use of old equipment as junction boxes

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ricry said:
Fwiw, Al is correct... The circuit will be a mwbc and the neutral bus is molded into the same plastic assembly as the lugs/breaker slots.

In that case, do you think its a poor idea to repurpose the neutral buss?
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In my mind, its tidier to remove the guts.

There's more usable volume, and all the edges and corners of the buss assembly won't be a risk of pressing through the conductor insulation sometime in the coming years.
 
jumper said:
Where does it say that steel enclosures/boxes must be listed?
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The enclosure for a panelboard is a cabinet covered by Article 312, and there is nothing that requires a cabinet to be listed. Article 314 covers most other enclosures and only those installed in wet locations are required to be listed.
 
The only time a box must be UL listed, i.e. UL 50, is then it will be used as part of another UL listed assembly. So for example if you were a UL 508A panel shop and wanted to build a control panel using a gutted panelboard, you could only do so if the panelboard box was listed under UL 50 as an enclosure. If it was listed as a panelboard under UL 67, then you cannot use it. In fact there is a specific statement in the UL 67 standard that addresses this:
1.3 These requirements do not cover:

a) Distribution equipment which sole function is the automatic or nonautomatic transferring of one or more load conductor connections from one power source to another. Reference the Standard for Transfer Switch Equipment, UL 1008.

b) Factory wired assemblies of industrial control equipment intended to control industrial processes. Reference the Standard for Industrial Control Panels, UL 508A.
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But from an NEC standpoint, I agree that the NEC has no requirement for a box to be listed. I've seen people fabricate their own boxes and pass inspections.
 
What I’ve always done when re-purposing a cabinet is to have a blank steel cover made for it to replace the door, instead of trying to use filler plates. And remove the panelboard interior.


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ricry said:
Does code allow the use of an unused subpanel as a junction box?

Breakers would be removed and I assume both the ground and neutral bus bars would also be removed. In this case there was a slot in the front cover for two breaker spaces which would also have to be covered.

I suspect this is wrong since it is not listed for such a use.
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I've done this a few times and the inspector never blinked.
 
I'm in the planning stage of a job where I will be building an entirely new 200 amp service for a residence in a different location from the existing 100 amp service. I will be using the existing 100 amp panel as a junction box.

Normally, I would pull the meter and reroute the feeders to the new panel where I would backfeed a breaker until such time as the POCO decides to come over and move the service drop to the new riser. However the meter can is in sad shape and the riser is about to fall off possibly cutting through the service drop. I don't want to pull the meter. It seems dangerous. So....

(Here is the interesting part)

Instead I will temporarily power the new panel from a 100 amp breaker in the existing panel. The existing panel will remain hot and all the rewiring will have to avoid the hot buss bars. I'm thinking I can cover the unused buss slots with some kind of insulator like a piece of cardboard. Once I get an inspection and a power release, I'll pull out the extraneous buss.
 
Instead I will temporarily power the new panel from a 100 amp breaker in the existing panel. The existing panel will remain hot and all the rewiring will have to avoid the hot buss bars. I'm thinking I can cover the unused buss slots with some kind of insulator like a piece of cardboard. Once I get an inspection and a power release, I'll pull out the extraneous buss.[/QUOTE]

IF there's enough room in the existing panel, just use breakers in the off position to cover the buss until removal.
 
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