sub panel neutral

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bond

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One more thing is on my mind and maybe I read it wrong. On october 10th the topic was subpanel seperation and it was clear to me after that but Byran asked ."if the main panel feed to the sub panel is with a metallic raceway,what would be the point of seperating the grounded and bonding conductors;? and the response from Iwire was " If we bond at both ends of the raceway the raceway is now a neutral conductor.Any loose joints in the raceway could be a source of electrical shock or heating; My question is how in the world could that happen if i put a three inch nipple off the main panel to a sub panel that has the neutral totaly isolated from the grounding terminal and the sub panel itself,?which is code.The nipple is obviously bonded at both ends with lock nuts and i dont see any way a parallel neutral or any significant amount of objectional current.Please enlighten me .Thanks
 

charlie b

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Lockport, IL
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Retired Electrical Engineer
Re: sub panel neutral

Originally posted by bond:. . . if I put a three inch nipple off the main panel to a sub panel that has the neutral totally isolated from the grounding terminal and the sub panel itself?
There is your answer. I believe the situation that Bob (iwire) was describing had the neutral and ground terminals bonded at both ends of the feeder to the sub-panel. That would put the neutral and the conduit in parallel. You are talking about having the neutral and ground terminals separated at the sub-panel. That would not create a parallel path.
 

iwire

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Massachusetts
Re: sub panel neutral

Bond, When I said

If we bond at both ends of the raceway the raceway is now a neutral conductor.
it was a poor description. :(

What I meant was this, if you run a metal raceway between two enclosures that both have the neutral bonded to the enclosure, that metal raceway will become a neutral conductor.
 
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