CONTROL PANEL BUILD

[tortuga]

I'm a Manufacturing Plant Electrician in Oregon working in a facility that wants to build a control panel inhouse for a new system coming in. Does an industrial control panel built in house require a UL field inspection and label?

The law here does not necessarily mandate 'UL' per se, (most panel builders still use UL) you can also use international standards like IEC or CSA, it does have to be built to a recognized standard and a 3rd party needs to say its safe.
for a complex panel use ETL is going to be way less expensive than UL and they have an office in Portland.
Oregon requires electrical products (including your panel) to be 'certified', depending on what it is and how complicated you might be able to work directly with your AHJ and or a state inspector and have them certify it.
To do this it needs to be real simple and you'll need a copy of whatever standard(s) you use like UL 508A and provide a copy to the AHJ.
I have done it this way a few times when I had to re-do a control panel or expand one.

Or is it just up to the AHJ?

It is entirely up to the AHJ, you should also look into the master permit program if your not already in it.

 

[Jraef]

There seems to be some sort of belief that UL listing of a panel is about FUNCTION. It is not. There are basic rules to follow that involve safety and testing, methods and materials, then documentation. At no point does UL even ask what it does specifically. I once had a UL field inspection done on a 600HP soft starter that the factory had forgotten to put the labels on. The UL inspector spent an entire working day going over it with a fine tooth comb, checking every component to ensure it was what was documented in the file, that it was installed and wired correctly, and that nothing was done that was not documented. When he was all done, he applied the stickers, stepped back and turned to me to ask “What is it?” The point being, that wasn’t his job.

Wrong size fuses was a mistake by the company that built the panel, UL doesn’t review fuse sizes except in the context of the series listing for SCCR (if applicable). Control circuit design being built correct is not their job, so long as it was assembled correctly. You can change control circuit logic in a panel without affecting UL listing, that’s just troubleshooting. Changing power circuit devices is more problematic though.

 

[ROBOJOE77]

The law here does not necessarily mandate 'UL' per se, (most panel builders still use UL) you can also use international standards like IEC or CSA, it does have to be built to a recognized standard and a 3rd party needs to say its safe.
for a complex panel use ETL is going to be way less expensive than UL and they have an office in Portland.
Oregon requires electrical products (including your panel) to be 'certified', depending on what it is and how complicated you might be able to work directly with your AHJ and or a state inspector and have them certify it.
To do this it needs to be real simple and you'll need a copy of whatever standard(s) you use like UL 508A and provide a copy to the AHJ.
I have done it this way a few times when I had to re-do a control panel or expand one.

It is entirely up to the AHJ, you should also look into the master permit program if your not already in it.

Yeah, my signing supervisor has been trying to set up the master permit program for the company, but here in Troutdale there has been some difficulties ever since covid. They are finally getting it together. Plus, I think he was probably not doing it right. I'm not sure how he got his PJ let alone his supervisor's license. I do half his job plus mine

 

[ROBOJOE77]

While UL won't hand out a label to anyone who isn't 508A certified, how is it getting a label from one of the other NRTL's. Is it still more expensive to have a field inspection while also having to build the panel than just having a shop do it? I'm just trying to do my best to make an informed decision moving forward, to build or not to build, what's more expensive. I don't doubt my partner and I can build a quality control panel, adhering to industry and NEC standards, but that's not the point

 

[GregoryjazzElec]

As Mike used to say in class back in the day...do you really want to know? Well, it's probably going to be very costly, and most likely take a lot more time...do you still really want to know?

 

[garbo]

What a racket.

Have wired in numerous foreign made candy, chocolate, machine shop equipment & injection molding machines and never once saw any labels or USA listing. Best was a custom made $10 million state of the art German machine that had start stop buttons wired improperly ( as far as I was taught ). If you held in the stop button then pushed a start button machine would run as long as you had the start button push in. Of course German techs swore they never make mistakes & said that was okay. Have saw numerous cheap inferior IEC contactors that might have a UL listing for only 50 amps but a foreign listing for 65 amps at the same voltage. Have saw Danfoss VLT drives with bypass use a 40 HP rated contactor for the M2 contactor on drives using three IEC contactors on 50 HP drives. Tech said it was okay because being it was in the output of drive but always started at a very small ramp up current. So asked him that a 50 HP drive that often ran full speed thus a full 50 HP output ten hours a day would be okay on an 40 HP contactor.

 

[Jraef]

While UL won't hand out a label to anyone who isn't 508A certified, how is it getting a label from one of the other NRTL's. Is it still more expensive to have a field inspection while also having to build the panel than just having a shop do it? I'm just trying to do my best to make an informed decision moving forward, to build or not to build, what's more expensive. I don't doubt my partner and I can build a quality control panel, adhering to industry and NEC standards, but that's not the point

I think you are misunderstanding. UL doesn’t put someone else’s label on. Other testing and listing agencies BESIDES UL, collectively referred to as “NRTLs”, can label and list panel assemblies in the field INSTEAD of UL. They are often a little less expensive than UL, but it is dependent upon location. In Oregon, you are going to be pretty much limited to UL, ETL and CSA. Most of the others are so far away that the travel time/cost will kill any savings.

If you are going to be building a lot of panels, you may want to consider getting your shop listed. Last I heard, it costs about $30k if you count all the time it takes to do the paperwork and training.

 

[rswolff001]

yes, there are a lot of people building or designing panels that shouldn't even be installing a light switch. Designing to UL standards is not particularly difficult.. however building the panel yourself will be an issue if the inspecting authority requires, or simply wants a sticker. I'm not aware of any municipality that by law requires a sticker (most machinery coming from outside the US wouldn't have a UL sticker) however from my experience most inspectors are not familiar with the actual UL standards and simply fall back onto requiring the sticker. No sense in arguing as you'll most likely lose.. so if you have a choice get a UL shop to build the panel and pay a bit extra for the sticker. If you're somewhere and won't have an inspection of the actual panel, only the service to it, just build the panel but make sure you know what you are doing. If you're not sure, have someone else build it. But if your not sure, you probably should get someone who is. The panel shop only conforms to UL standards, they don't check if the panel is correct for your application.

 

[ROBOJOE77]

I think you are misunderstanding. UL doesn’t put someone else’s label on. Other testing and listing agencies BESIDES UL, collectively referred to as “NRTLs”, can label and list panel assemblies in the field INSTEAD of UL. They are often a little less expensive than UL, but it is dependent upon location. In Oregon, you are going to be pretty much limited to UL, ETL and CSA. Most of the others are so far away that the travel time/cost will kill any savings.

If you are going to be building a lot of panels, you may want to consider getting your shop listed. Last I heard, it costs about $30k if you count all the time it takes to do the paperwork and training.

Ohh no, I understand, there's a laundry list of NRTLs maintained by OSHA and they only put their approval on a piece of equipment. I just meant do the other NRTL's have requirements like UL requires you to be in their panel program in order to get their label, does ETL or CSA have any special requirements. I have to justify my position of not building the thing to folks with higher authority, but less knowledge. Thank you to all who have weighed in

 

[tortuga]

Ohh no, I understand, there's a laundry list of NRTLs maintained by OSHA and they only put their approval on a piece of equipment. I just meant do the other NRTL's have requirements like UL requires you to be in their panel program in order to get their label, does ETL or CSA have any special requirements. I have to justify my position of not building the thing to folks with higher authority, but less knowledge. Thank you to all who have weighed in

Do you have a copy of UL508A? If not I'd start by requesting a purchase order for that.

 

[petersonra]

Ohh no, I understand, there's a laundry list of NRTLs maintained by OSHA and they only put their approval on a piece of equipment. I just meant do the other NRTL's have requirements like UL requires you to be in their panel program in order to get their label, does ETL or CSA have any special requirements. I have to justify my position of not building the thing to folks with higher authority, but less knowledge. Thank you to all who have weighed in

Etl and csa will list your control panel to the ul508a standard. It is the same standards as UL requires for listing.

UL is both a NRTL and a US standards making body.

 

[petersonra]

While UL won't hand out a label to anyone who isn't 508A certified, how is it getting a label from one of the other NRTL's. Is it still more expensive to have a field inspection while also having to build the panel than just having a shop do it? I'm just trying to do my best to make an informed decision moving forward, to build or not to build, what's more expensive. I don't doubt my partner and I can build a quality control panel, adhering to industry and NEC standards, but that's not the point

Industry and nec standards do not matter any. If you want a listed panel the only standard that matters is UL508a.

 

[Jraef]

The other NRTLs in the US just use ULs standards. CSA has their own, but are very very similar. So when you call for a field evaluation, they show up with the UL standards in hand.

I believe that ETL has/ (or had) a similar program as UL508a for panel shops, but I only know that from panel shops I had competed with when I had my UL508a shop years ago. I never considered pursuing that option. I believe that CSA does as well, but may not offer it outside of Canada.

 

[ROBOJOE77]

Do you have a copy of UL508A? If not I'd start by requesting a purchase order for that.

Not yet, if ever. Might be a good resource to have though. I broke the news to our enginerds and project coordinator that they need to do a cost analysis (that should have already been done before they said we'll do it) because I'm not going to be responsible for telling the company that we can build this in house and then it comes out thousands of dollars more than if we just used a shop. 508A plus all the supplemental standards regarding panel builds looks to be more extensive than the timeline allows for this project. Just because I've eatin' a few steaks doesn't make me ready to open a restaurant. The head "engineer" from my company of course tried using past precedent from what previous electricians have done here as some standard of how we want to do things now, I let him know that's not how it works. We'll see. Honestly I don't have time to build a panel, we don't have a team of electricians and there's a plant to keep running and a panel built appropriately is a full time job.

 

[Jraef]

Your instincts are correct on that. If you were doing this on a regular basis, it might be worth investing, but fir for a one-off panel here and there, distressing field listing is going to cost you WAY more than just having a panel shop build it and list it for you.

Edit: Wow, that needed a better preview before I hit Send…

 

[petersonra]

Your instincts are correct on that. If you were doing this on a regular basis, it might be worth investing, but fir a one-off panel here and there, distressing is going to cost you WAY more than just having a panel shop build it and list it for you.

The other issue is if you have a panel shop build it for you they will probably have a better deal on parts than you do. Plus with the panel builders being really good at their jobs there will be a lot less labor. It will probably end up costing less to have someone else do it for you.