Electrical education?

[493 Mike]

How long can you hang on to the battery?
Mike

 

[twecomm]

Probably not long, but it would be a rather dramatic event..

 

[ynst]

It's been out of print for a number of years but you can still find it on the Internet.

Written before engine management systems came into vogue.
First edition 1989
Second edition (spelling errors corrected, chapters added) 1993

Follow-up edition covering wiring kit installations was never published as Tex Smith Publishing folded.

 

[ynst]

Great idea... thanks Mike. I have a solid grasp of residential and machine electrical, but admittedly am a bit weak when it comes to automotive electrical. For a guy whose been a professional machine electrician for over 35 years, it's kind of embarrassing really.

When I worked for a company upfitting first responder vehicles, the "lead electrician" was a licensed electrician (commercial-residential) and because of that license he was designated the lead electrician.

EVERY vehicle was wired like he was wiring a multi-room house. i.e. a bundle of wires tied to another bundle of wires, tied to yet another bundle of wires. And the bundle splices weren't end-to-end splices, either. They were two or three wires into one, all parallel into one end of a big butt splice sort of like what you'd find behind the cover on your living room wall sockets. The other end of the butt splice was left open to the elements under the hood. He used thin-wall shrink tube butt splices as well.
To make things worse, everyone was supposed to follow his lead.

Given the fact that the majority of the jobs were police cruisers with an expected life span of around 2 years, the harnesses were close to the failure point when the vehicles were traded in, stripped, and sent to auction.

DPW and Fire department command center pick-ups on the other hand started coming back for re-work after a couple of years or so due to electrical failures, usually caused by wires coming loose due to bad crimps and/or connector corrosion.

One wire from source to destination is the best way. If you have to go through a bulkhead, use a weatherproof connector.

 

[kiwigtx]

One of the popular sayings with myself and friends is "Stay in your own lane"

I have seen some hideous workmanship by residential electricians doing industrial work at sites. I have also seen the reverse - industrial electricians doing residential work. Both equations are bad.

I was lucky that I was trained during my apprenticeship in a 50/50 situation and I was hammered to do residential the hard way - drilling down stud walls in tight spaces, fishing cables through walls, and not just being an asshole boring huge holes in walls every stud to pull cables. - or worse, smashing drywall down to run cables. I lost a few drills down walls and lost a lot of chains and draw-wires....but people were usually more grateful than if you walked out of their house with it looking like Swiss cheese.

Years later I worked for a guy who had work from the Govt doing State rentals (always neglected and bashed around) - he was an animal - would just smash walls to run cables and all the stuff I tried to never do. I hated that guy, and still do - for various reasons.

My industrial experience came from an older ex-Pom (emigrated from the UK in the '70's) and he made me work I n the crappiest situations....but it was a good all-round experience. If he was up a tall ladder, I had to constantly be watching him otherwise he would throw screwdrivers at me. But he taught me stuff now that I'm glad I learned.

During my coursework at Tech during my apprenticeship I had about 8 guys who worked at the Steel Mill during its construction. Most of those guys were useless at everything. They spent all day at the Mill pulling cables or bolting ladder racks.....just cheap labour. None of them could bend conduit or even wire a simple switch. I dread to think how any of them progressed during their later careers.

 

[Virg464]

FAFO.

View attachment 1948279

Is that one of them 12 volt hand warmers?

 

[Coelacanth]

Is that one of them 12 volt hand warmers?

It's a heavy duty joy buzzer.

 

[Casca2525]

Automotive Wiring and Electrical Systems

 

[Cranky]

I will admit I had automotive electrical training at college and systems were much simpler back then, but the basic principles haven't changed and they are simple. We have a LOT of electrical issues on this site and too many are declaring "electrical ignorance". Perhaps a sticky of electrical circuitry could be included here with a list of educational sources incorporated? Old dogs CAN learn new tricks!
Mike

One of my problems is that I'm shade blind. Not quite color blind but bad enough. Yeah, I can trace out circuits but have to mark them so I can keep track....it just takes longer and gets frustrating.

 

[ynst]

I know the problem. I have to get out my penlight to distinguish some shades of brown and purple.

I'm working on another whole-vehicle schematic for a how-to article on installing aftermarket harnesses utilizing GM style fuse boxes and direct-wired (not a myriad of plugs) harnesses. Unfortunately, work gets priority over leisure time.

I'll publish it when I finish it.

 

[kiwigtx]

As long as we can all tell the difference between the pink and the brown.

 

[Cranky]

As long as we can all tell the difference between the pink and the brown.

What chaps my butt is that I didn't know I was shade blind until several years later after taking the dang test for the military.....Ishihara test....color dots. I remember taking it when I was considering joining the AF right after high school and wanted to get into the electronics field but no one said a thing about me not passing that test. The field was never open for me and probably because of not passing it and imo, they kept it quiet.

Several years later working at a local steel mill and being laid off for over a month, I get call that an overhead crane operator retired and I was next in line. Sure....when do I start. Right away! Ok. Was in the crane for months when I was told I needed an eye test and that's when I found out. Supervisor went to bat for me saying that I was one of the best crane operators he's ever had. Dang thing was easy imo and the only colors I needed to see was dark Red, dark Blue, and bright Yellow and those are easy. Everything else was raw steel gray!

Took an electronics correspondence course while in the military and didn't see all the colors but I did learn something but geez, that was a long time ago. And old faded wiring gives me the most trouble. Dirty lenses on traffic lights were a problem too but since the advent of LED's, that's not a problem anymore but had to learn green on the bottom for vertical (no more of those around here) and green on the right for horizontal....before LEDs and now, I don't have to worry about that. A local crooked town had it backwards and made lots of money off of that until someone sued the pants off the city and won. It got changed right away. Today, a traffic light isn't even there.

 

[Coelacanth]

What many people may not realize is color blindness is quite common in men, almost 10% of men have some form of color blindness.

 

[kiwigtx]

What chaps my butt is that I didn't know I was shade blind until several years later after taking the dang test for the military.....Ishihara test....color dots. I remember taking it when I was considering joining the AF right after high school and wanted to get into the electronics field but no one said a thing about me not passing that test. The field was never open for me and probably because of not passing it and imo, they kept it quiet.

Several years later working at a local steel mill and being laid off for over a month, I get call that an overhead crane operator retired and I was next in line. Sure....when do I start. Right away! Ok. Was in the crane for months when I was told I needed an eye test and that's when I found out. Supervisor went to bat for me saying that I was one of the best crane operators he's ever had. Dang thing was easy imo and the only colors I needed to see was dark Red, dark Blue, and bright Yellow and those are easy. Everything else was raw steel gray!

Took an electronics correspondence course while in the military and didn't see all the colors but I did learn something but geez, that was a long time ago. And old faded wiring gives me the most trouble. Dirty lenses on traffic lights were a problem too but since the advent of LED's, that's not a problem anymore but had to learn green on the bottom for vertical (no more of those around here) and green on the right for horizontal....before LEDs and now, I don't have to worry about that. A local crooked town had it backwards and made lots of money off of that until someone sued the pants off the city and won. It got changed right away. Today, a traffic light isn't even there.

I had an apprentice with me a long time ago who was colour blind. He was always getting mixed up between the green and the red....a real issue when fitting off power sockets in a house or factory. I was always have to check his work, and of course we picked up all those with testing the circuits.
I asked him one day about the traffic light thing...he said that is easy because red is top, and green is the bottom.

 

[Don Frelier]

I had an apprentice with me a long time ago who was colour blind. He was always getting mixed up between the green and the red....a real issue when fitting off power sockets in a house or factory. I was always have to check his work, and of course we picked up all those with testing the circuits.
I asked him one day about the traffic light thing...he said that is easy because red is top, and green is the bottom.

View attachment 1960298

In the US for home wiring it's
Blk (or occasionally Red) for 120 VAC L1,
Wht - Neutral
Grn - Ground (or base Copper wire)
Green is always ground, in an industrial setting Black is usually right from a lighting panel while Red is usually a control circuit either from a fuse or breaker or an output. But increasingly most instrumentation in a factory is either 24Vdc or some networked device scheme.
So most everything is in Black and White. (And everyone says we're dumb)

 

[kiwigtx]

But increasingly most instrumentation in a factory is either 24Vdc or some networked device scheme.

True here - nearly everyone is on-board here with that. All my controls are 24VDC..... so much easier, and you can't be shocked bad by that either.

Still a few stubborn hold-out's using 24VAC or worse...12VAC... mostly on older European Intercoms and Chinese imported stuff...although those mad SOB's use 400 Volts AC on controls also on some machines....now that is some scary stuff. Especially so because their sense of colour co-ordination for live and neutral wiring is way out of whack compared to the rest of us.

Chinese wiring - 3-phase 400V motor wired with a 3-core flex.... how is that even close to being correct????

And the controls of the machine ....

Green for neutral, Live is Red and Live is Black..... and sometimes red & black are joined in the same terminal..... total re-wire was done.

 

[ynst]

In the US for home wiring it's
Blk (or occasionally Red) for 120 VAC L1,
Wht - Neutral
Grn - Ground (or base Copper wire)
Green is always ground, in an industrial setting Black is usually right from a lighting panel while Red is usually a control circuit either from a fuse or breaker or an output. But increasingly most instrumentation in a factory is either 24Vdc or some networked device scheme.
So most everything is in Black and White. (And everyone says we're dumb)

Unless you're from anywhere BUT the US where BROWN is earth, not GREEN unless it's made, specifically, for US consumption.
.

 

[Cranky]

I had an apprentice with me a long time ago who was colour blind. He was always getting mixed up between the green and the red....a real issue when fitting off power sockets in a house or factory. I was always have to check his work, and of course we picked up all those with testing the circuits.
I asked him one day about the traffic light thing...he said that is easy because red is top, and green is the bottom.

View attachment 1960298

In the US for home wiring it's
Blk (or occasionally Red) for 120 VAC L1,
Wht - Neutral
Grn - Ground (or base Copper wire)
Green is always ground, in an industrial setting Black is usually right from a lighting panel while Red is usually a control circuit either from a fuse or breaker or an output. But increasingly most instrumentation in a factory is either 24Vdc or some networked device scheme.
So most everything is in Black and White. (And everyone says we're dumb)

House wiring is a snap in most cases. I did a study on it before wiring my 1500 sq ft shop with 3 220 drops, wall outlets and ceiling outlets so I could plug in my lights how I wanted. Helped a buddy wire his new house and back then he knew more about it than I did but these days I'm not sure if he knew more than me or not lol

 

[Don Frelier]

Unless you're from anywhere BUT the US where BROWN is earth, not GREEN unless it's made, specifically, for US consumption.
.

Sounds like your talking about appliance cord?

 

[ynst]

Sounds like your talking about appliance cord?

Nope. 50hz residential, appliance, etc. wiring. Saw a lot of it in Australia.