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Bruce L. Bergman[_2_]

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:18:21 GMT, (Doug Miller)
wrote:

In article , "DoN. Nichols" wrote:
On 2009-09-08, stryped wrote:

[ ... ]

Also, my neutals are in the neutral bus bar and my grounds are in the
grounding buss bar. The picture may be deceptive because the panel is
upside down. (Read my previous postings). My panel said to mount it
upside down if it was going to be bottom fed.

To me -- it looks as though you are ignoring the real ground
buss bar, and using a second neutral buss bar intended for the neutrals
of cables connected to the breakers on the left as you have it mounted.

Yes, that's true, but you know what? It doesn't matter. He has it connected
properly: the green bonding screw is in place on the bar on the left (bonding
that bar to the case and making it effectively a grounding bar), and there is
*no* bonding jumper between that bar and the bar on the right, where he has
the neutrals connected.

It may be a bit odd... but it's electrically correct.

Stryped, don't be surprised if the electrical inspector makes you move all
those grounding wires from the bar where you have them, to the uninsulated bar
on the far left. That's where they're really supposed to be, but the way you
have it wired now *is* Code-compliant.

You can not mix grounds and neutrals anywhere else than the main
disconnect point of the house, usually an "all-in-one" service panel -
meter, main and distribution breakers all in one can.

If you have a Meter Main outside, and a seperate Main Panel inside,
even there you have to keep the safety ground and neutral bars
electrically seperate. Same thing with any sub-panels downstream of
the main service.

The whole reason being, if the Neutral wire goes open you want to
know about it. If they are tied at the panels, the Ground will carry
the Neutral loads till it fails too...

Meanwhile, someone can easily get fried because the safety ground
has been pulled hot by all the Neutral load voltages it is carrying.
The safety ground is ONLY supposed to see current in case of a fault.

-- Bruce --