The exam's biggest topic: Protection

Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum

Help Support Professional Engineer & PE Exam Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I used Graffeo - studied  for two weeks. Walked in the exam with that and the NCEES handbook and got a 90. TX gives scores. Would not recommend bringing too many specific protection references into the exam. The art science of protective relaying is a good book, may want to check out Buff Book™— IEEE STD 242™-2001, Recommended Practice for Protection and Coordination of Industrial and Commercial Power Systems. 

Do you do arc flash or coordination studies at work?
I do not do either at work, so it likely means more resources are warranted on my part.  Coupled with the fact that Protection now makes up a much larger proportion of the exam and it's probably appropriate that I walk in equipped with the extra stuff in Blackburn.

You didn't even take the NEC in to the exam?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I do not do either at work, so it likely means more resources are warranted on my part.  Coupled with the fact that Protection now makes up a much larger proportion of the exam and it's probably appropriate that I walk in equipped with the extra stuff in Blackburn.

You didn't even take the NEC in to the exam?
I wouldn't be too worried about not having either arc flash experience or coordination experience... just know the general idea behind coordination (you want close in to the fault to clear first then upstream in radial cases) Know the big ANSI Device codes (50/51/27/59/79/81/21 etc.). know how to read a DC schematic, and know how a differential relay works.

that should cover +95% of what they will ask on the test.

also... and I can't stress this enough: Bring a copy of the NEC. There is only one person I've ever heard of passing without it, and it was the craziest thing I had ever heard.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
As popular as Blackburn's book is on relaying, I'm having a difficult time reading through it.  In particular I was looking for information on distance relays and tabbed one particular section so I could go back to it.  I didn't understand it.  I just read section 1.8 in the pdf you shared and the author breaks it down perfectly.  Simple explanations in plain English.  We haven't covered protection yet in the live online class I'm taking (but there's an entire section of protection to review/study on the online course), but I'm sure I'll be reading this document before the class.  Thanks for sharing!

 
Guys, 

If it is a printable book , especially one with 300-600 pages etc, do you like go through it and only take the pages you think might be useful and put that in your binder? That way you are not bombed with so much information that you get overwhelmed and can't find the stuff you need during the exam. Also some people have mentioned about PPI notes. Where can you get those notes?  Is that something available to buy or you get those when you sign up for the review course with PPI?  

 

Latest posts

Back
Top