ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area See any bad electrical Xmas decorating?

I suppose someone somewhere will run across poorly done Christmas electrical decorations. Maybe things like electric reindeer with added isnulation added to the hoves. Joe IIRC had a picture of that. Or indoor extension cord ends laying in puddles of water outside on the ground.

I've already seen a house with indoor-only lights strung all around the outside of the windows and doors. Not only that, but one part was right under the roof edge where all the water is going to drip......

Have you ever seen someone screw lights to a Trailer?

That's right, they put a self-tapping sheet-metal screw between the 2 twisted wires to hold the Light sets on the metal walls.

BTW, This was not the worst of their hazards or problems. Just before Christmas I was called out to this place after Midnight because they had no Heat or Electricity. The Fire Dept. and POCO had shut them down because they had a Propane leak outside and there was sparking on the Gas line where it passed through the metal skirt below the Trailer.

Another story there, but a Night I won't easily forget.

Bill

I got one for you. Think about an above ground pool with those metal railings all around the pool/ Now picture a string of Christmas lights hanging from that rail! The rail was about 2-3 feet wide going all around the pool. The pool was knocked down a year or two ago. I wish I had a picture of it.

In some Christmas electrical decorations in the male end there are holes in the blades.I have seen where someone has added zip cord into these holes to join 2 sets together. Then they had the female end to deal with .They just inserted the bared conductors into them. No where was any electrical tape used

thats the problem.
back when i was 5 or so and started to try around with batteries and flashlight lamps, what i saw was: connecting one "hair" of the stranded cable was enough, lamp worked, the rest was "spare" or so...

of course now i know the facts behind, and i know contact isnt similar to contact, depends on the contacts area, resistance, diameter and so on...
but some people seem not to know, pust that wire in, lights, mmkay.



[This message has been edited by :andy: (edited 12-10-2003).]

How's this for an Example?



or this?



Look here for more.

Bill

If installed on a gfci protected circuit,how would theses lights even remain on after the first rain or snow ?????

went on the hunt this evening to cap some bodge i saw in our village. When i talk about violations, remember i'm seeing it from the german point of view.


This is about 7 feet above ground, at the Entrance door of a Baker's Shop. They used the cable coming for a light fixture (there is none in the summer too...)
Unprotected against Water - violation
Only single Insulations - violation, because outdoors
No ferrules used on the stranded wires - violation
No strain reliefs - violation
Flex cable for a fixed installation on wall - violation.
Cable w/o ground supplying metal supported light figures - violation



This one's at the big christmas tree in the center of our village. At least they switched to an outdoor junction box this year, years before they used U-Boats just wrapped in tape. the wires are supplying strands with each 15 7W Lamps in series. Blue is neutral, black is hot (230V to ground/neutral).
Violations
-Single insulation outdoors
-Solid wire not sufficient mounted (stranded would be ok if double insulated)
-insufficient water protection at the single wires coming out of the box


At the same tree, height about 3 feet (!!). thats how they hooked the double insulated stranded wires of the light strings to the solid. These wago "light connectors" are normally used instead of choc blocks to connect light fixtures. One side has two push-in clamps for solid wire, the other side has a cage clamp for the lamp's stranded wire. Cage clamp side can be released by pushing onto the left part of the unit.
this would be easily reachable for kids, and due to the easy possibility of releasing the wire, its a real danger as i guess they didnt hook this on a GFCI protected circuit....


[This message has been edited by :andy: (edited 12-23-2003).]

Wrong. Flexible wire is listed for fixed use as long as it is properly secured and ferrules are used. Which definitely doesn't apply here. It's only uncommon since stranded is usally more expensive than solid.
They had the same discussion at de.sci.ing.elektrotechnik only a few days ago.
Anyway, that wiring looks _scary_. And I'm used to wild wiring as you might have gathered from some of my posts.