Whole house weirdness...this is crazy!

I have worked with electricity all my life and I still find the inside of a meter box too scary to deal with. The street side of the box can source many hundreds or even thousands of amps. An accidental short would be spectacular.
 
JPMacG said:
I have worked with electricity all my life and I still find the inside of a meter box too scary to deal with. The street side of the box can source many hundreds or even thousands of amps. An accidental short would be spectacular.
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The meter can should never be worked on. Call the power company for that. Even replacing the ground lead, I coiled it below the can and called the power company. Removing the meter is bad enough, if anything gets inside, even a wet leaf, there is trouble ahead. Working on a residential power panel is dangerous. A couple of times, I have replaced a late model fuse panel with a breaker box for friends. Each time I personally pulled the meter and kept it with me while I worked.

Someone mentioned pulling the jack on the pole. While it would be handy for recrimping the line above the meter, a lineman could come along and put the jack back in while the man was in the house. A small chance, true. But any chance is too great unless someone stands there the entire time to be sure no one puts the jack back in.

There are many "iffy" conditions when I will do something edgy. But I have never told anyone else to do the same thing. When I do something edgy, it is based on many years of experience. Knowing what I can get away with versus what needs to be left alone. Doing something edgy has usually been in a plant to keep the production machines running. Anyone from maintenance staff will understand why edgy stunts are tried there. Every one else needs to just leave it alone.

Safety tags are sometimes used where lockouts cannot be fitted. I have had safety tags removed by production supervisors. If I ever saw it done, it was a guaranteed death sentence from a 36" pipe wrench. No reprieve. . . And I have had a voltage tester break a lead and lie to me. In a hurry to keep the mill running, I didn't check the tester on a seperate circuit. I just trusted it, a bad move, I took 480 across the chest. I'm still alive, more or less, after all those shenanigans because God has something for me to do some day. I have no other answer.

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Bi11Hudson said:
And I have had a voltage tester break a lead and lie to me. In a hurry to keep the mill running, I didn't check the tester on a seperate circuit. I just trusted it, a bad move, I took 480 across the chest. I'm still alive, more or less, after all those shenanigans because God has something for me to do some day. I have no other answer.

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Live-dead-live, every phase, every time. I see a load of welded contacts. Don't use auto-range either.
 
Phase to phase then phase to ground.
 
On today's Wye or Star systems, Phase to Ground on a 480 system is 277 volts , except: "Grandfathered" grounded Delta. One phase is ground. Not allowed today, many years ago did have a legitimate use. In a very damp environment, a Delta supply will have a ground voltage that drifts around. A grounded Delta system will clear a fuse on a ground, no shilly-shalleying around. It was outlawed sometime in the '60s I think. But an old system was allowed to continue to run under a "Grandfather" clause..

In my case, the plant was built in 1919. At the "break down" end, the billet moves really slow and the reheat furnace was close by. Being an old mill there was little ventilation, I was sweating heavily. On the occasion when my tester "lied" to me, I was steadying myself by holding the frame of the MCC. Then reached down between two buss bars to tighten a loose connection. With one or two phases on one hand and ground including the third phase on the other hand, I should not have lived. When the shock threw me backward, I fell against a "live front" 900 volt DC motor controller. Which was live at the time. Nearly 40 years later, all I have is the scar on my left shoulder. The "B" rate helper with me could only stare with a white face, he thought he had just seen a man killed.

As I slowly came to my senses, a production foreman came in and was yelling about me "lying down on the job". Not fully recovered, I took a pipe wrench, a small one maybe 24 inches, and chased him on to the reheat furnace. The ladder had a cage around it and my pouch got hung up, so he got away from me. When he went to upper management, the "chief electrician" stood up for me and advised the foreman that he was most fortunate to be alive.

A "good" electrician has to maintain "presence of mind" in some very difficult situations. I only worked at that mill for a couple of years. And had several, nay many, close encounters with an archaic system. Like the time I burned up the line side of a 115/44KV substation. But that is another tall tale and needn't be told here. The point is that electricity is not to be fooled with unless you know what you are getting into.

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I think some boondock electric coops, and oilfield junk still occasionally gets corner-ground delta. I don't think it's flat out outlawed, but the equipment has to be rated for it, and no one cares to certify their stuff for it, since it's so oddball. Oilfields are definitely in the "this is sketchy" department
 
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