Article in Professional Electrician

[phil d]

There was a piece in PE this month that confirmed to me what I had suspected for ages, not only do some of the readers not have a clue, but neither do some of the writers.

There was a picture sent in by an "electrician" of something he'd found in the maintenance shop at work, it was basically a fuse carrier that had been modified, it had 2 wires protruding one from either end and these were connected to the screws where the fuse would normally be attached, the other ends were attached to an MCB. He said it wasn't right, and the "expert" in the magazine made some comment about it not being correct.

Now, when you look at it, and given the fact it was found in a drawer in the maintenance shop, as a pose to being attached to a board, should, to anyone of any intelligence given a good idea of what it really was, a test device, made by an electrician. Given the price of some of the fuses, it seemed a good idea to me, when you've located a fault and repaired it, then using an MCB to test the circuit, seems a good idea, it's not too different to the "fusemate" that the DNO use, after all, that is basically an MCB, albeit a remote controlled one.

It makes me wonder what these people would think if they saw some of the strange things I keep in my toolbox, and I bet I'm not the only one.lol 

 

[Sharpend]

You misunderstand the art of print— excrement sells regardless of the words. Just look at some art entries. 

 

[Andy™]

seen similar before. one with a red carrier and submitter & writer both shocked that it had a solid like instead of a fuse (not that it should have been removed & opened anyway).

 

[kerching]

Well I looked at it and thought "mmmmmm........looks like mine's twin brother " I also had one with a lamp instead of an MCB

 

[phil d]

seen similar before. one with a red carrier and submitter & writer both shocked that it had a solid like instead of a fuse (not that it should have been removed & opened anyway).

I actually wrote a reply to that one the first time around, it has appeared more than once, it's very worrying that someone who doesn't actually understand about such things is going into them.

 

[Tony S]

If you go through my tool chests there’s a selection of modified fuse carriers and plug in relays. They saved a lot of time when fault finding and plant commissioning.

The great white chief wasn’t too happy with the relays when he first saw them. Within a month there was a couple of boxes of relays and miniature switches with a note from him “could I make some more”. Nowadays we have relays with built in manual latching as the norm.

 

[Phoenix]

Wasn't there also one where the person taking the picture had never seen split con and made a fuss about the multistrand neutral being 'wrong'

I saw the pic referenced in the OP and thought it was quite a clever idea

 

[phil d]

Wasn't there also one where the person taking the picture had never seen split con and made a fuss about the multistrand neutral being 'wrong'

I saw the pic referenced in the OP and thought it was quite a clever idea

Wasn't there also one where the person taking the picture had never seen split con and made a fuss about the multistrand neutral being 'wrong'

I saw the pic referenced in the OP and thought it was quite a clever idea

That's the trouble, some people have little or no experience, I had a guy from the council doing an EICR on our house, he'd never seen SY cable, I'd used a short length to feed an outside socket. It's the same with those who say they don't understand 3 phase, how can you work out a floating neutral fault if you don't know 3 phase? I suppose it indicates just how bad the skills gap is, I mean we can't all be experts on the big stuff, but when you don't understand the basics, that's so worrying.

 

[Evans Electric]

That's the trouble, some people have little or no experience,

I was doing   major extensions and alterations to large , posh property  that once belonged to a jeweller  who had a workshop  , now gone .  

While there the meter monkey turned up to fit a smart meter .      He's looking aghast at the 3 ph meter  which is now no required   , all the new work was on single phase .  

He pulled the Red phase , waved a Voltstick at the meter and said to me  " Its still alive , I can't work on it "      I said pull the other two fuses  ,  look the Yellow & Blue  just end in blocks ,  just take them out .   ( I'd put them there )   I watched   him from afar  as he kept waving various voltsticks at it  ....until the builder asked me to sort it  as they wanted the power back on .     The guy had about 10  Voltsticks  ...he actually said  " Do you want these , most of them don't work ??"    

 

[ProDave]

I related the story about the DNO that connected a generator incorrectly to power a care home after a storm brought the lines down.  They had N and one phase swapped and blew a lot of stuff up in the home.  So I shut the genny down and called the DNO.  When they arrived they re started it, waved a volt stick around and said "what's the problem"  I had to show them with my meter.

 

[phil d]

I related the story about the DNO that connected a generator incorrectly to power a care home after a storm brought the lines down.  They had N and one phase swapped and blew a lot of stuff up in the home.  So I shut the genny down and called the DNO.  When they arrived they re started it, waved a volt stick around and said "what's the problem"  I had to show them with my meter.

Some of the DNO guys are great, I had one out to a job and he was retiring shortly after, he opened the van and began pulling gear out, "here, you can have this, I don't need it"

Some on the other hand are useless, we had a powercut at the farm, fed via overhead lines, I rang the DNO then took out the buggy to "walk the lines", I came to a tx that had blown up, wires hanging everywhere! Two vans arrive, a new guy and an engineer I know, I tell him about the blown TX so he sends the new guy off to check it, new boy comes back and reports that it's fine! The other guy takes him back to check again, and lo and behold, there it is, burned cables swinging in the breeze, this happened about 3 pm on a Friday, by the time they'd gathered eveyone they needed, plus a new TX it was about 6pm, they wrapped up about 1am the following morning.

I thought I may have had an invite to their works do this year, I ring them up so often now that they usually answer the phone with, "high Phil, how are you today? Followed by "did you get that last job sorted?

I was chatting with one of their guys last week, he said all their lads love me, generally, when I ring up they know they're going to get some overtime. The best one was a few months back, earth loop of about 300 ohms on a tns system! The guys came out and found the service cable was shot, so they dug up the garden to replace it, then found a fault on the main cable, quite a few properties in the street had high loop values. The customer later told me they ended up digging up about 500 yards of pavement, there was about 20 vans there and about 30 engineers, and because it was a safety issue which would have meant disconnecting the supply to the houses, they kindly stayed until they'd finished the job, "lovely people they were, it was after 1 am when they left" he told me. I don't suppose the overtime had anything to do with it.lol

 

[Andy™]

or maybe they are thinking 'shall we ignore him, we really need an early finish tonight and its p****** down anyway'?

 

[phil d]

or maybe they are thinking 'shall we ignore him, we really need an early finish tonight and its p****** down anyway'?

Aww, come on, I never bring the lads out on a wet night, be reasonable. lol