What do floor guys in your area do to get power to run their sanders? Its pretty frightening what I have come across here. I have seen extension cords with alligator clips directly to busbars or cords wired directly to a DP60 Amp breaker. The one I saw today, I am hoping I can get a pic of tommorrow. It had a piece of 6/3 romex going to a 4 11/16 box with two 3 wire range blocks coming out of that, it also had a 30 amp twist lock pigtail, and a hand box with a duplex recptacle. I was to scared to see what he had going on in the panel. I had a conversation with the GC, so I am hoping I will not see it tommorrow......yikes

The few I have seen had assorted adapters made up so they could plug into dryer or stove outlets.

spyder, same as you describe, the alligator clips to "Whatever Works" method

Repeat cust. called;oven etc. doesn't work,can I get there(20 odd mi.one way)?they have some hoity gathering blah...So out I go, they are nice folks,and what do you know ,the floor-ons had moved one leg of duplex to m/t single breaker throwing off several circuits.As easy on the bill as I was(didn't mention it was a Sat.)I advised he hit up the floor guys for it.

Spyder, are you reading my mind? I was going to post something on this subject tonight myself. I have had problems for years with the hardwood floor contractors. Most of them used to have adapters that plugged into the dryer receptacle but then we changed to the 4-wire receptacle so they had to find another way to power their 240V sanders. I have had them strip out the main lugs on load centers trying to connect their pigtails, burn up breaker stabs with the alligator clips and disconnect my circuits to use the breakers. Today I showed up at a project to find the temp. panel door open and the dead front off and apparently it has been this way for a week. The floor contractor was not willing to spend the money for a L6-30 plug to connect to the temp service receptacle so he took the panel apart and left it apart. This was in the front yard of a non fenced site. What if some kid came by and stuck his finger in to the buss? I have complained to the general contractors many times but they don't seem to care. I guess its going to take someone getting hurt or property damage before they listen. I have thought about calling Cal-OSHA but they would probably site every other trade on the project for petty things and the floor contractor would be sick that day.

Curt

Yup! I just happen to have a picture of this. This was at an $800k 'Fixer-Upper' that was undergoing a major facelift (cosmetic only though). The Floor Sanding guy actually helped find a problem here. That is his Yellow cord there. He was complaining that everything was going dim. It turned out to have a bad Neutral connection at the transformer and twice as much current was returning via the waterpipe.

Bill

[This message has been edited by Bill Addiss (edited 01-16-2003).]

Oh my gawsh, it's a Stab-lok.
If this place is worth $800K, or even $8K, it sure would be worthwhile to replace that load center...S
(Floor guys do the same kind of junk here, it's almost as if they've got a contest running with the welders for the "stupidest connections")

derater
"Floor-ons" Thats perfect!

So then...how do you connect arc welders to an electrical supply when you're ... say installing a window grating or a gate?

I used a floor sander once. It was an orbital sander for using on parquet floors, designed to be used on 110-volts 15 amps (equipped with a Nema 5-15 cap).

At a metal-works shop I was in, the skinflint owner was using arc welders connected to one of these Frankenstein switches (see here):



mounted on a wood pattress. To the switch terminals (unfused, mind you) he had connected short jumpers to normal iron nails that were driven into the pattress.

When you wanted to use the arc welder, you would hook the conductors (single 12-gauge wire for raceways) over the nails!

This was back in 1986 (I was 11) in my grandmother's house in Colombia - she had rented the place out to his wife and he set up the thing in the courtyard (something she never gave him explicit permission to do, but since they were paying the rent she was OK with it).

She's since evicted the guy and had the place properly rewired.

He had practically torn the place apart - the old in-wall wiring was replaced by 18-AWG lamp-cord stapled to the adobe walls, wired into porcelain barn receptacles and surface-mount toggle switches and lampholders dangling from the ceilings.

This type of wiring practice is rather common in old houses down there, unfortunately.

People want to do it as cheaply as possible instead of paying a licenced pro to fish new wire through the conduit (solid masonry walls) or - if adding a cirucuit - rip trench, lay pipes and boxes and fish wire.

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 01-17-2003).]

HELP!
European floor sanders I've seen take 1800W and are plugged into a standard 230V/10 or 16A receptacle! How much power US floor sanders draw? Reading this I assume they run on 240V.

I've seen some of these monsters with 5 hp motors on them. Big industrial Baldors.

TW

I once heard a story where one guy took the cover off a panel and just put huge alligator clips on the buss bars with no OCPD and the thing was live mind you

Format,
Saw that same thing done with the alligator clips attached at the top of the busbars just below the 200 amp main. The equipment groung was clipped to the nuetral lug. When I said something to him, he told me he has done it that way for 15 years and never had a problem and that his sander has built in overload protection. I offered to install a recptacle for him , but he said that it will do him no good at the next job.....I cringe when I have to go to a job when the foor guys are there.

Orbiter Sander's something different, IIRC it's a vibration sander. They typically draw less power than usual floor sanders. The one i used was a german-made standard belt floor sander with a 1800W/230V 1ph motor. While starting up the lights dimmed noticeably for more than 1 second! The sander was hooked up via standard Schuko plug.
Scary type of work around here is done by people who don't have receptacles around (outdoor work, work in appartment house basements with old wiring,...). What these guys most commonly do is cut off the plug of their extension cord, open the main fuse box in the stairway (ahead of the meters) and wrap a long stripped end of their conductors around the DIAZED fuse screwshells (somewhere in the Non-US-section there's a description of these fuses). This means that their stuff is on the load side of a 20 to 63A fuse. Ground is usually left dangling in mid-air. Most tools they use are double-insulated anyway. Looking at this, alligator clips can still be considered good workmanship.
Here I'm talking of all businesses. Masons, electricians (yeah, I saw several licensed sparkies using the wrap-method),...
Another guy hooked up his Hilti rotary drill hammer to the stoneaged light circuit in our basement (back then the wiring should have been fused 6A but was overfused with 10A). The guys repolishing the marble in our stairway clipped alligator clips to the line side fuse links. After my dad nearly got at their throat they plugged their stuff into one of our receptacles and left a 2000W electric heater running all night.
This was when I pulled the plug!

I was talking to a state inspector who told me that if he sees anyone tapping on to the busbar for power he will make the electrician change the whole panel. I myself have made a contractor change a panel because of paint on the busbar, this was at the painter expense. We warned the painter several times about getting paint on the panels.

I would have liked to see the painters face when given the news.

I imagine he offered to clean it with steelwool and lacquer thinner.