Electrical Panel Building

[elster]

Is there anyone on here who does electrical panel building and panel wiring as a job?

Just wanting to ask a few questions.

Cheers

[dilbert]

Sort of?
I used to have to faultfind and rework the dud equipments that the panel wirers got wrong, on electrical safety testers. Yes, you guessed it, I had the dubious pleasure of being the one to have to power up potentially dodgey 15kV power supplies.... I swear I should have got danger money for that.

I've also spent some of my life speccing out military cardframes and cabinets.

What's the question?

Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 12th August 02:17

[elster]

dilbert said:

Sort of?
I used to have to faultfind and rework the dud equipments that the panel wirers got wrong, on electrical safety testers. Yes, you guessed it, I had the dubious pleasure of being the one to have to power up potentially dodgey 15kV power supplies.... I swear I should have got danger money for that.

I've also spent some of my life speccing out military cardframes and cabinets.

What's the question?

Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 12th August 02:17

Well I spent a few months doing some panel building for Landis, who make grinding equipment. I also build any panels that I need for odd jobs for industrial applications.

What I'm wanting to know is more about how to get more involved in it? I don't really work very well for someone else. But could quite happily follow any drawings and meet deadlines. So sub contracting is possible. But how easy is it to get into it? I figure most companies who need go to a larger specific company. Is ther much of a market for the smaller independants who make for others, rather than just for their own work.

I hope that make's sense. Just wanting some advice on getting into the industry really.

[dilbert]

elster said:

dilbert said:

Sort of?
I used to have to faultfind and rework the dud equipments that the panel wirers got wrong, on electrical safety testers. Yes, you guessed it, I had the dubious pleasure of being the one to have to power up potentially dodgey 15kV power supplies.... I swear I should have got danger money for that.

I've also spent some of my life speccing out military cardframes and cabinets.

What's the question?

Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 12th August 02:17

Well I spent a few months doing some panel building for Landis, who make grinding equipment. I also build any panels that I need for odd jobs for industrial applications.

What I'm wanting to know is more about how to get more involved in it? I don't really work very well for someone else. But could quite happily follow any drawings and meet deadlines. So sub contracting is possible. But how easy is it to get into it? I figure most companies who need go to a larger specific company. Is ther much of a market for the smaller independants who make for others, rather than just for their own work.

I hope that make's sense. Just wanting some advice on getting into the industry really.

Blimey, that's a question I'd love to know the answer to. For me, it's not so much for the panel wiring, but more the electronic design that goes with it!

I see you're NIC/EIC, which I'm not. All the work I have ever done has been on the basis of my degree. It works slightly differently there. Generally you tend to be working for a company who are then responsible for the safety of the equipment. In my experience much of that is on a wing and a prayer. Often there is someone technically competent in management, but proper oversight is relatively rare. I think this might be one of the reasons I've never held much respect for the whole certification drive, but that's another story.

I accept that the contract game is a bit different. It's not the holders of the certificates, it's the people who say you should!!!

Anyhow, my dear old Dad used to do a bit of this sort of stuff, although he was mainly a plumber (now retired), who left a company that manufactured the very early microprocessor based modem~teletypes, back in the mid seventies. He had NIC/EIC before it was compulsory, but for him it was as much about house wiring as it was equipment.

I think I know the sort of thing you're thinking about. A bit more than being an electrical engineer for a factory, with loads of three phase machine tools, but not as much as serously intense large scale radar/broadcast equipment (HT/Microwave/backplanes and busses).

The dividing line is pretty natural, equipment and supplies. Contracting is naturally going to be supplies, and employed work equipment. People take finished machines to site, and the contractors wire them in to the supply.

I'll cite the two areas that are applicable and familiar.

There is some overlap, in HVAC. The heater or air conditioner traditionally does not have its own detailed controls, because the heaters all need to work together, and you may need more than one heater.

I know of people who make money contracting with PLC's and SCADA, but if software is not your thing, then it's a bit distant. Either way perhaps more of a focus on instrumentation as opposed to just controls and switchgear is reasonable. I guess that depends on you.

Another way might be to tout for piecework from an equipment manufacturer. I know from my experiences in manufacturing proper (as opposed to big projects) that the work is sporadic. Sometimes people are twiddling their thumbs, others that everyone needs to wor ten times harder and you just cant get staff.

If the company is switched on (pardon the pun) they'll have all the drawings and details. My experience of small companies is that they're not that switched on. The "knowledge" is passed about on grotty bit's of paper, and reference machines. No-one is ever really certain. They get away with it because the machine numbers are reasonably high. These are the companies that would really benefit from contracting piece work to people at home, when there is too much work.

At the other end you hav really big companies, and they're so switched on that it would be unreasonable to do the work at home. It would be difficult for them to give you all their jigs and fixtures, just to take away. The work has to be done on their site.

I worked at the MOD for a while, and the other guy in the office used to do roving quality control in the south east for military radio components. He once told me about a time in the late fifties, where two guys started a business making transformers for the Royal Navy in a garden shed, with a kitchen cooker. Incidentally he said that the quality was very good. I think those times have gone now though. They may come back, but not perhaps for a while.

HVAC (heating & ventilation), that's the best recommendation I could suggest. I had a squint at your website, and saw the work with some of the bigger firms. You'll already know that industrial and process plant is a winner.

Good luck.

Edited by dilbert on Tuesday 12th August 03:50