# IEC over Nema



## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

At any rate, I would choose NEMA over IEC any day of the week, despite IEC almost completely displacing NEMA now.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

There's a very good reason IEC stuff is a fraction of the cost of NEMA stuff.

You get what you pay for, you get what you pay for, you get what you pay for.


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## micromind (Aug 11, 2007)

Generally speaking, IEC doesn't hold up well under normal conditions; the slightest abuse will make it fail right away.


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

General Electric still specifies all NEMA equipment (GE of course) on their machine tools, right down to the terminal strips and push buttons. They may be the lone company in existence that still requires NEMA, but I commend them for it. It makes wiring a machine tool much more enjoyable when everything is NEMA.


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## Tsmil (Jul 17, 2011)

Big John said:


> There's a very good reason IEC stuff is a fraction of the cost of NEMA stuff. You get what you pay for, you get what you pay for, you get what you pay for.


You're right, you get what you pay for. But more and more we find that cost, whether it be in design or maintenance, is becoming the deciding factor of what to use.


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## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

Tsmil said:


> You're right, you get what you pay for. But more and more we find that cost, whether it be in design or maintenance, is becoming the deciding factor of what to use.


Long term cost of ownership has been proven, time and time again, to be higher for IEC components (in North America), but unfortunately nobody seems to care about that. They only care about initial cost.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Tsmil said:


> You're right, you get what you pay for. But more and more we find that cost, whether it be in design or maintenance, is becoming the deciding factor of what to use.


 No argument. I've been in those meetings many times _"Yes, the part is 43% cheaper, but once you add up the labor and downtime of having to replace it every year, it actually ends up being literally 20,000% more expensive." _

It's incredible to me how many managers don't understand the most basic accounting and/or can't think more than 24 hours into the future. We really need to stop promoting people based on seniority. It puts a lot of dummies in positions of power.


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

I noticed a lot of IEC stuff from the big European companies (Schneider, Siemens) is now being manufactured in eastern Europe and Turkey, no doubt because it's much cheaper to make there. The motor starters are still mostly from France and Germany, but that's changing.


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## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

MTW said:


> I noticed a lot of IEC stuff from the big European companies (Schneider, Siemens) is now being manufactured in eastern Europe and Turkey, no doubt because it's much cheaper to make there. The motor starters are still mostly from France and Germany, but that's changing.


It took a while, but a lot of poorer countries have finally figured out how to compete against China and India by subsidizing new mfrg plants to big corporations with tax incentives. That, combined with lower shipping costs, makes it possible to make things closer to home. They often still have the plants in Asia, but with the Asian markets increasing, they are serving themselves more.


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## Paulusgnome (Mar 28, 2009)

Despite their relatively low cost compared to Nema components, when used correctly IEC components do perform correctly and reliably. They are not just cheap junk.
The problem may be that they don't tend to have anything like the overloading capacity the seem to be the norm with Nema components. If you attempt to use an IEC contactor in a motor-starter, for instance, in place of a Nema contactor of the same apparent rating, well that could easily end badly.
The company that I work for has a long track record of using IEC components in industrial machinery that is installed world-wide, including in factories in the US. If there were any reliability issues we would be among the first to know, factory owners are not known for their tolerance in matters of plant down-time.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Paulusgnome said:


> Despite their relatively low cost compared to Nema components, when used correctly IEC components do perform correctly and reliably. They are not just cheap junk....


 I don't disagree. I've put a lot of IEC in light-duty applications and it worked just fine and did save money.

But the motto is, "If it's gotta be bomb-proof, it's gotta be NEMA."


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## ponyboy (Nov 18, 2012)

It's not just cliche to prefer nema over iec, at least for me in my little corner of the sandbox


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## varmit (Apr 19, 2009)

I agree that NEMA contactors and starters are WAY MORE durable than IEC. A lot of the junk that I work on is OEM with IEC, so there is no room to replace components with NEMA. If I can I try to replace contactors with ones that are rated for 200% of the motor loads. The most common fail point are the IEC overloads. Even if sized correctly, they just burn out prematurely.


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## guest (Feb 21, 2009)

> *IEC over Nema*
> Nevermind, found my answer...
> _ Last edited by Dnkldorf; Today at 06:49 AM. _


This is precisely why we have a time limit on editing posts. 

In the future, please KEEP your original question posted, even if you DO find the answer. 

I am closing this thread.


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