Identifying MCB's in a Board.

[conny]

Just curious.
Got a 16way Dis board in work consisting of 2 vertical banks of 8x3 phase mcb's. 5 occupy the left hand bank and 3 occupy the right hand bank, the rest are spares all blanked off.

How would you number them for ease of identification at corresponding isolators? Would you make the left hand bank numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
and the right hand bank 9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16

Or would you work from left to right so left bank was 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15 and right hand bank was 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16?

 

[Adam_151]

I prefer to work from left at the top down to the end, and then start again at the top right and work down. But it depends on if the board already has any markings to start with... if not I'd say it doesn't really matter, as long as you stick with the same all over the building... seen places where both ways have been used

 

[VanSolo]

Go for your first option but label them 1L1,1L2,1L3,2L1,2L2........etc

 

[ColJack]

yeah, solo's right..
labeling them 1L1, 1L2 1L3 etc identifies which phase it is as well if it's a single phase.

what order you label them in is according to how the neutrals and earths are numbered..

some are labled top down, some bottom up..

at the other end you'd label it as
"FED FROM DB1A/1L1" OR "FED FROM DB1A/1L1-3" for 3 phase etc...

 

[conny]

What started this is we had a new board fitted recently and all new isolators to each machine, (instead of 1 isolator for 2 or 3 different machines as it was! ).
For the past couple of years it has been one of my duties to go round them all looking for obvious problems before we call someone in to do an annual PIR type of inspection. One of the first things I noticed was although each isolator had a label saying what it controlled it didn't say where the breaker was located. As we have 6 dis-boards they could have been anywhere so I traced each isolator to its board and made notes such as;
Quantum Lathe, DB1/3/L1L2L3 etc for each isolator.
DB1 being Distribution Board 1
3 being 3rd mcb down on the left bank,
L1L2L3 indicating it was 3 phase

Got to last machine and this isolator was mounted just above eye level, (about 6'), I noticed a marker strip.

DB2/L1L2L3/7
Label on the front said Pedastal Drill so I looked at DB2 and to me it was mcb4 on the left bank. Turns out all the other isolators had similar markings underneath out of sight and the boards had been numbered as left bank 1,3,5,7 etc and right bank 2,4,6,8 etc but no actual markings in the board to indicate this. Caused a lot of confusion believe me!
So I propose to remove these stickers and mark the isolators and boards clearly using my method. Why would anyone put an ID sticker underneath when most isolators are about 5' off the ground?
Must think we are a bunch of midgets!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Would you make the left hand bank numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
and the right hand bank 9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16

Or would you work from left to right so left bank was 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15 and right hand bank was 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16?

For a laugh label them as if they were cylinder head bolts with the tightening sequence identified.

 

[TicklyT]

Reminds me of the telephone wiring in a large building I worked in years ago. The block wiring was installed by half a dozen people, and each had his own ideas on how to wire up the distribution boxes, with 160 pairs to each box.

Some terminated the 'A' leg of each pair first,

Some terminated the 'B' leg first

Some wired pairs 1-5 on one side of a block, and 6-10 on the opposite side.

Some wired pair 1 on one side of a block, and 2 on the other.

Some used the block below the top left as the second block.

Some used the block to the right as the second block.

Some used the bottom left block as the first block, and worked upwards.

Some numbered the hinged labels to correspond to the exposed terminals above or below them when they were swung out of the way.

Some numbered the labels to correspond with the terminals they covered in each position.