testing fuses with a wiggy

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flashboom said:
I have a 3ph fused exo feeding a 3ph motor load directly connected, no starter. If one of the fuses opens under load and I connect my wiggy across the open fuse, line to load, what will happen. Will the same thing happen if the load was a resistive load. Assume the loads are the same 10 amps.
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Interesting thread with many good points. But I didn't notice an answer. What will happen flashboom is you will read line voltage across the open fuse. In my 39 years I have checked more than a few fuses this way. I haven't used a wiggy in years. But I know electricians who do.
 
Pierre C Belarge said:
You are new here, and you are always welcome to discuss your point of view.


I am glad to see you are comfortable and confident in working live...that is probably the first step to being able to do so.


If you are so uncomfortable in the equipment necessary to conform to the requirements for safety, insteading of complaining, maybe you can be part of the solution. Try...I repeat try to contact some of the PPE providers and see if you can help them with their research in providing better PPE for the job necessary. You never know what may come of it.

Travis
Anyone who pays attention in this industry knows that working live sometimes is necessary, I do not begrudge one from doing so when it is necessary, even on higher voltage circuits.
What does concern me is someone getting hurt, because improper training has that person convinced that if he/she does not perform the task they may loose their job, they may loose their stature as a man or whatever other reason they think leads them to work this stuff live.
We all come to work expecting to go home the same way we came to work. The boss also wants the same. But there are some unscrupulous bosses who are willing to risk employees lives, knowing that they may only receive small fines if a death should occur. A risk in business they seem to be willing to take. I wonder if some of them would be willing to actually risk their lives as opposed to their wallets.

The improper training I mention is not electrical training. It is the training that some get which makes them think it is okay to sacrifice their lives, their family's security and whatever for the sake of the job. That is poor training.


You see, we can all rant :grin:
Does the proper method take more time and cost more money. Hell ya! Aren't you worth it?
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Here, Here! I couldn't agree more
 
chicar said:
I have not used a wiggy in years. Do they still make them things. I allways say "nothing beats a fluke".
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I love my Fluke's too, but there are circumstances where they display "ghost voltage".

I prefer my little red Knopp T-60 to a Wiggy. It is Cat III rated and fits nicely in my pouch. I don't have room for a big, black Wiggy.

I also hate the Wiggy's probe tips. My Knopp has probe tips made to fit into a standard receptacle.
 
we used to tie to #1's in 6x6 trough live all the time cause you couldn't shut the shop down
gloves and plenty of cardboard ppe ....what was that ? with everything
that want you ware now you wouldn't be able to move under the raised floors.
a lot has changed in 20 yrs as far as saftey
i still have my wigginton from trade school..:grin:
 
DLTravis said:
:mad:
Since this is an open forum I will force anyone who reads this to hear my opinion :grin:

NFPA-70E is not adhere able it simply puts the responsibility on the employee to make the correct choices in PPE and whether or not to work live i.e. less liability to employers. I feel very confident working on live circuits and think it is a fact of being an electrician. I would also like to totally disagree with the posters who state to paraphrase "if you don't agree with the post stay out" this is the kind of mentality that allows publications like the NFPA-70E to become law without the system of checks and balances which are vital to making rules which are adhere able and simply make sense. Most of the support I see for these rules comes from employers who want less liability and ?suits? in the profession (inspectors, etc.) who don't have to practice what they preach.

What is less safe?
1) Working a live (has to be live to t-shoot) 480 ckt in the traditional fashion.
or
2) Suiting up in a 15 cal suit on a 100 degree day on top of a crane in a steel mill where it is 120 degrees ambient where you can't see because your face shield is so fogged up and these darn gloves can barely hold the leads.....

I'll end my rant for now as this stuff gets my blood pressure up a little!! Even more than the occasional jolt. ;)

That's all for now. Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings.

Travis
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Well, I worked in a foundry for a while not the same as steel mill but pretty close. I am older and wiser now, and leave that kind of work to the younger folks. I used to hate coming off of roof from chipping ice away from a limit switch and then having to work on a crane above a holding furnace.:)
 
Pierre

Pierre

You see, we can all rant :grin:

Isn't that why we are members of this forum?

You make some good points. I am improving but have a ways to go with the PPE. My kindly employer was originally insisting we had to wear it 100% of the time.

It took six months to convince them we really shouldn't be wearing it to run 3" conduit up near the ceiling.:)
 
I've been in the field for about twenty years now. I have done plenty of "live" work.

After my company put us through a NFPA-70E training seminar......I won't do "hot" work without the proper PPE!

I'm not talking about installing a new switch at your house...but, you just never know what you might encounter when you open up a panel or gear on the job.

I recently opened up a 500KVA transformer that was powered up(was wearing PPE) so that we could do some IR shooting under load. We found an allen wrench still in one of the load side lugs from when it was installed a year ago.........

I don't think wanting to go home at night with all my skin makes me any less of a real man...and I don't really care either.

And I stopped using my wiggy years ago.....
 
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The best and easiest way to check for blown fuses is with a continuity meter, I prefer the Fluke t+Pro. Cross checking is exposing yourself to live voltage. Checking voltage to ground will not always work as a running motor will regenerate a missing phase voltage.
The electrical industry is getting past "thats the way I've always done it."
I feel a wiggy is a dangerous tester and you can use it in the dark...
 
Safety

Safety

Good point Tom! As for the post on "working hot", in the electrical field today there is no way at times without working something hot. ie. hospitals,labs,universities,factories, etc.,etc..Why would there be such a big movement in safety in the form of arc-flash protection if we do not have to work something"HOT"?????
 
in the electrical field today there is no way at times without working something hot. ie. hospitals,labs,universities,factories,
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Other than troubleshooting, hot work, even in those locations, is for the most part prohibited by the OSHA rules.
.Why would there be such a big movement in safety in the form of arc-flash protection if we do not have to work something"HOT"?????
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You need the PPE for troubleshooting, and for the required voltage check after you lock out the power source before you can work on the circuit without the PPE.
Don
 
tom baker said:
I feel a wiggy is a dangerous tester and you can use it in the dark...
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Why does this sentence sound contradictory? It sounds like "The food was terrible, and there wasn't enough of it!"

I can't understand why using a solenoid tester across a fuse is any more dangerous than line-to-line voltage testing.
 
interesting thoughts on this. Makes me think more safety, one thing i always do is wear my safety glasses, even when im doing stuff at home.;)

and oh by the way, i STILL have a wiggy, and i use it all the time. I might upgrade to that fluke T pro. all my other meters stay home, but the wiggy is rugged and works well in the field. ;)
 
While I am all for safety and would do nothing I feel is unsafe.

Remember OSHA is brought to you by government bureaucrats that have little or no clue about real life working, the same folks that bring us TSA, Social Security and more wonderful government agencies.
 
brian john said:
Tom:

I have no evidence to refute Fluke's Article, additionally as I have mentioned I own loads of Fluke equipment, my tool case looks like a display case for a Fluke Sales rep. But manufactures have known to be bias in self serving "SAFETY" articles.

As I have said to date I know of no instances where the use of wiggy style testers have resulted in injury to electricians or the wiggy when properly used. I would bet big dollars wiggys have saved more lives over the years than Fluke's DMM's just due to the fact they have been around longer, and are still sturdier and more prevalent on construction sites than DMMs.

PPE is necessary and should be utilized, but in my expierence most electrical injuries from faults that happen to electricians are because the electrician was not competent to perform the work he was attempting.

Wear PPE and use proper tools.
Minimize exposure to energized equipment.
Just because you are licensed DOES NOT QUALIFY YOU to work on all electrical equipment.
Be careful and take your time, many of the jobs I have been on where faults occurred due to human error could have been avoided had the participants taken a few moments to thoroughly think out the job (and in many/most cases walked away from the job), instead of rushing into it.
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I love all my Fluke gear. In the end my 87 is the final provider of the "truth". You realy summed up a lot of things I agree with completely here, mainly that anything we do needs to be done in an intellegent and thoughful manner no matter what equioment you use.
 
jrclen said:
Interesting thread with many good points. But I didn't notice an answer. What will happen flashboom is you will read line voltage across the open fuse. In my 39 years I have checked more than a few fuses this way. I haven't used a wiggy in years. But I know electricians who do.
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No overload protection?? Como extrano!! My Ideal Vol-Com tester wich I call a "wiggy" has a resistive input impedence of 35000 ohms. Even across 480 volts it will pass less than 14 ma. Not enough for explosions or starting motors that draw 10 amps FLA. Just like the man said the only thing that will happen is you will read line voltage.
 
tom baker said:
The best and easiest way to check for blown fuses is with a continuity meter, I prefer the Fluke t+Pro. Cross checking is exposing yourself to live voltage. Checking voltage to ground will not always work as a running motor will regenerate a missing phase voltage.
The electrical industry is getting past "thats the way I've always done it."
I feel a wiggy is a dangerous tester and you can use it in the dark...
Click to expand...
Checking continuity of fuses requires removing them from the circuit so you are not reading an alternate current path. That excludes this from being the easiest method. The bottom line is you had better know what you are doing before you ever open an MCC bucket, no matter what your choice of test equipment is!!
 
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