Inverting electrical panel 180 degrees?

No allowance for room in the box (consumed volume for heat dissipation maybe, and room for wiring) to run the feeds from bottom to top. Maybe also insufficient room in the box to properly radius the bends.

Dave

Dave said it right--jes beat me to it! Jerry

stryped fired this volley in news:47e3d947-8830- snipped-for-privacy@z24g2000yqb.googlegroups.com:

You've asked a lot of what we thought were dumb questions before, Stryper.

This pretty much kicks it.

LLoyd

To me, this is a question from a noob who realizes there is a reason, does not know the reason, and would like to know the reason. Dumb, to me, would be just ignoring the instructions and doing it the wrong way.

Dave

True enough, as far as it goes -- but IMHO "dumb" also includes the inability to figure things out on one's own. It should have been clear with even five seconds' reflection that the farther the main breakers are from the point at which the conductors enter the box, the more difficult it would be to install them. The other considerations which Dave listed (bending space, etc) are less obvious, but the difficulty of installation should have been plain had the OP given the matter *any* thought at all.

XR650L_Dave fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@q5g2000yqh.googlegroups.com:

reason,

You obviously aren't familiar with Stryped and his questions.

Of course, by my giving it away ahead of time, he'll demurr, but the next question he'd likely ask would be, "If I bottom feed it, but don't invert the box, will I have to bend any wires?"... or some such.

This isn't Noobee stuff, it's "do my thinking for me, so I don't have to" stuff.

I wish he were installing 4-0 mains; then he'd answer his own question real quick!

LLoyd

Jeez guys, give the man a break. Stupid is not asking question because you "think" you know all the answers. I have seen hundreds of panels fed from the bottom with a top main. If someone sees instructions to the contrary, there is no harm in them making sure they understand "all" the possible reasons why, regardless of their level of experience.

Won't hurt a thing though.

The new rules require that you don't have to bend the wires much before landing them on the main lugs or main breaker "Line" side. They want them to have a straight shot at the lugs.

As a practical matter, if you have enough wire in the can to bring the feeders up and around to the line lugs at the top of the can, install it right side up. If the feeder wires are going to end up too short to get to the top of the new can, then you can go through the hassle of inverting the guts.

But whether you invert the can or not you always want to find a way to make a loop or S-turn wiggle to leave some working slack in the can

- You can cut that wire a dozen times, and it'll still be too short.

When a line lug or main breaker lug goes bad it inevitably overheats the wire too, you always have a few inches of crispy wire that has to be trimmed back. With conduit in the walls you can always re-run the feeders when they get too short, but if you have Feeder Cable in the walls re-running it to get some slack is a huge mess.

You NEVER want to make the wires banjo-tight just to save a foot or two of wire, be nice and leave some slack in each can to work with - because the next guy that has to work on it might be you.

-->--

I refer you to Lloyd's response to Dave upthread: you obviously aren't familiar with Stryped and his questions. We see the same sort of questions over on rec.woodworking, too, from the same guy.

And, presumably, they were listed for such use, and were not accompanied by instructions to the contrary.

Maybe I misread the original post, but it sure didn't read to me like he was interested in finding out why. Looked more to me like he wanted someone to tell him it was ok to mount it the way he wanted to, regardless of the instructions.

Wrong. Installing the equipment in a manner contrary to the manufacturer's instructions is a Code violation. You have no idea if there's enough space in that can to bend the wires for a bottom-feed, top-breaker installation. The manufacturer *does*. And the manufacturer says don't do that.

Wrong. Altering the equipment in any manner not explicitly provided for in the manufacturer's instructions is a Code violation.

Please post your question here:

alt.engineering.electrical

In Canada, panels are split by a divider into the main breaker and the branch circuit sections. It is against code to run the main feed through the branch circuit section or vice versa, so unless you want to bring the cable up the side and over and down you must invert the panel.

In the US, local codes may vary.

However in Canada, you may mount the panel sideways which is much more sensible. This is against code in the US (so far).

So, check your local codes.

I'm familiar with Stryped's questions. His is building a shop and attempting to do a lot of things himself. So what?

If you don't want to answer his questions, just skip it, like all the political nonsense posted here. At least it's a question, and not a statement, and everyone that reads the discussion can benefit from it, if they don't already know all the answers.

The one thing he's *not* attempting to do himself is *think*.

Away into the turd file

Gunner

Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do something damned nasty to all three of them.

What's the problem, Doug? Did somebody piss on your Cheerios today?

You appear to have a great deal of trouble treating others with respect. If you can't say something nice about others, maybe you should learn to keep your yap shut.

Harold

Nope, just people who expect others to do all their thinking for them. Review Stryped's posting history here and in rec.woodworking for multiple examples.

Lloyd has been even less kind to Stryped than I was -- I'm waiting for you to direct similar comments to him too.

snipped-for-privacy@milmac.com (Doug Miller) fired this volley in news:h7dqk9$ai5 $ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

True. I spent hours of thought and typing trying early-on to help him, only to discover he didn't want _help_, he wanted us to _do_ every job for him by remote control.

So, call it an earned right to criticize.

I wish him every failure. Before you condemn me for writing that, consider: That's how we all learned to do things right. He's not going to ever learn anything unless he jumps off his crutches (us), and starts making some mistakes on his own.

LLoyd