ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Can Anyone Explain This?

That is a utility meter position.

In this area 480 metering is cold sequence and there is a disconnect ahead of this meter in the equipment out of site to the left.

That is not the face, it is the side of a service switch gear.

The service switch gear, and panel where existing, the Meter socket and disconect are the only added equipment.

The feed was for a store in a plaza, the original space was cut in half and needed it's own meter and service.

[This message has been edited by iwire (edited 06-12-2004).]

In the first pic, isn't that panel on the switchgear which has the disconnect ko'd into supposed to be accessible/removeable??? It almost looks like the utility feeders enter into the gear behind there judging by what looks like wingnuts holding these panels on instead of the "black screws"!

-Randy

An oldie but a goodie.

Jeez Bob! You could have warned me! I just shot coffee out of my nose here! You owe me a new monitor!

Being carefull not to criticize anyone else's work here...I would like to talk about the phasing of the conductors. There is a considerable amount of wraps for each of the ungrounded conductors. No doubt what's what at the lugs, but throughout both cans there is no other form of I.D for each individual phase. Now me for ex, I have always made six nice wraps down and six wraps up at the termination points. Then, every foot or so, re-phase each conductor with one wrap of tape, contiuing this procedure up to where the conductors enter whatever raceway. This works especially well when you have multiple parallel feeds coming in and out of gear,ats equipment etc. Instead of having a bunch of "black" conductors, you are left with a good idea of what is and what isnt.

Why would anyone need to know what phase a condutor is other than at a terminal?

Good question iwire, and one I have wondered myself also. When I first seen this type of phasing method, I didn't understand why either, but after talking with my "fearless" foreman at that time these explainations were given to me. One theory is if a person needed to check ampere readings with an amprobe for a certain phase, being that if the cables are in a can at somepoint past the breaker. I think the main thing was to just be able to identify phases other than at a breaker or term' points. I guess it just depends on what the boss wants.

From what it looks like, a retail store only needed 4 maybe 20A 277V circuits? Maybe for lighting, but wouldn't it be logical to see a 3 phase circuit to a transformer coming from the customers panel to supply 120/208V loads? Seems a bit tedious if they metered that separately from someplace else.

Looking even closer, it appears that their are 2 sets of 3 phases coming from the disconnect, one loops around between the 2 couplings and into the line side of the meter base, the other one passes into the panel, takes the NJ Turnpike, crosses into Philadelphia, and then back around to the 2nd coupling to go up where a riser would typically be in the meter can. I'm still attempting to figure out where the panels neutral comes from... Baltimore maybe?

The photo eye and timer present kinda lead me to believe this might've been (or is for all I know) a house panel for some facade of other type of outdoor lighting.

I guess the $64K question is, where is the "riser" conduit going???

Here's my guess.

Someone ran a conduit from the Disconnect Switch to the bottom half of the meter socket. THEN noticed (or were told by the Utility) that the lugs at the top that said "LINE" were where they needed to connect the LINE connectors to (DUH!). They saw that there was no way to run the conductors from the bottom to the LINE lugs and, rather than throw out a new meter enclosure, decided to run them to the top of the meter enclosure through a "detour" through the panel.

Looking at the conductors closely, they come through the enclosure, into the panel, into the enclosure and terminate on the LINE lugs of the meter socket. The conductors from the LOAD lugs head into the panel, and the C phase one was so long that it needed to be bent like a hairpin to fit properly.