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What's Wrong Here?

Apr 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Joe Tedesco, NEC Columnist

Our April winners had lots of violations to point out on this panel. Congratulations to the following three readers, who correctly identified the problems with this installation: Dennis St. Clair, electrical inspector, St. Louis County, Mo.; Bill Gallus, electrician, Johnstown, Pa.; and Jason G. Thomas, project manager, Philadelphia Schools Improvement Team, Philadelphia.

The list of Code violations includes:

• The grounded conductor is not identified per 200.6(A).

• The neutral is not in the conduit with the feeders [215.4(B)].

• The conductors are not protected from abrasion (312.5).

• Cables entering the panelboard enclosure (cabinet) are not properly secured [312.5(C)].

• The cabinet has a number of unused openings that are not adequately closed [312.5(A)].

• The ungrounded conductor terminated on breaker space No. 13 is not properly identified as distinguishable from grounded and grounding conductors [310.12(C)].

• The raceways are not in complete runs [300.18(A)].

• The small transformer appears to be a Class 2 power source. If so, the secondary conductors cannot be located in the same cabinet or enclosure as the light and power conductors [725.55(A)].

• With the exception of one bare copper conductor visibly connected to the equipment grounding bus, no equipment grounding conductors are visible for any of the connected branch circuits. Given the other apparent violations, I would also question the integrity of the continuity of the metallic raceway running between the feeder and the MLO panel (250.110).

• The conductors that appear to be serving branch circuits consisting of other than single-phase, line-to-neutral loads — and the OCPDs protecting them — require identified handle ties to simultaneously open all ungrounded conductors [240.20(B) and 240.20(B)(1)].

• If this is a service disconnect, it features more than six switches [230.71(A)].

There was also more than one conductor terminated on a single breaker, no insulated bushing on the line side feeders or color identification on the line side feeder, stranded wire entering the panel with no connector, and improperly set or sealed conduit bodies below the panel.

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