The overview of any electrical control panel is to be used to control mechanical equipment. In order words they are designed for a device or an equipment/machine which will allow the operator to control specified equipment.

As an electrical student or electrician if you are new to control and is a compulsion for you to learn control panel, kindly follow me closely as i will share bit by bit on what you need to understand regarding control panel.

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Lets quickly look at some basic parameters we need to understand:

What are the major terms description related to control panels?

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Safety Rating

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All control panel has safety rating which can be UL, which is the third party safety certification or short circuit current rating which can be 7kA depending on what the control panel is been use for.

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Enclosure

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This is the control panel packaging: the compartment or the housing of the control panel. It can be surface mounting enclosure, wall mounting enclosure, the material can be steel or fabric, the door mechanism is also part of the description of control panel.

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Main Power Supply

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Two important factors here are incoming power supply and Outgoing power supply. Each of this power supply required circuit breaker and the determinant of the breaker rating will be depended on the power rating whether is single phase(240V) or three phase(415V) depending on the equipment the control panel controlling.

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Control Power

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On the other hand the control panel may also have direct power supply as its main supply. It means the incoming can either be 120V or 24VDC while the outgoing power is 120V e.g chemical pump through a Power relay.

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Sequence of Operator

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When you determine how you want your panel to operate and the system to control with the duration of operation, the installer will know what to do in the area of designing. Sequence of operation especially in production industry is examined and it is the control panel that has been designed to perform the operation.

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Remote Control Interface

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There is also a remote interface that serve as a display module for every operation. This module can comes in two types which digital or analog and they both has current rating.

Power Component in Control Panel Explained

Power components are the components used to control the movement or the flow of electrical power to the system or equipments( motors, pumps, blowers, compressor e.t.c)

Let us look at some of this components

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Circuit breakers

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This is a manually electrical operated power switch which can detect any fault in the panel by tripping off when short circuit or overload fault is detected. Overload fault is detected by breaker through thermally sensation while Short circuit fault is determined through magnetically sensation.

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Fuse Disconnect

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This comes with combination of both switch and fuse. Fuse serve as component that breaks the flow of current when short circuit or overload fault is detected.

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Motor Starter

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This component combine some devices togeter (overload relay, circuit breaker, contactor) which is used to control and power the motor. This motor starter can be replaced by soft starter to increase or improve the motor control

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Soft Starter

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This is a simple solid state motor power controller. soft starter ramps the motor voltage up and down inorder to turn the motor on and off which send away electrical surge and also mechanical shock.

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Variable Frequency Drive

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This is called an advanced solid state power controllers. Unlike ramping the motor voltage up and down, variable frequency drive control the speed of the motor everytime.

Let see electrical control component

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Control Relay

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This component has a coil which energise and de-energised by electrical voltage. This is a simplest of the control devices in electrical system. We use relay to turn on and off some component like contactors e.t.c.

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Timer Relay

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As the name implies, it is a relay with in-built timer which is designed control when their contacts changes state and just like the explanation on relay, timer relays are to turn other devices too at a specific times.

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Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC)

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This is a combination of some component like relays, timers e.tc. This PLCs are flexible and there function is to allow communications which needs people with computer experience or skill to program for proper operation.

Lastly lets quickly look at electrical operator devices

Electrical Operator Devices

There should be monitoring during operation, lets see three electrical operator devices that will help us:

Pilot Devices

This is manually operated electrical indicator/switches. This is door mounted and they usually come in different forms and colour. Push-Pulls, selector Switches, Pushbuttons.

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Digital Meters

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This is a display component which allows an operator to monitor analog process variables (Level, Pressure, Temperature, etc.).

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Operator Interfaces

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This component is the same as digital Meters but this allow an operator to take charge of the PLC and display the status of signals which is been connected to the PLC controller together with the analogy process variable which are Temperature, Level and Pressure.e.t.c.

NB: All the electrical operator devices are door mounted

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Check out the understanding Electrical Control Panel 1

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