I was sent these photos by email, I have resized and lightened them, other than that I do not know to much.

This is not my work, but it did pass inspection.









It appears one set of conductors passes through the meter to the panel.

It appears the line side for the meter passes through the bottom of the meter and into the panel turns up and back into the meter finally terminating at the line lugs.

The load side of the meter leaves the bottom of the meter wraps around the entire panel and back into the meter only to leave the the meter through the top hub.

[This message has been edited by iwire (edited 05-01-2004).]

iwire: What city or town was this job located in?

It's a beauty isn't it?

Bob

[This message has been edited by iwire (edited 05-01-2004).]

Bob,

My guess would be that they didn't have enough wire-bending space in the Meter enclosure to do what they wanted.

BTW, that style of Meter Enclosure is similar to what we use on Long Island except ours are combination OH/UG and must be 13 inches wide minimum.

Bill

Clearly someone calculated the available fault current, and realized that if they just has about 8 more feet of conductor they could use cheaper breakers

It has the appearance of something _very_ neatly done, while at the same time appearing very wrong.

-Jon

I love your answer winnie. Maybe before the price of steel and copper went it would have been cheaper to throw an enclosure with a big 'ole coil of wire in it.

Looks like bending radius is the issue to me... For the size of the conductors, I don't really see how the terminations could've been made without seriously turning that meter can into a rats nest (Or more so).. I'd have ordered the meter socket with a larger can... One peculiar thing is C phase looping back around on the load side of the meter socket... That kinda blows the bending radius justification out the window... Jon might just have the idea behind this!

-Randy

I think I could have found a better way.

You have got metered and un-metered power in a panel that has nothing to do with that meter.

As far as the size of the meter socket itself, we must use the one specified by the POCO.

Not for nothing, but are those couplings and chase nipples considered adequate equipment grounding paths? BTW, at least they took the locknut off the compression connector in the hub over the meter pan.

[This message has been edited by cavo148 (edited 05-02-2004).]

My power company wouldn't set that meter, for fear of power theft.

What kind of conduit is that between the boxes?

No locknuts or bushings. It looks like soda pop cans
wrapped in tin foil.

Gene those are 2" threaded conduit couplings.

They are held in place with 2" chase nipples.

The lack of space makes me wonder if that meter can is only rated for 250V.

i did look at the photo and i am suprised to see that kind of arrangement and btw look at the last photo and look at c phase conductor it go to left side while other two go to right side and what the heck it goes ????? i could swear at it in french but took me a good hard look at it

really honestly i dont know how it can pass this inspection there at all and what more i will complain the amout of wire on the panel box on right side what if add hevey branch circuits it will eat up all the room there fast.

merci , marc

This is looking worse and worse as I look at it. The nuetral does not trave with the phase conductors and the feed to the disconnect looks like it comes through a removeable cover from the gear. I don't see a meter, so hopefully this did not pass and will be reinstalled.

Pierre

Pierre, the path of the neutral is one of the things that jumps right out at me too.

I did get some more info on this. The panel you see was always there fed from a meter in the service gear on the left out of view.

Now a new 200 amp service was needed so the 200 amp disconnect and meter where added, tapped from unmetered bus bars in the service gear.

This power company demands cold sequence metering, there is a service disconnect before all the metering on this service.

That is a standard size 480 volt 200 amp 3 phase 4 wire meter for this area. The room is fine if you make bring the line in the top and the load right out the bottom

I have to agree with joe on this one guys. Where was this job located at? Also is a hospital located right next door to this facility. Code violations on this installment are too numerous too even begin to mention, along with the obvious lack of safety personnel at this facility. Wheres the labeling?

To me, it looks like the disconnect to the left is for the panel. The condutors for the meter socket are using the panel as a wireway. My bet is that this is a feed to another electrical room (probably a cell antenna set up), where the owner of the building is going to backcharge the cell provider for electricity. I've seen this in a few applications in New England. Not quite this creative though.

We see what it is but still...Why?
Maybe "The boss gets mad if I order my wire too long and end up with scrap"?

It seems to me that someone got lazy, and saw no need to run an "extra" conduit if the conductos are going to the same, or near the same place. The funny thing is they put a lot of effort into it.

The meter section is obviously not for the utilities, but for the owner to back charge of power cost. (If not, someone's getting something free!)So why not put in an "Emon - Demon". "Easy - Sleazy"

Now correct me if I am wrong... is that the FACE of the cabinet to the left, that this mess originates from? Would it not require "Work-Space"? Even so, how would you remove those covers. Here's a good one, how did they fish this? From inside the cabinet?

I would be interested in what is going on in the Disconnect too.

The Inspector, who "PASSED" this, was just interested in the Job Card, not the JOB!

I am not an Inspector, but... Seeing something like this would make me want to ask for a chair. So I could sit and relax, and ponder all of the reasons to FAIL it. There are a few question to think about.
Work space, Access, Fill, Grounding, Bonding? The fact that I don't like it... But one does need a reason not to like something, don't thet?

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.