Communications guys are not necessarily elecricians

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kwired

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Occupation
EC
Went back to a site where I installed wiring on a new grain storage bin last year and found this communications crap tapped from one of my motor circuits to supply a repeater for the guy's radio equipment:(



Bet you can guess which raceway wasn't mine.



load end of that run - they ran ENT outdoors (at least on the shady side of the bin) but it will still be destroyed first time snow/ice falling off the roof of bin hits it:roll: They did run the coax cable that is likely good for outdoor exposure in liquidtight flex to antennal on top of bin, did not climb to top to see how that end was terminated.

ENT terminated in a internal type "Carflex" connector with extra securement via a worm drive hose clamp - guess that is only part that may remain intact when it gets some abuse.



Their supply side tap: this breaker is the controller/disconnecting means for a 10 Hp 240 volt auger motor there is no neutral in that enclosure because one wasn't needed for anything (but they tied their 120 volt equipment to the neutral bus which in this case is technically just an equipment grounding conductor, some may say I was wrong to do it that way but :p it is what it is. BTW the green conductor is going to the motor, the EGC back to main panel is the metal raceway and is also the neutral path for their added equipment. Also the feeder (if you want to call it that) overcurrent device is also a 90 amp breaker and tapped to it is a 14 -2 NM cable, wrong black/white polarity plus they never used the bare EGC in their cable, and pulled through the ENT.



Inside their equipment enclosure, they land in a 5-15 receptacle - I did not take it apart so who knows what else they did in that.
Though not as big of an issue as most of what else they did, I wouldn't have put the hinge of the NEMA 4-12 enclosure on the bottom, no matter what it falls open if you forget to latch it and lets the elements in.

Edit to add: only overcurent protection for that 5-15 receptacle is the 90 amp breaker back at the main panel on opposite side of the bin.
 
I would forward it on to the SED. Trying to think who your State inspector is, you may have better luck with him bringing smoke vs going further up. That has never done me any good.


Second thought:
Then again, maybe not. Customer equipment or the wireless internet?
 
readydave8 said:
So the owner never noticed anything odd about communications guys wiring? Even when contrasted with your existing work? I'm not completely surprised.
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Owner: OK, I guess I'll call my electrician to get power to your enclosure.
SuperTech: Don't worry about it, just a couple hundred bucks extra and we'll take care of it.
Owner: Well... <<Gee, my regular guy is great, but man, he's not cheap. It's just a dinky little 120 circuit...>> I guess so. Sure.
 
kwired said:
Their supply side tap: this breaker is the controller/disconnecting means for a 10 Hp 240 volt auger motor there is no neutral in that enclosure because one wasn't needed for anything (but they tied their 120 volt equipment to the neutral bus which in this case is technically just an equipment grounding conductor.
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What gets me when I see work like this is the number of mistakes made on such a small project.


You would think that just by accident they would get something right.
 
growler said:
What gets me when I see work like this is the number of mistakes made on such a small project.


You would think that just by accident they would get something right.
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The old "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then" theory. Maybe he got the next one right. :roll:
 
Yea, but there is actuly not a single thing that he did correctly. One would think something, something might have been done right, perhaps one conductor landed on the correct terminal just by accident.
 
ptonsparky said:
I would forward it on to the SED. Trying to think who your State inspector is, you may have better luck with him bringing smoke vs going further up. That has never done me any good.


Second thought:
Then again, maybe not. Customer equipment or the wireless internet?
Click to expand...
To best of my knowledge this is a repeater for a private radio communications network. Not so many farmers have those anymore like they did 10- 15 years + ago because of better cellular coverage but there are still some that farm a lot of poor cell coverage areas and still use such equipment.

Same communications company already has wireless internet equipment on a tower just down the road not too far (and is where I get my wireless internet from, but I am sure that they have to lease to put equipment on that tower and would be extra lease cost for this repeater to put it on that tower. Otherwise the user owns this bin, it is on high ground and has good coverage of where this guy all farms so it only makes sense to put it there. I don't know if the equipment is owned by the user or not, but guessing it probably is, they just don't know much about how to use it and the communications company likely comes out and does necessary maintenance/repairs when there is a problem. Looks to me like there will be a problem sometime:roll:
 
sadly, this kind of thing is not all that uncommon. it is not just communications guys. I have seen real IBEW trained electricians do similar things that they deem acceptable as being "temporary". I wonder how many of the temporary fixes are ever corrected.

running a wire to ground instead of to neutral has to be about the single most common code violation I run across.
 
petersonra said:
sadly, this kind of thing is not all that uncommon. it is not just communications guys. I have seen real IBEW trained electricians do similar things that they deem acceptable as being "temporary". I wonder how many of the temporary fixes are ever corrected.

running a wire to ground instead of to neutral has to be about the single most common code violation I run across.
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I truly doubt they even realized they connected to the EGC and that the raceway is the current path back to the main panel.
 
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