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More shorts! I was recently asked to help cleaning and finishing the preparation of the new store my mom works at. I took tons of trash to the dumpster that has been brought to the store (the building has been split in half, one half will be a furniture store, and major renovations are being made, so they need a big dumpster). I thought I could take a quick look on the top of all those pieces of wood while it was dark, plus there was a semi-trailer between the street and the dumpster LOL. Just by moving a few pieces of junk out of the way, I found three electrical boxes, two of them had an outlet! This is one of them. It looks like someone shorted the hot terminal to the box, and judging by the scorch marks on the box, it happened more than once XD. Fortunately both the outlet and the box are still good enough to be reused for a future project. Keywords: Miscellaneous

More shorts!

I was recently asked to help cleaning and finishing the preparation of the new store my mom works at. I took tons of trash to the dumpster that has been brought to the store (the building has been split in half, one half will be a furniture store, and major renovations are being made, so they need a big dumpster).

I thought I could take a quick look on the top of all those pieces of wood while it was dark, plus there was a semi-trailer between the street and the dumpster LOL. Just by moving a few pieces of junk out of the way, I found three electrical boxes, two of them had an outlet!

This is one of them. It looks like someone shorted the hot terminal to the box, and judging by the scorch marks on the box, it happened more than once XD. Fortunately both the outlet and the box are still good enough to be reused for a future project.

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File information
Filename:HPIM0652.JPG
Album name:Vince / The dumpster diving adventure! - seasons 2012 and before.
Keywords:Miscellaneous
Filesize:814 KiB
Date added:Mar 11, 2012
Dimensions:2592 x 1944 pixels
Displayed:136 times
Color Space:sRGB
Contrast:0
DateTime Original:2012:03:09 21:35:01
Exposure Bias:0 EV
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Exposure Program:Program
Exposure Time:1/15 sec
FNumber:f/3.6
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Focal length:7.5 mm
ISO:388
Light Source:Unknown: 0
Make:Hewlett-packard
Max Aperture:f/3
Model:HP DVC V5061u
URL:http://www.galleryoflights.org/mb/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=11083
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Comment 1 to 14 of 14
Page: 1

gailgrove   [Apr 27, 2012 at 11:25 PM]
Too lazy to turn off the breaker?
TiCoune66   [Apr 28, 2012 at 03:00 AM]
That's a remote breaker shutdown feature Laughing
Nelson   [May 27, 2012 at 02:06 AM]
I see electricians do that all the time here. Sometimes it is so hard to figure out which xxxxxx breaker it is, I can see why they do it!
SeanB~1   [May 27, 2012 at 11:18 AM]
You get a gun used to test a cable is isolated before cutting it ( you really do not want to cut into an 11kV cable unless it is isolated) that fires a heavy steel slug through the conductors, shorting them together and proving it is not live ( if it was then you hope the breaker upstream still works or else you will test the 33kV breakers after a few seconds) before jointing into it. Much better than the usual method of digging into it by an eedjit with a pickaxe or a bulldozer. I heard of one time where they ran out of charges, so the operator pulled out his gun and put a bullet through the cable into soft sand instead. Same result, just scared the people around a little.
TiCoune66   [May 27, 2012 at 05:19 PM]
I know there is a special tool to locate which breaker a circuit is connected to. One part is a square-wave signal generator (transistor + oscillator) that plugs in any outlet, and the other part is the signal locator.



It sure is a better way to find a breaker than shorting out an outlet xD.
Nelson   [May 27, 2012 at 06:12 PM]
Yeah it is better but shorting an outlet is still quicker!
SeanB~1   [May 27, 2012 at 09:18 PM]
Vince I would like one of those tracers..... Will help to trace buried cables in plaster, though the transmitter will need more power, and would have to withstand 230VAC.
gmercury2000   [May 28, 2012 at 12:50 AM]
Shorting out can be quicker but you are assuming that the breaker will function properly! Been down that road where assuming the white was neutral and black was hot on a circut that was not fused! Yeah it's not exactly the same but still! 120v can arc as bad as 480 when pulling enough amps! So your best bet is to use the right tools even if it takes longer!
Nelson   [May 28, 2012 at 01:04 AM]
Plus it would be my luck that after I tripped the breaker, I would find that it is in a locked panel that I can't access, preventing me from resetting the breaker!
streetlight98   [May 28, 2012 at 01:18 AM]
Shorting an outlet won't help you if you don't know where the breaker is though. Laughing
Nelson   [May 28, 2012 at 01:24 AM]
True, but I can usually find the breaker panels, I just don't know which of the many breakers is the one that controls the circuit in question. And start flipping off breakers trying to find the right one doesn't go over very well in the middle of the day when people are trying to conduct their business! Flip off a few computer circuits by accident and you'll hear about it Surprised
TiCoune66   [May 28, 2012 at 01:51 AM]
Geoff has an excellent point here! Many breakers get stuck which leaves their circuit virtually unfused. It's even worse with fuse panels. How many times did I see fuses bypassed in its socket by a penny Shocked
gmercury2000   [May 28, 2012 at 02:29 AM]
True about not being able to find the correct breaker! But with that said I would rather kill the wrong breaker and hear some grief then have a nice fireball! If those people fussing about their computer had any idea of how nasty electric flashes can be I guarntee they wouldnt complain as much! I'm not going to put my safety on the line for a few computers! lol
Antstar85   [May 28, 2012 at 03:36 AM]
I used to change these out hot back in my contractor days. I'm not gonna lie though, I have done this before in a pinch when I wasn't able to find the breaker or accidentally short the plug out to the box while pulling the plug out hot.

Comment 1 to 14 of 14
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