Why do circuit breakers go up for on and down for off?...

[rbowman]

On Sun, 05 Mar 2023 18:56:59 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 04:15:23 -0000, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Tue, 21 Feb 2023 22:46:13 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ve23i5K334


It must be a fake!

I had a friend with a PhD in electronics who might have had a problem
with it. A full circuit analysis taking into account the internal
resistance of the battery and so forth would be easy.

He wasn\'t quiet that bad although he lived in his head and not the
physical world. One day he demonstrated why you shouldn\'t put a random
piece of wire across the terminals of a car battery to see if it is
dead. Spoiler: it wasn\'t.

A thin wire would be fine, as long as you don\'t need the wire again.

And you weren\'t holding the wire...

 

[rbowman]

On Sun, 05 Mar 2023 18:56:37 -0000, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 14:48:36 -0000, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 09:23:56 -0000, NY wrote:


Nasty. A teacher at my school, 40 years ago, had a blotchy face and
bald patches in his hair. He told us that he\'d been working on his car
some years before and a spanner slipped and shorted across the battery
terminals. The battery exploded, showering him with acid.


Like many companies we sometimes had summer employees that happened to
be related to someone up the hierarchy. One managed to explode the
battery on a forklift trying to jump start it. Fortunately he wasn\'t
injured. Returning a vice president\'s favorite son worse for the wear
isn\'t a good career move.

What did he do, jump start it from the mains?

Possibly hooked it up backwards; we weren\'t sure. The forklift was an
older gasoline powered model that tended to mark its territory. He was
lucky the whole thing didn\'t go up in a ball of fire.

 

[rbowman]

On Sun, 5 Mar 2023 13:12:13 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I used to go motor racing, spectator only. I saw a man killed in front
ofme when he spun his vintage car and with no seat belts fitted was
able to jump out and sprint to the edge of the track. The car behind him
swerved and missed his car but killed him.

There was a freak accident at the Lime Rock sports car track. The driver
was strapped in with the regulation three point harness but had the bad
luck up ending up upside down on a large anthill. Can\'t win them all.

The first iteration of seat belts in the US were two point lap belts. They
may not have prevented smashing your brains out on the dash but at least
they kept you on the correct side of the car in the days of vinyl covered
bench seats. My wife knew things were going to get interesting when I
advised her to buckle her belt. While I liked her and everything I
preferred not having her sitting in my lap at an inopportune moment.

 

[Peeler]

On 5 Mar 2023 19:03:01 GMT, lowbrowwoman, the endlessly driveling,
troll-feeding, senile idiot, blabbered again:

Possibly hooked it up backwards; we weren\'t sure. The forklift was an
older gasoline powered model that tended to mark its territory. He was
lucky the whole thing didn\'t go up in a ball of fire.

Another thrilling drama from the resident bigmouthed drama queen! LMAO

--
More of the pathological senile gossip\'s sick shit squeezed out of his sick
head:
\"Skunk probably tastes like chicken. I\'ve never gotten that comparison,
most famously with Chicken of the Sea. Tuna is a fish and tastes like a
fish. I will admit I\'ve had chicken that tasted like fish. I don\'t think I
want to know what they were feeding it.\"
MID: <k44t5lFl1k3U4@mid.individual.net>

 

[Peeler]

On 5 Mar 2023 19:00:15 GMT, lowbrowwoman, the endlessly driveling,
troll-feeding, senile idiot, blabbered again:


> And you weren\'t holding the wire...

What about you trying to hold your tongue at least for a while, our resident
chatterbox, bigmouth and braggart? No can do? You bet! LOL

--
More typical idiotic senile gossip by lowbrowwoman:
\"It\'s been years since I\'ve been in a fast food burger joint but I used
to like Wendy\'s because they had a salad bar and baked potatoes.\"
MID: <ivdi4gF8btlU1@mid.individual.net>

 

[John Larkin]

On Sun, 5 Mar 2023 10:26:39 -0800, Bob F <bobnospam@gmail.com> wrote:

On 3/5/2023 2:43 AM, Max Demian wrote:
On 04/03/2023 18:48, Rod Speed wrote:
On Sun, 05 Mar 2023 04:00:45 +1100, Max Demian
max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:

Whatever happened to the idea that to improve road safety steering
wheels should have a spike in the middle?

There never was any such idea unless you are expressing yourself very
badly.

Just because you haven\'t heard of an idea doesn\'t mean that it doesn\'t
exist.


OK. You are into idiotic ideas. We get it.

Absolutely. A new design should start with maximal confusion and
deliberate silliness. Mere impossibility is no reason to avoid ideas.

Math and discipine can come later, when the new idea is implemented.

Not many engineers are comfortable doing both, being goofy and being
careful.

 

[rbowman]

On Sun, 5 Mar 2023 10:59:12 +0000, Max Demian wrote:

When driving licences were little books with multiple pages, courts
would stamp details of speeding convictions on the pages. That was
called \"endorsing\" the licence. When you had more than three (I think)
endorsements you lost your licence for a period, equivalent to the
modern \"totting up\" of points. That\'s why the word \"endorsement\" is used
when you get points.

That explains it. In the US and endorsement is a positive thing. For
example my license has a motorcycle endorsement. When I had a CDL it had
hazardous materials, double/triples, and tanker endorsements.

 

[Bob F]

On 3/5/2023 11:34 AM, John Larkin wrote:

On Sun, 5 Mar 2023 10:26:39 -0800, Bob F <bobnospam@gmail.com> wrote:

On 3/5/2023 2:43 AM, Max Demian wrote:
On 04/03/2023 18:48, Rod Speed wrote:
On Sun, 05 Mar 2023 04:00:45 +1100, Max Demian
max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:

Whatever happened to the idea that to improve road safety steering
wheels should have a spike in the middle?

There never was any such idea unless you are expressing yourself very
badly.

Just because you haven\'t heard of an idea doesn\'t mean that it doesn\'t
exist.


OK. You are into idiotic ideas. We get it.

Absolutely. A new design should start with maximal confusion and
deliberate silliness. Mere impossibility is no reason to avoid ideas.

Math and discipine can come later, when the new idea is implemented.

Not many engineers are comfortable doing both, being goofy and being
careful.

The solution to gun murders-

https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/gun-with-clipping-path-gm169963206-20290330

 

[Peeler]

On 5 Mar 2023 19:20:23 GMT, lowbrowwoman, the endlessly driveling,
troll-feeding, senile idiot, blabbered again:

There was a freak accident at the Lime Rock sports car track. The driver
was

Oh, fuck! The resident gossip is at it again...

--
More of the senile gossip\'s absolutely idiotic senile blather:
\"I stopped for breakfast at a diner in Virginia when the state didn\'t do
DST. I remarked on the time difference and the crusty old waitress said
\'We keep God\'s time in Virginia.\'

I also lived in Ft. Wayne for a while.\"

MID: <t0tjfa$6r5$1@dont-email.me>

 

[Peeler]

On 5 Mar 2023 19:57:25 GMT, lowbrowwoman, the endlessly driveling,
troll-feeding, senile idiot, blabbered again:

That explains it. In the US and endorsement is a positive thing. For
example my license has a motorcycle endorsement. When I had a CDL it had
hazardous materials, double/triples, and tanker endorsements.

Your mouth seems to have an endorsement, too! Hasn\'t it? LOL

--
Gossiping \"lowbrowwoman\" about herself:
\"Usenet is my blog... I don\'t give a damn if anyone ever reads my posts
but they are useful in marshaling [sic] my thoughts.\"
MID: <iteioiF60jmU1@mid.individual.net>

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Wed, 22 Feb 2023 04:25:11 -0000, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Tue, 21 Feb 2023 22:46:21 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:

just touch the other end of the battery with your wet finger. The tongue
test works fine.

Sort of, I guess. I stick with my meter for diagnosing AA batteries. The
JND* between the wet finger circuit and just licking the positive terminal
is minute.

* https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-just-noticeable-
difference-2795306

Do you have to wrap URLs?

By the way my old NiCads were detectable with the tongue. The paper (!) insulation had come off, hence the negative chassis was exposed right next to the positive. You could lick both. Trouble is, when I put 10 of them in a bag to go on holiday, some shorting occurred.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2023 22:03:57 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2023-02-22 05:25, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 21 Feb 2023 22:46:21 +0100, Carlos E. R. wrote:

just touch the other end of the battery with your wet finger. The tongue
test works fine.


Sort of, I guess. I stick with my meter for diagnosing AA batteries. The
JND* between the wet finger circuit and just licking the positive terminal
is minute.

Oh, I stopped using the tongue test when I got my first multimeter.
Maybe earlier, I had a car voltmeter/ammeter. I wonder where it is now.

Best thing for a car is an amp clamp, those things are pure dead magic so they are.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 12:36:46 -0000, micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 21 Feb 2023 22:46:21 +0100, \"Carlos E. R.\"
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2023-02-21 22:21, NY wrote:
\"rbowman\" <bowman@montana.com> wrote in message
news:k5kohsF3q0lU2@mid.individual.net...
On Tue, 21 Feb 2023 09:34:55 -0000, NY wrote:


I imagine different people are affected differently by the same voltage
of shock. I used to know a woman at university who could feel voltages
of a few volts through her fingers - she could touch the terminals of an
AA battery (eg between finger and thumb) and tell whether it was dead.
She described 9 V from a PP9 battery as \"uncomfortable\".

9V batteries are a bit uncomfortable if you place your tongue across the
contacts but you can quickly tell the good from the ones that are fading
fast.

I never tried it with the 1.5V cells, not having a tongue like an
anteater.

I nearly said that the \"tongue test\" works for batteries, but then
tongues are a lot more sensitive than fingers (oo, Matron\"). In lieu of
an anteater\'s tongue, a little bit of wire shows that the tongue can
also detect 1.5 V. Done it also with those flat 4.5 batteries with two
springy brass terminals, as used in torches in the past.

Just touch the other end of the battery with your wet finger. The tongue
test works fine.

I had a whole bunch of new and semi-used batteries in the vegwtable
crisper drawer in the refrigerator.

What a strange place to keep batteries. I\'ve heard of putting them on the radiator to give them a boost, but cooling them?

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2023 12:24:14 -0000, Carlos E. R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2023-02-21 06:49, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Wed, 15 Feb 2023 11:54:12 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2023-02-15 07:58, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 14 Feb 2023 19:13:35 +0100, \"Carlos E. R.\" <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

...

Of course you can use sealed fuses, or calibrated fuse wire (they sold
that in the UK). But it is just safer to use calibrated breakers which
\"blow\" and you just throw them back. Of course they can be
intentionally
\"sabotaged\".

IN NYCity, my apartment building and I\'m sure most apartment buildings,
rentals in general, used Fustats. It\'s an insert that screws into the
original fuse holder (which I think used the same thread as a
lightbulb), but the inserts have a different pitch internal thread for
each amperage. So in the basement, I could only use one 20-amp Fustat,
and in my apartment, I could only use two 15-amp Fustats.

I have seen them.
I had no idea about the different threads.

Aren\'t they a bit expensive? Amazon doesn\'t help, because it wants to
ship to Spain before citing a price in those I find.

Each old switch or socket in my house has one of these:

https://images.app.goo.gl/3wm7PoAi8p7HPDgU7

Better with them in the plugs, then it depends on the appliance. I can
plug a table lamp into a 13amp socket, but the lamp has a 3A wire. The
fuse protects the wire. Plug fuses are 1A, 2A, 3A, 5A, 7A, 10A, 13A.
But for some reason shops tend to sell 3, 5, 13. To get the others
(obviously being a lot safer) you have to use mail order.

And the whole house had this:

https://images.app.goo.gl/3wm7PoAi8p7HPDgU7

In the site you can move to the inside photo:

Looks like a jewelery box, what do I do with that?

Wrap a strand of copper wire between the two screws. That\'s the fuse.

...

I used to, had to power the whole 6-room apartments, including sometimes
the last couple years a small air conditioner, on 20 amps. Only blew
the fuse about 4 times.

My air conditioning unit is \"inverter\" type. Max power I think is
800Watts, not sure now. Say 1 KW. When the room has reached a stable
temp, it draws as little as 200 watts.

That\'s a pathetic size. Mine is 1.5kW (not an invertor) which was the
smallest one I could buy (apart from one half the size for 90% of the
cost, which is just stupid). Why have an invertor? Mine just power
cycles. It will also reverse to heat.

With cycles the temperature also cycles, up to four degrees.

It cycles whatever I set it to. I set a min and max as close as 0.1C apart.

> With an inverter AC the temperature stays fixed at the mark and stays silent.

It won\'t be completely silent. Mine is between cycles.

Mind you in summer it\'s just on full blast all day. You can\'t be anywhere very hot if 800W is enough.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2023 13:01:19 -0000, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 21/02/2023 12:24, Carlos E. R. wrote:
Wrap a strand of copper wire between the two screws. That\'s the fuse.

In my youth, that\'s how we detonated our home made explosives. a short
length of fuse wire or a strand from a multicore flex, , a battery -
often just a lantern battery, and some match heads...

A large capacitor designed for 12V connected to the output of a microwave transformer. Sometimes you\'d get an explosion, sometimes it\'d go up in the air like a firework. But you could be guaranteed of a neighbour moaning about it.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 12:42:41 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2023-02-21 14:01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 21/02/2023 12:24, Carlos E. R. wrote:
Wrap a strand of copper wire between the two screws. That\'s the fuse.

In my youth, that\'s how we detonated our home made explosives. a short
length of fuse wire or a strand from a multicore flex, , a battery -
often just a lantern battery, and some match heads...

Never tried that, but I wanted to do it. I knew it should work.

Best to buy 100 fireworks and make them into one firework.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 12:39:10 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2023-02-24 02:41, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sat, 18 Feb 2023 16:13:13 -0000, charles <charles@candehope.me.uk
wrote:

In article <tsqivq$vvi$4@dont-email.me>, The Natural Philosopher
tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 18/02/2023 12:43, Max Demian wrote:
On 18/02/2023 00:29, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 13 Feb 2023 13:58:47 -0000, micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com
wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 13 Feb 2023 13:33:36 +0000, Max Demian
max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:
On 13/02/2023 03:59, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Mon, 13 Feb 2023 00:08:57 +0100, \"Carlos
E.R.\" <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

Radios of that era had a setting named \"phone\". And a socket. You
connected the output of the \"electric gramophone\" pickup to the
phone

Every mains valve radio had a \"Gram\" or \"PU\" socket with switching,
usually combined with the waveband switch.

Every AC tube radio....

Mains was always AC wasn\'t it?

If course it wasn\'t (in the UK). Mains was AC or DC, and 120V (or so)
to 250V (or so).


Mains was always AC post WWII and probably post the advent of consumer
tube radios and IIRC was always 240VAC post WWII.

\"The Electricity (Supply) Act 1919 merged the 600-odd local generating
companies into area boards, who in turn were centralised into the
Central Electricity Board by the Electricity Supply Act 1925. That is
when the voltage was standardised at 240V, and the National Grid
created.

[Snip]

In the early 1960s, Cambridge was supplied with 200v.

Just watched a Youtube video, someone in Canada where I presume they
have 120V? He\'d got an unusual setup of two phases and no neutral, so
he could get 208V to work normal devices. Which means he could get a
(although very small) shock off either terminal. Pretty daft really,
aren\'t there plenty devices where neutral and the chassis are the same?
M\'colleague was once thrown across a room when repairing a TV. The
(internal) chassis was connected to \"neutral\" but someone had wired the
plug backwards and it was live.

Britain is possibly the only country where they care about which line of
the plug is neutral and which live.

Why wouldn\'t you care? We only have to avoid touching one of them. And you can also use the other to ground the chassis.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 20:18:42 -0000, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 13:39:10 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:


Britain is possibly the only country where they care about which line of
the plug is neutral and which live.


https://www.thespruce.com/polarized-electrical-plug-explanation-1908748

I don\'t know exactly when polarized plugs became the norm in the US but
it\'s been decades.

And you still haven\'t invented sleeves. On any of the SEVENTY THREE different plugs.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 21:10:37 -0000, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 04:54:32 -0500, micky wrote:


That\'s cause you\'re in the Eastern Hemisphere. We\'re in the Western
one.
The Eastern one must be a lot like the Southern one where things are
upside down.

Probably not. Greenwich is quite far to the east of the island so most of
Great Britain is in the western hemisphere.

The lines aren\'t vertical.
http://www.vidiani.com/maps/maps_of_the_world/maps_of_time_zones_of_the_world/large_time_zones_map_of_the_world_2015.jpg
At least we don\'t split our country into 4, that\'s preposterous.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Sat, 25 Feb 2023 09:54:32 -0000, micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 25 Feb 2023 06:52:45 -0000, \"Commander
Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> wrote:

On Fri, 24 Feb 2023 21:28:35 -0000, micky <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sun, 19 Feb 2023 15:53:53 +0000, R D S
rsandr@yahoo.com> wrote:

On 11/02/2023 08:16, Commander Kinsey wrote:
Why do circuit breakers go up for on and down for off? Would they work
installed upside down?
I haven\'t read the replies....
So you can\'t turn them on by accident?

Good point. So they are just like wall toggle switches for lights.

No they aren\'t, I\'ve never seen a switch operate that way round, unless it\'s been put in upside down. If you install it with \"TOP\" at the top (written on the inside), the switch goes down for on.

That\'s cause you\'re in the Eastern Hemisphere. We\'re in the Western
one. The Eastern one must be a lot like the Southern one where things
are upside down.

No, you lot are just thick.

Edison invented a lot of switches, etc. but I don\'t know if that
included toggle switches or circuit breakers. If it did, he may have
set the pattern. At any rate, up since more like On to me. Off is
looking DOWN at the floor, your eyes mostly closed, you\'re almost
asleep, and that is a lot like OFF.

Looking UP is like being ON, lifting your head, looking around, paying
attention. Like a conductor raising his baton just before the music
starts. Like a starter raising his arm to shoot off the starter pistol
before a race.

On the other hand, Down is like pointing at the ground and saying Stand
here, Don\'t move. That is OFF.

That\'s a stupidly complicated way of thinking about it.

You\'re such a sweetheart.

Stop chatting me up, I don\'t like Americans.

> You give out crap, you get crap in return.

So you admit you wrote crap.

We write from left to right, and top to bottom. Most things in life follow that pattern. The accelerator for more speed is on the right, and the brake for less speed is on the left.

I don\'t know what all that proves. Mine is a lot more direct.

Sorry my reasoning was too much for a Merkin mind.