# Interesting charger project



## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

Wow it almost looks like a real Union contractor did all that.













J/k, nice job.


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## MikeFL (Apr 16, 2016)

Very nice!


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

MechanicalDVR said:


> Wow it almost looks like a real Union contractor did all that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks Brother


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## RePhase277 (Feb 5, 2008)

Thank goodness the guy with the giant ear holes had that hardhat and vest. Otherwise he might have gotten something in his eyes!

Did you need a neutral in that 480 panel, or was it just spec'd that way? What is all this for?


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

RePhase277 said:


> Thank goodness the guy with the giant ear holes had that hardhat and vest. Otherwise he might have gotten something in his eyes!
> 
> Did you need a neutral in that 480 panel, or was it just spec'd that way? What is all this for?


The safety glasses were fogging up. They are concerned more about getting squashed by a forklift on this project. 
Thats NewElect85. :smile:

That was the panel with the 120 volt cord drops.
We fed a 45kva transformer with #6s . That panel has a 150 amp main breaker, fed with 1/0. We relocated the TX and the TX disconnect


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## RePhase277 (Feb 5, 2008)

Southeast Power said:


> The safety glasses were fogging up. They are concerned more about getting squashed by a forklift on this project.
> Thats NewElect85. :smile:
> 
> That was the panel with the 120 volt cord drops.
> We fed a 45kva transformer with #6s . That panel has a 150 amp main breaker, fed with 1/0. We relocated the TX and the TX disconnect


The first pic looks like there is a grey wire in the right-hand feeder conduit.


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## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

Southeast Power said:


> Thanks Brother


You're welcome!

IBEW all the way!


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## Helmut (May 7, 2014)

Why so much conduit, and why so high on the wall?


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

RePhase277 said:


> The first pic looks like there is a grey wire in the right-hand feeder conduit.


Good catch!
They asked for a full size neutral, but we contested as the panel was just about maxed out if you can even wrap your head around a panel with 24 three phase circuits. It might be a first for me. 
We suggested using a 1/0 just in case they needed some kind of control circuit in the future. They could at least have 277 to work with.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

Helmut said:


> Why so much conduit, and why so high on the wall?


We put two circuits, 6- #8s in each of 12- 1" EMT.

As for the elevation.
The wall is a cooler, sheet metal filled with foam and the bottom 8' is skinned with 3/4" plywood.
Every 50' or so was a 8" X 8" steel column. We had a cooler wall penetration specification that required a foam filled PVC sleeve so we kept that at a minimum by cantilevering a piece of shallow unistrut 10" past the plywood using 1/4" lag bolts.
We could then run a 4 bend 1-1/2" saddle between the column and the cooler wall above the 8' plywood.
We pulled almost a mile of #8. :surprise:


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## Helmut (May 7, 2014)

Southeast Power said:


> We put two circuits, 6- #8s in each of 12- 1" EMT.
> 
> As for the elevation.
> The wall is a cooler, sheet metal filled with foam and the bottom 8' is skinned with 3/4" plywood.
> ...


Spec'd job?


Seems larger feeders, with one arm bandits would of been cheaper.

I suppose you went higher, because the chargers were already mounted?
Just curious why you din't come out the side.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

Helmut said:


> Spec'd job?
> 
> 
> Seems larger feeders, with one arm bandits would of been cheaper.
> ...


We opted to have lockable tabs on the breakers as 480 volt gear, even small disconnects are $$.

The column obstruction kept from going out of the side for 2/3s of it so, to keep it looking consistant, we took all but two pipes out of the side.


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## Navyguy (Mar 15, 2010)

I miss doing work like that. I have a commercial garage addition coming up soon. It will be the first time in a couple years where I get to touch conduit in a meaningful way...:jester:

Cheers
John


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## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

I come from the school that says the lowest conduits on the rack go in the outer row on the panel and the longer higher ones go on the back row. Were my teachers drunk or is my observation of any value at all?


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## frenchelectrican (Mar 15, 2007)

Hey Southeast power .,

Is those set up is used for one of the self propelled robot truck ? because the spacing seems not a common pattern for forklift units. 

Otherwise it a nice set up there.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

macmikeman said:


> I come from the school that says the lowest conduits on the rack go in the outer row on the panel and the longer higher ones go on the back row. Were my teachers drunk or is my observation of any value at all?


I think he wanted to get the bottom conduit in as tight as he could and then work up and out.
It's not the way I wanted to do it.
I wanted to have it piped in a way that I could pull an odd and even set in one pipe so that I could number them in sequence and not have to cross half of those #8s in the panel.
I could change it but we labeled it as 1,3,5 etc and then switched to even numbers 1/2 way through. 
It's bugging me now, I think I might change the numbering.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

frenchelectrican said:


> Hey Southeast power .,
> 
> Is those set up is used for one of the self propelled robot truck ? because the spacing seems not a common pattern for forklift units.
> 
> Otherwise it a nice set up there.


They are indeed forklift chargers. The layout was 4'10" as the machine is 4' wide and they wanted 10" between them.
I kept saying 58" and the GC wanted to keep saying 4'10"

Ideally it should have been more but the wall space we had to work with was about 120' and had to include the panelboard.


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## RePhase277 (Feb 5, 2008)

macmikeman said:


> I come from the school that says the lowest conduits on the rack go in the outer row on the panel and the longer higher ones go on the back row. Were my teachers drunk or is my observation of any value at all?


You would save on wire that way, a little anyhow.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

Something else we had to overcome was attaching unistrut to the underside of these two hitching posts.
We routinely set equipment on steel columns and have some nice tech screws that eat right through them.
If they have concrete in them, we shoot em.
Something about the steel of that box tubing that we could barely drill.
The black Hilti shots work best on steel but I only had few. I can get red strips at Home Depot pretty easy but , the guys had to shoot em twice to get them in.
In hind sight we should have welded them.




















We used these 3/8" studs with square washers and nuts


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## RePhase277 (Feb 5, 2008)

Southeast Power said:


> They are indeed forklift chargers. Thej layout was 4'10" as the machine is 4' wide and they wanted 10" between them.


So past the 10th charger there needs to be a local disconnect? How is that addressed?




> I kept saying 58" and the GC wanted to keep saying 4'10"


I was thinking that when I read thks sentence. Unless we're talking about hundreds of feet or miles, inches just makes the most sense.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

RePhase277 said:


> You would save on wire that way, a little anyhow.


It was an extra 200' of each color but the way we pulled it, we used the same number of 500' spools.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

RePhase277 said:


> So past the 10th charger there needs to be a local disconnect? How is that addressed?
> 
> .


We ordered the panelboard with breaker lock tabs. They were about $1 or so each.


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## Arrow3030 (Mar 12, 2014)

Looks great! 

I think rephrase is asking about line of sight.


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## tjb (Feb 12, 2014)

Looks great. Nice work!


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