A tiny metal sliver on the inside of my index finger

[amdx]

On 5/6/2014 5:56 PM, amdx wrote:

I've been working on the project since 9am. I now have about 16ft of
new conduit in and ran all new wire, no connections underground. I
replaced what was 12 gauge with 10 gauge. I had a bit of a snag getting
the cable puller ran through the conduit. I started at the other and and
had the same problem. A little end adjustment and it made it through the
snag. Once I got things going it pulled very easy, if
not for that connection problem you mentioned, I may have ran a couple
more #10s and really looked after that voltage drop. I had thoughts
about doing that but decided the connection would be a fight.
At this point, I have not reburied anything or made any connections
at either end. I'll probably just pick up tools before dark and finish
on another day.
My memory failed me, I did not bury a box, I put in two of the small
elbows with access covers held by two screws. These made a U around the
tower that started the whole problem.
I'll post a couple of pictures after I rest.
Mikek

I finished making the connections at both ends last night. I flipped on
the breaker and it stayed on, good sign. I went to the work shed and it
had power, I tested a couple of outlets, they tested properly. I turned
on my sander to see if the Sodium Vapor light still shut down,
yippee, it stayed on. The 10 gauge made the difference in the voltage
drop. The conduit was 1/2", except where I replaced it with 3/4".
The original installer should have put in 10 gauge wire, it's 80ft,
but the shed he wired to just has a light and one outlet. I built the
second shed with all the high power equipment. So it made sense at his time.
I autopsied the connections in the conduit body, (square elbow with
removable cover) and found the ground wire completely corroded through.
I lifted out the wire nut with about an inch of wire attached, the other
one corroded apart up inside the wire nut.

Here's a couple of pictures, Before.
> http://tinyurl.com/krpx5yk

And after
> http://tinyurl.com/ne8x3oq

If Jim reads this, you can see the Jawhorse in the back ground,
I used it to hold a shaft with three reels of wire for easy
unwinding as I pulled it.

And as someone mentioned the GCFI is bad, the test button still doesn't
work. I'll replace that soon.

The sod went back in and looked good.
BTW. I noticed water seeping into puddle at 18"
Water table is still very high.
Mikek

 

In sci.electronics.repair amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:
> I flipped on the breaker and it stayed on, good sign.

Smoke test: pass!

I turned on my sander to see if the Sodium Vapor light still shut
down, yippee, it stayed on.

Progress.

I autopsied the connections in the conduit body, (square elbow with
removable cover) and found the ground wire completely corroded
through.

Did those bodies have a gasket between the lid and the body? I've seen
them both ways, with gasket and without. The gasket is usually about
2 mm or so of neoprene rubber.

And after
http://tinyurl.com/ne8x3oq

I see the tower base that precipitated all this in the first place
seems to be out of use...

And as someone mentioned the GCFI is bad, the test button still
doesn't work. I'll replace that soon.

If you have any other GFCIs around, you might test them too. It's a
little bit cheaper to buy the two-pack or three-pack at the big box
store.

Thanks for posting back with the results!

Matt Roberds

 

In sci.electronics.repair amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:
> The Internet radio took away my interest in radio antennas. :-(

Some shortwave broadcasters (like the BBC) don't even beam signals at
North America anymore, for pretty much exactly this reason. You can
sort of pick them up on frequencies that they aim elsewhere.

Sometimes when I'm on a long drive at night, I will do a little casual
AM DXing with the car radio. The last *serious* AM DX I did was probably
2005, when I could pick up United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans at
night in Tulsa.

I had it setup so I could even tilt the crossarm,
for repair, transformer or Vactrol changes.

*looks up Vactrol* Oh, an optoisolator. Did you use the photocell to
switch the "real" termination resistors in and out, or was the photocell
itself the termination resistor?

Matt Roberds

 

[amdx]

On 5/8/2014 6:28 PM, mroberds@att.net wrote:

In sci.electronics.repair amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:
I flipped on the breaker and it stayed on, good sign.

Smoke test: pass!

I turned on my sander to see if the Sodium Vapor light still shut
down, yippee, it stayed on.

Progress.

I autopsied the connections in the conduit body, (square elbow with
removable cover) and found the ground wire completely corroded
through.

Did those bodies have a gasket between the lid and the body? I've seen
them both ways, with gasket and without. The gasket is usually about
2 mm or so of neoprene rubber.

One of them I sealed shut with pvc cement, it didn't leak. The other
one, I don't think it had a gasket and I didn't seal it. I don't know
what my thinking was. (lack of thinking)

And after
http://tinyurl.com/ne8x3oq

I see the tower base that precipitated all this in the first place
seems to be out of use...

Yes, I had a rotatable Flag antenna, with a variable termination.
It worked great, until a Fiberglas arm gave up. That was second
iteration, on the first I used Bambo, that I cut, dried and epoxy
painted. I got more than 10 years out of it. I still have all the parts,
but now I have an Internet Radio, and that allows me to
listen to almost any radio station. No more DX listening.
The Internet radio took away my interest in radio antennas. :-(

Here's a picture of the antenna when it was assembled.
http://tinyurl.com/lzl7skf

And the tripod with rotor.
> http://tinyurl.com/mblb9cc

I had it setup so I could even tilt the crossarm,
for repair, transformer or Vactrol changes.

http://tinyurl.com/lge9myf

And as someone mentioned the GCFI is bad, the test button still
doesn't work. I'll replace that soon.

If you have any other GFCIs around, you might test them too. It's a
little bit cheaper to buy the two-pack or three-pack at the big box
store.

Thanks for posting back with the results!

Matt Roberds

 

" bit cheaper to buy the two-pack or three-pack at the big box
store. "

DON'T !

thoise cheapo things are cheapo for a reason. they meet specs, but they got shitty screws on them, and the bare minimum of body and shit. I did a wiring job and I got like three callbacks lights wouldn't work. Like It is my fault. Well thsat's what we thoiught, but the fucking switches were going bad in the time of about a month. Some of them went bad before the fucking whole job was even done ! (which is good in terms of customer relations because at least we took care fo it before the phone EVER rang)

When you tsake to ding wiring, consider it a permanent thing. think aboput this, whatever wiring was not adequate for your purpose now, who9ever did that is dead. His wiring WAS fine. Un itl now.

so gety the fucking Leviton. Get the Square D QO series panel. DO NOT BE A CHEAP ASS MOTHERFUCKER.

You'll be glad you didn't. don't get the cheapest breakers either,l or anyhting. Maybe conduit, but what about wire ? HAve trouble pulling it ? Got THHN ? See, THHN is the cat;'s ass almost inb wire because the insulation is so dense, it is actually PACKED by an douter sheath so tight, and nice and shiny. You can literally get more wires through the pipe with it than with, sat THW. That THW has a coarse insulation, and too damn thick.

Of course they got power puller as well now. hook it up to that tape and it'll pull a fucking bowling ball through there.

And you know one otehr thing Mr Hack Electrician ?

I know what the "pros" do. Fukum. (even family)

People do not want outlets at the middle of the wall, the want the outlets at the corners.

think about it and think about why I get jobs like this instead of the guys with their name on the truck.

Rant over., It will be available for picking over and attacking me for... .... ... ..

Umm, eternity or the collapse of human society, whichever comes first.

 

[amdx]

On 5/8/2014 9:58 PM, mroberds@att.net wrote:

In sci.electronics.repair amdx <nojunk@knology.net> wrote:
The Internet radio took away my interest in radio antennas. :-(

Some shortwave broadcasters (like the BBC) don't even beam signals at
North America anymore, for pretty much exactly this reason. You can
sort of pick them up on frequencies that they aim elsewhere.

Sometimes when I'm on a long drive at night, I will do a little casual
AM DXing with the car radio. The last *serious* AM DX I did was probably
2005, when I could pick up United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans at
night in Tulsa.

I had it setup so I could even tilt the crossarm,
for repair, transformer or Vactrol changes.

*looks up Vactrol* Oh, an optoisolator. Did you use the photocell to
switch the "real" termination resistors in and out, or was the photocell
itself the termination resistor?

Matt Roberds

As the termination, but I did pad it with resistors to get the range I
wanted, series and parallel. Off the top of my head, I would think
something like 300 to 1300 ohms. I had a control box back at my radio to
adjust for maximum null. I used it mostly for the AMBC, but it help on
160 meters also.

Mikek

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com

 

jurb6006@gmail.com wrote:

" bit cheaper to buy the two-pack or three-pack at the big box
store. "

DON'T !

thoise cheapo things are cheapo for a reason. they meet specs, but
they got shitty screws on them, and the bare minimum of body and shit.

Calm down and sober up a little.

I was specifically talking about GFCIs. When I moved into this house in
2009, I needed three of them: two to replace non-GFCI bathroom outlets
(which was legal when the house was built) and one to add an outlet in
the garage where there was previously just a light switch. When I went
to Home Depot, they had Leviton GFCIs for about $7 or $8 quantity one,
or Leviton GFCIs with exactly the same part number in a box of three for
about $1 less apiece ($18 to $21 for the box). That's what I was
thinking about when I wrote the above.

For "regular" non-GFCI outlets, or switches, I quit buying the 39 cent
jobs more than 15 years ago. My original application was replacing worn
out 30-year-old outlets in my previous house, and I wanted to install
something better than what was there. Earlier in the thread with amdx,
the following exchange happened:

amdx> My previous in the garage measurements were in error, everything
amdx> in the garage is OK, except the outlets are 40 years old and make
amdx> poor connection on the slots.

me> That's a different rainy-day project for the spring or fall (when
me> you can turn off the juice without interrupting the furnace or
me> aircon). Buy "spec grade" outlets of the right color in boxes of 10
me> at your favorite big-box store and work around the house replacing
me> them. (The "spec grade" stuff should cost about $1 apiece.)

Since I was doing an entire house full (about three dozen), it was worth
it to buy the boxes of ten. They were Pass and Seymour Legrand, spec
grade, and about $10 or $11 a box. I still have a couple, new in the
box.

When you tsake to ding wiring, consider it a permanent thing. think
aboput this, whatever wiring was not adequate for your purpose now,
who9ever did that is dead. His wiring WAS fine. Un itl now.

The very first all-new circuit I installed, at the age of 16, is still
going strong 25 years later. I expect it to still work when I inherit
that house in another 25 years or so.

> so gety the fucking Leviton.

I just get the regular kind. http://xkcd.com/90/

> Get the Square D QO series panel.

But this Federal Pacific Electric one still works!

People do not want outlets at the middle of the wall, the want the
outlets at the corners.

In Germany, it's fairly common to see a receptacle right underneath the
switch for the overhead light, as you walk into the room. The switch is
at about the same height as it is here and the receptacle is immediately
underneath it (like, its cover plate touches the switch cover plate).
This gives you an outlet that is unlikely to be blocked by furniture,
because people want to be able to reach the light switch.

I later got a German D-I-Y wiring book and one of the things I think it
was trying to tell me is that "switch loops" are verboten - the feed
always comes to the switch first, then goes to the fixture. This might
explain why it's easy to have a receptacle at the switch.

Matt Roberds

 

>"Calm down and sober up a little. "

LOL. Yup.

Sometimes I "sound" like that. I wwas fairly calm, but my style of writing as well as speech is, well, forward might be the word.

Fact is though, those elcheapo components are just as much a PITA in the electrical biz as anywhere else. Problem is the consequences can be worse than a fried PC board. I've seen outlet that werew so cheap that when you put a solid 12 guage wire to them, just benidn it to stuff it in the box causes the body of the thing to break. How is that UL listed ? Bad ? When I was a kid I had a little joke. They told us to behave. I did, it's just that I behaved badly.

Ivan the terrible (Cleveland electrical inspector) told me the Square D QO series is about the best you can get in panels and breakers. Not having done extensive product testing I just take his word for it. Actually I didn't name him that, not did I find him terrible. He just did his job.

Any being pissed off about electrical components I guess is right at ME. I didn't pay much attention and bought a couple of ten packs or whatever of outlets. I thought, hey, they're selling them so they must be good. The owrst part is that thia job was a labor only, we had the customer's credit card in hand. Material cost was no object. Between the friggin outlets falling apart and light switches just deciding to switch off permanently, it was an aggravation. I had to go back a couple times for that, even before the whole job was done !

Anyway, from what I have heard form people really in the business is they almost always replace Federal Pacifics because they have a bad fault mode. SOmetimes a breaker's trip point drifts. Usually it drifts down and in fact this happens more when the breaker is used as a switch. They don't recommend it but a whole lot of businesses do it. Just not sposed to, but oh well.

In the case of ht eFP breakers, some of the trip point drift UP. Most breakers after getting beat oin for a number of year will start to trip low, and cause a nuisance. When the trip point drifts high, tha tis bad. Also note the cosrt of replacement FP breakers. I havene't done a whole lot of this work in the last coiuple of years but last I checked FP breakers were phenomenally expensive compared even to QO. I guess the new ones don't have that problem.

Anyway, you all probably know that I am not afraid to do things in unconcventional ways, but I am a stickler when it comes to electrical wiring. Granted very few fires happen because of wirse in the wall. I mean there is a safety margin. If you have 30 amps runing through 12 guage it is not going to burn the place down, but you sillt don't want to do that. Most problems are caused by what people do, even if the wiring is not up to snuff.

Actually if you take the numbers, alot of other things cause fires, rather than electricity.

Well, then we have my buddy Jack. We worked together quite a bit in the past and we were like TIm the Toolman, but without the screwups. Except for sometimes.

I don't remember exactly why, but he was into the wall, of his own house, with a sawzall one time, doing whatever. You would thionk he might know where things are... Well he sawed through a piece of Romex and the place went dark.

OK, there is nothing really special about that, it happens, but in this case it happened while there were about 30 people over for some sort of family shigdin, shndis, whatever.

Now other people sit and talk, catch up on old times, you know. Not Jack and his brothers in law. Nope. For tyhem guys, something has to have a trigger, whether it is a Colt 45 or a sawzall. (not the beer, they drink Bud)

No matter what, have fun. Some people say this "You onlyy live once" thing is a copout, but I have found it quite the opposite.

 

[Tim R]

On Saturday, May 10, 2014 1:33:24 AM UTC-4, mrob...@att.net wrote:

I later got a German D-I-Y wiring book and one of the things I think it

was trying to tell me is that "switch loops" are verboten - the feed

always comes to the switch first, then goes to the fixture. This might

explain why it's easy to have a receptacle at the switch.



Matt Roberds

We lived in Germany a few years courtesy of the Army, renting a house in a small farm village.

Our house wasn't wired like that. All the switches seemed to be wired back to the panel on each floor, which was full of change-of-state relays. When you hit a light switch you'd hear a clunk in the hallway. Most rooms had multiple switches in convenient locations.

One thing that was very nice (and probably accounts for the outlet being below the switch you mentioned) was that electrical wiring was required to travel ONLY vertically or horizontally. When you see an outlet, don't drill anywhere on a vertical or horizontal line, but everywhere else is safe.

 

>"I later got a German D-I-Y wiring book and one of the things I think it
was trying to tell me is that "switch loops" are verboten - the feed
always comes to the switch first, then goes to the fixture. "

You know that screws it up for cieling fans. Generally ?I like to wire a cieling fan so the fan has constant power. This way the light(s) can be on a dimmer and the pull chain controls the fan motor independently.

Of ocurse then there is no neutral so there can be no outlet unless you use three conductors.

I don't really like using white for a hot but they say it's OK. Of courss you have to mark it.

 

[Tim R]

On Monday, May 12, 2014 9:03:29 AM UTC-4, Tim R wrote:

On Saturday, May 10, 2014 1:33:24 AM UTC-4, mrob...@att.net wrote:

I later got a German D-I-Y wiring book and one of the things I think it



was trying to tell me is that "switch loops" are verboten - the feed



always comes to the switch first, then goes to the fixture. This might



explain why it's easy to have a receptacle at the switch.







Matt Roberds



We lived in Germany a few years courtesy of the Army, renting a house in a small farm village.



Our house wasn't wired like that. All the switches seemed to be wired back to the panel on each floor, which was full of change-of-state relays. When you hit a light switch you'd hear a clunk in the hallway. Most rooms had multiple switches in convenient locations.



One thing that was very nice (and probably accounts for the outlet being below the switch you mentioned) was that electrical wiring was required to travel ONLY vertically or horizontally. When you see an outlet, don't drill anywhere on a vertical or horizontal line, but everywhere else is safe.

Something I didn't mention that may have relevance: when you move into an apartment in Germany, normally there are no ceiling fixtures, just wires hanging. Everybody buys their own and installs it.