When is sign lighting not a sign?

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I guess I'm jumping in late, but my literal interpretation would be that disconnect is required. The sticking point is the word "system". I seriously doubt that was the intent for example in OP.

So if flag lighting needs disconnect, then do lights for grazing need one too? Highlighting say stone veneer?
 
Okay. let's try another f'rinstance. What if we had a long wall on a commercial building illuminated with up-lights like these:

Polaris12.jpg


Is a disconnect required for these lights? (Is it a 'system'?) I would think not. Now let's s'pose we came along and painted the name of the store on the wall.

Would we have to add a disconnect for just the lights that illuminate the words? All of them? All of whichever ones are on the same circuit(s) AND illuminate the letters?

Once again, my position is that electricity fed TO a sign that itself uses power must be disconnect-able. But not plain ol' lights who's rays happen to be aimed at words.

To me, there's a difference between an electric sign and a lit-up sign. The former utilizes electricity; the latter only photons. I can't find 'photons' in the NEC's index. Canoe?
 
I just had a conversation about this with a good friend, who happens to be a power-distribution engineer (I'm not claiming that to be relevant). He asked what the NEC says about this, so I started (where else) at the beginning: Definitions, where I found this:

('02 NEC) Electric Sign. A fixed, stationary, or portable selfcontained, electrically illuminated utilization equipment with words or symbols designed to convey information or attract attention.
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Art. 600.4(B) has been quoted here, apparently because the fixtures used on my job contain incandescent lampholders. Not every incandescent lampholder that illuminates lettering is a part of a sign.

One could stretch (obscenely, perhaps) the logic to require the lights in a restaurant bathroom that illuminate the sign requiring employees to wash their hands before returning to work have a disconnect.

Lampholders aimed at a painted sign do not (necessarily (because anything is possible)) comprise an electric sign. The lettering and the illumination are separate entities. Therefore, my conclusion is that Article 600 does not apply to my installation at all.
 
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websparky said:
Larry,

Good logic! However, I never thought it was a sign. I think it is outline lighting.
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Why I disagree (besides because it keeps the thread going!) is that outline lighting is lighting that itself is installed on or around the outline of physical features, edges, openings, etc.

This sign is just painted surfaces, and there is no real outline, and there is no lighting that follows any outlining. This is a trio of fixtures that light up a flat surface. What is outlined?

By the way, we did pass final inspection today, and the inspector made no mention of these lights needing anything other than the branch-circuit OCP and P-cell control. Pics shortly.
 
Yes, I would have most likely passed it too.
We have a restuarant chain that uses the same type of lights all around the outside of the building. Some of them happen to light-up the non-electric sign over the front windows and the drive-thru.

Pics would be nice. I'd be interested in seeing the actual mounting of the goose necks to the boxes!
 
I can describe it:

The goosenecks are made of 3/4" rigid conduit, with the box end cut flat and square. The round box covers that came with them have deep "sockets" with a setscrew that hold the stems in place, and a rubber gasket inside the opening. Plus, a relatively thick box gasket.

We simply attached standard cast round boxes to the plates, and interconnected them with 1/2" flex. We used two 2-hole straps on each stem to attach them to the top of the brick wall, so they cantilever over the wall, and the boxes themselves hang off the back side of the wall.

We added a long screw through one box ear into the back side of the brick for a little extra stability. They're quite stable and don't move. They're designed to simply jut straight out of a wall, but I wouldn't trust that much leverage on just two box-ear screws.
 
I would simply consider that exterior lighting. If you call it outline lighting because it highlites a feature then every up light and wall sconce and tree light would require a disconnect.

We don't have to stretch the code to such limits. There's enough in there to worry about as it is.

One of my inspectors used to insist that the plug in transformers that you find in phone rooms and such had to be grounded to the building steel because that's what it said under transformers and a transformer was a transformer.
 
cowboyjwc said:
I would simply consider that exterior lighting. If you call it outline lighting because it highlites a feature then every up light and wall sconce and tree light would require a disconnect.
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Exactamundo!

One of my inspectors used to insist that the plug in transformers that you find in phone rooms and such had to be grounded to the building steel because that's what it said under transformers and a transformer was a transformer.
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Tell him "It is. See this third prong? It's connected to building steel via this circuit's EGC, the panels EGC bus, and the service's GEC."
 
I remain unconvinced. :)

It is not a question of what makes sense to us personally, it is a question of the words on the page.

The words on the page tell us it's outline lighting, regardless of all the pretty pictures and what it says to Larry.:)

Why is it so hard to imagine the NEC would want a disconnecting means?

Almost all utilization equipment require a disconnecting means.

Lighting fixtures are one of the few items that typically escapes a disconnecting means.....unless it is sign lighting. :D
 
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