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Panel Wiring Used External to an Enclosure. 400 Volt.

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Hello, I hope everyone is fit and well.


I have been doing some work in an intake building that is really an old locked wooden shed at the edge of a holiday chalet park. The original installation dates back to the early 60s. Modern distribution boards exist that may be 30 years old.


The metering is via three current transformers. The single insulated wiring, about 1.5mm2 that runs from the current transformers goes to the metering equipment in a steel enclosure, and is open to touch at shoulder height.


Also, there are three spring loaded test switches and three neon indicators in the metering enclosure that test the presence of three phases.


 Three supply phase cables (6.0mm2)  run in insulated and sheathed cables to three 16 Amp. "slide lok" fuses carriers on the surface outside the metering enclosure. Open to touch, but insulated and sheathed. From the three fuses the wires seem to be single insulated instrument wire, open to touch, that run to the metering equipment enclosure test lamps.


Was this ever normal? Three single insulated 400 Volt wires running at shoulder height, not enclosed, surface run, open to touch.


Z.


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  • 0
    Is the building a locked enclosure accessible only by tool or key  ?

    If it really is early 60s (red, white & blue phases, not red, yellow & blue)  then the whole double fault to danger mentality that we have  today had not really developed, and yes exposed single insulated wiring would not have raised an eyebrow, especially behind a locked door.  Actually earthing was also given less importance, (like none at all for lights), so that too may be a bit squiffy in terms of Zs and modern disconnection times.

    (and no electronic loads, so reduced neutrals still in vogue for 3 phase supplies)

    After all, bare busbars behind covers held by knurled brass thumb nuts, and light switches and ceiling roses where the covers span off by hand to reveal eminently touchable bare metal were very much still the order of the day.  The current transformer secondary windings will not (I hope) be handling more than what today we would call ELV, though a primary to secondary  winding short in a current transformer may not be detected if the metering wiring is not earthed on one side....


    Had it been done later  there might have been a removable perspex panel or something if the intention was to leave it visible to show no fiddling with the meter wiring.

    I suspect even back then it was something of a special, but more or less  in the spirit of the standards of the time.

    M.

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  • 0
    Is the building a locked enclosure accessible only by tool or key  ?

    If it really is early 60s (red, white & blue phases, not red, yellow & blue)  then the whole double fault to danger mentality that we have  today had not really developed, and yes exposed single insulated wiring would not have raised an eyebrow, especially behind a locked door.  Actually earthing was also given less importance, (like none at all for lights), so that too may be a bit squiffy in terms of Zs and modern disconnection times.

    (and no electronic loads, so reduced neutrals still in vogue for 3 phase supplies)

    After all, bare busbars behind covers held by knurled brass thumb nuts, and light switches and ceiling roses where the covers span off by hand to reveal eminently touchable bare metal were very much still the order of the day.  The current transformer secondary windings will not (I hope) be handling more than what today we would call ELV, though a primary to secondary  winding short in a current transformer may not be detected if the metering wiring is not earthed on one side....


    Had it been done later  there might have been a removable perspex panel or something if the intention was to leave it visible to show no fiddling with the meter wiring.

    I suspect even back then it was something of a special, but more or less  in the spirit of the standards of the time.

    M.

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