Todays Project - What did you do today?

[stevec]

Ken, first let me say you have honoured you father well, I'm sure he's smiling down.

On the subject of shops and power distribution.
Although we have a 200 amp. entry, I tested the distribution with change from 40A to 60A for the shop.
After a while (2yrs +/-) I would notice a buzzing sound from the main panel when I was near it and eventually the main breaker tripped a few times.

Fortunately my wife's friend is married to a retired electrician and he came over to have a look.

We ended up changing the entry panel and were able to eliminate one of the subpanels.

We unhooked the feeds at the panel and insulated them one at a time to withdraw the panel and insert the new one. I was nervous about 200 amps just ready to grab us but he wasn't.

All is good now and he "owns me" and my machine shop, I have gladly committed my tools and skills for some of his needs.

I notice when I disassembled the main breaker tie to the old panel that one of the two bolts that secure the breaker to the buss bars
had been threaded into the buss bar without going through the breaker buss! One leg of our 220 service had been making contact with only the tension provided by the other leg's proper installation and the mounting screws!
It might have been improperly assembled at the factory, most panels come with the main breaker installed.

Carbon tracking and a bit of pitting cleaned up well with some emery cloth and I was able to sell the panel on the net and recoup some of the costs.

Power distribution is better balanced now and although we could have re-assembled and re-installed the original panel I'm satisfied with the new higher quality panel.