On becoming an electrician

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Erronius

Erronius

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The frightening part is just how little current can kill you.

With the higher voltages, you have to start worrying about it jumping across air gaps, and needing better insulation. For 120v I feel like rated boots, being dry, and not grounding out your dumb ass with your off-hand, those kind of things will keep you safe enough. But once you get over 600v that starts to mean little, if anything.

I was on a site years ago, and I was joking about breaking out a rubber mat for me to stand on. Dudes looked at me dead serious, and said they weren't allowed to use them any more because they wanted everyone to LOTO instead (funny enough, what I was working on was definitely live). I imagine that, given a choice, a lot of folks would have chosen the rubber mats and to leave stuff live...so NOPE! can't use them any more. That's the only time I've heard that, but I also haven't seen rubber mats in years (besides what linesmen use)

At least with 120v, I've never felt 'frozen'.

When/if I retire, part of the celebration will they that I somehow managed not to kill myself when doing something stupid
 
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Borzak

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Did some work on a hopper and vents above an electric arc furnace at a steel mill while it was in operation. Shit scared me. The power was coming in wasn't even cables but very large metal shunts for lack of a better word. Everyone else seemed to be afraid of falling in. I figured I had enough sense to stay within the handrail but all that freaking current right there enough to melt steel bothered me. Rebuilt the entire structure because it was seriously falling apart, the mill rolled us 14" thick plate to make new base plates on one side for the columns to even them out. Then the place closed down a few months later. The hum of it all made you think you were feeling it while it was running.
 
Kajiimagi

Kajiimagi

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For the record, in MB SC with it's sky high humidity I had 480 air arc. Somewhere in this forum (use the SEARCH!) I said something to the effect that I subbed out voltages that were going too fast to shock you. Nope fuck that.

Dumbest thing I ever did. Was adding a neutral for a panel that my fucking asshat estimator didn't look at to discover his ingenious plan to 'just add a single pole breaker' wouldn't work because the goddamn panel was 480 only. Inspector would not let me just hit the bonding jumper on the front of the main switchboard. For reference this building was old enough the stairwells were Nuclear fallout shelters (for real). He wanted me to hit the neutral bar, ON THE BACK OF THE BOARD. I laid in the switchboard , while it was live, under load and drilled the neutral to add a lug for the new wire. I was never so mad in my life.
For the record of people that don't know a lot about electricity. If I somehow got into the harmonic current on the neutral , someone would have to come put me out. If I somehow got into the main buss (this was an old switchboard) I would have been dead, and exploded , and you would have to wipe me off the walls.

To everyone going ' you stupid mother fucker' ; I agree.
 
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Hatorade

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Kajiimagi said:
For the record, in MB SC with it's sky high humidity I had 480 air arc. Somewhere in this forum (use the SEARCH!) I said something to the effect that I subbed out voltages that were going too fast to shock you. Nope fuck that.

Dumbest thing I ever did. Was adding a neutral for a panel that my fucking asshat estimator didn't look at to discover his ingenious plan to 'just add a single pole breaker' wouldn't work because the goddamn panel was 480 only. Inspector would not let me just hit the bonding jumper on the front of the main switchboard. For reference this building was old enough the stairwells were Nuclear fallout shelters (for real). He wanted me to hit the neutral bar, ON THE BACK OF THE BOARD. I laid in the switchboard , while it was live, under load and drilled the neutral to add a lug for the new wire. I was never so mad in my life.
For the record of people that don't know a lot about electricity. If I somehow got into the harmonic current on the neutral , someone would have to come put me out. If I somehow got into the main buss (this was an old switchboard) I would have been dead, and exploded , and you would have to wipe me off the walls.

To everyone going ' you stupid mother fucker' ; I agree.
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Bringing this one back…
Could Be Worse Let It Go GIF


watched my boss work in a live panel that was pulling 480v, he removed the lugs while it was hot using rubber hunting boots he cut in half to block the bus bars he wasn’t working on. I was ten feet to the right pulling out old transfer switch but I could hear his asshole pucker with every lug broken loose.
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Kajiimagi

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Hatorade said:
Bringing this one back…
Could Be Worse Let It Go GIF


watched my boss work in a live panel that was pulling 480v, he removed the lugs while it was hot using rubber hunting boots he cut in half to block the bus bars he wasn’t working on. I was ten feet to the right pulling out old transfer switch but I could hear his asshole pucker with every lug broken loose.View attachment 557963
Click to expand...
Man I sincerely hoped that working hot shit had stopped. Immediate fire at most companies now. I'm telling you, it isn't worth it. Everything has to go right to not get hurt, anything has to go wrong for you to get fucked up. It's really not worth it. It doesn't make you a man , or tough or anything but stupid.
 
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moonarchia

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Kajiimagi said:
Man I sincerely hoped that working hot shit had stopped. Immediate fire at most companies now. I'm telling you, it isn't worth it. Everything has to go right to not get hurt, anything has to go wrong for you to get fucked up. It's really not worth it. It doesn't make you a man , or tough or anything but stupid.
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There's always someone who wants to cut corners. Always. Stupidity is a self removing trait on a long enough timeline.
 
Hatorade

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Kajiimagi said:
Man I sincerely hoped that working hot shit had stopped. Immediate fire at most companies now. I'm telling you, it isn't worth it. Everything has to go right to not get hurt, anything has to go wrong for you to get fucked up. It's really not worth it. It doesn't make you a man , or tough or anything but stupid.
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I’m never going to do that, if the company doesn’t want to pull/pay for permits to turn the power off I gonna skip that job.
 
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Borzak

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Speaking of phases. I saw something that was odd to me but probably an every day thing for electricians and such. Company was hooking up some new heavy equipment to 3 phase. The new shit, had a info panel that would tell you when it was hooked up and turned on that the phases were on the wrong lug and had a diagram come up and tell you which one to move to where.

I'm a luddite, was new to me.

End result it took no time at all to change and booted up and then I was using the new equipment which was why I was there.
 
Kobayashi

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Borzak said:
Speaking of phases. I saw something that was odd to me but probably an every day thing for electricians and such. Company was hooking up some new heavy equipment to 3 phase. The new shit, had a info panel that would tell you when it was hooked up and turned on that the phases were on the wrong lug and had a diagram come up and tell you which one to move to where.

I'm a luddite, was new to me.

End result it took no time at all to change and booted up and then I was using the new equipment which was why I was there.
Click to expand...
A diagram seems kind of pointless. If you have a negative phase sequence and need to change to positive, you can swap any two cables.
 
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Erronius

Erronius

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Borzak said:
Speaking of phases. I saw something that was odd to me but probably an every day thing for electricians and such. Company was hooking up some new heavy equipment to 3 phase. The new shit, had a info panel that would tell you when it was hooked up and turned on that the phases were on the wrong lug and had a diagram come up and tell you which one to move to where.

I'm a luddite, was new to me.

End result it took no time at all to change and booted up and then I was using the new equipment which was why I was there.
Click to expand...

If it's just a motor load, then like Kobayashi Kobayashi said you can just swap any two leads. We always swapped A and C, because that's what usually gets swapped inside reversing starters, I guess. B phase usually stay as B phase on both the Line and Load side of most 3-phase reversing starters. But if it's just a motor load, you're just looking for correct rotation. So you can 'bump' it, see if it's CW or CCW rotation, and if that's wrong then swap two leads.

Since it sounds like whatever you were using was more than just a motor, so it could have had some fancier stuff in it. Sensing a lost phase is pretty easy (single phasing) and we used to wire in phase detectors to trip out starters if you ever lost a phase (this kills motors). A newer option is a phase-loss, phase-sequence relay. This, or something similar, is probably what triggered your fault (internally).

Knowing what your equipment actually was, would probably tell us 'why' it had that warning. A lot of centrifugal pumps, screw compressors, some chillers/HVAC equipment, there's a lot of stuff that can be ruined by running stuff 'backwards' from having the wrong phase sequence. You might not even know what individual component inside your "big ass equipment" might be ruined, if it's all enshrouded and complex. But there is a real issue with a lot of stuff.

I've had NUMEROUS service calls where the electricians took the 'bad equipment' out, and dutifully labeled everything. When I show up to install the replacement, they assure me that all I need to do is read their labels and wire the new stuff in the same way the old equipment was. So I do...and the new equipment runs backwards. For the stuff I usually work on, it's not a huge deal, as long as I'm watching for it and can shut it down before a $50k-$100k valve gets destroyed. I don't think it's the fault of all those electricians, I just think there's either an unintended phase-swap in the controls themselves, or maybe it's just how a specific motor transitions the windings out to the motor leads (maybe someone at CheapMotorFactory DGAF what they labeled as T1, T2, T3 because they figured "hey, I don't get paid enough to care, let the field electricians figure it out")

Regardless, that's my guess. An internal phase sequencer saw the phasing was wrong, threw a fault back to the controls (maybe just a mini/micro PLC) and then you get the neat display error.

You can also wire a phase 'corrector' using a phase sequencer, at the 'electrician' level, using a reversing contactor. But instead of wiring the the phase sequencer back to your controls, DCS, PLC, etc, you just wire the phase sequencer back to a reversing contactor that's added for the sole purpose of changing ABC phasing to CBA phasing. But if you're an electrician thinking that this is needed, then some engineer will probably want to include themselves (LOL)
 
Kobayashi

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If you deal with 3 phase a lot, this thing is invaluable. It's non-contact, so, it's usually pretty convenient to get a reading somewhere. Really useful troubleshooting device for both the external connections and also any internal feedback for a device. One of those pays for itself the first time it finds an issue devices and super compact, so, you're not going to be encumbered by carrying it along.

 
Kajiimagi

Kajiimagi

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I used to get a real kick out of 'you wired it wrong it's running backwards' like I was a fucking idiot. Well I am a fucking idiot but that's beside the point. Then you swap 2 leads and they look at you like you just invented electricity.

In Vegas I did a lot of jobs for a company that had 3 phase distribution equipment, but single phase apartment loads. We would pull 3 phase cable to the 1st panel with feed through lugs and swap phases as we went up , and as we went over. I had to make a color diagram to give to my supers so it all balanced out. I specifically told them to pay attention as doing ABC is kind of in our DNA at this point and that's not right. The trainee I had to the color diagram I had come in my office and show me , then turn the lights off and see if we could still tell. They don't realize the field doesn't have full lighting.
 
Erronius

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I'm starting at a new place next week. If they don't let me keep my old hardhat and insist I use a new 'tourist' company hard hat, I think I'm gonna buy some stickers because fuck it.

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Falstaff

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Just saw a bunch of those at my parents place for Thanksgiving. My dad has patches, hats, stickers, pins, etc. with that picture on it.
 
Hatorade

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Wired up and rewired some shipping containers this week. The rewire was a shit show, they used indoor stuff for everything and managed to electrify the container itself. So working with the holes already made we did this: they wanted to keep the lights and fan as is but we removed the spider web of zip ties and surge protectors they had along the ceiling.
The other job was for a generator hookup, they wanted plugs for the plasma cutter etc all in one corner. Turned out OK
 
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Kajiimagi

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Hatorade said:
View attachment 565811View attachment 565812View attachment 565813View attachment 565814Wired up and rewired some shipping containers this week. The rewire was a shit show, they used indoor stuff for everything and managed to electrify the container itself. So working with the holes already made we did this: they wanted to keep the lights and fan as is but we removed the spider web of zip ties and surge protectors they had along the ceiling.
The other job was for a generator hookup, they wanted plugs for the plasma cutter etc all in one corner. Turned out OK
Click to expand...
We used old 'keyless' lampholders for temp lights. And of course we reused them job to job. On one project they were just cut down , then put up in our storage container for lights in the one used for part storage. Every once in a while, you'd get the fuck knocked out of you touching the container. I put a ground rod approx 5' in front of the container and checked the voltage between ground rod & the container and it read 120V. The lazy motherfucker that put the temp lights up never took the old wires off and one was touching the metal just enough to get the odd volt without causing a dead short. Fun times.
 
Hatorade

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Kajiimagi said:
We used old 'keyless' lampholders for temp lights. And of course we reused them job to job. On one project they were just cut down , then put up in our storage container for lights in the one used for part storage. Every once in a while, you'd get the fuck knocked out of you touching the container. I put a ground rod approx 5' in front of the container and checked the voltage between ground rod & the container and it read 120V. The lazy motherfucker that put the temp lights up never took the old wires off and one was touching the metal just enough to get the odd volt without causing a dead short. Fun times.
Click to expand...
Ha that is about right. It shocked you good if you grabbed the metal above the door, the rest of the container was pulling some volts but not enough to hurt. Wish I took some before pics.
 
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