Electricity 100

[rexowner]

Trivia question: At one amp, how many electrons 'flow' past a given point?

Is this a trick question? You need a time.

In one second, one coulomb or 6.25 x 10^18.

 

[wawireguy]

The truth is that this forum doesn't really represent the state of electrical contractors and employees in this country. Only one thing really matters $$ and ego. Education, quality of work and code all take a back seat to that. Very rarely do I get to work with a electrician that actually knows code and takes pride in quality of work and meeting code. Most think they know it or heard it or don't care or think however they want to do it is the right way and they don't care to hear about what the code book says or your views. It's refreshing to be able to belong to this forum and actually communicate with people who do know code and how to do things properly.

 

[peter d]

Brian, I agree with you to a point.

Let's take a specific example of grounding and bonding. Now, the average "installer electrician" does not really need to know or understand the theory of why we bond and "ground" stuff. He only needs to do what his boss or foreman tells him. So unless he was an "A" student in apprentice school, he doesn't really understand why he bonds and grounds things, he just knows he has to do it because his boss or instructor told him to. Would it be nice if he knows why he has to bond/ground stuff? Yes. Is it essential that he does? I would like to think so, but not really.

I think understanding electrical theory makes understanding code rules so much easier. Like, why do we bond metal parts? To connect them back to the low impedance path aka the grounded conductor at the source.

Or, why do we drive ground rods? No, not to "ground" the service, they're for lighting protection and accidental contact. If you can understand and apply Ohm's law, the reason for ground rods becomes obvious.

I'm sure there are more examples but hopefully I'm getting my point across. If I'm not it wouldn't be the first time I wasn't clear about something.

 

[480sparky]

Is this a trick question? You need a time.

In one second, one coulomb or 6.25 x 10^18.

Hmmm. I have 6.28. But who's counting?

Didn't think it would be answered so quickly, though....

 

[mayanees]

Qualifications to be a member of the forum are none

Qualifications to be a member of the forum are none

I hope that the appearance of an occasional stupid question is because anyone can post on the forum, and can list in their profile that they are an electrician, or an engineer, or even a MacDondalds fry cook.

And fortunately there aren't many stupid questions. My experience is that there are some pretty knowledgeable folks with extensive electrical background.

JM

 

[hillbilly]

Electrons dont flow, they transfer thier energy, common misconception from 1940's electrical theory books.

Que?
Please explain.:smile:

steve

 

[C3PO]

I apologize if some of my questions/comments are not on a high enough intellectual level for some of you. I never claimed to be a genuis. (and I can't spell good)

 

[acrwc10]

Brian you have to remember also that some people are not electricians that are posting "basic questions" they may claim that on there profile though. I also think there are a fair number of questions that are asked under the pretext of " I know the answer but I need to prove to Joe Blow why -XYZ-is so". Being in one part of the trade that you are very well educated in like an EE does not mean you know even the most basic of things in another area of the trade like installation. Lot's of EE's don't know the difference between a set screw connector and a Bell box, this does not mean they are failing electrical '101'.
Have a cup of coffee and lighten up dude !

 

[cowboyjwc]

What about the inspectors on the forum do you see common mistakes over and over for basic NEC issues. Stuff one would expect an electrician to know?

Yes, I do anyways, and they are usually the silly little things, KO seals missing, straping conduits, labeling panels, grounding switches. I sometimes tell them that if I have to worry about the small stuff, I'm really gonna worrry about the big stuff. Now are any of the things I mentioned a big deal, not really, but as to Brians question, these are electrician 101, I shouldn't even have to mention them, much less write them up.

When guys start to work out of their "niche", I see a lot of problems too. Single family guys trying to get into multi-family buildings and they know nothing about fire assemblies or sound assemblies or corridors, handicap accessibility, etc.

 

[mivey]

Hmmm. I have 6.28. But who's counting?

Didn't think it would be answered so quickly, though....

I have
e = 1.602176462 x 10^-19 C which yields 6.241509745E18
so we are within 38,490,255,490,000,000 electrons or so but who's counting?

 

[rexowner]

I have
e = 1.602176462 x 10^-19 C which yields 6.241509745E18
so we are within 38,490,255,490,000,000 electrons or so but who's counting?

Wikipedia claims it's "exactly": 624,150,962,915,260 +/- 5
electrons. So if they're right you're within a few million
electrons. Much closer than me in any case.

 

[Pierre C Belarge]

In the area I work in (encompasses 4 counties - a fairly substantial territory, considering one of the counties is the first county north of NYC), I have seen what I consider a steady decline in the quality of work. The number of people who are performing this work who understand what they are doing is also steadily declining as well...maybe at just a little slower rate.

With that said, forget about KO seals and the like, but there are many times we are repeating our inspection for items such as location of devices/equipment and other code issues that are not even understood. This leads to the same statement that a lot of inspectors hear " when did they change that code?". Etc, etc, etc.

Basically what some of the ECs are doing is using the inspectors as job foremen, saving a buck. I was on a job yesterday where the two men were in their very early 20s. They were not well trained and could not even understand what I was asking for in the changes. I see more and more of this as the ECs try to compete for work.


There are other jobs I am on where the electricians -if that is what we are trying to decipher in this thread, are IMO, not really electricians. They are installers...who can mechanically pull wire, bang boxes and very little more. Then there are the guys who follow those installers, a little higher on the scale. Again trained only in the portion they are installing. If the job strays from the original plan, they are lost.

So, in answer to Brian's OP, I think the industry has a long, long, long way to climb to get out of the hole we have dug for ourselves. Until more people who can do something about it see this and try to help, it is only going to get worse.



On the brighter side, there are still men out there who are excellent in what they do and show tremendous amounts of pride in their work...thank the lord for those jobs, otherwise I would leave my position tomorrow.

 

[dcspector]

What about the inspectors on the forum do you see common mistakes over and over for basic NEC issues. Stuff one would expect an electrician to know?

Brian,

I don't know if it's basic or not but in the hi-rises I deal with they increase the ungrounded conductors for VD and forget about proportionately sizing the egc. 250.122(B)

 

[iwire]

Brian,

I don't know if it's basic or not but in the hi-rises I deal with they increase the ungrounded conductors for VD and forget about proportionately sizing the egc. 250.122(B)

Now is that the ECs forgetting or the EEs forgetting?

 

[dcspector]

Now is that the ECs forgetting or the EEs forgetting?

Good point Bob! In this case it is both. I have a matrix showing EE's tbl and the EC did not heed. Example: 750 al 200 amp ocpd with a #4 al egc.....what are your thoughts? I did the math Ratio and proportion and came up with a #1al. If I am wrong so be it. learn and move on.

 

[zog]

I apologize if some of my questions/comments are not on a high enough intellectual level for some of you. I never claimed to be a genuis. (and I can't spell good)

But you are fluent in 6 millions forms of communication

This is a place to learn, all questions are welcome besides DIY type stuff. Every once in a while some new guy shows up to ask a question on how to do something he has no business doing, and it is obvious, they usually get some answer they dont understand and are satisfied with and are never heard from again. (There has to be some name for them, "Dive bombers"?)

Others are new in the trade or at a new job or just trying to expand thier knowledge, those people are the whole purpose for this forum IMHO. Welcome.

 

[brian john]

I apologize if some of my questions/comments are not on a high enough intellectual level for some of you. I never claimed to be a genuis. (and I can't spell good)

Look my spelling is terrible (thank you google tool bar) and my writing skills are weak, but thankfully this is not an English grammar forum. I think all questions are welcomed and hopefully we all learn something from some of the questions.

It is rare but I have seen some questions that I cannot believe come from some posters. Does not mean the question does not deserve a response.

I actually think the questions/request that are strange are the ones that get asked over and over. Now new members do not realize this question was asked, but long time members ON OCASSION have to say WHAT AGAIN. Black, red, blue or is it brown yellow orange, up down ground.........

 

[frizbeedog]

This forum serves an important function.......

You are right Brian. This forum serves an important function. However, many threads end up being a bitching session, a place to air greivences, expressed in much frustration, and anger, and many of those threads can be a bore. A tiresome bore.

Thankfully the mods keep maters in check and quickly weed out troublesome posts, directing the honest poster to a quick resolution, and elevating seemingly simple topics into mind boggling romps through the code and to ways of thinking about a subject that we may have never considered.

I would hate to think that we should only entertain the whims of the knowlegeable. I recognize that many of you get much satisfaction from helping a poster through their technical problems, and the trade is better for it.......So, what do you hope to achieve by this post?

I guess when I read your post I was troubled at first, and then remembered your recent post about your attempt to help some others at the supply house regarding a generator install. That incedent rubbed you the wrong way and I realize why. Your heart is in the right place and your inentions are admirable but you may be fighting an uphill battle. You, like many, have a vision of the way things should be, and get angry and frustrated and disheartend when reality does not meet your expectations. Welcome to earth.

Personally, I'm glad for all the variations of questions, opinons and personalities found here....quite an eye opener.

So what do we do about it?

Solutions are one of the things that is indeed a rare find here.

Brian, before you get to down on the trade or this forum I invite you to review your own response to question #5, in post 26, in This Thread

How soon we forget what we love, or what is good when we continue to focus on the negative.

....best wishes. :smile:

 

[POWER_PIG]

Brian, I am a firm believer in "there are dumb questions" When I was in tech school for electronics there was a guy who asked the instructor, "How do the electrons 'know' which way to go?" The instructor tried very hard to explain how electron flow worked but this guy just couldn't get past how the electrons "knew" which way to go. When he tried to explain in in terms of plumbing it only made the guy wonder how water "knew" which way to go. There are dumb questions, they are generally asked by dumb people. that said I don't see any dumb questions on this forum I am with Iwire and 480sparky. My first day on the job for an EC I didn't have a clue what a single gang nail-on was, but I could have repaired a LASER targeting pod on an A-10.

So how is that a "dumb question"? I suppose you came squirting right out your mammy knowing it all?
Some of us would call your question ...."what is a single nail-on" a right down dumb question.....Its all relative to what you do and what you've been taught. Do you know the differnce between "dumb" and "ignorant" ?

 

[mdshunk]

There is a quote that is generally credited to Confucious. "You know what you know and you don't know what you don't know. That is knowledge." I think some of these things that seem stupid to many of us are just a simple case of the person honestly not knowing and not that they're necessarily ignorant. Having said this, every once in a while I am admitted puzzled by an "electrician" who'll post about a set of 3-ways kicking his butt or about what size pipe to run certain conductors in. In those cases, some explanation does seem to be in order, even if not otherwise required. I can see an instrumentaion tech or a PLC guy not knowing these simple things, for instance.