Electric Meter for Black Outs?

[The Daring Dufas]

Bud, I think you may have been responding to the wrong poster but your thoughts are welcome. ^_^

TDD

[Pete C.]

If an arc is maintained on the 18ga wire it won't be for long. Ultimately it will burn back to extinguish the arc in a matter of milliseconds. Either way there is no chance of it starting a sustained fire in my house. Safety wise it's not much different than a wire nut coming loose, something that happens from time to time.

No code requirements here so I don't care.

Do a test with 18ga wire connected across even a 100A breaker, much less a service drop limited only by the transformer and see if any of the wire is left. My assessment is that installing any kind of replaceable fuse presents more of a hazard than the non-replaceable fuse-link the wire presents.

Every single automatic transfer switch connects monitoring to the utility service. It's a total non-issue, much like 3D printed guns.

[Frank]

My transfer box only isolates and works on certain circuits. When power is restored the unisolated circuits come back on.

[The Daring Dufas]

Many vehicles have a fuse link inside a thick heat resistant silicone rubber jacket. When the wire melts, it doesn't penetrate the insulation so it's very safe. You can make your own safe fuse link with #18 wire by putting it inside some braided fiberglass insulated sleeve like what is used inside electric motors or appliances with electric heating elements. ^_^

TDD

[Nate Nagel]

Indeed, and if the OP had that kind of setup, with certain selected circuits being run from a generator sub-panel, it would be trivial to put a pair of lights on the load side of a two pole breaker in the main panel. My understanding of what the OP had was only one panel, with a main breaker that was connected to the service, and a separate breaker "backfeeding" the panel from the generator, with an interlock device so that only one of the two (main breaker and generator breaker) could be in the "on" position at any time. Thus if the generator is in use, the main breaker is turned off and therefore the only way to check for voltage on the service is at the service itself, hence this whole discussion.

nate

[clare]

A REAL simple way to use a neon with no fault current issues - connect one end of an ne2 to L1 or L2 and attach about 10 inches of insulated wire on the other end - capacitive ground will light the neon.

I used to have an ne2 attached to the end of my CB antenna - and it lit every time I keyed the mic.

[WW]

Snip>

A clamp meter detects CURRENT - and there is none without a load. I'm thinking about a neon indicator connected to the line side of the main switch.

In commercial high use of power a current (transformer) in line with the load. Referring to high amps usage. 400, 800, 1000 or more. A copper bar is wrapped with coils of small wire. This produces a voltage the is connected to a normal utility electric meter (like one on your house) this is then measured indicating usage divided by the amp size of the current transformer. So a few turns of wire around the line wire can produce a small voltage. There Must Be a load current in the line wire for this to work. I will try to come up with a practical setup and get back to this site. WW

[bud--]

Time depends on fault current, wire 'spring, magnetic effects.

You don't have thousands of amps available at a wire nut.

I have seen videos of using the wrong meter in a high capacity disconnect where the meter lead failure propagated to an arc-flash. That started with 'none of the wire left'.

Part of a listed device, and not likely unprotected #18 wire connected to service wires.

[Bubba]

FWIW, my 200 amp Generac ATS has a 15 amp breaker for the board that monitors the utility power.

[Pete C.]

My 18ga wires to the indicators will "fuse" at 15A.