At a new company I have been introduced to a much stricter policy regarding electrical work of any kind. Basically they do not want anyone working on anything 50V or higher while it is energized or we bring in an electrician. My experience has typically been high voltage (220 and up) in one enclosure with mains disconnect or other protection, which then feeds into another enclosure stepped down with a transformer or two to 120VAC and/or 24VDC for control.
Currently designing a control cabinet to house a 120V -> 24VDC power supply which will have a circuit breaker on the input feeding the power supply. The rest of the items will be typical, PLC, I/O, terminal blocks, etc. The question was raised as to whether or not the restriction is too much and I wanted to get some other opinions on the matter. My concern is from a design/build/programming standpoint and then feasibility of troubleshooting in the future.
Other options I could do to circumvent this issue entirely:
Adding in external communications ports so the cabinet would not need to be opened
Adding a second enclosure to house the power supply/circuit breaker and connect the 24V to this cabinet
Both of which add cost that I'm on the fence of is it really necessary. I understand the potential dangers of 120VAC but from my experience if the installation is done properly, it would not be an issue for a qualified person to open the cabinet under power and perform basic testing/programming.
Thoughts?
Currently designing a control cabinet to house a 120V -> 24VDC power supply which will have a circuit breaker on the input feeding the power supply. The rest of the items will be typical, PLC, I/O, terminal blocks, etc. The question was raised as to whether or not the restriction is too much and I wanted to get some other opinions on the matter. My concern is from a design/build/programming standpoint and then feasibility of troubleshooting in the future.
Other options I could do to circumvent this issue entirely:
Adding in external communications ports so the cabinet would not need to be opened
Adding a second enclosure to house the power supply/circuit breaker and connect the 24V to this cabinet
Both of which add cost that I'm on the fence of is it really necessary. I understand the potential dangers of 120VAC but from my experience if the installation is done properly, it would not be an issue for a qualified person to open the cabinet under power and perform basic testing/programming.
Thoughts?