Non-Metalic Wire?

[DerbyDad03]

Water

[Clare Snyder]

The original "romex" WAS the tar/paper/fabrick covered stuff.

[DerbyDad03]

Air (at high enough voltages)

Ever heard of lightening?

[DerbyDad03]

Without the "e"? ;-)

[DerbyDad03]

Romex® is the specific brand name for a non-metallic (NM) building wire made by Southwire.

"tar/paper/fabrick covered stuff" was branded under other names, as is the plastic covered stuff sold today.

The Narragansett Wire Company did not make "Romex".

[Unquestionably Confused]

concrete, leather, fabric. . . damn near anything if the moisture content and voltage are high enough.

[Clare Snyder]

graphite isn't bad - then there are conductive gasses and PLASMA

[Clare Snyder]

actually, PURE water is a pretty lousy conductor - it is disolved mineral salts that make it a reasonable conductor.

[Clare Snyder]

My dad was an electrician and pulled miles of ROMEX Long before the plastic stuff came out. Invented and trademarked in 1922 by the Rome Wire Co in Rome New York. First described in the NEC of 1926.

Rome Wire became General Cable which was bought out by southwire in

2001 (sept 5, to be exact).

Narragansett cable produced a "eomex" style cabble under the name NARAX.

The original "fabric" romex type cable was in common use up until aproxemately 1975 when the price of the plastic insulated pruduct became competetive (available from the mid-sixties) The original romex used eubber insulated wire, with thermoplastic becoming common in the mid fifties.

Dad came home blacker from his electrical work in the early years than he did from the iron foundry where he fed the Bessemer.

[Colin Campbell]

Looks like time to update the killfile: this kind of snide ad hominem bullshit is a complete waste of time, and totally out of place in an exchange of ideas and experience of woodworking.

Colin

[-MIKE-]

We used to draw out DC circuits in pencil to test them out.

[-MIKE-]

Since we're talking science. To the best of my knowledge, technically, water will not conduct electricity. That is, pure H2O. Tap water, like in a tub when someone drops the hair dryer in it before the advent of GFI circuits, would obviously conduct electricity and electrocute the poor soul in the tub. However, it's not the water that is passing the electrons. It's the minerals in the tap water. Electric power plants use pure, distilled, H2O to cool their generators. If that water conducted electricity, it would short out the generators.

At least, that's what my electrical engineer buddy who works for the 3rd largest power supplier in the US tells me.

[DerbyDad03]

So, basically, you just used a lot more words to say exactly what I said.

Romex is brand name.

[DerbyDad03]

Sure *pure* water doesn't conduct electricity. However, I'm pretty sure tha t it's a rare case that any of us are going to be near non-conductive water and electricity at the same time. If I see water, I'm going to assume that it will conduct. It's safer that way. ;-)

[DerbyDad03]

I assume that you are going to killfile those on both sides of that conversation, right? You seemed to have snipped the original comment that prompted that response. Wouldn't it be hypocritical to killfile one, but not the other?

Hmmm...come to think of it, this entire thread is totally out of place in an exchange of ideas and experience of woodworking. Your killfile is going to wipe out more than a couple of the few people left that actually discuss woodworking.

[-MIKE-]

He said water. :-p

[Spalted Walt]

[dpb]

On 3/8/2019 10:03 PM, -MIKE- wrote: ...

While air, water and oil all have been (and still are in some cases) used for cooling, modern large power generators use H gas for generator cooling since its comparable low density, high specific heat and thermal conductivity allows a significant improvement in efficiency and commensurate reduction in size/expense.

[dpb]

On 3/8/2019 9:15 PM, Unquestionably Confused wrote: ...

In which case it is the ionized material that is the conductor...

[krw]

Hydrogen sounds really dangerous around a generator (unless it's used as the fuel also). He is used as a coolant and, like water, won't go boom. He is as non-reactive as you can get.