"Black Box" Electrical Board

[EricH]

I think that WAY too much is going to have to depend on the implementation to make the call either way unless I had said box right in front of me. Can it work? Sure. It's been done before.

#1, you're going to need to make sure that all the appropriate lights can be seen by an inspector. Fail this, and you automatically lose "Inspector Friendly" (as well as having to rebuild the board to see the lights). That being said, there aren't too many lights on the boards that actually need to be seen.

#2, you're going to need to make the access easy (you want to be able to work on the stuff when you're not on the field, right?).

#3, make sure all your plugin points--motors, sensors, main breaker/battery, and anything else--is secure, well labeled, and ideally very difficult to plug in the wrong way. (Varying sizes of Anderson custom blocks for motors work; a 15-pin or maybe a 37-pin for sensors; also make sure you've got an appropriate pigtail for your programming cable.) This isn't inspection stuff, this is so that you don't get the wrong cable into the wrong spot.

#4: FAN. You'll need to cool the box somehow, what with all the electronics there generating heat.