Picture of your MEP terminal hook up to house?

[rosco]

I wanted to be able to hook up to anything, anywhere, fast & easy. When you need it most, here, usually its the most uncomfortable times (-50F).
I have a pigtail going into the boxes with the plugs/breakers. If I need 120V, I have another cord with GFCI, 20A duplexs, that I plug into the 230V. to better balance the draw. If I need to plug into my house, I use a 50A cord, as shown earlier.

 

[Glockfan]

I have a thread here with several install pics including a picture of my terminal board:

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showth...way-as-my-home-standby-generator-Install-pics

 

[SteveH]

Lots of good discussions here. Does anyone else have pictures of the cables connecting to the terminals or similar? The reason I asked was my electrician suggested cutting a hole in the side of the box and using some kind of weather tight fitting. His concern was having the local inspector say no to the wires on the terminal posts and the box is easily opened. So has anyone done this or does everyone always use the original terminals?
Thanks,
Chris

My electrician also had the same concern - told me the inspector would require conduit into terminal box, so that it wasn't possible to touch the live terminals under normal operation. This is what we did (note the white box above the MEP termination box is my PLC). Apologies for c***y photo; this is all I have - taken before I got a door on the shed; hence all the snow on the floor!

-Steve

 

[M1031CMT]

Our electrician said we could only use the industrial power plug (or whatever it is called) if the building were commercial or industrial. No way would he install that sort of plug in a residential setting. Plus he said that the box that would accept it costs in the order of $600. So we had to get a standard 4 prong 40AMP outlet instead. Not that we really cared all that much. It just took an extra $50 to install a connector on the generators to accept it.

This is the panel he installed in the garage as well as the outlet/plug under it. The panel is made specifically for generators.



We have a 40ft cable that can either run to the MEP903C in the M1031 or the MEP002 that is mounted on a trailer.




The wire connection for the MEP002:



It was easiest this way and it made the electrician and inspector happy (they signed off on everything).

 

[95blklsc]

Our electrician said we could only use the industrial power plug (or whatever it is called) if the building were commercial or industrial. No way would he install that sort of plug in a residential setting. Plus he said that the box that would accept it costs in the order of $600. So we had to get a standard 4 prong 40AMP outlet instead. Not that we really cared all that much. It just took an extra $50 to install a connector on the generators to accept it.

This is the panel he installed in the garage as well as the outlet/plug under it. The panel is made specifically for generators.

View attachment 530483

We have a 40ft cable that can either run to the MEP903C in the M1031 or the MEP002 that is mounted on a trailer.


View attachment 530485View attachment 530484View attachment 530486

The wire connection for the MEP002:

View attachment 530482

It was easiest this way and it made the electrician and inspector happy (they signed off on everything).

Looks good. Is there anything in NEC code not allowing a so called "commercial/industrial" plug to be used in a residential setting? That's one reason why I ensured I followed code but didn't bother with an inspector. I don't know our local inspector but I wasn't going to put something lessor on because they deemed that it's unacceptable but can't cite a code violation. Also, the back boxes can be had for a reasonable price. I bought the back box for my Hubbell 100A reverse service plug for $100, the list price is something like $300.

If I'm understanding your post correctly, the inspector would allow a 40A plug, which comes to 9,600 watts rating at 240V. This for your 003A generator with a name plate rating of 10kW? Right there it sounds like a code violation to me just using the name plate capacity. We all know an 003A will continuously put out a significant amount more power than that if it is in good running order. I would put nothing smaller than a 60A rated reverse service set up for an 003A. I went with a 100A reverse service plug just in case I wanted something larger in the future, but that's just me.

 

[M1031CMT]

I am not sure which codes the industrial plug thing had to do with. It has been a few years. I am also north of the border so it is likely due to CDN electrical codes. Or it might just be local codes.

The generator panel does not power the complete house. It only powers essential parts of the house. For instance it can power the furnace, water pump, sewage pump, kitchen (fridge, microwave, 1 outlet), some lights, etc. So unless everything is on at the same time, the draw will not be very high. I had the generator connected and running when he did a test of the system (also looked at the generator specs for info) and he said he was happy with it, as was the inspector, so I am not worried.

 

[Isaac-1]

One thing I have learned about electricians over the years is they love to say "it is against code" when they don't want to do things a certain way, yet when you try to get them to point to the code violation they can't.

 

[tim292stro]

...Is there anything in NEC code not allowing a so called "commercial/industrial" plug to be used in a residential setting?...

For all the years I've been digging through "The Code", I've never found anything saying a commercial/industrial connector cannot be used in a residential setting. Remember that the code is a prescribed set of MINIMUMS and BEST PRACTICES. There is nothing saying that you cannot exceed the minimums so long as you follow the best practices, and don't violate the ratings of any of your components.

In line with best practices, there are plugs/connectors that are designed for ratings you're looking for - a 003 or 803 would be perfect for use with a 4-wire 50-Amp RV shore power outlet on the generator, power cord, and "shore power inlet" on the house.

If you run three-phase power 208Y/120V, you could use standard 32-12 circular Military Class-L cable sets and plugs/receptacles.