listed equipment

[jcole]

Good day guys and gals.

Per OSHA and NEC, all electrical equipment must be listed. True or false? Listed meaning equipment meets appropriate designated standards or has been tested and found suitable for a specified purpose.

I have noticed that we have a few enclosures that do not have listing or certification label on it like UL, etc. Should this be a concern?

We also have a UL listed enclosure by Allen Bradley that had an Allen Bradley VFD installed in it. We replaced the AB drive with a Schneider drive. Would this void or go against the UL listing of the enclosure? Would this go against NEC or OSHA standards/regulations?

Thanks in advance for the replies.

 

[roger]

Good day guys and gals.

Per OSHA and NEC, all electrical equipment must be listed. True or false?

False

Listed meaning equipment meets appropriate designated standards or has been tested and found suitable for a specified purpose.

Correct but not all equipment is required to be listed, The NEC spells out specific items.

I have noticed that we have a few enclosures that do not have listing or certification label on it like UL, etc. Should this be a concern?

Not in my opinion, I would have who or what ever is the AHJ look at them and approve them.

We also have a UL listed enclosure by Allen Bradley that had an Allen Bradley VFD installed in it. We replaced the AB drive with a Schneider drive. Would this void or go against the UL listing of the enclosure? Would this go against NEC or OSHA standards/regulations?

This would be another issue for the AHJ

Roger

 

[petersonra]

Good day guys and gals.

Per OSHA and NEC, all electrical equipment must be listed. True or false?
False.

Listed meaning equipment meets appropriate designated standards or has been tested and found suitable for a specified purpose.

Listed. Equipment, materials, or services included in a list
published by an organization that is acceptable to the authority
having jurisdiction and concerned with evaluation
of products or services, that maintains periodic inspection
of production of listed equipment or materials or periodic
evaluation of services, and whose listing states that either
the equipment, material, or service meets appropriate designated
standards or has been tested and found suitable for
a specified purpose.

I have noticed that we have a few enclosures that do not have listing or certification label on it like UL, etc. Should this be a concern?
The NEC does not require type 1 enclosures to be listed.

We also have a UL listed enclosure by Allen Bradley that had an Allen Bradley VFD installed in it. We replaced the AB drive with a Schneider drive. Would this void or go against the UL listing of the enclosure? Would this go against NEC or OSHA standards/regulations?
The enclosure itself is still listed.
If you are asking about a listed industrial control panel (ICP-UL508a), you have made a major modification to it and if you wanted it to be listed you would need a field evaluation. It is not a NEC issue since NEC does not require ICP to be listed. It is unclear to me how OSHA would view such a thing. In a legalistic sense they might want you to get a field evaluation. OTOH, as a practical matter, these kind of things go obsolete in a decade or so and get replaced when they fail by whatever is available at the time it is replaced.

Thanks in advance for the replies.

Some of this stuff in a legalistic way you could have issues but I have never heard of a situation where OSHA has issued a citation in such a case as long as the new stuff met code. For instance, the AB drive might have had a 65kA SCCR rating with an AB circuit breaker but the Schneider drive only has a 10kA rating with that CB. If your available SCC exceeds 10 kA in such a case, you could and should get cited.

 

[Jraef]

Some of this stuff in a legalistic way you could have issues but I have never heard of a situation where OSHA has issued a citation in such a case as long as the new stuff met code. For instance, the AB drive might have had a 65kA SCCR rating with an AB circuit breaker but the Schneider drive only has a 10kA rating with that CB. If your available SCC exceeds 10 kA in such a case, you could and should get cited.

In addition, the enclosure for the A-B VFD was (likely) part of a listed assembly, which would have included heat rise testing, which is then tired to mounting location, fan placement, air flow patterns, etc. etc. Putting a different VFD in that box means you are on your own. That doesn't automatically mean it isn't going to work, it just means that what Schneider would have used and how they would have mounted it might not align with the way A-B did with their drive. Where that would come to play (assuming an AHJ went ahead and accepted it) is when you might make a warranty claim against Schneider for a failed drive and they see what you did with it.

And before anyone says that's preposterous, I had Schneider do that EXACT thing to me on some soft starters of theirs that I mounted into enclosures that had previously held Nordic soft starters; they refused to honor the warranty claim on them when 8 units failed (our of 6 installed, meaning 2 of them failed twice).

 

[petersonra]

In addition, the enclosure for the A-B VFD was (likely) part of a listed assembly, which would have included heat rise testing, which is then tired to mounting location, fan placement, air flow patterns, etc. etc. Putting a different VFD in that box means you are on your own. That doesn't automatically mean it isn't going to work, it just means that what Schneider would have used and how they would have mounted it might not align with the way A-B did with their drive. Where that would come to play (assuming an AHJ went ahead and accepted it) is when you might make a warranty claim against Schneider for a failed drive and they see what you did with it.

And before anyone says that's preposterous, I had Schneider do that EXACT thing to me on some soft starters of theirs that I mounted into enclosures that had previously held Nordic soft starters; they refused to honor the warranty claim on them when 8 units failed (our of 6 installed, meaning 2 of them failed twice).

None of this has anything to do with NEC or OSHA though.

I am surprised Schneider would do this.. They have always been stand-up guys for us. However it is quite possible that the rules for how Schneider soft starts are supposed to be mounted were substantially different than how the old soft starts were mounted. I have seen VFDs that ask for 4 inches of clear space around them on all 4 sides, and others that require only an inch top and bottom.

 

[rbalex]

As a blanket statement, neither OSHA nor the NEC require all equipment to be listed or labeled, motors for example. However, where FedOSHA or State plans certified by FedOSHA are involved, See 29 CFR 1910.399:

Acceptable. An installation or equipment is acceptable to the Assistant Secretary of Labor, and approved within the meaning of this Subpart S:
(1) If it is accepted, or certified, or listed, or labeled, or otherwise determined to be safe by a nationally recognized testing laboratory recognized pursuant to § 1910.7; or
(2) With respect to an installation or equipment of a kind that no nationally recognized testing laboratory accepts, certifies, lists, labels, or determines to be safe, if it is inspected or tested by another Federal agency, or by a State, municipal, or other local authority responsible for enforcing occupational safety provisions of the National Electrical Code, and found in compliance with the provisions of the National Electrical Code as applied in this subpart; or
(3) With respect to custom-made equipment or related installations that are designed, fabricated for, and intended for use by a particular customer, if it is determined to be safe for its intended use by its manufacturer on the basis of test data which the employer keeps and makes available for inspection to the Assistant Secretary and his authorized representatives.
Accepted. An installation is "accepted" if it has been inspected and found by a nationally recognized testing laboratory to conform to specified plans or to procedures of applicable codes.
…
Approved. Acceptable to the authority enforcing this subpart. The authority enforcing this subpart is the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health. The definition of "acceptable" indicates what is acceptable to the Assistant Secretary of Labor, and therefore approved within the meaning of this subpart.

NOTE "Approved" even says who FedOSHA's AHJ is. AND, if you read the definition of Acceptable carefully, if a product subject to FedOSHA can be NRTL certified, it must be - even if the NEC doesn't require it. That is, Acceptable parts (2) and (3) may only be applied if (1) is unavailable. Actually, (3) can only apply if (1) and (2) ae unavailable.

 

[jcole]

Both enclosures were installed at a water treatment facility upgrade. They were not inspected by AHJ. They were installed per an engineering firm design and approval. One was for a clarier upgrade and the other was installed during a pump station upgrade.

Would you guys get approval from AHJ or OSHA?

 

[ActionDave]

....Would you guys get approval from AHJ or OSHA?

I didn't spend nights and weekends studying to be an electrician, years of straight time and overtime working as an electrician, and as much time as I could learning about the trade just so I could walk up to somebody who's no smarter than me and get his approval before I decide if a job is done right.

 

[Jraef]

None of this has anything to do with NEC or OSHA though.

I am surprised Schneider would do this.. They have always been stand-up guys for us. However it is quite possible that the rules for how Schneider soft starts are supposed to be mounted were substantially different than how the old soft starts were mounted. I have seen VFDs that ask for 4 inches of clear space around them on all 4 sides, and others that require only an inch top and bottom.

Yeah, I was surprised too, up to that point I had done a lot of business with them. They were claiming it was heat related and that my mounting method was not allowing for sufficient air flow. But they never tripped on OT, they just failed, and their OWN failure analysis reports on the first 6 units that failed came back saying they were voltage related failures. So they were talking out of both sides of their mouths. My theory was that they were designed for 380V 50Hz power and assumed that the 380V design was still good for 415V in the UK, so +10-% from that put them at pretty close to 460V and we used 460V, so good to go... But when users actually started installing them here, they didn't think about our 480V occasionally climbing to 500V, which was now 130% of the design voltage. When still in a position to do so, I never bought another soft starter from them.

 

[jcole]

I didn't spend nights and weekends studying to be an electrician, years of straight time and overtime working as an electrician, and as much time as I could learning about the trade just so I could walk up to somebody who's no smarter than me and get his approval before I decide if a job is done right.

LOL. I get it. The installation was done by a good contractor per the contract drawings and was done in a good workman like manner. One of the "know it alls" here at the plant brought up the facts about listed devices to management. I think it is BS but they have asked me to look into it. Not sure what do tell them.

 

[roger]

They were installed per an engineering firm design and approval.

Then in the case the designer is the AHJ and all is well. In many industrial projects the design team plays this role.

Roger