Circuit Breaker "On" with no connection

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kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Walmart used to have spare breakers in just about every panel in new stores. Times must have changed. On the last remodel, they made us remove all spare breakers and add blanks. We stored the breakers we removed by the main service. The store manager had a no clutter policy and threw all of them out, a lot of them! :happyno:

Sounds to me like a good situation to sell them back their own property in the future on service calls or other installs.:happyyes::roll:
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
If this "joint commission" is concerned about a live terminal on a breaker with no load conductor - inside the panel, then it seems to me they should have concern over the live contact points inside every unused receptacle in the facility also:slaphead:
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
If this "joint commission" is concerned about a live terminal on a breaker with no load conductor - inside the panel, then it seems to me they should have concern over the live contact points inside every unused receptacle in the facility also:slaphead:
Which is why there are little plastic covers inside the tamperproof receptacles to keep the electrons from spilling out. The little covers in hospital grade receptacles also provide a better seal.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Which is why there are little plastic covers inside the tamperproof receptacles to keep the electrons from spilling out. The little covers in hospital grade receptacles also provide a better seal.

But just like the breaker terminal, you have something energized that doesn't go anywhere. Take the wall plate off and you still have an exposed terminal on the receptacle.

Same thing in every wall switch when it is in the "off" position. I think someone seriously needs to point this problem out to the "joint commission":happyyes: We will then never have any unused receptacles, and never walk into a dark room either.
 

tshea

Senior Member
Location
Wisconsin
The electrons from the breaker will keep flowing and fill up the empty space in the panel. Be careful when removing the cover so as not to spill the loose electrons on the floor. Better yet have an apprentice standing by with a bucket to catch the loose electrons. Give the bucket to the Joint Commission. Tell them to save it for a rainy day.:lol:
 

templdl

Senior Member
Location
Wisconsin
But just like the breaker terminal, you have something energized that doesn't go anywhere. Take the wall plate off and you still have an exposed terminal on the receptacle.

Same thing in every wall switch when it is in the "off" position. I think someone seriously needs to point this problem out to the "joint commission":happyyes: We will then never have any unused receptacles, and never walk into a dark room either.

That reminds me of cable TV installations where 75ohm cable is used. In order to keep the integrity of the system you can't simply parallel the different branches of the cable but must use splitters for the branches in order to keep the 75 ohm balance. Then at the end of each branch that isn't terminated on a TV you had to use a 75 ohm resistor to terminate it in order to maintain balance to the distribution system. Without those termination resistors to obsorb can you immagine the electrons getting confused by either spilling out all over or some decide to go back to where they came from with nowhere else to go.
Then, what happen to an 120v electric outlet if you don't have anything plugged into? Look at all of those electrons that are racing to them at the speed of light and can't stop. What keeps them from spilling out on to the floor.
Maybe those TV guys have the solution with they terminating resistors.
Have you ever wondered? A little humor (nonsense) if you're not real fussy.
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
Maybe those TV guys have the solution with they terminating resistors.
Have you ever wondered? A little humor (nonsense) if you're not real fussy.
An excellent point!
Once we have every tee junction in a branch circuit equipped with a signal splitter, we will be ready to put roughly 300 ohm terminating resistors at all receptacles, and make sure to use only 50 watt bulbs for all lights and leave them on at all times. The tamper proof feature on the receptacles can be leveraged to also switch the terminating resistor in and out. Some signal splitters will have such a low signal at their output that we will have to put a power amplifier ahead of them to bring the voltage back up.
Devices which need more than 50W power from the wiring system will have to provide a local power source to amplify that signal and do the impedance matching.

This is a fun thought experiment. :)
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
An excellent point!
Once we have every tee junction in a branch circuit equipped with a signal splitter, we will be ready to put roughly 300 ohm terminating resistors at all receptacles, and make sure to use only 50 watt bulbs for all lights and leave them on at all times. The tamper proof feature on the receptacles can be leveraged to also switch the terminating resistor in and out. Some signal splitters will have such a low signal at their output that we will have to put a power amplifier ahead of them to bring the voltage back up.
Devices which need more than 50W power from the wiring system will have to provide a local power source to amplify that signal and do the impedance matching.

This is a fun thought experiment. :)

The tamper proof receptacles already have a stop built in to keep electrons from spilling out of an unused receptacle:cool:

Seriously I do recall back in my apprentice days one of my college friends claiming that where he worked they had a lady customer wanting those child proof plastic plugs inserted in all non used receptacles, as she thought she was losing/wasting energy through the unused receptacles.
 

templdl

Senior Member
Location
Wisconsin
At the risk of being disrispectfull to my mother in law earlier in my life she always struggled with mental illness. On time she went around her house and sprayed all of the of the outlet with silver paint . In her mind or was to keep the evil from coming out.
Does it mean any thing that she liked me?
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
At the risk of being disrispectfull to my mother in law earlier in my life she always struggled with mental illness. On time she went around her house and sprayed all of the of the outlet with silver paint . In her mind or was to keep the evil from coming out.
Does it mean any thing that she liked me?

It probably means you were never sprayed with silver paint:)
 

ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
This is what happens when you put uneducated people in a position of authority. I'm not allowed to use Stupid.:roll:
In a somewhat related story...

I know this sounds like a Dilbert cartoon, but it really happened. A friend of mine was an IT manager for a government entity. His nontechnical boss somehow got hold of the IP number list for all the computers in their department and complained about the gaps in the list. He made my friend change them so that the gaps were eliminated.
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
In a somewhat related story...

I know this sounds like a Dilbert cartoon, but it really happened. A friend of mine was an IT manager for a government entity. His nontechnical boss somehow got hold of the IP number list for all the computers in their department and complained about the gaps in the list. He made my friend change them so that the gaps were eliminated.

Don't want to waste all those numbers!
 

ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
That reminds me of cable TV installations where 75ohm cable is used. In order to keep the integrity of the system you can't simply parallel the different branches of the cable but must use splitters for the branches in order to keep the 75 ohm balance. Then at the end of each branch that isn't terminated on a TV you had to use a 75 ohm resistor to terminate it in order to maintain balance to the distribution system. Without those termination resistors to obsorb can you immagine the electrons getting confused by either spilling out all over or some decide to go back to where they came from with nowhere else to go.

The cable TV termination stuff is real. I have cable routed all over my house and until I terminated all the unused taps, I had all sorts of problems with the cable boxes' communication with the mother ship.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
In a somewhat related story...

I know this sounds like a Dilbert cartoon, but it really happened. A friend of mine was an IT manager for a government entity. His nontechnical boss somehow got hold of the IP number list for all the computers in their department and complained about the gaps in the list. He made my friend change them so that the gaps were eliminated.

Did he do the same thing with phone numbers and extensions?
 

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
The cable TV termination stuff is real. I have cable routed all over my house and until I terminated all the unused taps, I had all sorts of problems with the cable boxes' communication with the mother ship.

It does put serious limits on your wiring scheme.
You can make all cables home runs, or
install a suitable splitter eat each place you branch or tap, pruning lots of point ti point runs that will have to be interconnected later using splitters and often terminators.

You can often get away with not terminating one or two cables from a four-way or more splitter, but too many unterminated.will add up to big problems.
Became a length of transmission line can act as a transformer, the problems can be frequency dependent.
 

ggunn

PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
Location
Austin, TX, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
It does put serious limits on your wiring scheme.
You can make all cables home runs, or
install a suitable splitter eat each place you branch or tap, pruning lots of point ti point runs that will have to be interconnected later using splitters and often terminators.

You can often get away with not terminating one or two cables from a four-way or more splitter, but too many unterminated.will add up to big problems.
Became a length of transmission line can act as a transformer, the problems can be frequency dependent.

Actually, I found a really neat alternative to splitters. It's an 8 channel bidirectional video distribution amp. I have it mounted in a closet with home runs to all my video drops. All the unused ports are terminated, as are any drops that aren't connected to a device. It works great; I have cable boxes on two of the drops and they talk back to the cable company through the amp for on demand programming.
 
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