spark knows about the general operation of the gate is that the customer would have stated "it worked perfectly the other day then started tripping each time it was activated" or similar.

But of course, what's really happened is the unwitting spark has just re-instated a dangerous piece of equipment. Conventional belief is that alone makes it 'his fault'. But when the claim is examined it's not going to take very much exploration to uncover the real reason it was operating dangerously, and that it was entirely unrelated to what the spark did. The court won't conclude it's one person's fault based on them being there last, if it is uncovered that someone else previously bypassed a troublesome sensor years ago, and that was what ultimately caused the accident. It would be very different if the last person was another gate engineer who failed to test functions upon correcting the known fault, as they have a duty as an expert. Or for example if there was a big sticker on the box "this box controls moving machinery and must only be serviced by a qualified engineer" etc, then anyone who doesn't know what they're doing would be wise to turn away.

I appreciate it doesn't always play out the way common sense might suggest. But in the end logic and reason are applied to apportion blame to the correct parties.

 

[Average Installer]

Read the attached and see what you think? I wouldn’t say you would go to prison but if you turned the gates off then put them back into action again, technically your putting unsafe gate back into action again.

 

[Deuce]

Read the attached and see what you think? I wouldn’t say you would go to prison but if you turned the gates off then put them back into action again, technically your putting unsafe gate back into action again.

View attachment 48156

I would say in my example it would ultimately fall to the person responsible for the gate to ensure its safe. In the end, if they haven't bothered and then instruct a spark to restore power then it's the owner/operators liability.

I instructed probably 50 different sparks last year to provide power to equipment they couldn't begin to assess for operational safety, not without taking a week off to familiarise themselves.. if the person in charge says it's safe, there is little else to do other than believe them - unless it's obviously unsafe at a glance.

That document speaks of the owner/responsible person. It is that person's job to ensure its safe to operate, sparky is just there to supply the power.

It's not as black and white as 'last person that touched it'. Last person that configured it would have a responsibilty to check its functions in entity however. As you were being trained to install/setup, that would apply to you. It's the owners job by default, but if you make any changes after its certified you would take responsibility for those changes and any knock on effect. Which is why I assume you would be expected to test thoroughly before handing back to the owners care.

 

[Average Installer]

And like I said, it's a complete mess.

So the sparky fixed the issue with the mains, but the mains had for some odd reason broken the safety edge controller (This would be very rare but being killed in a gate is also rare) without sparky knowing, they didn't test the edges but just checked if the gate goes backwards and forwards. It was working perfectly before, as maintenance company performed force test and risk assessment and passed with flying colours only couple weeks before.

The maintenance company had made sure that was safe by installing the correct amount of edges, hinge protection and the control panel is up to current standards. The equipment being used is of good quality and are up to standards (not cheap Chinese crap).

Maintenance can cover there back by saying they left the gate in working order, with proof from FT, RA and maintenance report. Sparky tho didn't test the gate correctly, by powering the gate back up they have put a gate back into action that is unsafe.

To reverse the situation the safety edges where linked out from the safety controller (this happens quiet a lot) and maintenance company had picked this up but needed to get a part, but put gate back in to operation then I would think electrician would be fine in this situation but once again he/she have to leave the gates off as they are unsafe once they repaired the fault with the mains.

Like I said before, repair the fault, isolate the power to the gates make a note or video that you have done this, show the customer how you turned the power off and say you need gate company to come out and look at the gates and notify them the gates are unsafe. If they turned the gates back on then it would be there responsibility for doing so.

It is not worth the hassle. There is loads of situations that could happen, but best action no matter what is, not to put gates back in action.