floating neutral test bad?

[Denray]

Checking out my new junkie continuity tester and it showed that this floating neutral bar was not floating when contacting the bar and the sub panel?

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[inspector57]

How the heck and why would you test for that?

If this is the service equipment it should be bonded, and if not, then it is bonded at the service equipment. How would a tester know the location of a proper bonding connection?

[Denray]

Color me DORK [:-paperba

[Denray]

Well this other sub panel ain't right. It looks like the neutral and equipment ground bar are tied together and the panel isn't bonded.

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[Marc]

I agree that they look connected.

Marc

[Denray]

Thanks Marc and Jim!

[John Kogel]

Panel #1, looks correct. If you measured for continuity with a DMM, there would be some resistance in the feeder from the main panel. A fraction of an ohm, maybe. That would be correct.

Panel #2 is simply wrong. There are bare ground conductors touching the panel box. So they are providing grounding that way, but bonding the neutrals to the sub as well, totally wrong.

[Carson2006]

Correct, somewhat. What you have are equipment grounding conductors attached to a neutral bus in this sub. (Which is wrong in this case) Both of those bus bars on each side are neutral conductor connection points and are tied together with an insulated bar behind the panelboard. What is needed is a grounding bus bar that is connected (bolted) to the metal enclosure with the equipment grounds (including the feeder equipment ground) stabbed there. Additionally that grounding bus bonds the metal enclosure as well. Easy fix. Hope this helps.