Off and Pop for changing sockets

[Stormin Mormon]

I watched and old electrician, about to change a recepticle / socket. He had a junction box on about six inches of cord, with a three wire plug. He plugged the device in, and pushed a big rubber covered button. Down the hall I could hear a breaker go clunk.

Neat! I ocurred to me that he'd used a huge contactor to drop a dead short, and shut off the breaker to the socket he was replacing.

(note to all: Please do not try this if you have a Federal Pacific Electric stabloc panel.)

I went home and made such a device out of a 15 amp toggle switch with light. First time I tried it, I fused the contacts, and the switch would not turn off. Took that out and put in a 20 amp Leviton switch, and have used it several times without trouble.

I labelled it "off" and "pop".

Sure is safer than the Jesus method.

- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus

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[Ralph Mowery]

He is too lazey and cheep to buy one of the electronic detectors. The one where you plug a small box in the receptical and go to the breaker panel and run a hand held device up and down and find the correct breaker.

If it was just down the hall and within hearing range, a small radio that plugs in makes a good way to tell which one supplies the power.

About the only time I might recommend the short is if there are critical items that can not be turned off for a few seconds , or if in the case of where I worked in a very large plant a great difficulty of locating the power source due to multi breaker boxes and floors and buildings.

[gfretwell]

That is like testing your airbag by running your car into a pole.

[nestork]

We used to do very much the same thing in junior high school. Some kids would simply take a male plug and connect the brass and chrome plated screws inside with a short piece of wire. You plug that into an outlet and it causes a dead short and the breaker trips. No need for an electrical box or a contactor, and it's small enough that you can easily conceal it in your pants pocket.

We would use that plug to short out the outlet where the overhead projector was plugged in so the teacher couldn't use it.

[cjt]

There was an item in the news a year or two ago about a guy who did that and set the house on fire.

[nestork]

Neat-O ! ! ! !

[TimR]

Tripping breakers with a dead short? Sounds a bit dangerous to me.

How many dead short trips (as opposed to a slight overload when the toaster comes on) does a breaker have in it? (is that a "bolted fault" in power c ompany speak) Is this the first time that breaker has tripped, or the 100t h?

The wire between the outlet and the breaker carries that full current. Are you 100% sure that nowhere on that circuit is a bad splice, a piece of eq uipment that can't handle an overcurrent, or any other part that can fail? Is the wire itself big enough to handle the full current until the breaker trips? What happens if that breaker is bad and does NOT trip?

[micky]

What about all the extra time these two methods take. Time is money. And the customer doesn't want to pay by the hour for him to listen to the radio and walk back and forth down the hall or the stairs.

[Stormin Mormon]

"such nice boys!"

Your father and I are so proud.

[Stormin Mormon]

I'll leave the relevant text above.

- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus

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[Berndt Butz]

I gotta change out my meter socket and would rather not work it hot. I got an aluminum ladder so I could just disconnect the transformer on the pole but you got me thinking it might be easier to just trip the transformer's breaker. Should I pop the meter and short across the two hot legs or short hot to neutral? (To be safe, I'll wear safety glasses and my wife's rubber dishwashing gloves.) Oh, this is 2-phase, if that matters.

[Pico Rico]

if you are in Myanamar, have at it.

[Ralph Mowery]

It does not take that much time to do the job right. The guy is going to be charged a minimum anyway. Lots of hack jobs are being done just to save a dollar.

[clare]

And NEVER do it in that situation, because sure as shootin' someone will want to use something else on that circuit and will turn it on jast as you grab onto the wires. In a plant you MUST lock out the circuit you are working on. No IFS, ANDS or BUTS about it. Get caught working on a circuit that is not locked out in many shops you end up taking the rest of the day (or week) off without pay.

With good reason. Compensation costs go WAY up when someone gets killed or seriously injured due to stupidity.

Better to work on a known live circuit than an unlocked dead one.

[Ralph Mowery]

I did leave that part out. After tripping the breaker we did look for it and then lock and tag it. After all it still needs to be turned back on at some point.

[TimR]

On Sunday, November 30, 2014 5:15:19 PM UTC-5, [e-mail] wrote: In a plant you MUST lock out the

When I worked for a (well known name) paper company, the penalty for workin g on a circuit that was not locked out was immediate firing. The penalty f or working on a circuit that WAS locked out, but did not have your individu al lockout on it too, was also immediate firing. We took Zero Energy State regulations seriously - as does OSHA.

[TimR]

Some of the machines we worked on could be fed from more than one breaker, or even more than one panel. There might be a motor circuit, fan circuit, controls circuit. So you could be inside it having tripped one breaker and still be at risk. The only way to avoid that is to know what breakers fee d the equipment.

[Stormin Mormon]

It's unwise to call people lazy and cheap, unless you've known them in person and are sure that's the case. There are effective ways of doing tasks, and this is the one he chose for this task. I'm OK with that.

[Stormin Mormon]

Actually, Mickey, this electrician I was watching was working at the church. I think at this moment he was serving as a service missionary, and the church did not pay him. He later was offered a job, and is on the payroll, if I heard and remember correctly.

While there are lazy and cheap hack jobs, this was (is) not one of them.

- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus

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[Stormin Mormon]

In this case, it was a week day. There were two workers in the building. The electrician popped the breaker, and I never left his side. There was zero chance that one of us lazy and cheap workers would turn on the breaker at that point.

Reminds me, I've got to check my lockout tagout gear one of these days. I'd not want to be too lazy and cheap.

- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus

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