"Steve Lusardi" wrote:

John,
Sounds like no formal contract was in effect. The shop owner hired labor,
not a licensened electrician. In point of fact the owner should have had the
service inspected and certified by law in most areas. He didn't. Secondly,
even if he had, the conformability of his equipment to the new installation
would never be the responsibility of the electrician, unless it was
specifically mentioned in a formal contract. So, the owner and receiver of
this service, owns the sole burdon of responsibility., no question. There is
no such thing as a free lunch. If the owner wanted this level of assurance,
he would have hired a firm that does this professionally and his price would
naturally reflect the cost of the necessary insurance and the maintenance of
all the appropriate license costs. By lo-balling the job, he assumed all the
risks and consequences. This should be a lesson for all of us.
Steve

A few thoughts. Wiring inside an industrial facility gets pretty sketchy at times. Using
Michigan for an example, there is nothing saying plant personnel can not run circuits.
I've worked for two firms that were big enough to be concerned about this and could not
find anything stopping us from running power inside the plant ourselves. (Gunners Temp
worker exception)

New machine installations, we hire a licensed electrician, and have the sellers or
manufacturers technical staff commision it. That means they make sure the line voltage
and taps are correct. They throw the switch. Put a million dollars or more of machinery
on the floor, you want the warranty to be in effect.

Now repositioning machines, we tend to do our own wiring assuming we have the manpower to
do it. If not, we hire a licensed electrican.

Recently we aquired used machining centers from a plant the corporation closed down, those
we wired ourselves after making sure we knew how the taps were set.

Earlier this year, my brother, a licensed master electrican with a michigan electrical
contractors license wired up an used CNC near where I live. My brother is pretty good,
knew I worked with CNC's and lucky for him, he was installing the same model we have on
the plant floor. Had he not had me for a resource, he would have depended on the customer
to tell him what the machines electrical requirements are.

In the case of this machine, it does have a transformer, not all CNC's do. Quite often
you get 2xx v machines and step down 480v to match it. 480v is pretty much the standard
in US manufacturing facilites of any decent size. Copper and switch gear adds up at half
the voltage. Now if the japs would just design around 480V nominal, life would be very
nice.

Since it was my brother and he likes to give more than expected, I went over to check
things. Most electricians don't have CNC techs to call on. Btw, shock loads that our
troll ridiculed? Somehow a breaker on the spindle drive managed to trip during the move.
It wasn't from an overload or overvoltage. It was from rigging and transporting.

There was some slack jaws concerning their investment when it powered up with a spindle
alarm. Some of those drives go for 5-12 grand. BTDT.

Smiles all around when I found the problem and made it spin and move.

I'd really like to hear the handymans side of the story. I wonder if the OP can get him
to post?


Wes