Technical Articles

A conversation that you do not want to have. John: Have you seen Bill?  Sue: I saw him this morning as he was headed to the work location. John: It’s almost the end of the shift, any word since this morning?Sue: No.  I guess we better go check on him.John: Opening the electrical room door: OMG, BILL, NOOOOO! Safety in electrical work has long emphasized preparation, training, and hazard control—but the next edition of NFPA 70E is expected to take

NFPA 70E Hazard Elimination – Absence of Current NFPA 70E emphasizes hazard elimination as the first priority in the implementation of safety-related work practices. This requirement is normally met by establishing and verifying an electrically safe work condition (ESWC) in accordance with NFPA 70E 120.6. Step seven of this process requires determining the absence of voltage to confirm that a circuit is deenergized and safe to work on.  However, the 2027 edition recognizes absence of voltage may not be enough.  

Question:I have a switchboard with horizontal bus. Should I use the HCB model? Short answer:Not necessarily. Wait! What? Horizontal might not be horizontal? NFPA 70E requires performing an arc flash risk assessment which usually means using IEEE 1584 equations via software to conduct an arc flash study. This requires the selection of what is known as the equipment electrode configuration. One of the most misunderstood configurations is HCB. Let’s clear up a common misunderstanding. HCB stands for Horizontal Conductors in

IEEE 1584 is validated only up to 15 kV, leaving higher-voltage systems outside its empirical model. This article explains what NFPA 70E requires above 15 kV and outlines defensible approaches for high-voltage arc-flash risk assessments.

NFPA 70E arc-flash labels often display distances and incident energy in different units, leading to confusion. This article explains why IEEE 1584 requires metric calculations and how labeling conversions still remain compliant with NFPA 70E.

Brainfiller and Jim Phillips are proud to partner with Electrical Safety UK (ESUK), a leading authority in arc flash and electrical safety across the UK and Europe.

NFPA 70E requires arc-flash labels, but it does not mandate specific colors. This article explains how ANSI Z535 signal words influence label colors and what is considered best practice for compliance.