What's up with the new metal receptacle covers?

[Strife]

Exactly my point.
People screwed in the transformers and when they removed them, they never bothered to put the screw back in. Or better yet, they just yanked the transformer out (literally pulling out the transformer and breaking the tab, so of course the receptacle was loose now).
I have seen hundreds of those loose receptacles also, but you really think the screws just loosen them self?

That is not correct. I was the original submitter of the proposal that resulted in this rule. The substantiation was the fact that I would often see the receptacles in raised covers so loose that when you would try to plug something in the receptacle could move enough that the prong of the plug would touch the cover and cause a short.
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Note that this proposal was unanimously rejected at the comment stage and 3 or 4 people submitted very similar proposals for the 1993 code cycle one of which was accepted.

 

[iwire]

I have seen hundreds of those loose receptacles also, but you really think the screws just loosen them self?

Yes I do, in the large majority of the cases I think that is exactly what happened.

Well not by themselves, but by the action of people plugging things in and out all the time. Anytime you connect two parts at only one location with a threaded connection it tends to loosen up.

Another common place was when people would place a 4" square at the end of a rubber cord and instal outlets with the single screw. (Of course that was not a compliant installation anyway)

 

[Twoskinsoneman]

Another common place was when people would place a 4" square at the end of a rubber cord and instal outlets with the single screw. (Of course that was not a compliant installation anyway)

Don't mean hijack but I've always wondered about that. I have see plenty of times pendants where the end was a 4" box just laying on a work table. Actually the first time I saw it was when I was going to school in our work shop
I always wondered about its legality. Can't do it?

 

[iwire]

Don't mean hijack but I've always wondered about that. I have see plenty of times pendants where the end was a 4" box just laying on a work table. Actually the first time I saw it was when I was going to school in our work shop
I always wondered about its legality. Can't do it?

IMO no.

314.23(H) Pendant Boxes. An enclosure supported by a pendant
shall comply with 314.23(H)(1) or (H)(2).

(1) Flexible Cord. A box shall be supported from a multiconductor
cord or cable in an approved manner that protects
the conductors against strain, such as a strain-relief
connector threaded into a box with a hub.

But if you use a 'Bell Box' you can get hit with listing issues, the instructions say to mount those boxes to something.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

Exactly my point.
People screwed in the transformers and when they removed them, they never bothered to put the screw back in. Or better yet, they just yanked the transformer out (literally pulling out the transformer and breaking the tab, so of course the receptacle was loose now).
I have seen hundreds of those loose receptacles also, but you really think the screws just loosen them self?

Yes I do think that they came loose only from normal use. The ones that resulted in my proposal were not in locations where transformers would have been installed.
As far as the proposal being rejected at the comment stage, that was really only to give the manufacturers time to design and produce a product. None of the substantiations for the 1993 code had anything to do with the wall wart issue.

 

[hurk27]

To add to the above, some manufactures of receptacles got cheap on how they attached the center boss that accepted the 6/32 screw, some were just set in the Bakelite, and some were just a little tab bent over, (Eagles was one of them) of course these were cheap dime store receptacles that not many of us would ever use in the industry, but home owners would just the same, and like Don I have seen my share of these fail where the center screw was used to hold the receptacle in a Garvin cover, (what we call e'm here)

there was nothing like going to plug something in and have the receptacle just push back into the box and sparks a flying.

I have actually drilled those holes in Garvin covers just to do what Dons proposal required, I did this while I was working industrial and we were using Garvin covers for 4-plex's along a work shop bench, when I saw them with the holes already in them, I was like cool, someone woke up and made a change for the good.

Thank's Don.

 

[ceb58]

That's what you're talking about?
They've been around for a while. In fact I think there were one of the first to come out to allow to secure the receptacle on the yoke.
I liked them, no lost 6/32 hex nuts.
Untill I ran into a few of them that were not properly cut and when I broke the tab it left me an indent so the receptacle wouldn't fit in untill I filed the indent.

I have found that if you push the tab from the backside toward the front the tab will break off smooth and not cause a problem with the recpt.