Just curious if I'm the only one who's mistaken a Delta for a Wye. Many years ago I was working at a restaurant adding a circuit. I assumed it was a Wye service. I'll never forget the gurgling sounds made by the coke dispenser. Luckily the beverage guy came right over and replaced the parts for free.

I fried a control transformer with a high leg. Hooked it up and the rotation was backwards, so in the process of getting rotation correct I put the high leg on the phase that feeds the 120v control trans. Instant smoke when I closed the disco. End result: 1 new transformer, 1 new fuse, alot of grief from the wittnesses.

While I have not, I did have a customer who ran a few circuits in his industrial rental and couldn't figure out what was wrong with a few of his receptacles

Way back then, I posted pics of his 'interesting' electrical work. He was one of those sorts for whom everything was 'common sense' and couldn't be bothered to actually learn anything. He also felt no need to even try to imitate the usual ways of doing things. Romex to a kiln, #14SO (but it was orange!) to a water heater, etc.

Many years back, the water cooler company thought they had a defective batch of bottle type coolers. Seems the electrician added a receptacle for the 'new cooler' adjacent to a electrical panel. He didn't check the panel, check the outlet, read the warning label on the panle, etc. A basic 'hit & run' install!

Three water coolers later....the owner called!

It wasn't really the stinger but we did have a recurring problem of blown power supplies and strange problems in one system. The guys who installed it had never heard of delta and assumed everything was always 208v (the factory default). When I got there to figure out what was going on I saw the 240v right away on my Drainitz (actually closer to 250) and explained delta to them. That was also the same place where we had all the phase balance problems.
We retapped all the power supplies and balanced the single phase loads. Things suddenly got a whole lot better.

Was on a job while I was an appentace, with a journeymann didn't know anything about a high leg. Was a great learning experiance for me. Not so much for him I'm afraid. was removed from the job. Ballasts were popping and one of the mechanics said" I thought the vacuum was going to suck my leg up".

Ob

Years ago in ancient history, I was working as an apprentice and hooked up a receptacle to an open breaker. I didn't know that it was a delta system. The owner of the area I was working in plugged in his clock into my newly installed receptacle. Let's just say, I got a new meaning "See how time flies!" The clock was racing around and he told me that he thought something was wrong. Luckily, nothing was damaged.

Oh yes I have and I'll never forget it. I was installing a sub panel in a lighting showroom as a young and stupid apprentice. My boss said "watch out for that wild leg". My interpretation of that was the hot brunette salesperson who worked there. Anyway, I set a 100A fused disconnect, bugged it in (hot of course) in the trough, and ran my feeders to the new panel. Naturally, I ran LOTS of MWBCs with a common neutral to the ceiling tracks used to hang the display fixtures. Checked everything for shorts after hanging them up, went back to the disconnect, threw the handle and ***poof***. Bulbs were shattering, smoke was coming out of LV fixtures, you name it. Quite a show for sure.

Not only did I have to change out the sub panel to single phase (all done with EMT of course), but had to pull additional neutrals for just about every set of MWBCs. I was NOT happy, nor was the customer, nor was my boss.

Life's lesson #1: The term "wild leg" has nothing to do with attractive women!

On a related note, did you ever get into the 277 when you were looking for 120?
We had that happen in my office building once. The "building electrician" (aka janitor with a screwdriver) hooked up a 5-15 for a new computer and took it from the lights.
Fortunately the only thing that blew was the monitor. The power supply in the system unit was autoswitching and survived until the breaker popped on the power strip.
The monitor was spectacular tho. You could see scorch marks out of every little slot in the case. The girl who plugged it in said it looked like one of those air bursts on the 4th of July. It was a good thing she turned it on from the strip so she wasn't really close.

Greg,

I almost fried a helper with 277 volts. I was the lead journeyman on the job with 2 helpers. We were working on renovating an office area. I was working on the 277 volt lights and I put the apprentice on removing receptacles. I showed him each and every receptacle that I wanted removed and I told him, "DO NOT TOUCH THE SWITCH!" Then when I was ready to turn the power back on, I yelled to both apprentices, I am turning on the lighting circuit! Are you guys clear of the wires? They both yelled back YES!, well when I turned on the 277 volts, he took a hit. He was OK but he learned a valuable lesson. Listen to the people in charge and pay attention to what you are doing.

Not a high leg, and I didn't commit it myself, but here in Austria I saw an entire house blow up because of a loose neutral on the 230/400V wye supply. The result is approximately the same as with a loose neutral on a 120/240V 1ph service or MWBC - the incandescent bulbs were awfully bright!!!

The feed (flimsy 20A 3ph, 4sq. mm I think) had been spliced under a lot of tension during the renovation of a basement room it passed through (I assume it was originally exposed conduit relocated inside the wall when the former boiler room was finished and turned into living space) and over the years the connections got a bit loose.

Years ago my employees were working in a city owned building doing a hot bus tap in a bussed gutter. He somehow let go of the neutral conductor which was already grounded at the newly installed 200A,120/208V.meter panel. The conductor was already stripped at the end when the unthinkable happened. Somehow it slipped out of his hand. Murphy's law came into play and the stripped end hit one of the hot line busses followed soon thereafter with a huge EXPLOSION!! I walked in shortly after to find a room full of Black smoke and a couple wide eyed electricians. Luckily the conductor only skipped across the bus and the fault quickly cleared. Yikes! Embarrassing!

oh that is why i saw the smoke, i thought all of the fixtures were factory defect.

I saw that happen too, but the kicker was that the POCO was the ones who hooked up the stinger leg on the wrong wire. They wound up paying my boss to go in and replace all of the burnt out ballasts.

Reminds me of the German PoCo that managed to mix up hot and neutral on some 230/400V Y distribution...

Ya are not alone I have same issue in France as well and just couple days ago one of the commercal customer did actually lost the netural connection to the whole place and anything still on 240 went to 415 volts plus the place filled up with burnt electrical items smell myself and two others EC have to come in and fix this mess BTW it is a well knowen French Bank office

Now for the North Americian side yeah I have dealt with it and once you learn that and it will stay in your mind and never let it go.

Merci,
Marc

I sent my apprentice in to snap a breaker on the circuit feeding the "craft room" we had wired adjacent to the "ag room" running the pumps. I forgot to mention the high leg.
The X10 switch we had installed for remote control of the exterior lights from the main house let the smoke out.

Hey, it WAS taped orange and the guy DOES own a meter, right?...........

Not a true stinger leg story but in a corner office one floor down from the top floor at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC I was called in on a service call by the FBI. When we got there they were ticked that the GSA had sent a contractor so I said fine sign the ticket and we're gone. After a long delay the GSA convinced them they had no electricians to send and they were stuck with us. Problem was the remains of a table radio burned into a crater in the top of a cherry wood desk. The FBI were looking at it as an assassination attempt. I had to take the receptacle apart one layer at a time. The whole building was on emergency power because Ground Fault Protection of equipment on main service had tripped. In the back of the newish looking old work box was a tag that read "$1.05 Hechinger." Hechinger was the predecessor to today's big box store. As soon as I saw the tag I laddered the drop ceiling and found that the excessively neat installation was connected to a lighting J box. The connections were color to color in a sense. The black from the drop was on the brown and the white was on the yellow. We convinced the FBI that it was a simple human error and they left. Meanwhile the journeyman, who's trainee I was, was getting upset. As soon as the FBI left he snuck up on the offices occupant and dropped his tool bag onto the table he was using as a temporary desk and asked in a very demanding voice "Do you see any legal papers in there." When the occupant sheepishly allowed that he did not my journeyman said "Then lets not have any more tools in there!" while pointing emphatically at the mans leather brief case. Having tired of waiting for the GSA to install a receptacle by his desk the assistant AG for counter terrorism had come in on the weekend, cut off the light switches, and installed it himself. I just wish I could have seen his face when he turned on that table radio and applied four hundred eighty volts across the primary of the power supply transformer. As we all know once the magic smoke that was put in at the factory escapes the item stops working. It was the EGC of the desk light that tripped the building's Service Ground Fault Protection. I hope that guy was grateful until the day he died that Will didn't narc him out to the FBI.

I was working in an office building in Providence and was asked by a customer to install a recepteacle for another computer. I looked above the suspended ceiling snd saw a 4 square no markings so I snaked a new circuit cut in a box & put in the receptacle. Lastly I tied in the new black & white to the existing black & white. But when I plugged in the new computer poof! Then I checked with my meter 277!

Just replace the outlet with a 7-15R like this one: 277VAC outlet Only problem is that someone with a 2 prong equipped appliance from Australia may come by.

Also not Stinger leg related but deals with building a better idiot. I was asked to have a 240 VAC receptacle installed for a copier. The copier arrived and as the prongs on the cord would not fit in the copier receptacle, they took a pair of pliers and twisted the the one prong on the cord 90 degrees so it would fit and promptly destroyed the $2000 copier. Called me up and asked me why it didn't work.

Idiots!

I once hooked up a 3 ph range to a wild leg all 3 leads had no markings or you might say phase identification but i happened to hook the clock to the wild leg worked great for about a minute,the manufacturer replaced the unit w/ a new one and the leads were marked on that one


oo oo that smell can't you smell that smell

Also not a stinger leg story but came across a MIL unit that the owners wanted to replace the 2X4 recessed troffers that were in the kitchen & living rooms with ceiling fans, they had demoed the ceiling & done some demo of the troffers, there was one "minor" problem the fixtures were 277V & they did it hot.

Backstory on this is the building the MIL unit was in was a "AG shop" w/ a 200A 480Y/277V service w/ a 15 KVA tranny supplying 120/240V & part of the building had a mother in-law(MIL) unit attached & it was all bootleg. BTW, ag services were exempt from inspection until a few years ago.

Panels




240V panel closeup.


How many violations can you find?

Pump & NEMA 1 480V disco.