Connections in a CT cabinet.

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marl2009 said:
Talk about a gray area...utilities are going to put a padlock on the door of the CT cabinet. Definition of "accessible" is no locked doors.
230.33 Service conductors shall be permitted to be spliced or tapped in accordance with 110.14,300.5(E) AND 300.15
230.40 Exception 2 excepts 2- 6 service disconnecting means.

I'm just trying to find out how other electricians have approached the lock door when installing service entrance conductors (paralleled) off of a CT terminal(s) to feed 2-400 amp disconnects.
Or should I just accept it (locked door) and move on.
Thanks for your time.
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i would use the definition of Accessible (as applied to wiring methods).
 
iwire said:
They add seals only when and if they suspect an issue.

Heck many of our CT cabinets don't even get the simple seal tag thing. :)
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Ahhh....the days of "trust your fellow man". I guess you can write off the loss of revenue to "line losses". Keeps the bean counters happy. On 480, the arc flash usually weeds out the brave/stupid few who try to cheat the system.
 
The UK has seal fairies that appear just before the electrician arrives on the job. Seals? What seals?

The DNO’s (PoCo’s) now have a system where an “authorised” electrician can apply a temporary seal. Each seal is allocated to the individual electrician so there is traceability.

As for opening DNO metering CT chambers, it would be a hanging offence.
 
meternerd said:
Ahhh....the days of "trust your fellow man". I guess you can write off the loss of revenue to "line losses". Keeps the bean counters happy. On 480, the arc flash usually weeds out the brave/stupid few who try to cheat the system.
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I have been doing this over 30 year and have never seen any evidence of power theft. Can't say it is not happening just not common.

Likely a difference due to the cost of electricity here vs there.
 
iwire said:
I have been doing this over 30 year and have never seen any evidence of power theft. Can't say it is not happening just not common.

Likely a difference due to the cost of electricity here vs there.
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I agree,
I have seen a lot of evidence of theft on residential property, can’t say the same thing for commercial and industry where CT cabinets would be common.
 
david said:
I agree,
I have seen a lot of evidence of theft on residential property, can’t say the same thing for commercial and industry where CT cabinets would be common.
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well, now with meters that call home to the mothership, it's a bit
trickier to steal power... if the thing goes offline, doesn't it send out
an error message?

most of the lock rings are in areas "profiled" to be high theft areas,
it seems. i've not seen that many lock rings in the places i do work.

westminster and santa ana both are lock ring central. i've seen some
pretty amazing things done in westminster, the most remarkable was
a 225 amp subpanel feed in a strip mall, that had the aluminum feeders
cut back 15' into the t bar ceiling, and copper tails added, reconnecting
the panel.

as it was a zinsco main gear, and the breaker was fused, and could not
be turned off, they did it hot.....
 
Fulthrotl said:
well, now with meters that call home to the mothership, it's a bit
trickier to steal power... if the thing goes offline, doesn't it send out
an error message?

most of the lock rings are in areas "profiled" to be high theft areas,
it seems. i've not seen that many lock rings in the places i do work.

westminster and santa ana both are lock ring central. i've seen some
pretty amazing things done in westminster, the most remarkable was
a 225 amp subpanel feed in a strip mall, that had the aluminum feeders
cut back 15' into the t bar ceiling, and copper tails added, reconnecting
the panel.

as it was a zinsco main gear, and the breaker was fused, and could not
be turned off, they did it hot.....
Click to expand...

It only takes one wire to steal power and the meter doesn't have to go off line.
They are in the process of changing out meters to smart meters though.
 
Some of our horticulturist’s handiwork

2012-10-192011_02_05_zpsujnxrxgo.jpg

IMG_0498_zpsxkzjbv2d.jpg


This is ingenious, who would suspect two earth (ground) wires vanishing under the floor.
Pity they didn't keep the PILC earth intact.

2014-11-062010_50_30_zpsdcyh1n30.jpg
 
marl2009 said:
I have a contractor wanting to tap out of the 800 amp CT cabinet with two 400 amp disconnects.
I'm not convinced you can do that if the utilities install a padlock on the CT cabinet door.
I would call that non-accessible. I believe taps and splices are required to be in a box that are accessible.
His taps will come off the load side of the meter, with listed lugs to match the qty. of wires
Is the contractor right in tapping off the CT Cabinet. Or is it a violation of the 2014 code
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Like iwire said, there are no taps. Just two sets of service entrance conductors. Its done all the time that way. I cant imagine a utility not allowing more than one set Just did a 1000 amp service like that recently: one set consisting of three parallel runs to a mlo with 5 service disconnects, then a second set to a 250 main breaker service panel. 6 service disconnects, two sets of service entrance conductors (one of which is three in parallel.
 
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