Control Panel Pictures: Not So Good

[dploof23]

Yea it's a Canuck thing, wire nuts have always been called Marretes here. I learned a few of our terms don't work in the US when I lived down there. You guys don't like Robertson screws (no idea why they are way better than a Philips), they are standard in the electrical industry here. I once asked a young southern maintenance guy to go to the shop and get some redi-rod (all thread), caused some blank stares as well.

Hey don't lump us all together.
I much prefer square drive screws when woodworking. I don't hear them called Robertson drive too often though. I worked with a guy years ago that called them that.

Dave

 

[Jeff23spl]

Watched the picture from Eric for long time, trying to understand what's so wrong with this console and where is the mess. Still don't understand.
All wires are labeled and this is not a terminal box.
If my subordinate technician started "improving" this, he would be immediately given more useful work to do.

If it was a console made on field by an electrician i could understand but doing this for resale in a professional panel shop isn't acceptable! I would request to make it right or cut all the wires to have the guy to re-do it again.
We have to put our name beside it and i wouldn't put my sticker under that mess! Even if it is far from being the worse i have seen.

For the others pictures it is hard to believe that some of these mess still works! Sometimes just after the electrians instal it what was a very clean shaped panel may look like the begining of a giant mess before it is even powered up in the field...

 

[allscott]

If it was a console made on field by an electrician i could understand but doing this for resale in a professional panel shop isn't acceptable! I would request to make it right or cut all the wires to have the guy to re-do it again.
We have to put our name beside it and i wouldn't put my sticker under that mess! Even if it is far from being the worse i have seen.

For the others pictures it is hard to believe that some of these mess still works! Sometimes just after the electrians instal it what was a very clean shaped panel may look like the begining of a giant mess before it is even powered up in the field...:(

I've also comissioned a few OEM panels that looked pretty but were so screwed up from a functional standpoint that ugly modifications had to be made for a machine to run. It goes both ways.

 

[seppoalanen]

..You guys don't like Robertson screws...

Ever seen or heard Robertson screw before, but it seems workable.

From 1965 to 1968 I worked in telephone world -not mobile-. Wiring inside the panels was tight as guitar string and result was "beautiful".
I can't understand spare lenght in wires. When changing wiring, get old off and put suitable lenght new.

 

[Sergei Troizky]

Don't know what you mean by "changing".
Spare length is necessary for a wire possible reconnection/rerouting to a different place of the panel.
Less standard the equipment- higher the possibility of rerouting.

 

[Lemming]

Try this one... was supposedly the finished product of a swap from SLC -> compact.. Note the SLC still lying in the bottom talking to an RTU in the back cabinet as they couldn't get the compact to talk directly.

 

[seppoalanen]

Don't know what you mean by "changing".
Spare length is necessary for a wire possible reconnection/rerouting to a different place of the panel.
Less standard the equipment- higher the possibility of rerouting.

It means that take old wire off and replace it if reconnect or reroute.

 

[allscott]

Lemming, you win. Wow lol.

 

[RheinhardtP]

Wow that looks bad. Somebody not proud of what they do.

 

[mendonsy]

I have always thaought this one was a bit interesting. The "Master Electrician" who did this was proud of it!

 

[Sergei Troizky]

It means that take old wire off and replace it if reconnect or reroute.

Sounds great in a shop.
Now a real life story.
Being a programmer, I was on a service call in a small company with no maintenance shop/stock. Only programming work was expected.
And I could not switch a wire from a regular to a high-speed input only because of lack of ~20cm spare length.

 

[FactoryTalktotheHand]

here is one that is only 3-3.5 years old. all the wire mold covers are just to the right of the cabinet. all of them are there. just nobody bothers to care. each guy that goes there just does something "quickly" but in the end it all adds up to a big old mess. plus this skid compared to another companies skid. this skid uses print numbers for wires, and the prints are nowhere to be found. the competition skid(IMHO way better) has the device tags for wire labels. so i can look at wires without looking at the prints which are usually missing and know which wire goes to which device already.

Poly-Clip wires their panels IEC style, and the wires are actually labeled by Device: terminal they attach to. So one end it'll say "A201:20" and you know it goes on terminal 20 of device A201. The other end will have "X1:201" so you know it goes on terminal strip X1, terminal 201. Kind of nice not having to consult the print if a wire falls off. OH, and they actually print the numbers directly on the wire itself, no labels.

 

[boneless]

We were called out to fix a sudden failure in a critical cabinet. "Somehow" all digital signals were failing after they installed cooling in the cabinet.

We opened the cabinet, and noticed that each wire in the wire bundle to the front panel suddenly had a splicing connector (about 20 wires).

We found out that an apprentice had installed the cooling. He had to cut out a hole in the side of the panel, and managed to cut the entire wire bundle. Instead of telling supervisor, he spliced all wires on color, hoping that would be ok. And finished installing the cooling. And he left.

Problem was that about 15 of the wires were black..

 

[FactoryTalktotheHand]

I don't have a picture, but this was a "temporary repair" done to a panel where I used to work.

I got a call from one of the maintenance guys. This guy was once a 3rd year apprentice. Got fired when he took a pair of cutters and cut a live conduit because he couldn't trace the circuit to cut it off properly.

Anyway, there's a mixer that doesn't run. Drive isn't faulted. Can't figure out why it doesn't run. By the time I get there, I open the panel door to see a new IEC contactor hanging in mid-air by three wires from the power feed terminals of the VFD, controlling the contactor's coil was a new two-position selector-switch that was laying in the bottom of the cabinet.

The problem ended up being a bad analog output card.

 

[ELake20]

hahahaha great stories

I once had a guy pinch a wire in half like a garden hose to 'shut it off' I had to pick myself off of the ground from the laughter