Schneider Main Panel

[Ticketmaster]

When I was setting up my electric, I really wanted 3 phase, but it was unavailable out here in the village. My plan has a lot of circuit breakers. I opted for putting most appliances each on its own dedicated circuit, water heaters ditto, have a wood shop, have circuits for future outdoor lighting and power, etc. Bottom line, I needed a lot of slots in the main panel. I trotted down to the electric shop and found the perfect 100 amp panel with 36 slots. Imagine my chagrin when I learned it was 3 phase only.

After looking all over, I could find NOTHING even close in a single phase consumer unit of any brand. I was pretty frustrated. Then one day when browsing the Schneider catalogue, I stumbled across Schneider part no. QO3-CON1PH, which converts the Schneider commercial three phase panel (100 amp only) to single phase. When I strode into the electric shop to to order the panel and the part, I was told there was no such conversion part. I explained that it changed the 3 phase panel to single phase. I was told it couldn't be done. I pulled out my catalogue and showed the owner and she was quite taken aback, saying she had never heard of such a thing. She ordered it for me and I installed it into my new Schneider 36 slot main right in her shop with a group of Thai electricians standing in a circle watching the crazy farang.

It is a very nifty part. I though some of you at there facing my dilemma might want to know.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Crossy

[IMHO]

Have had the same dilemma, and like others here just installed 2x 14 breaker single phase load centers, with a nice beefy buss-bar on the incoming lines.

Edited July 8, 2013 by IMHO

[Ticketmaster]

Have had the same dilemma, and like others here just installed 2x 14 breaker single phase load centers, with a nice beefy buss-bar on the incoming lines.

That's what I was going to do before I discovered that part. But each of those panels require a main breaker and if I wanted a single main as well for everything, I would have ended up with a small main breaker only box and the two sub-mains -- three main breakers (one main and two sub-mains) instead of one. I just hated that idea.

With that conversion part, I was able to run my 50mm buried NYY cable in from the pole to a main switch, then into the single main breaker in the big panel. I have a sub-main panel in the wood shop run from a breaker in the house main panel. I also have a few extra slots for any future expansion that may arise.

[IMHO]

Have had the same dilemma, and like others here just installed 2x 14 breaker single phase load centers, with a nice beefy buss-bar on the incoming lines.

That's what I was going to do before I discovered that part. But each of those panels require a main breaker and if I wanted a single main as well for everything, I would have ended up with a small main breaker only box and the two sub-mains -- three main breakers (one main and two sub-mains) instead of one. I just hated that idea.

With that conversion part, I was able to run my 50mm buried NYY cable in from the pole to a main switch, then into the single main breaker in the big panel. I have a sub-main panel in the wood shop run from a breaker in the house main panel. I also have a few extra slots for any future expansion that may arise.

Cool part, no doubt. I didn't search too much for other options though as dual load centers gives the ability to have a genset that only runs one of them during an outage, allowing me to select what's genny powered and what's not - and meaning I could get away with a smaller/cheaper 12KVA genset that powers just the essentials