Control Panel Build Series Part 16- Wiring Preparation
Control_Panel_Build_Series_Part_16_Wiring_Preparation.pdf
- Review your drawings!
- Make sure you have the proper wire for all of these different types of circuits:
Larger wire for power distribution
Smaller gauge wire for signals
TSP for analog signals
Etc. - Label Preparations (You will likely use hundreds of labels)
- Make a plan
Transcript:
[0m:4s] Hi I'm Josh Bloom, welcome to another video in the RSP Supply education series. If you find that these videos are helpful to you, it certainly helps us out if you could give us a big thumbs up and subscribe to our channel.
[0m:15s] In today's video, we will move on to the next step in building an industrial control panel.
[0m:21s] If you haven't already seen the other videos in this series, we encourage you to go back and watch from the beginning so that you might better understand the entire process.
[0m:29s] The step in which we will focus on today is beginning to prepare to wire the panel.
[0m:35s] Now that we have attached all of the necessary hardware to the panel, we will need to start thinking about what is needed in order to wire the panel properly. Some of these preparation steps include double checking your electrical designs, printing wire labels, checking to make sure you have all of the necessary wire that is needed for the panel, as well as several other steps that lead up to the wiring phase of the build. As always, the process in which we will discuss today is just one method out of many that can be performed to achieve the very same results. So let's get to it.
[1m:11s] So one of the most important things we can do and also probably one of the most often overlooked steps during this wiring process is actually taking time before we start to wire to prepare ourselves to make sure that nothing is missed.
[1m:25s] This preparation step is really, really critical when wiring a control panel and is something that we always do during this process.
[1m:35s] So the first thing we do in this preparation process is again to review our electrical drawing. Now, this is something we've done several times throughout the build. But again, it's very, very critical during this wire preparation process. One of the things we want to look at here is it allows us to kind of look at all the different circuits we're going to be wiring in the panel and start to wrap our head around what's going to be required in each of these circuits and how we want to start to wire each individual circuit. Also, during this review process of these drawings, it allows us to maybe find any problems we may have missed before. If we have any questions, this is a good time to address those questions or problems so that we can avoid any headaches later on in the fabrication or installation process of the panel. When wiring the control panel, we also want to make sure that we have the proper wire size for all the different types of circuits within the power distribution portion
[2m:36s] and all the signal portions of our panel. We want to double check to make sure that we have the wire that we need for all the different types of circuits that were going to be wiring. This includes all different sizes and styles of wire. So larger wire obviously used for power distribution. We're going to use slightly smaller gauge wire for our signals. We're going to use twisted shielded pair, most likely for our analog signal. So we want to look at all the different types of wires make sure we have everything that we need available to us that when we begin to wire, we don't have any hold ups or waiting for wire or start to use the
wrong type of wire for the wrong type of circuit. Another thing that's really important during this preparation process is labels. Now when we're wiring a control panel it's really not uncommon to see just several hundred labels, depending on the size of the panel, for any given control panel. The panel that we're building during this process has a whole bunch of different labels that we need to prepare. So it's best practice to to use your drawings and print all the labels in advance before we begin doing any wiring. Now we happen to have a machine that prints our labels here. We can do it very quickly and efficiently, but if you happen to need to order your labels or if it takes you a long time to make your labels, again, take this into consideration during this preparation step so that you can get all that stuff done before you begin to wire your panel. The other thing you want to make sure of is your labels can be really, really expensive, so make sure you take time during this label labeling process to make sure the names are correct before you actually print your labels. Also, you want to make sure that we store them somewhere that they're not going to get lost so that we don't have to replace them later on.
[4m:20s] Lastly in this preparation process, we want to make sure that we make a plan. Get an idea in our head of how we're going to attack this wiring phase of the build. I find this is very, very helpful when wiring a control panel, having kind of a plan in place on how we're going to do things how we're going to attack it. Maybe draw some experience in the past and how we've wired other panels that might apply to the particular panel that you're going to be wiring. So have a plan of attack for how you plan to do that. I would also, again, review the plan that you have in place with your project manager or an engineer or someone in charge who really understands the panel fabrication process so they might offer some input or let you know if they have any concerns that you may encounter during your wiring process. Again, make any changes at this point if necessary before you actually start to wire. But once you've done all these things, at that point, you're really ready to dig into the panel wiring phase of the build, which is a really exciting part of this fabrication process.
[5m:26s] As you can see, there are many things that should be taken into account when preparing to wire your panel. It is important to perform this step as opposed to just jumping right into the wiring phase of this build.
[5m:38s] It is easy to make mistakes when wiring and the proper preparation can help eliminate many of these common mistakes that we see being made.
[5m:47s] As always, we appreciate your interest and participation in this series and hope you continue to join us throughout the remainder of the build process. In our next video, we will move on to actually wiring the panel. So make sure to join us next time as we continue to build.
[6m:3s] For a full line of industrial control panel hardware and thousands of other products, please go to our website. For more information or other educational videos, go to RSPSupply.com, the Internet's top source for industrial hardware. Also, don't forget:
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