Sharing my solution for mounting the Emporia Vue 2

[Victor S]

I had just replaced my old breaker box with a new Square D Load Center, but it felt like it was still going to be tight getting the Vue and its CTs installed and looking good. My solution uses parts from home depot to put the Vue in its own box. I did buy the knock-out punch set at Harbor Freight because it was $25 instead of $180.

I got a 6″x6″x4″ PVC junction box and used two short 1″ conduit pieces to connect it to the load center. 1″ conduit is just big enough for the ell-shaped CT plugs to wiggle through even when you already have seven. 1.25″ would probably be easier.

I decided to route the Vue’s power wires through a separate 3/4″ conduit to avoid a possible code violation from overfilling the conduit. I think the CT cables can reasonably be called “data cables” so conduit fill isn’t a problem for them.

Also, spiral cable wrap works much better than cable ties for keeping the CT leads neat and tidy and where they won’t get in the way when you try to put the load center cover back on.

[jj613]

That’s sweet.   I have more than 16 CTs so I installed a few extra and I leave the plugs loose in the external box.   I used a larger box than you, with a hinged door so it’s easy to get in there and swap CTs.  I also put CTs on my generator feed (I don’t have solar) and, during an outage, I swap the A/B lines from the utility with the ones from the generator.   That way they don’t normally occupy two of 16 channels.   Good thinking to separate the power from the data …. I missed that.

 

[waterboyz]

I’d be concerned about the crossover of the backplane buss mid-panel AND at the bottom.

I have a 42-circuit panel that has a lot of tandem breakers so lots and lots of wires make it pretty full PLUS the 32 CTs.  I have to use an extra large box and the 1-1/2″ or 2″ pipe.

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