Would your consider this normal or a defect i couldn’t decide today.
I’ve seen this go around on various HI and electrical forums over the years and the “rainbow” colored metal is generally considered as normal. Those pics are a bit different than what I’ve seen but I can’t say it’s dangerous or abnormal. Was there any sign of water collection in the base of the panel or elsewhere? When I inspect a panel for performance defects I’m mainly looking for scorching at attachment points and that doesn’t seem to be that.
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It almost looks like some plating is coming off…but I don’t know for sure, Cory.
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From my experience working and welding metals over the years, the ‘rainbow’ is a result of heat, and from what I see (or should I say “don’t see”) in that photo, is likely from the manufacturing process.
My first thought was also a ‘coating’, but that makes no sense in an electrical panel at that location.
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I’ve seen rainbows from over heating before and this was defiantly not like that. I didn’t see anything else wrong in the panel just this discoloration.
It is just the plating discoloring. Nothing to note.
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Hard to tell from MI. You have good eyes Joe. 
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Not really, I have seen this on panels coming down the assembly line when I was at the SQ D plant in Mexico. 
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Well, there you go…experience pays off. 
Could a lack of anti-oxidant paste on the aluminum conductors cause this discoloration?
I’ve seen this on several GE panels and it’s perfectly normal without some of other indicator of an abnormality like a melted conductor.
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