ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Article 525-Carnivals, Circuses, Fairs etc

If this is a 525 or 527 application, GFCI or an assured equipment grounding program is required. An assured equipment grounding program would be almost impossible to implement for the application, that only leaves GFCI protection.
The code could use some clarification in this type of installation. Doc has correctly made the point that the change in 520 was indented to apply to large traveling shows, but that is not what the words in the definition of "performance area" say. You can make a case to apply 520, 525 or 527 to the application. Two of these would require GFCI protection.
Don

Don-

I agree. After reading my Mcgraw-Hill's NEC Handbook it seemed quite apparent that GFCI protection was required on the 240V, 50A receptacle. My NFPA NEC Handbook didn't touch on it with any commentary. 525.23(C)

Frank

Heck Frank,
You don't have anything to be sorry for. If you would have been more specific, we wouldn't have had anything to talk about. I love this forum because we come from all over the country, and even the world, and we can help each other solve problems.

An example of something that I learned from this thread is reading the ROP's, and ROC's. I've never really paid attention to them, but Don mentioned them in one of his posts, and I can tell you that Ol' Doc will be reading them in the future.

Thanks to all. Frank, I think you have made your decision to go with GFI protection (you can't go wrong by using GFI's), and I would "chalk" this up as another successful thread.

Regards,
Doc

Doc,
The ROPs and ROCs are great tools for trying to understand what the words really mean. I have copies back to the '84 code cycle and often look at them to answer some of the questions on the forums. Anyone who makes a proposal will automatically get a copy of the ROP and those making comments will get a copy of the ROC. They are also available to anyone on request (either paper or CD) as well as being on line. Remember that all proposals for the 2005 code must be received by the NFPA prior to 5PM, November 1, 2002.
Don

This 2005 NEC Proposal form can be found in the back of the 2002 NEC, or you can print it out here.

http://www.nfpa.org/PDF/NEC2005ProposalForm.pdf?src=necdigest

This has been an interesting and well-supported :-} exchange to follow. [Darn Crazy Internet Fad…]

Devil's advocate for a moment—What kind of hazards could be created with this PA-system outage? Would its loss generate a potential hazard/panic situation or otherwise become a critical issue?

There are PA-type systems used for facility-wide verbal emergency-egress instructions, but they are supervised [characteristics of the electrical circuits to various peripheral devices are continuously monitored for readiness and centrally alarmed.]

So it is unlikely that with dissimilarly conceived and engineered portable systems—primarily intended for entertainment applications—havw no intent of contingency operation. Although this may someday be the case, {and even routine or mandatory} the portable would not seem to qualify as, or serve a parallel function to that of a fixed system installed for the purpose.