Panel Layout and design

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These two sites are helpfull

Cutler Hammer has a good online learning experience. It is called cutler-hammer university. Just do a search for them and you will find it on their web site. It is somewhat basic but I have learned a thing or two from there. Try it out. Also, does your customer want a UL listed panel? If so, you may want to get a copy of UL508A to understand the requirements and tests required to get a UL listed panel. Good luck.

Learned from many years of doing this...Do your best job of estimating how much space you'll need with a reasonable amount of conservatism (i.e. allow for some growth in number of channels, signals, etc.) When you're all done, and you have your answer, DOUBLE IT. Make your panel the size of your doubled answer, and when the project is all done, you'll have a winner every time. You'll end up using 80 - 90% of the DOUBLED result.

This is from A Product safety Engineers point of view, First prior-life makes a very good point. Make sure you have plenty of room, I'm sure you know but follow the old design information. When you lay out your panel seperate AC form DC where ever possible group AC and DC components apart form each other. Leave room for a LIne Filter for mains coming in, if you go to test for FCC or EU EMC you'll probably need one. I like the allen Bradly site because if you need component cirtificates their ready to be downloaded right there and you don't have to chase sales people around that don't know what your talking about. There are many component manufactures telemechanique, Seimens, Allen Bradly, Cutler Hammer, AB and PILZ for your safety monitoring, Guardmaster for interlocks and so on you probably will not be able to use just one. Always keep in mind if the product will go through some type of certification make sure you collect all the necessary documents for the critical components. Christopher Caserta
Sr. Regulatory Engineer
ccaserta@enorthhampton.com
Ph:904-225-0360
Fax:904-225-0340

I heard that european companies such as Merlin Gerin, Siemens or Klockner Mueller have their panel planning software that might do the job for you, and check the drawing for the correct functionning.