Alternative enclosures
 

Neon John wrote:

wrote:

I'm (finally) getting to fish or cut bait point (converting research and
cash into a system and no cash).

One of the things that drives me nuts is the price of accessory "stuff"
required to "properly enclose everything to US NEC". I do wish to be NEC
compliant and generally safe -

Those two things have nothing to do with each other. Having been
involved in trying to remove some of the insanity from Part 600, I'm
familiar with how that putrid thing called the NEC arrived at where it
is today.

Twenty years ago the NEC WAS a useful safety guide. Coincidentally,
one could also lift it with one hand! Now it's little more than
something to guarantee markets for apparatus makers. The holy grail
for any manufacturer employee NEC committee member is to get his
company's product written into the code, either explicitly by name or
by reference to proprietary, perhaps patented technology.

It's exactly the same for digital cellphone standards, with committees
meeting monthly in DC, Honolulu, San Diego, Banff, and other far-flung
places and no real chance for genuine public participation. The only
people who can afford to attend on a regular basis are IPR managers
finagling to get their patented products and processes written into
standards. This can be serious money. After some of our two dozen patents
were written into a few standards, our 5-person company collected $100
million in royalties. No reverse-engineering required: if the product
meets the standard, it infringes the patents, no matter who makes it
or what's inside the box :-)

This does serve the public, because the techniques considered get thorough
reviews. Manufacturers won't make big piles of money with systems that don't
work or are wildly uneconomical for users. But the public pays a price.

So, if the whole business is installed in a nice grounded rack enclosure
which requires tools to open, with the breakers and disconnects sticking
out, at the proper height (operating handles less than 78 inches from
the floor) and requiring less than 6 motions of the hand to shut down
completely - should there be any problem using general-purpose equipment
enclosures rather than special-purpose enclosures?

Yes, of course. That's how its done in areas like the power utility
industry where the NEC isn't allowed to intrude. Also in most
industrial settings where as a practical matter, the enforcement nazis
don't have access.

Electrical safety is mostly what I call "enlightened common sense".
Enlightened in that you need to know the perils in order to exorcize
common sense. A pre-'85 edition of the NEC is a good place to start.
As is thinking through the purpose and goal of a specification and
then achieving it without all the overhead.

For example, to mount neon channel letters, I could go out and buy a
listed wireway made of metal heavy enough to constrain conductors
carrying tens of thousands of amps of fault current - or I could
fabricate it in my shop from sheet metal only thick enough to hold up
the letters. Perfectly adequate because at most, the sign is
connected to a 20 amp breaker. Guess which one I do.

John
---
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.johngsbbq.com
Cleveland, Occupied TN
Don't let your schooling interfere with your education-Mark Twain

Nick

Alternative enclosures
 

So why should the NEC be different from any other bloated beaurocracy?



wrote in message
...
Neon John wrote:

wrote:

I'm (finally) getting to fish or cut bait point (converting research and
cash into a system and no cash).

One of the things that drives me nuts is the price of accessory "stuff"
required to "properly enclose everything to US NEC". I do wish to be NEC
compliant and generally safe -

Those two things have nothing to do with each other. Having been
involved in trying to remove some of the insanity from Part 600, I'm
familiar with how that putrid thing called the NEC arrived at where it
is today.

Twenty years ago the NEC WAS a useful safety guide. Coincidentally,
one could also lift it with one hand! Now it's little more than
something to guarantee markets for apparatus makers. The holy grail
for any manufacturer employee NEC committee member is to get his
company's product written into the code, either explicitly by name or
by reference to proprietary, perhaps patented technology.

It's exactly the same for digital cellphone standards, with committees
meeting monthly in DC, Honolulu, San Diego, Banff, and other far-flung
places and no real chance for genuine public participation. The only
people who can afford to attend on a regular basis are IPR managers
finagling to get their patented products and processes written into
standards. This can be serious money. After some of our two dozen patents
were written into a few standards, our 5-person company collected $100
million in royalties. No reverse-engineering required: if the product
meets the standard, it infringes the patents, no matter who makes it
or what's inside the box :-)

This does serve the public, because the techniques considered get thorough
reviews. Manufacturers won't make big piles of money with systems that
don't
work or are wildly uneconomical for users. But the public pays a price.

So, if the whole business is installed in a nice grounded rack enclosure
which requires tools to open, with the breakers and disconnects sticking
out, at the proper height (operating handles less than 78 inches from
the floor) and requiring less than 6 motions of the hand to shut down
completely - should there be any problem using general-purpose equipment
enclosures rather than special-purpose enclosures?

Yes, of course. That's how its done in areas like the power utility
industry where the NEC isn't allowed to intrude. Also in most
industrial settings where as a practical matter, the enforcement nazis
don't have access.

Electrical safety is mostly what I call "enlightened common sense".
Enlightened in that you need to know the perils in order to exorcize
common sense. A pre-'85 edition of the NEC is a good place to start.
As is thinking through the purpose and goal of a specification and
then achieving it without all the overhead.

For example, to mount neon channel letters, I could go out and buy a
listed wireway made of metal heavy enough to constrain conductors
carrying tens of thousands of amps of fault current - or I could
fabricate it in my shop from sheet metal only thick enough to hold up
the letters. Perfectly adequate because at most, the sign is
connected to a 20 amp breaker. Guess which one I do.

John
---
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.johngsbbq.com
Cleveland, Occupied TN
Don't let your schooling interfere with your education-Mark Twain

Nick