60+ year old thread.

Good Morning Porch Pfolks! Got all adjusted yesterday - she made the better fitting ear pillows work for me - nothing but feedback when I tried. Amazing what she can tweak. Left a bag (clerk didn't put it in the cart) at Harbor Freight, so go get that this AM. Then I got some putzes to do around the house.
That grizzly was good eatin'! Have a great day everyone.

 

@95SLE Tom there is a bonding screw that passes through the neutral bar and threads into enclosure. Remove bonding screw, install ground bar and grounding conductor. You have now separated your neutral and ground.

 

Current will take the path of least resistance. We don't want current flowing through the ground as it means a good chance of getting shocked!

Charles Buell explains it here (video is good to watch as he measures the current and talks through what is happening).
https://www.buellinspections.com/parallel-paths-picture/

Neutral is a "common point" between two hot leads (North America). All homes are 240V with Neutral. So 120V on either side of that neutral. Think of a transformer with a Center Tap.
So we want to split loads between the two hot sides.

 

Spray an pray.

Think I'm due later this year.
Oh Joy.

 

I have had 5 of those tests all for the wrong reason over and over all were OK. Now they say I can wait 10 years for the next one? I will be 80 then do you really think I need one 80 and like at that age what are they going to do about it if they find something!?

 

This was my First Electrical Job at 18! I ran 4-125 KW Generators at Camp Dillard in Vietnam to power up the whole place. 24 hours a day, it was my job only me to make sure they were fueled up, serviced, power balanced when run in Parallel. 2 running at a time and switching them over to the other 2 with out a shut down to service them! I taught myself to do this on Fire Base Blackhawk with a 60KW Generator I ran there 24 hours a day. I was a 20th Combat Engineer attached with 1st Cav and 1/92 Artillery in the beginning of my tour. Then went with the 815th Engineers to the end of my tour at Camp Dillard. We had the biggest guns in Vietnam the 2-175mm and 2-8" & 2-155mm Howisters. I slept between the 2-175nn about 20 ft away! I only slept when I could mostly in the daytime. Never really reported to anyone as long as the lights stayed on they were happy!! What a responsibility for a Drop Out from High School 18 year old to do in a War Zone! Wonder how many 18 year olds could do this now let alone go to war?? I maintained the Overhead Cable and all the Perimeter Lighting including climbing the telephone poles at night when they burned out to replace them. Carried them in a sand bag, they were big and all while next to the Claymore Mines at the Concertina Wire. Here are a few pictures of the stuff I ran and lived. They used to fly me to the rear so I would not be gone long which made for some cool flights!! All this for a 18 year old kid too?

 

I enjoyed an excellent 7.5 mile hike today in the Lyme Corner Trails preserve today (SE Connecticut). Almost all of the snow from the end of January blizzard is gone, but the ground is still mostly frozen so minimal mud on the trails. Temperatures were high 30's when I started my walk and low 40's when I finished. I had the whole place to myself.

 

Going out side for a small wood project it is now over 45 degrees and sunny!

 

OLD GUYS

Use the gray elbows.....

evening boys

 

Miss Susan! How's things?

 

evening Kurt Better than Sunday and worse than 1 April!!! How're things with you?

 

All good. Out of our deep freeze, adjusting to new hearing aids, enjoying new wheels (oops!) and shocks on the truck.
Just ordered some ladybugs for the greenhouse, and a new shade cloth. Convinced the wife we can go to the local fancy place for Valentines!
All good!

 

Good morning fellow Porchatonians!

Finally got our driveway cleared of ice from last week's storm - two days with temps above freezing and some sunshine helped.

 

Vietnam was my introduction into generator back up. Every Friday we ran the central office on two generators. Power has fascinated me ever since then. Large and small phone systems run on negative voltage. Larger ones are powered by a -48v power supply. The systems I worked on usually had a 75amp rectifier. Thing could kill you if you were not careful. Grounding was most important since the electron flow was from ground to battery. Everything I once knew is not too relevant. My career started at the end of cord board stepper PBX's and ended with implementing VOIP PBXs with nodes across our wonderful country. I was blessed in so many ways.

Good morning, Susan, closer to retirement yet?

 

Morning all:

Sue, some of the new porch residents don't know you have been with us for quite a while, you and the other gal need to post more, but then again we don't want to refer to you as old gals either, us old guys do fess up that we are OLD GUYS!
Willy could have said he knows this is a page for old guys and gals with Tacos, but then he would have got even more , but I think he's been married long enough to know better!

Just thinking, it was national complement day recently and I tried to give a young lady a complement, I told her that "you don't look any worse today than you did yesterday", she laughed and said "Gee Thanks" ! Hey, I tried!!!!!
Yea, I know, must just be cabin fever setting in!

 

Good Morning Porch Pals & Gals! Fixing to clean up the rest of the frozen stuff in the back today. That is all. Carry on!

 

Hi Susan!

 

Willy, not the same, but I stood switchboard watches on ship. 3 switchboards off of 3 500kw generators.
Navy ICman.

 

Ok, all you guys with electrical backgrounds, you couldn’t have had those careers without my first career. I started out at hourly wages of $2.635 in the manufacture of insulated copper wire and cable. General Electric Wire & Cable started with 3/8” copper coil, and made everything up to 500 MCM standard runs and occasional 750 MCM runs. We made multiconductor cable for some of the first computers, armored, shielded, braided, tinned, asbestos insulated, if it had copper in it, we made it. I stayed with GE for 15 years, finishing out in Exempt Management. GE is out of the Wire & Cable business now, and last I heard all but out of business in most everything else.

 

GE still heavy into higher technology fields such as power production, distribution and aircraft turbines