• Steel Soldiers now has a few new forums, read more about it at: New Munitions Forums!

  • Microsoft MSN, Live, Hotmail, Outlook email users may not be receiving emails. We are working to resolve this issue. Please add support@steelsoldiers.com to your trusted contacts.

On the lighter side: the basics of grounding

C

Chainbreaker

Well-known member
1,829
2,099
113
Location
Oregon
2Pbfeet said:
From a few days ago. The panel is attached to the conduit on the right, and the ground wire nicely coiled around the ground rod...

View attachment 946680
Click to expand...
Also looks like they used a "wood block" (drilled out to form a 90) at the top of the conduit instead of an elbow. God knows what else lurks in this structure. o_O:eek:

Never mind, I was informed that's an optical illusion (post #8 below). I'm now zero for two on assumptions I made recently regarding "posted photo's" The Black marks on fuse holder/fuse optical illusion on another separate posting.
Teach me to trust my aging eyes... :geek:
 
Last edited:
Guyfang

Guyfang

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
17,621
26,157
113
Location
Burgkunstadt, Germany
1747248192224.jpeg

I found something like this by accident. I was working in an old house, and kept tripping the GFI, testing each outlet. A guy living on the other side of the house came over and started screaming at me to "Leave the F***ing power alone. Then it dawned on me. How could what I was doing affect his house. So I got the apartment owner to stand next to me and then shut off his Circuit Breakers for his apartment. 30 seconds later this fool came over again screaming. I told the apartment owner to call the police RIGHT NOW. The screamer had to pay a fune of 10.000 Euro, for estimated theft of power. He had crawled out his roof window and came in the owners attic. Took a plug out of the wall and drilled a hole through the socket hole, into his attic. Hooked up three wires to the outlet and put it back into the wall. Went back to his place and wired up several room with his "New Hookup."
 
2

2Pbfeet

Well-known member
630
1,235
93
Location
Mt. Hamilton, CA
Chainbreaker said:
Also looks like they used a "wood block" (drilled out to form a 90) at the top of the conduit instead of an elbow. God knows what else lurks in this structure. o_O:eek:
Click to expand...
Looks can be deceiving sometimes...;) The wood block is a rafter that is hiding a 90 bend in the conduit, but yes, I believe that there was knob and tube wiring on the other side until fairly recently. Clearly the rewire did not address grounding the subpanel...

All the best,

2Pbfeet
 
msgjd

msgjd

Well-known member
1,229
3,782
113
Location
upstate ny
cstumpf750 said:
That setup will work, but don’t touch the railing or anything connected to it. The ground rod looks to be touching the railing and the paint is worn thin quite a few spots.
Click to expand...
one of my sideline self-employed ventures before retirement was performing annual grounding/bonding/continuity tests at stoneworking mills and their associated quarries IAW the requirements of MSHA .. Like an automotive inspection station, this sometimes led to me having to also do field repairs on their gensets, electric pit pumps, busted conduits or fittings, failing switchgear, hot/loose connections, and company-owned power distribution equip..

Like many of you, have seen some crazy scary stuff.. But then there were also some clever and creative "field-expedient" temporary installs , which technically were borderline NEC-compliant leaning more on the error side, but you had to give the person credit for craftfully making things safe when the field situation was anything but "normal" and had to change day to day , despite the lack of UL labels on their inventive creations

One place could not have a septic system thus it had a (metal) electric toilet.. Anyway, while doing a soil resistance test for the ground rods for their mill's 240V-3ph delta (rare beast) / 1200A service , i noticed the wires had been severed at the rods, and also where they entered the building. The sod was loose, no conduit, and apparently copper thieves had struck ..

I pointed this out to the owner and he says, "Wow .. All week we've been getting nibbled on our a**es if we sat on the toilet with wet leather boots on the (wet concrete) floor ! Nobody wants to use it.. Our electrician has been pulling his hair out and can't find anything wrong with the toilet! " :ROFLMAO:

Yes, the toilet ground continuity (resistance) was zero all the way back to the main service .. It technically was bonded and safe but the constantly-permeated wet floor throughout the mill (and probably the steel beams & siding too) was being a conductor for stray voltage from somewhere. The isolated ground rods were not helping the situation, and my guess there may have been an issue with a bonding connection(s) on the utility side of things

The company electrician was thus tasked with locating the source of their "ask" kisses :ROFLMAO: , whether it was induced or there was a fault somewhere in the machinery or whatnot ..

When i measured it back to the utility transformer pole ground rod, the stray measured about 26V.. It was my last year at it and i don't know what they found to be the source of their kisses
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
112,886members
166,378threads
2,343,113posts
882online users
Top