Balanced Panels Without the Guesswork
Enter your circuits and loads — ApexBIM figures out the best arrangement across all three phases and shows you the imbalance.
The Problem
Distributing single-phase circuits across a 3-phase panel to keep things balanced is done by trial and error. The engineer assigns circuits to phases A, B, and C, adds up the loads, checks the imbalance, swaps a circuit, re-checks — and repeats until the imbalance is acceptable. The process is slow, and the result is often not the best possible arrangement because nothing automatically finds the optimal assignment.
What teams do today: list circuits and loads on paper, assign them to phases A, B, and C by feel, add up the loads per phase, calculate the imbalance percentage, realize it is too high, swap a circuit from A to C, re-calculate, realize it is now worse, swap a different circuit, re-calculate, and eventually settle for "good enough." The process takes 20 to 30 minutes per panel and repeats for every panel in the project.
- 1
Enter your circuits
List your circuits with their load in watts, type (lighting, receptacle, HVAC, etc.), and whether they are continuous loads. Pre-assigned phase circuits are respected.
- 2
Click "Balance"
ApexBIM automatically assigns each circuit to the phase with the least load, so the panel stays as balanced as possible. Continuous loads are automatically factored at 125% per electrical code.
- 3
Review the results
See the load on each phase, the line currents, the imbalance percentage, and a recommendation. If the imbalance is above 10%, the tool suggests moving a specific circuit from the heavy phase to the light phase.
- 4
Generate the panel schedule
Click "Generate Panel Schedule" and ApexBIM produces a formatted panel schedule with circuits, loads, and phase assignments — ready for your drawing set.
The Outcome
Panel balancing that used to take 30 minutes now takes about 30 seconds. The system finds the best arrangement automatically, so imbalance is minimized every time. Continuous loads are automatically factored at 125% — no more forgetting to apply the code multiplier.
Results
Features Used
ApexBIM capabilities that power this workflow.
Related use cases
Who this helps
This use case is relevant to the following roles:
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