MCC Safe Isolation Simulator: Practise in a Free 3D Switchroom

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Safe isolation of an MCC bucket, in your browser

A motor control centre, or MCC, is a row of cabinets that each feed a motor. Each cabinet has a drawer called a bucket. Before anyone works on the motor or the bucket, it must be isolated safely, in the right order. The free Substation and MCC lab lets you practise that order in a 3D switchroom, in your browser.

The video above shows one full isolation. Here are the steps.

The order matters

Safe isolation is a sequence, and the sequence exists for a reason. If you do a step too early, you can put yourself or others at risk. The lab checks the order for you. If you take a step before you should, it is refused and counted against you, so you learn by feeling the cost of a mistake with nothing real at stake.

Step 1: stop the motor

You start by stopping the motor from its normal control. You never break load by opening an isolator on a running motor, so the first job is to bring the machine to a stop.

Step 2: open the isolator

Once the motor has stopped, you open the isolator so that the bucket is cut off from its supply.

Step 3: withdraw the bucket

Next you withdraw the bucket from the cabinet. This creates a visible, physical gap in the supply, which is stronger than a switch position alone.

Step 4: fit your padlock

You then fit your own padlock so that nobody else can put the supply back while you are working. This is the lock part of lockout and tagout, and it is personal: it stays with the person doing the work.

Step 5: prove dead

Last, you prove that the equipment is dead by testing it. You never assume. You test, then you confirm, and only then is the job safe to start.

Why a 3D switchroom helps

Reading an isolation procedure is easy to forget. Walking through it in a switchroom, with real-style equipment in front of you, makes the sequence stick. It is practice for the procedure, not a replacement for the site rules and training that apply where you work.

Open the Substation and MCC lab and try the isolation yourself. It is free to try.

After isolation

When you are comfortable with this job, move on to the panel lab to practise proving dead with a multimeter on a control panel, and to the PLC lab to see how a motor is started by a program.

See what other learners have finished on the learner wins page.