Herb Porter's page link ...... http://www.hpelectricalconnection.com/

Fixed by JT



[This message has been edited by Joe Tedesco (edited 01-16-2003).]

joe....help me out here...is that a bare ground wire i see on the gfci circuit breaker i see.right side 2nd from the bottom.

maybe someone hook up the gfci cb wrong and thats the reason for all the overheated neutrals?????

Hi Joe;
There are several things I notice about this pic.; 1) unless I'm not looking at the pic correctly, there don't appear to be any romex connectors securing the cables to the box in the bottom of the picture (except for the large center one, of course), 2)There are lots of cables crammed into a few small KO's, and 3) while not really important, the pic. appears to be upside down (notice the dust on the interior surface where the main conductors enter).

There are certainly some serious issues with the neutral buss - double-lugging, overheating (some of them look badly burned).

Mike (mamills)

Mike is right, either the picture or the UL sticker is upside down.

It does look upside down. Now it makes me dizzy to look at it.

Scott

ok.you turn the pic around...make it 2nd from the top left.

is that a new way to hookup a gfci cb

Love that UF comming in. What I raelly want to see is how it's getting into the service conduit on the other end. That should be a good sight to see.

joe..after looking at the picture again i think i made a mistake.at first it look like a bare ground wire on the breaker(first cup of coffee)but looking at it again mid way up the wire from the breaker it looks to be off white or tan.but something is missing...the hot conductor?or is it there and i just don't see it.

Is it off brown color or is it burnt/overheated?

Well, I hope I'm not clouding the issue too much about the GFCI's here. It looks like the one near the top on the left side is missing a wire. The curled up white wire is not really in question (except for the discoloration where it connects to the neutral buss). If the other wire (looks like a shade of brown) is the ungrounded (hot) conductor for this circuit, then where is the white grounded conductor (which I am assuming should be connected to a terminal on the GFCI...i.e the load neutral)? It's hard to determine where the brown (?) wire is going because of the label overlay on the pic.

Now look at the other GFCI at the lower right. Again, there is the curly wire (which looks to be double-lugged into the neutral buss). There is also a brown (?) wire connected to this GFCI, which appears to possibly be spliced to a white wire with the yellow wirenut (the load neutral for this circuit?). There also appear to be two ungrounded conductors, a red and a black, connected to the GFCI.

Am I missing something here? I'm not sure that any of this would have anything to do with the discolored wires at the neutral buss, but things just don't seem to add up with these two GFCI's. Thanks for any clarification you may be able to give me.

Mike (mamills)

If Service Equipment ( the Neutral and Equipment Grounding) bus are the same.

Should be a Screw, green by todays' code, in the open hole (just below the Grounded Service conductor) to bond the bus to the enclosure unless one of the wire conductors does this function.

[This message has been edited by Gwz (edited 01-19-2003).]

Joe,unless I am going blind it appears that the feeders, entering the panel the 2 hots are copper and the neut is aluminum.Can is not bonded.Splices in a panel is a no,no.I really like the conductors that they used as cable ties on the neut's.The ground fault breaker looks like it's missing a wire.

If you take note to the conductors on the GFI on the bottom right you can see what appears to be two conductors attached to the line lugs (1 BK,1 RD)and none on the breaker immediately above,suppose the electrician didn't know that you couldn't use a GFI on a mutiwire branch circuit.Also I dont notice a main and I seem to count a few more than six disconnects so this must be a sub panel(oops) I cant see a Grounding conductor or a ground bar,maybe he thought it was a main service,on the other hand cant see a chassis bond.If it is a sub panel he may have a pull box not in view where he managed to route UF in and up the pipe. As far as the overheated neutral conductors based on what I see he may have both conductors of the multiwire branch circuits on the same phase.

Wiresketch and Wirenut87; WELCOME to ECN.

I don't "see" enough ground conductors for the amount of MNC/UF in this panel. I came accross a few overheated neutral messes similar to this. The cause was tracked down to a energy efficient lighting retrofit with electronic ballasts with high THD's. The neutrals (#12) had >25 amps, and the quality of the terminations left a lot to be desired.

This "mess" probably is a sub-panel, as it has no main CB. No ground conductor, no ground bar, and "where's all the grounds"???

What's with the red/white striped "reflector at the top right area?? Hiding something??

John

humm that is very instering part to see the wires on nueutral connetions but i wondering if someone did install it and did not toqure the nuteral wires correct e.g. loose connetion . or not clean the wires at the termail strip i belive that can cause the probem right there

merci marc

Here's a copy of the way the picture is posted on the web site identified above.

I changed it and because the question marks were upside down I covered them with the striped patch.

Joe,

The way you have posted it now I wonder why the tape and debris on the top dosen't fall down?

It sticks from the static electricity. Somebody should have gotten a lot of static for putting in an electric panel that way. Apparently, they left it all behind.

Welcome, Thom

[This message has been edited by ThinkGood (edited 02-06-2003).]

The panelboard picture is one of a panelboard that was posted on the site above by somone who was not aware of the way in which the picture should look. The picture was posted and still mis UP SIDE DOWN.

I hope this helps to clear up the questions asked here.