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L11 Disconnect Switch Mounting Directions and Reverse Feed

Question:

Can the L11 disconnect switches be rotated 180 degrees and mounted upside down, or sideways in a 90 degree orientation? Can you reverse or bottom feed these switches so that the incoming power is wired to the load side of the switch?

Answer:

The current L11 Series can be mounted upside down or reverse (bottom) fed. These switches cannot be mounted sideways (rotated 90 degree orientation) as this will affect the convention of heat dissipation and could cause the switch to overheat. See the notes below for application requirements when using these switches mounted upside down or when the switch is being wired with the incoming power attached to the load side wire terminations.

• In a reverse or bottom feed application, the switch terminals need to be properly identified. This can be done by adding line and load side terminal guards and adding the actual terminal markings to them. This is done because the Hot wires would be coming in on what would normally be the load side when reverse feeding making the bottom terminals of the switch Hot and the top terminals Cold when the switch is turned off which is just the opposite of a standard incoming line power on the top style installation.
• The 30 and 60A switches are supplied with terminal markings molded into the switch. There are no terminal markings on the 100A and larger switches. There are also no markings or labels on any of the terminal guards / shrouds used with these switches. Therefore, the end customer would have to apply their own labels to any switch that is being reverse fed.
• When the switch is in the OFF position, there is no voltage on any of the fuse clips or shorting bars regardless of how it is wired or mounted. The circuit is opened in two places - both on the line and load side between the wire terminal and the fuse clip or shorting bar.
• Mounting a switch upside down does not affect or change the external handle mounting orientation.
• We do not offer L11 switches with the rod mechanism mounted on the left side and Line side terminals (L) at the top, Load (T) terminals at the bottom.
• The L11 switch design uses the operating rod or shaft mechanism mounted to the right side of the switch as shown in the picture in the Industrial Controls Catalog.

The obsolete L10 disconnect switches could also be mounted upside down or reverse (bottom) fed as noted above. The L10 30 and 60A switches were supplied with terminal guards and terminal labels and should be installed to reflect the proper marking of the terminals as they are being used.