powerboards

[Snowman]

This is what happened to me at work about 2 years ago because I was so confident in my ability to not make a mistake that I didn't factor in the equipment failure aspect. This is a fuse unit that was feeding a block of offices that had a blown fuse and it should have been a quick change of fuse but the fuse holder developed a fault.

Very nasty Andy!
I have to do a bit with 33kv and it just scares the crap out of me!

 

[fourexes]

Thanks snowman I appreciate your time. It has explained a lot more than people I have spoken with, sparkies included. Also thanks for not taking my post the wrong way & apologies if I took yours the wrong way.

Andynic I spoke with a 'technician' the other day that was telling me he has been electrocuted over 14 times. I told him perhaps it's time you considered a new career... Accidents happen, just not over ten times lol. That looks more than painful. Bet it won't happen again

 

[andynic07]

OUCH AndyNic ! i bet the air was a little bit blue after that one... did you suffer any long term injury from that ?

i kind of looks like you had a latex glove on (please tell me that is a melted latex glove and not skin :shock: )

Fortunately no long term injuries and no skin grafts required. We usually have three pairs of gloves on , one cotton pair for sweat absorbtion then a rubber insulated pair and finally a leather pair for mechanical protection and I was wearing them on my right hand which I used for closing the fuse unit and that was my left hand that was about a metre away from the fuse and that is my skin coming off.

 

[andynic07]

Very nasty Andy!
I have to do a bit with 33kv and it just scares the crap out of me!

One flash and your ash. We had a guy at work about four weeks ago burn one arm off at the elbow and the other at the shoulder working live on the 11KV lines, it was lucky that he didn't die.

 

[J-A-X]

Fortunately no long term injuries and no skin grafts required. We usually have three pairs of gloves on , one cotton pair for sweat absorbtion then a rubber insulated pair and finally a leather pair for mechanical protection and I was wearing them on my right hand which I used for closing the fuse unit and that was my left hand that was about a metre away from the fuse and that is my skin coming off.

i'm now cringing !!


I'm glad you suffered no long term affects from it, but i bet the short term suffering was anything but fun ~


i tend to live by the '2 seconds to late' theory,

"2 seconds can be the difference between........ "


Its all these sorts of things that fuel my concerns when people misguidedly say, 'you can wire it yourself' etc etc. They really have very little idea of what can happen. I know guys that do the High voltage work from helicopters and man, are they in a league of their own,

 

[Cougar2007]

Cougar, Is it usually overloading that causes these fires or old outdated or poor quality equipment?

Honestly it is a bit of both but more often its cheap equipment. Those $2 powerboards are plain and downright dangerous. They create masses of heat and plastic and heat will = fire more often than not eventually. They have low grade wire and connections internally and that's what causes faults. Also overloading is common. Unfortunately usually I o ly see it when it is a smouldering heap so often it's hard to know exactly what was plugged I to it. We got called to a fish tank on fire one day. He had 14 4point powerboards inline tuning his pumps lights etc. I keep marine fish and I get the has sell of wiring. He learnt te hard way. It burnt out and cracked his $5000 10ft tank and boiled thousands of dollars worth of fish. They weren't overloaded. The owner just suffered from an overload of stupidity. The sparkles will explain better than I about the way they generate heat but basically it's in the tightness of the joins and not the actual load per say.

 

[Cougar2007]

i'm now cringing !!


I'm glad you suffered no long term affects from it, but i bet the short term suffering was anything but fun ~


i tend to live by the '2 seconds to late' theory,

"2 seconds can be the difference between........ "


Its all these sorts of things that fuel my concerns when people misguidedly say, 'you can wire it yourself' etc etc. They really have very little idea of what can happen. I know guys that do the High voltage work from helicopters and man, are they in a league of their own,

Jax we often say. We wish we could take them on a callout and see first hand what happens when you "wire it yourself"

 

[greendoubt]

This is what happened to me...

nice one! i can't not picture electricity shooting into your fingertips, like some kind of reverse emperor palpatine.

this thread's been interesting and eye-opening.

 

[andynic07]

nice one! i can't not picture electricity shooting into your fingertips, like some kind of reverse emperor palpatine.

this thread's been interesting and eye-opening.

Haha yeah not sure about the shooting of electricity but I was definitely engulfed by a fireball, all the front of my jacket was blackened. Saying that my mate that was caught on the high voltage did have "lightning coming out of his fingers" by all reports from everyone around.

 

[dr_juggalo]

My question to you is if each powerboard and each outlet of each powerboard is within its rating and each has a good solid connection where does the heat come from to create the fire?

the issue is that if your piggybacking, then it is not within the load requirement of the outlet. That will be where the heat comes from.
I just set up a load centre that runs around 12 double pole outlets. But this can be a very expensive project and not recommended unless you are qualified as a sparky. Much safer as you have each circuit and outlet protected within the limits and will never heat up to the poin of the powerboards.

But have you never wondered why fire fighters hate the xmas period. It is due to people piggy backing their powerboards and double adapters.

 

[Grogshla]

Yeah it is crazy around the holiday period.
I remember our place had really old wiring and only 1 outlet in the room where I had my computer gear and reptiles.
I remember seeing green electricity coming out of the outlet once. Not a good thing at all.

 

[andynic07]

the issue is that if your piggybacking, then it is not within the load requirement of the outlet. That will be where the heat comes from.
I just set up a load centre that runs around 12 double pole outlets. But this can be a very expensive project and not recommended unless you are qualified as a sparky. Much safer as you have each circuit and outlet protected within the limits and will never heat up to the poin of the powerboards.

But have you never wondered why fire fighters hate the xmas period. It is due to people piggy backing their powerboards and double adapters.

Yes mate it was a facetious question because as stated in the question "within ratings" and "good connections" there would be no excessive heat source, we have discussed piggybacking further up the thread and yes I am a sparky. A good solid connection does not cause excessive heat and it is usually when the excessive piggyback connections weight turns one of the connections into a bad connection or there is a cheap powerboard with a loose connection causing the excessive heat. It would take a lot of fairy lights to overload a 10 amp power outlet.

 

[dr_juggalo]

Guessing you haven't seen the crazy stuff they do. I'm a sparky also but I'm a switchy not domestic, but my friends are firefighters and they show me photos of the things that people do.
Also most people go the cheap option unfortunately when it comes to electrical appliances

 

[ronhalling]

Hey Reptilia, after reading this thread yesterday i spoke to a m8 of mine who does industrial and domestic electrical work and he said that there was a power board available at some electrical wholesale places that has 4 outlets and inbuilt capacitor, it was originaly designed for those people that do huge xmas light displays and tend to overload power boards and adapters, he said they are not cheap but neither is a house, they are (according to him) around the $200 mark, i have not used them coz if i need more power points i just buy them and my m8 installs them for me for a couple of beers, one or more of the sparkies here might be able to give more info on them coz i was talking to him on the mobile and had to keep it short so some details may not have been relayed effectively..................................Ron