Unfortunately, it wasn't related to the problem I was troubleshooting...

This was live????

sparky66,I thought I had seen it all, until this.Ive seen zip cord but never phone wire.

As you can see from the pictures, CAT3 is good for 20A 125V. You MUST use CAT5 on 30A circuits!

WOW

The amazing thing is that the wire doesn't appear to be burned up. I guess that nothing larger than a table lamp was ever plugged in here.

I saw thermostat wire used like this once, but even that is heavier than phone wire.

Isn't bell/phone wire the same gauge as the wire used for the miniature X-mas tree lights?

Of course those are wired in series so there's probably not that much juice going through them.

Sparky66 - That's a venerable and interesting-looking switch. Neve seen an in-wall switch with front wire terminals before. I'd be leery about using one of those with a metal cover-plate.

Did you put new wire/devices in there or did you have to close it back and leave as-is?

Amazin...

never seen nuthin like it.

Hope you edumacated the homeowner that he should use RED and GREEN as tip & ring!!


Maybe da plug went bad on his phone and he put male plug on and used rec. to plug phone in, switch was to shut the dang thang off at suppertime so as not to be interrupted by danged telemarketers.

Glenn (former ingeesh teacher)

<paul harvey>
"...and now, the rest of the story..."
</paul harvey>

This is the same dwelling as the one in these threads:


Link 1

Link 2

This was found, as well as three flying and hidden splices, and other loveliness. Still no fault found. The AFCI trips when load is applied, and taking the circuit apart piece by piece today had narrowed it down to a splice I can't reach without liberal use of a Sawzall.

So... We'll tackle it again tomorrow...

Oh, this receptacle and switch is/was in a bathroom. Yes, a bathroom. The most abused receptacle in a house. My belief is that it must've never been energized, or atleast never loaded. The "feeder" was snipped off in the wall. I tore boxes and all out and threw them in the trash.

All in a days work.



<paul harvey>
"...Good day..."
</paul harvey>

Woops... I did the <paul harvey> thing already in the other thread!



[This message has been edited by sparky66wv (edited 12-20-2002).]

I wish I could believe this was a joke, but I've been around ECN too long.

Mike (mamills)

Virgil,
You never cease to amaze me. ...S
(and I was gonna take you up on the "violation contest" when Tom got a camera?)

The good news is, when the telemarketers call you just turn the switch off!

No one else has said it so I will.

Nice wall covering.

Scott

Amazing what some people will do.

I once had a service call for a doorbell that had stopped working very soon after someone had moved into a (illegal) Basement Apartment. Someone had hooked it up with Tstat or Phone wire directly to an outlet by the door. (no Transformer)

Bill

I discovered a doorbell with line voltage once. The X-former was in series just before the chimes, but the rest of the circuit was 120 volts!





[This message has been edited by sparky66wv (edited 12-21-2002).]

Virgil,

And here I was gonna ask if I could have the switch for my little collection of electric "junque." Oh well....

This sure beats the outlet in my old kitchen that was pigtailed by 14-AWG zip-cord (a piece from an air conditioner extension cord) to the solid wires in the wall box. At least they had the decency of using splicing caps (although one of them had a rusted spring).

Maybe somebody started trying to rig up an internal intercom system and decided that switching 120V from the utility onto the line be a good start for ringing the bells.

I've seen appliance cords, undersized ones at that, used for wiring extension receptacles, but at least I've never come across quad station wire!

I have seen a bell-push wired in the primary of a bell-xfmr before. That's 240V to ground!

Sven,

It just so happens that I got it out of the trash box after I threw an old bulb in the box and it made an odd sound. Turns out, it was porcelain and made by Hubbell. I still have it.

Email me with your mailing address, and I'll get it to you (might take 'til after the first of the year).

-Virgil

Virgil:
I now know where I would like to go on a "vacation".....down/over to WVA to drive around with you for a few days.....

No one around here would believe the things that you find....

Hey Harold Endean....what do you think of this???

And I thought my parallel fuses were "odd".

John

I got a call to a plumbing supply warehouse several yaers ago cuz their pipe threader stopped working. Evidently 3 weeks before the owner had a retired Boeing electrician rewire the shop. He wired it likw it was an airplane! In every box was 24 volt wires all neatly numbered. All the lights and plugs worked because the wire supplied enuf amps but the first time he fired up the threader the wire vaporized. I spent 3 days there laughing the whole time.
As a side note. One day as I was leaving the owner asked me what I was doing the rest of the day. I said I was doing some wiring for a beautiful young Jewish lady (the owner was also Jewish). He asked me her name and when I told him he said "that's not a Jewish name." I said You mean all this time I've been charging her double and she's not Jewish?" He still kids me about that.
Bob

[This message has been edited by elecbob (edited 12-23-2002).]

"In every box was 24 volt wires all neatly numbered. All the lights and plugs worked because the wire..."

--

Bob, this is not meant to be a joke, but it makes you wonder what causes all these airplanes to fall out of the sky....

(LOCOS) Lack_Of_COmmon_Sense

MTW stands for Minature Telephone Wire, right... I've seen it handle up to 1600A..