I went on a service call at a Hotel they said 90% of the outside lights where out.

I found tripped breakers and started looking for faults, this turned out to be tough, many boxes in the ground had been buried.

Here is one I found under 10" of bark mulch.





It measures 2.5" x 2.5" x 4.25".

How many 10 AWG conductors can we put in here?

Anyone want guess how many 10 AWG conductors where in this box?

Guess high.

27?

Physicaly? 30 No splices? 35 Fill rest with dirt.

Shockme your good.

It was 27 - 10 AWG solids.

14 conductors entering in each raceway, all spliced.

There are about 15 of these boxes all about the same, a few have only 16.

7 - 120 volt circuits and 2 - 2777 volt circuits.

Any one notice the holes in the box are 3/4"?

Shockme, did you install it? - that's cheating!
Alan

Hey Bob, what's up with the half metric tape measure? Job Lot special?

Peter

My favorite U.S.-centric trivia question:

Q: What do you call a strip of wood marked in 36 one-inch increments?
A: A yardstick.

Q: What do you call a strip of wood marked in 100 one-centimeter increments?
A: A paint stirrer!

It's my wife's tape measure, she does not shop at job lot, I am thinking the "Dollar Store".

It won't even make a good paint stirrer.

Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't return?

A: A stick!

Q. What's brown and sticky?

A. Another stick!

Having a dual metric/inch tape is real handy here, for obvious reasons if your brain thinks in imperial. Funny thing is, nearly 200 years into the metric experiment in France, the inch (pouce) is still understood, you can buy potatoes in the market in livres ( pounds) and most plywood comes in 4' x 8' sheets, ( made in or for the US market). Had a laugh one day, saw a Brit strolling toward the builders' merchant office with a piece of unmistakable orange Brit pvc soil-pipe on his shoulder. UK = 110mm OD, 4" bore. French 100mm OD, 94mm bore, and totally incompatible. Hope he hadn't fitted too much already! One of my favorite things is to pretend to study a product, eavesdropping on some hapless Brit mangling the French language, (or just speaking English very loudly! ( "AVEZ-VOUS FOUR INCHES!!" ), while the long suffering assistant wishes he was someplace else, like on the beach in Cap d'Adge!

Alan

John, I love it! Must remember that one!

Last time I tried to buy a new tape in inches right across I couldn't find anywhere here which still sells them.

They stock "metric only tapes for your convenience," but apparently those of us who still work in feet and inches can be inconvenienced.

I ended up getting a 25 and a 100 ft. Stanley tape shipped from Arizona!

(Don't fink on me to the EU commissioners, will you Alan? )

So Bob, you still haven't told us how you fixed this mess. Quazite box? Rip out and redo? Dynamite?

And is that arcing damage around the conduit entry holes?

Provided an item is valued at less than 20 Eurines (US $22), no duty or vat is payable on entry to that Yoor-up from the US. Anyway, the fing is, Cockneys ain't paid to fink, so I won't grass you up, me old china!

Alan

Alan,

I was thinking more along the lines of the metric thought-police. (You know, the ones waiting to pounce on somebody selling a pound of bananas...... )

Alan
You've got some serious "E-Bonics" there.

Rob

Showing again how things happen in batches...

Right as this pic was posted, I was unearthing a similar arrangement that had beed completely buried in a parking lot. I promise pics soon.

Paul,
I can't for the life of me understand how a man got sent to prison in the UK for selling bananas in pounds, but in France I can legally buy 3 pounds of spuds right next to the Gendarmerie. England has gone completely bonkers! What next, a metric dozen eggs?
Alan

7 Eggs = Metric Dozen

I like the 'metric system'. I use it all the time, and whenever I have a choice in unit systems (for example the research projects that I direct), I use it.

But I can't stand the enforced metrification thought police. Expecially when one considers that most of the 'metric' units that the thought police try to enforce are _not_ proper units.

Kilometers per hour? Since when is the hour a metric unit?
Temperatures in Celsius? As completely arbitrary as Fahrenheit temperatures. A proper temperature scale is an absolute temperature scale!
Pressure in kilograms per square centimeter? Come on people; a kilogram is not even a unit of force!
_Weight_ in kilograms? Kilograms are a unit of _mass_. Weight is the interaction of gravity on mass. Weight is measured in units of _force_, and the correct unit is the Newton.

There are 4 or 5 different recognized 'metric systems', each with subtle differences in units. The thing that makes SI (the 'official' metric system) attractive is that it is a _self consistant_ system of units. This means that you get rid of a tremendous number of conversion factors in scientific equations. For example, if you measure potential in Volts, and current in Amps, you can simply multiply without conversion factors to get power in Watts. Take speed in radians per second, multiply by torque in Newton-meters, and again you get power in Watts. Take pressure in Pascals (Newtons per square meter), multiply by flow rate in cubic meters per second, and what do you get again: Watts. Try doing pump calculations where you need to convert pressure in PSI and volume in gallons per minute, and work back to amps going into your motor. SI makes that much easier.

But when I want a hunk o' cheese to eat, I have a feel for what I want, in the units of my childhood. I should be able to walk into a store and buy a quarter pound of cheese.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me to require that all pricing include unit pricing in the 'standard' unit, so that we have a nice 'lowest common denominator' for people not familiar with the local unit; the sign might say in big letters $14.99 per pound, and then in small letters $3.30 per 100g. But it seems totally unreasonable to me to prohibit the initial sales by the pound.

Makes me want to go out and start using terms like 'dodekagram' and 'heptameter', and anything else I can dream up that starts out as a metric base unit but divides it up into some factor of X (not 10) multiple. *grin*

By the way, 1 US Butt is 476.96 liters (at least for beer), and 1 Imperial Butt is 490.98 liters (for ale). The way I figure it, 1 Metric Buttload should be 500 liters exactly.

-Jon

Guys,

I could go on about the unfairness of this all night, but I don't want to hijack the thread.

Anyone interested in the sort of nonsense we have in Britain now can find plenty of examples here:
http://www.bwmaonline.com/

If that bean counter goes in the hood with his hammer, a homey'll go postal on him with a sawed-off.

Aren't local lingos great?

Dave

All I know is that ordering my 1.905cm (.75in X 2.54 imperial aka inch/pd to metric conversion factor) EMT (Which is 3/4" but 21mm Metric Designator per 2002 NEC Annex C?) is really going to screw with my material orders. Also, how many #10 AWG (American Wire Gauge) conductors will fit into a 3/4", I mean 1.905cm, or is it 21mm, conduit? Man, my head hurts now.

Best metric conversion:

A liter is a quart plus a martini

(it really is!) from one of my favorite history professors (BA in history) don't say why are you a maint man or I'll have to start a new thread

That has got to be the luckiest guess in my entire life. I'll be right back, I'm gonna go play WIN FOR LIFE! And no, Alan, I did not install that "thing." I've never even seen something like that before. Is that an old-school type hand hole?

27, I can't believe that!

[This message has been edited by ShockMe77 (edited 09-05-2005).]

I am bumping this one as I was reminded of it by another post.

This small box had 27 solids 10 AWGs along with a fixture mounted on it.

The interesting thing is they ran two 1" PVCs to the box but the hubs are 3/4".

They put in 3/4" MAs than glued a 1" couping on the outside of the MA.

You ever try to get Fourteen 10 AWG solids through a 3/4" PVC?

It ain't easy.

Awesome!