Introduction

[GMcGurty]

Hello, I am new to this forum. I did not see an introduction area, so I figured I would do it here. I work for a start-up Energy R&D company in the Bay Area, CA. I a retired USMC EOD Technician. Although I have some background knowledge of BASIC electrical stuff, I am NOT an electrician....but my boss wants me to become one!! (I am hired as the Facility Lead so I do all things Building Related) I have a 400 amp panel in a 20,000sq ft warehouse. I need to wire it up for welders, a CNC machine, industrial lathe, industrial milling machine and some assorted other things that the Engineers dream up. Hopefully, this will be a decent place to gain some necessary knowledge. Otherwise, I hope you all had a good weekend!!

 

[Rick 0920]

Welcome to the forum. I hope you have you have a decent drawing with a good one-line diagram to show you what size conduit and what size and number of conductors to pull. You also need to know the NEC to double-check the engineers who are human and prone to make mistakes. Knowledge of the NEC is critical for anyone who wants an electrical career. Good luck. There are a great group of extremely knowledgeable electricians and engineers here. They have helped me understand things many times. It is quite unfair and unreasonable for your boss to expect you to do this job correctly without supervision from a qualified electrician. Electrical work is not a hobby, it is a skilled trade.

 

[GMcGurty]

Welcome to the forum. I hope you have you have a decent drawing with a good one-line diagram to show you what size conduit and what size and number of conductors to pull. You also need to know the NEC to double-check the engineers who are human and prone to make mistakes. Knowledge of the NEC is critical for anyone who wants an electrical career. Good luck. There are a great group of extremely knowledgeable electricians and engineers here. They have helped me understand things many times. It is quite unfair and unreasonable for your boss to expect you to do this job correctly without supervision from a qualified electrician. Electrical work is not a hobby, it is a skilled trade.

Thank you for the response. I ordered the NEC so I have some good reference material to study. I also bought a book on commercial wiring. Surely, I could Google most my questions, but I'm a little ol' school and like books!! You are right, a tad unfair for the boss to be expecting a skill set that I, in no way, advertised as having!!! BUT, as retired Marine, I have quite the can-do attitude!!! I have ZERO diagrams or any sort of electrical plan to go off of. Hop[efully, the Engineers at least tell me the power requirements for each machine and I'll go from there!!! If I run into problems, my son is an electrician so maybe by Facetime, he can walk me through some things!!

 

[Rick 0920]

As I said before, electrical work is not a hobby. Beware of Google and YouTube. They don't require you to be a licensed electrician to put a video out there. Toward the end of my classes, one of my students' projects are to pick an electrical video off of the internet and counting how many Code violations are in the video.