In doing a safety inspection for a building saw a #12AWG Wire terminated to 600A breakers. Any idea what some was thinking when tapping this here? Wasn't able to determine the downstream load, this is a main service disconnect fed from the utility. Also should note this is a large tower where this service disconnect exists every 3 floors and they all have this tap.
12AWG Wire Terminated to 600A Breakers
- Thread starter Usama
- Start date
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
Looks like shunt trip control wires. Does the building have an “Emergency off” button somewhere?
Possibly in the Utility Tx Room, however, I wasn't able to get access into this room. I tried looking for information on the breaker, to see if it had a shunt trip function, however given the age wasn't able to find anything fruitful. That said, it's an old FP 600A breaker.
Shunt trip makes the most sense as why they used wire nuts and tapped the feed rather than feeding directly into the terminals.
Shunt trip makes the most sense as why they used wire nuts and tapped the feed rather than feeding directly into the terminals.
winnie
Senior Member
- Location
- Springfield, MA, USA
- Occupation
- Electric motor research
Are those conductors actually tapped to the feeder wires, and not landing on other breaker terminals?
brycenesbitt
Senior Member
- Location
- United States
- Occupation
- Licensed Electrician
Can't see your picture anymore. Just a guess, it was common in the good old days to wire in an emergency light to the main breaker.
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
They are probably tapping the breaker to power the shunt trip. The two small wires out of the bottom of the breaker is the shunt trip coil. Don’t know if FPE has clearing contacts built in, or the EPO switch is momentary contact, but it is better to have the control power off the load side, instead of the line side.