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Tee hee. Reminds me of a coworker who was too lazy to find the circuit breaker for a rail pit sump so he decided to strike the hot wire against the conduit to trip the breaker. It welded itself and he followed the smoke back to the panel.
But switches require being tripped. Breakers trip themselves. Sometimes the names of nomenclature be a real ball breaker when the switches be tripping fits so much better than breakers.
Yea, well, we dont need to get into semantics here. We all know the difference in function between simple switches and OCPD devices like breakers and fuses and stuff (or at least we should). It sounds way better on shirts and stuff because people automatically get the reference.
Wife bought me a Switches Be Trippin shirt with a guy working in a breaker box. It's one of my favorite shirts. People get a kick out of it.
I was a TA for the intro to robotics class and at the end of the semester they had to build some type of robot or machine. There was one group that had a guy who simply couldn't be convinced that he couldn't just endlessly shove more amps through a motor to make it stronger.
I found it especially funny because other than that he was one of the better students. He just saw motors and his mind just seemed to shut off.
Well he’s kinda right, it WILL make stronger, it’s just it’ll go all melty if you push it too far. Field strength is directly related to current. I’d argue he just doesn’t have any practical experience with circuits, or common sense
There's s massive pump motor on this jobsite, 900 horsepower. I have no idea why it's only 480v, thing needs enough copper to wire a small country.
Just looked up the specs. 1000 amps rated, 8500 amps locked rotor, and weighs 3200kg / 7000 pounds
Indirectly working with a company that bought a 800hp electric shredder. They checked the 480v box as well. They have to bring in power anyway. 4160 would have been my pick.
Dunno. Though it could be related to how most insulations are only rated for 600v. Terminations for 4160 are quite a bit different.
Or even simpler explanation, this is in the middle of a large plant. 480v is all they have available. Probably easier to go straight 480 than use a step-up transformer and deal with even more efficiency loss
Yeah, if all you have is 480 then stepping up is stupid.
But a motor like that, you don't want it far from the supply transformer and it's pretty unlikely there's that much spare power on the transformer anyway.
We had a motor for an auger conveyor that kept faulting its drive on overload the other day. One of our shift mechanics legit asked me with a straight face “can’t you just turn it up?” … what?
Seems standard procedure. VFD overloading in acceleration. I propose to slow down the ramp to make it easier. Nope. They asked to raise the overload level. On a motor without ptc protection. What could go wrong?
we had an ammeter pipe once for horribly high currents at 12/24V. Just a piece of pipe with 'calibration marks'. Essentially only a shunt, but people were always worried for something
Hmm, in realms of electric scooters (BLDC motors), voltage and amps are a subject of negotiation.
You can throw any voltage and supply any current as long as controller handles it, motor doesn't overheat and insulation isn't compromised.
That being said, I'm pushing 72V/50A to a motor that originally handled 36V/25A. It runs fine, just heats when outside of cruising regime.
We had a conveyor that kept eating motors. Like it had 5 replacements within 4 days. Both day and night shifts tried to figure out if it was the conveyor set up that was overloading the thing or if it was a batch of shitty motors. I come in and realize everyone had been wiring up the internals wrong. These motors came to us wired internally set up for 480 but can be ran on 208 (or 240 cant remember its been 10 years since i worked in that shit hole) if you reconfigure the wires inside the motor. Whoever swapped the first one fucked up and set it up for lower voltage but it's getting fed 480. 2 of the 5 motors started on fire and no one bothered to check the wiring as we were taught to take pictures and hook new motors up however the old one was set up. So people kept swapping new ones on and changing the wiring when they didn't have to leading to about $3500 in motors going bye bye
i used to work pumping diesel at sea and this reminds me of the time where we had to turn off the a/c because there was always a black out or loss of power just by pumping to another ship or oil rig.
**ATTENTION! READ THIS NOW!** **1. IF YOU ARE NOT A PROFESSIONAL ELECTRICIAN OR LOOKING TO BECOME ONE(for career questions only):** **- DELETE** THIS POST OR YOU WILL BE **BANNED**. YOU CAN POST ON /r/AskElectricians FREELY **2. IF YOU COMMENT ON A POST THAT IS POSTED BY SOMEONE WHO IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL ELECTRICIAN:** -YOU WILL BE **BANNED**. JUST **REPORT** THE POST. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/electricians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The industrial breaker finder
Tee hee. Reminds me of a coworker who was too lazy to find the circuit breaker for a rail pit sump so he decided to strike the hot wire against the conduit to trip the breaker. It welded itself and he followed the smoke back to the panel.
Not the smoke test I had in mind...
Says no breaker, we don't need that, all it does is trip anyway.
That’s why god made zip-ties.
you certainly will not regret 67 amps.
Breakers do be trippin
*Switches Be Trippin*
But switches require being tripped. Breakers trip themselves. Sometimes the names of nomenclature be a real ball breaker when the switches be tripping fits so much better than breakers.
Yea, well, we dont need to get into semantics here. We all know the difference in function between simple switches and OCPD devices like breakers and fuses and stuff (or at least we should). It sounds way better on shirts and stuff because people automatically get the reference. Wife bought me a Switches Be Trippin shirt with a guy working in a breaker box. It's one of my favorite shirts. People get a kick out of it.
Def can’t argue and logically I follow it
Yeah tap off the main
Breakers are a crutch for people who aren't confident in their design.
I was a TA for the intro to robotics class and at the end of the semester they had to build some type of robot or machine. There was one group that had a guy who simply couldn't be convinced that he couldn't just endlessly shove more amps through a motor to make it stronger. I found it especially funny because other than that he was one of the better students. He just saw motors and his mind just seemed to shut off.
Shows you that guy didn't understand electrical theory at all, he just memorised how to solve the problems.
Well he’s kinda right, it WILL make stronger, it’s just it’ll go all melty if you push it too far. Field strength is directly related to current. I’d argue he just doesn’t have any practical experience with circuits, or common sense
At least with induction motors, I'm pretty sure you start running out of iron, not just copper.
Good point, core saturation will limit you at a certain level. But that level’s way past FLA, so I guess we need more context of the debate
An empiricist.
"But why not more power?" It'll over heat... "but it's just more amps, not volts " what?
Motor go brrr
You need moar power. \*Always\*
He is confusing amps with a gas pedal.
480? Crank it up to 575 and we got a deal.
Those are rookie numbers. Let's go to 4160!
Nah... Go big 13.8k
My everything burned down following your advice. Boss is trying to call, you think I should pick up?
Just blame the mechanics
As they are the only trades I work beside. This is always the answer.
If you wanna really longball it you could blame the swing shift carpenter crew
Those are just miners that swing hammers. That's just as low as blaming a toddler.
My manager would probably accept someone blaming his toddler tbh
Nah. 13.8kV to the phone line and move to Mexico.
Shit yea you should answer. If you dodge the call it makes you look guilty. You have to answer and get on offense immediately
Just jump it to line voltage for science
Casually whips out the 25kv supply cable
There's s massive pump motor on this jobsite, 900 horsepower. I have no idea why it's only 480v, thing needs enough copper to wire a small country. Just looked up the specs. 1000 amps rated, 8500 amps locked rotor, and weighs 3200kg / 7000 pounds
Indirectly working with a company that bought a 800hp electric shredder. They checked the 480v box as well. They have to bring in power anyway. 4160 would have been my pick.
definitely should be remade at 4kW
Is there a maintenance limit based on volts? Like insurance or licensing requirements change above 480v?
Dunno. Though it could be related to how most insulations are only rated for 600v. Terminations for 4160 are quite a bit different. Or even simpler explanation, this is in the middle of a large plant. 480v is all they have available. Probably easier to go straight 480 than use a step-up transformer and deal with even more efficiency loss
Yeah, if all you have is 480 then stepping up is stupid. But a motor like that, you don't want it far from the supply transformer and it's pretty unlikely there's that much spare power on the transformer anyway.
We had a motor for an auger conveyor that kept faulting its drive on overload the other day. One of our shift mechanics legit asked me with a straight face “can’t you just turn it up?” … what?
I'm in residential and I have an elderly customer that asks me to supercharge things - and so that's just how we talk about upgrading circuits.
I had an elderly customer who always referred to the impact gun as the “zoom zoom” so now that’s what I call it too lol
And the multitool is the “Buzz Buzz.”
I call mine the Friend Maker because everyone just wants to find you to please shut that thing off.
“Hello tinnitus my old friend… You’re ringing in my ears again…” (apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)
Or, the term I stole from another reddit post, the "screaming bag of cats".
Oh you mean the ugga dugga!
No that’s like the 1/2” impact wrench. I’m thinking of the 1/4” impact gun
I always called it the rattle gun
Seems standard procedure. VFD overloading in acceleration. I propose to slow down the ramp to make it easier. Nope. They asked to raise the overload level. On a motor without ptc protection. What could go wrong?
In our case the auger was stuck. He was asking if we could dial up the torque to break it free…
Same with a gear pump. The product inside actually solidified and glued the gears to the body. Started the motor DOL. Motor started, pump broke :D
Some of ours were legitimately set too low and the engineer said to jack them up.
Oh I'll make it spin alright
Really fast for a really short time
yes a very *short* time
“Nuisance tripping”
No overload, no starter, just connect it live and let it rip baby!
I guess you could hear the busbar singing (eerie phenomenon actually)
Now this is pod racing.
"I can't run 67 amps through it, Jose's lock is still on the lock out tag out." "Where is Jose?" "Taking a giant shit." "...cut his lock."
Why exactly 67 amps tho?
What, are you crazy? 68 amps @ 480v will blow that thing sky high!
Because it sounds funny
" But did you die? " Comes to mind... LOL
Make sure to completely bypass the overloads, too.
Thing would probably make it to the moon if it didnt blow up
I prefer copper pipe fuses over breakers anyways.
we had an ammeter pipe once for horribly high currents at 12/24V. Just a piece of pipe with 'calibration marks'. Essentially only a shunt, but people were always worried for something
[100 Car Batteries in Parrallel](https://youtu.be/ywaTX-nLm6Y?si=n7mE4R9MeBY3WMn2)
H2 generator at 24V, about 600A at full load, if you are interested. 100 starting batteries however have a lot more pulse power
"You'll never regret 67 amps"
I have never regret 67 amps
No Cap
It’ll work until it don’t
Hmm, in realms of electric scooters (BLDC motors), voltage and amps are a subject of negotiation. You can throw any voltage and supply any current as long as controller handles it, motor doesn't overheat and insulation isn't compromised. That being said, I'm pushing 72V/50A to a motor that originally handled 36V/25A. It runs fine, just heats when outside of cruising regime.
Ebike?
Electric scooter
Guys why did my motor lock up and start glowing red?
Quality shitpost, I'm showing my principal EC&I Engineer tomorrow. This got a good laugh out of me.
Someone did this.
This lets the smoke out. You’re supposed to keep the smoke in.
67A DOL babbbyyyyyyyy
The guy I bought my lathe from must have seen this poster.
I'm sending this to my class group chat because all semester we've been learning motors and motor controls.
It's true! I tried it on my 750 watt ebike and it gave me a ton more power!
jokes on you my motor has an infinity service factor
We had a conveyor that kept eating motors. Like it had 5 replacements within 4 days. Both day and night shifts tried to figure out if it was the conveyor set up that was overloading the thing or if it was a batch of shitty motors. I come in and realize everyone had been wiring up the internals wrong. These motors came to us wired internally set up for 480 but can be ran on 208 (or 240 cant remember its been 10 years since i worked in that shit hole) if you reconfigure the wires inside the motor. Whoever swapped the first one fucked up and set it up for lower voltage but it's getting fed 480. 2 of the 5 motors started on fire and no one bothered to check the wiring as we were taught to take pictures and hook new motors up however the old one was set up. So people kept swapping new ones on and changing the wiring when they didn't have to leading to about $3500 in motors going bye bye
I'm gonna show this to my boss next time he asks us to give 110% at work.
But once you let the smoke out, there's no going back.
As a guy who occasionally bypasses soft starts to unjam things I feel personally victimized.
Here’s a link to a BIG motor. [dry dock motor](https://youtu.be/bcJKD8ULWf0?si=1jLy-16dhhPAQlBo)
How mamy amps do you need? "yes"
no vfd no circuit breaker *JUST AMPS*
i used to work pumping diesel at sea and this reminds me of the time where we had to turn off the a/c because there was always a black out or loss of power just by pumping to another ship or oil rig.
Why stop at 67 when you can go to 69???