Neutral connections

[Don Krasley]

I'm working on my control panel right now and I have a stupid question!

Do all the neutrals need to connect to the boards? I know it needs a neutral connected to the board, but I can't see any reason why I need to connect every neutral to the board. I am mounting neutral bars in my panel and figure I can save a lot of money in wire if I just run the neutrals from the neutral bars to the receptacles. I am not coming up with any reason to connect directly from the board and I am an electrician, so I know the neutrals are important and can make or break the whole system. I know it is a stupid question and just wanted to check with the experts first!

I am working on board #12 for my panel and will start wiring the box Monday! I will post pictures for those interested in the results. I bought this latest box on eBay for $125!

[garyfunk]

Then you know that any neutral line will have to carry the current of all 16 load lines.

[Don Krasley]

Sure Gary, I know the neutral must meet or exceed the load potential of all 16 channels. But to run 16 neutrals from each board is a lot of wire! It's redundant to use all those wires. I even contemplated not even soldering all the spade lug terminals on the board, but I figured they are there and I just did it. I guess they are all there for the use of the standard setup where you use cords hanging out the box. I guess I will just go with it. I can't see what would be wrong with it. I have 2 isolated neutral bars mounted in the box and it will make less of a wiring mess. I'm all about a clean job! It's less markers too!
Thanks for your input. I just wanted to run it by the experts!

[garyfunk]

I'm no expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn once. I mostly wanted to post that for those that don't know. We don't wan't someone else blowing up their equipment because they misunderstood something.

[LightORamaDan]

You can tie all your neutrals together off-board. If tied together off-board you (as you mentioned) need to bring a neutral to the board for the electronics.

[Don Krasley]

Thanks Dan! I knew I could, but for technical reasons, I thought I would ask. I didn't think the board cared, just as long as it has it's neutral!
And the light was good!

[Scott Cockroft]

You also need to make sure that neutrals from separate ground fault receptacles feeding the boards are not connected together. If you have separate feeds for each side of the board or multiple boards you will need to group the appropriate neutrals together.

[javerill]

garyfunk wrote:

I'm no expert, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn once.

Thanks for the laugh!

[Tim Fischer]

Scott Cockroft wrote:

You also need to make sure that neutrals from separate ground fault receptacles feeding the boards are not connected together. If you have separate feeds for each side of the board or multiple boards you will need to group the appropriate neutrals together.

This is true even without GFCI outlets. GFCI's will enforce this, but it's really bad practice to take current from one circuit and send it down another. At worst, you might overload the neutral, which is NOT circuit-breaker or fuse protected...

-Tim