Last nightat the industry that I work for ,we found some liquid-tite that was bubbled and burnt like a fried egg. The wiring inside was also toast. The junior man,who is actually older than I, said it looked an arc welder had burned it up. I had often heard of this but never saw it. But it makes sense. We then looked at what was being welded and found it sitting on wood blocks on a steel deckplate,knowing it was insulated we then looked for the cause. The only way we found it could have happened was that the stinger, electrode holder, had the plastic insulator broken off the nose. Could this be possible? Both of us say so, but the General foreman says " no way!" Just wondered if some of the Industrial Maintenance guys have had similair occurences.

Need a little clarification. Was the liquidtite burnt from the outside in, or was it burnt from the inside out.

It is very possible to break the cover off of the stinger and wind up welding something you don't want to weld.

We replace stinger insulators all of the time. They are only bakalite, with allen screws holding them on. They are designed to be a consumable part.

trainwire

Used to have a picture of a piece of liquid tite that a welder destroyed. He clamped onto the pipe for a ground, and the LT looked exactly as you describe.

Now the fun part...draw your ground path

Wow—that brings back memories. Found the same thing a highschool ag shop. It was a 3-foot span of ¾-inch liquidtight with it’s grey vinyl jacket ‘drooled’ off. The students had clipped the welder ground clamp on an I beam, and one kid had placed his work on an outdoor bandsaw “table.” That’s when I found out that ½- and ¾-inch UL-listed liquidtight has a helical ground conductor the size of 18AWG. The otherwise similar non-listed material had a piece of string in place of the copper(!) The circuitous ground-return/bandsaw/welding table had been used like this for several weeks previous. [The instructor wasn’t too happy.]

The one thing worse is a lazy welder who hooks his ground on the wrong end of a conveyor and strikes an arc in just the wrong place—it can destroy heaps of ball bearings in minutes.

I work for a railroad. We had a situation where two of the metel monkeys got their "work" leads all tangled up and just grabbed a clamp and stuck it to the locomotive they were welding on. They were working on seperate tracks in the same building. When the leads got straightened out, sure enough the "work" leads were backwards, so the welding current was going through the locomotive, into the track, out to the switch where the tracks came together, and back up to the correct lead. Figured that the ground path was just short of a quarter mile long.
Fortunatly for them, at 10 tons per axle, there was enough weight on the bearings that no damage was done to them as the electricity tried to find its way to the track.
Trainwire

Hey. Trainwire. My Dad retired from the railroad, he worked for the MOPAC befor it was UP and actually retired from the UP. Almost took a job in the same shop he was at. Oh and to clarify, the outside of the seal tite was burned and the way it was twisted it burnt the wires inside. Thanks, now I can show the General foreman I'm not lying or crazy.

[This message has been edited by spkjpr (edited 06-26-2002).]

Trainwire,

Were you around when I was posting the Locomotive info to the site?

It would have been great to have an "Insider" add information too!

If not, try checking through the post archives for said topics and [if you feel the urge to type], add some comments.

Scott S.E.T.

P.S. Long time Railfan [So. Cal. carriers, like ATSF (BNSF now), SP and UP]. Had a Friend who worked for ATSF, that did Amfleet service [Amtrak commuters with the EMD F40PH Locos pulling the 1/2 cans], and one brother-in-law who was an Electrician for ATSF, who went to Amtrak in the late 70's.

SET

On the subject of Fried Wires,

This place comes to mind!

Funny how a person with high Law skills and knowledge would allow the Seller to get away with the stuff he did...

Realtor / Seller, Home Inspector and Fire Marshall is shown on the Right.



[joke]Incredible, but true!!![/joke]

Scott S.E.T.

P.S. Had to come back and edit the post... URLs need double slashes ( // ) to work right. Including them in a post is a good thing...

[This message has been edited by Scott35 (edited 06-30-2002).]

Amazing where you'll find railfan.
Scott:
Since I have been a member of the site for only a few months, I have no idea of which postings that you are referring to. The 32volt lighting system under "violation photos" is some of the stuff that I work on.
I would love to read through the postings if you would give me a hint as to where I should look for them.

Trainwire

Here ya go!
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000522.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000094.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000092.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000631.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000590.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000589.html
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000588.html

yoips, you'll have to give me a little bit. I only type at 60 words/minute.
trainwire

I would love to add whatever i could to the discussion of the Railroad electrics. My personal favorits are the GG! and the E44.
This however is what I deal with on a daily basis.




Trainwire

[This message has been edited by Webmaster (edited 07-03-2002).]

How cool!!! I looked here just to see if anyone got a laugh from the Green Acres stuff, and found an image of [what looks like] a 4-8-4, along with links posted by Virgil!!!

Thanks guys!!! those were nice things to see after a torturous day of Surveys!

Gotta show the Steamer to my Wife, as She really loves them! I'm a Diesel fan [2nd generation diesels to be exact], and She is a Steam Lover [1920 to 1940 era].
I enjoy the Steamers [She thinks I hate them... oggghhh not by a long shot!], just have more passion for the EMD / GE stuff for some odd reason [must be wierd???]

Scott S.E.T.

Trainwire—You may be well aware that some varieties of DLO cable now also carry a National Electrical Code rating/designation of “RHH/RHW-2” which means it can be used as building wiring for us feet-flat-on-the-grounders.

Handy for connection to padmount transformer spades or in busduct transition compartments. Saves lots of bull work.

For the sake of other readers, DLO flexibility comes from individual 24AWG strands. http://www.amercable.com/DLOInst.asp [Compare that to 37-strand 500 kcmil.]

Available up to 1111 kcmil. In a previous life, have sagged in miles of 2kV 535.5 kcmil for linear-accelerator focus magnets.

Scott:
You are close, its a 1924 Baldwin, 2-10-0.
It's everybody's favorite, although it rides a little rough.
BJarney, The DLO wire is good stuff, we had a motor in our deasesel short straight to ground, smoke everywhere but from the wires going to the motors, never figured out how many amps, but had to be over 1500.
Trainwire

[This message has been edited by Trainwire (edited 07-08-2002).]

Trainwire [may I call you TW?],

I must have Northerns stuck in my head [AKA the "4-8-4" reference]. The BNSF - former ATSF has donated a Northern type to a Steamers club, and they run it on excursions for BNSF and public stuff at least once a year.

The stories told by the crews - both the crews of the steamer and the diesel which must accompany it - are compatable to being on board!

Let me see if I have the term correct on this Baldwin. Is this an Allegeny class 2-10-2, or was that an articulated 2-10-10-2?

Love to take my wife to UP's Nebraska shops, where they have the museum of motive power - mainly to see the still in use 4-6-6-4 Challenger.
Not sure if they have any of the 4-8-8-4 Big Boys, or any of the Gas Turbines. Ever been there???

BTW, I have some pictures of the most common Class 1 carriers in my area posted on the web. If you want to check them out, here's the URL:
http://www.railfan.net/railpix/scott/


As to the Traction Motors, the normal ampere load on the DC traction motors which would be drawn at low speed is in the 900 Amp range. This value is quoted in helper operations for starts on grades and with the slack bunched up. This would be at speeds between 5 and 12 MPH and with power throttle set at Run 6 from dead start [on sanded rail], ranging to Run 8 max.
If the load current drops below 900 A, the Engineer of the Helper set [Pushing, or DP near the end] can tell the grade which the leads are on has decreased, and back off the throttle. If the load exceeds 900 A, then the leads are taking on more grade, so it's time for more throttle.

AC traction motors can sit at stall [or speeds lower than 5.7 MPH] with higher currents and for longer times. This makes them an obvious asset for DP, Helper sets and similar tasks.

I recall the maximum of 900 Amps for DC Traction Motors used on "2nd Generation" units - such as EMD's Dash 2 series locos, or GE's Dash 7 locos as being the max continuous load current. Higher levels could be drawn for limited time [like 5 minutes]. I'll check into this and see what the books say [the books being both the Manuals and the Railroad's specs].

It was difficult to get high loads out of the "Bell Ringers" [GP 30s and GP 35s] since they would fault out so often - hence the term "Bell Ringer".

Love to talk Locomotives! I'll toss some other specs in here or in another thread.

Scott S.E.T.

Scott, #90 is a Great Northern. It used to pull suger beets over the mountains in CO. Now it pulls tourists. I think it's official designation is a USRA light decapod. (at 190 tons) www.Strasburgrailroad.com
We also have a 2-6-0, a 4-8-0 and two 0-6-0's and have a 4-6-0 in the shop for a new firebox. oh yea and two plymouth Locomotive works gas/mechanical switchers, and a GE 44 tonner. (the shorted one, it was wide open, we were plowing snow with it, and one of the brush leads shorts to ground. Blue-green smoke everywhere.)
Trainwire AKA steve

Trainwire,

Now I see what's going on with the traction motor and the resulting release of smoke!
Must have 1/2 read things again!

[QUOTE]
and a GE 44 tonner. (the shorted one, it was wide open, we were plowing snow with it, and one of the brush leads shorts to ground. Blue-green
smoke everywhere.)
[QUOTE]

In the words of Homer Simpson... "Dohh!!!"

Curious to how long it took to fry with full throttle at low speed against the snow. You would think a switcher could take that task easilly. Maybe you need to put a slug with that 44 tonner, then take a crack at the snow!

ATSF had an Alco RSD-15 and a slug [cut down from another RSD] that worked the Hump Operation at Barstow, Ca. classification yard. Never left the hill, just kicked cars!

Very cool list of equipment! If I ever travel your way [eastern seaboard], definitely gotta look you up!!!

Scott S.E.T.