×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

(OP)
Is there any commonly accepted formal word to denote the followings:

- Protection Relay or Protectiove Relay or others?
- Relay Engineer, or Power Protection Engineer or Protection Engineer.. what else?
- Operate time or tripping time or operating time or what more?
- Starting signal, start signal or pick-up signal or?

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Well, a quite difficult question!! winky smile

- I feel that "Protective relay" could be more sophisticate. Anyway "Protection relay" is quite common

- I like Protection engineer....

- Both tripping and operating time are quite common.

- I would prefer starting signal ("pick up" signal seems to me to be more for old electromechanical relays...)

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

hmmm...never came across starting signal for a relay. Pick-up still makes more sense. There is nothing to be started in the relay, imho.

I would think (not sure) tripping time would include both relay operating time plus the breaker opertating time??


RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Protection Engineer, working with protective relays.  Relay time plus breaker time = clearing time.  Relay pick-up occurs when a measured parameter crosses the setting threshold - exceeds for most parameters, but falls below for 27 and 81U.  Start is generally reserved for starting timers after an element has picked up - often used in relation to starting zone 2 and higher timers for distance relays.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Agree with David - for once we use similar terminology on both sides of the pond.
 

----------------------------------
  
If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

(OP)
"Protection Engineer, working with protective relays."
It sounds good, but....should I write this on by business card?

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

My title has occasionally been "That @&#^!! consultant that installed that $^(#^#! black box that keeps tripping the @#$#% plant off"

old field guy

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

I hear you oldfieldguy! Thanks for the laugh.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

to oldfieldguy, i haven't had a good laugh for the last couple of weeks. looks like i'm a nut laughing alone. it's the best medicine!

What's in a name? others would like to glamorize their calling. To me it does not matter.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

On a business card I would write 'Protection Engineer'. People who work in the industry will know what you do.
 

----------------------------------
  
If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Hello.
I would like ask several Q's about used terms:
PE, what is this ? protection eng. or principle eng.
What is a difference. Protection eng, status request some additional education, some Lisenced.
Scotty, What is a your status: Chartered EE? Its request some special education? Lisenced?
I aks it becouse we used only one term EE, its all and add with protection specilisation.
I also see some term Protection Technican, what is this?
Thank you for your help.
Regards.
Slava.
About terms: If David and Scotty agree, I havent additional Qs. Now its clear for me.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

PE, as used in the US, is Professional Engineer (licensed by the state); has nothing to do with protection.  My business card has PE after my name because I am a PE and has my title as Protection Engineer because that is what I do.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Scotty-

If you write "Protection Engineer" on your card, then you hand it to somebody, and his face lights up, you'll know you're dealing with somebody with at least a passing understanding of what you do.  If the demeanor changes to a look of confusion, well, then you've run into somebody belonging to the other 99.98% of the world...

Slava,

"protection engineer" is not the "PE" of professional engineer or principal engineer.  In this day, though, there are too many specialty areas under the umbrella of "electrical engineer".  I know too any "EE's" who know NOTHING about power systems at the industrial and utility level.  They did concentrations on slectronics and microprocessor technology.  They're still EE's, though.

A "protection technician" is one who is knowledgeable in the field of installing, commissioning, testing and troubleshooting protective relay systems.  The guys I had working for me could be expected to look at drawings and point out incorrect circuits such as CT's and PT's, controls that may not work as per conventional practice and could perform tests on all the components int eh system, from the instrument transformers to the relays and the control circuits associated with them.

Good protection technicians are hard to find.  There are a lot of guys out there who can do the "cockbook" tests but they do not do well when things don't work correctly.

It's a tough field.

old field guy

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

David,Thanks a lot for the explanation.
Regards.
Slava

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Thanks a lot, Old field guy too.
From time to time, Im at not some simpatic situation: Someone give me buisness card and I didnt understand what he do: MSDE, PE and etc..
Thanks again.
Regards.
Slava

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

(OP)
Protection engineer sounds like you are a "technical body guard".

Also the english word "engineer" is well inflationated, so I have decided to remove it from my card. M SC etc. ... I also prefer to avoid them, because one question is enough to understand who you have in front of you, without business card.



RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

(OP)
In the IEC technical dictionary, regarding tripping time, it is clearly written that the correct word is Operate Time.
Operating time is something else, which has nothing to do with relay protection, and that don't remember.


RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

slavag,

Yes, I am a chartered engineer (C.Eng) registered with the UK's Engineering Council. It is broadly the equivalent of the P.E. in the USA, although our government doesn't see the need to license engineers in this country. C.Eng doesn't denote which field of electrical engineering I work in, just that I have reached a certain level of experience and knowledge in my chosen field and have passed certain exams and met certain criteria.

I'm not a protection engineer, but I know the specific types of protection we use within the generation industry pretty well through years of commissioning, maintenance, fixing other people's mistakes, and occasionally some limited design too. On a major design job I will buy in help.

I lack the breadth of knowledge of a true protection engineer - for example I'm less than confident about distance protection although I understand how it works, so you will rarely see me comment on transmission system protection. Pure protection engineers are becoming a very rare breed in the UK, and those that we have are getting old.

OldFieldGuy,

It's the 0.02% that matter - the others won't value what they don't understand, and some fancy title won't cure that problem.
 

----------------------------------
  
If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

What do your wives say when someone asks what her husband does? Mine gave up, now she justs makes stuff up.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

(OP)
They don't even know what we do .... She doesn't know what I do. I tried to explain her... mission impossible.
The best is this: I come back from work, at home everything is black. My wife is angry and looks at the "box" (the box with the MCB). She says: the problem is in that fu....g box, this fu.....g "lever" that anytime I'll try to pull it up, it comes down again, It doesn't want to staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay up! (by pulling up the "lever"....).
Try to tell her that "sometimes", when the relay trips, it is because there is a fault. Now we search for it... .we disconnect all equipments from any plug, then try to pull up. It says.
And she: but now nothing works here!
Ok, one by one we put back everything till the "lever" goes down.
It was the washing machine. It took one half an hour.

Mirror this in your real life: how many times it has happened?





RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Folks. I asked those Qs, not for understand who are you.
On the forum it's clear and we don't need any titels.
I have really problem, several cards with titels and I don't know what are mean. Its all.
And now I don't understand something other:
David, if you start work at another state, you need get licensed again????. Its crazy!!!!!
Regards.
Slava.
I have other problem, my wife know exactly what I do and know lot of my clients according to night phonessmile

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

(OP)
Slavag,
I think this thread is funny actually. Relay Engineers have always the "complex" that they are not able to explain to other people what they do. I don't try to explain it anymore. I say that I do those long lines for transferring the energy, and I usually can point at them.
People say "oohhhh! ahhhh". They are happy, me to.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Yep; I am licensed in three states, but don't actually need it for this job, and at this point I anticipate retiring from here at the beginning of 2027.  I may never stamp anything again, but I will certainly maintain at least two of the licenses.  My first license is the only one that is based on the exam, all subsequent licenses are by reciprocity based on having the first one; if it expires or is revoked all others based on that one also go away.  I'd also keep the one for the state I live and work in.  The third state is in the same metropolitan area so I'll probably hang on to that one also.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

smile, smile.
I say other: yes Im EE for high voltage and protection. They say, yes plugs and plug-in-socket. I say yes, but bigger size and big MCBs.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

My wife tells people I stop substations from blowing up.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

(OP)
I am amazed by the fact that you have succeeded in telling/explaining your wives what you do.
I'll ask my wife what she knows about my job, I am getting curios.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

My wife just tells everyone that I am a "techno-geek" and they usually lose interest (as well as she does). She does understand that it is "something like the surge protector that your computer is connected to......just for the power lines."

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Oh Folks.
Are this Forum not enough for yousmile? We need discuss with wife about EEwinky smile too?
Only one solution, "next time" we'll marage to EE women smile.

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

Exactly, Slava, like me. My wife is EE -(Electrical Mashines, not Power systems). No problem to explain why next week I will be somewhere there up to 12 pm, because some station will be energized.winky smile

------------------------
It may be like this in theory and practice, but in real life it is completely different.
The favourite sentence of my army sergeant

RE: Protection Relay or Protective Relay or something else?

(OP)
Ok, I have asked now...

"Do you know which job I do"?
"You are engineer"
"Ok, but what do I do? Bridges? Water pipes? Gas ducts? Boats?"
"no, you do electrical lines"
"what, more exactly?"
"The protections"
"What is a protection?"
"They trip/trigger when there is a fault"

Unbelievable, she new it

(but then she said that I have told her, some times ago. I didn't remember that"


Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources