I recently heard some of the old timers discussing panels known as widow makers or suicide panels, any idea whaat type they were reffering to? I assume i might nfind one in older building that have not been retrfitted! thnks

Many of the older electrical panels, had open bus bars on the back, and open wiring, and knife switches on the front.

I once replaced some 1908 vintage 1000HP motor controls at a pumping station with solid state soft starters. The old stuff was indeed open knife switches on thick slabs of slate with holes drilled through so the conductors went in back. The room behind the slate was called the "suicide room" because all of the busbars were bare copper, 2300V! There was a path down the middle between the busbars and a set of open resistor banks (wound rotor motors) on the opposite wall. If you stood sideways, it was less than 1 foot from your shoulders to any live surface. One sneeze and it was all over.

Somewhere I have pictures of a salesman I convinced to stand in the suicide room while I snapped it. He kept his hands at his sides like a tin soldier, I guess I somehow neglected to tell him I had cut the power... heh. I need to find them, scan them and post them here, you guys would get a kick out of it.

1908? was AC electricity even around then?

"1908? was AC electricity even around then?"

Check out the time line.
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/time_machine/1890ce-1900ce.html

One contractor I worked for, had an old 3ph industrial fuze panel with edison fuzes and the knife switches, I don't know where they pulled it out of, but they had removed it from the panel, and polished up all the copper and had it in the reception area of the shop, was neat to look at, don't know that I would have wanted to work w/ a system like that though

I have a light bulb manufactured by the T-H Elec. Co., Lynn Mass. USA with patent dates of Jan 7, 1879 and May 12, 1885.
The Thomson-Houston Company,
It's a carbon filiment is intact and it has a strange base that is held down via a female thread in the center of the botton of the base.
However, one source says the company was formed in 1883 to product dynamos and arc lighting which makes that 1879 patent date interesting.
I believe it's value would be around $175.

1908? was AC electricity even around then?

Interesting link Les. Here's one for British Columbia: http://www.powerpioneers.com/BC_Hydro_History/1860-1929/chronology.aspx

This is a description of the T-H light bulb. I haven't taken a picture of mine yet. https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v706/templdl/Technical/Image024.jpg

Skipr
You need to read up on Nikola Tesla, Barnes & Noble has a neat book in print about him. Most of the patents for the Tesla/Westinghouse system were granted in the early 1880's and the stories of the "Current Wars", the feud between Tesla/Westinghouse and the Edison/GE proponents of DC make fascinating reading. Tesla got the contract to light the 1892 Chicago World's Fair over Edison basically because Tesla's ac system took tons less copper wire.

synergy1, The widow makers in my area us old timers were referring to are old GE & FPE panels. These panels had a screw through the cover you loosened. You then rotated the washer behind the screw a quarter turn. This released the clamp inside that held the cover on. They worked well on a new panel with not many conductors in the gutter space. Over time they work lousy and grab the energized conductors in the gutter space. If you were lucky the breaker tripped when the conductor got pinched by the clamp. FPE
& old GE breakers do not like to trip. Thus the name "Widow Makers".

Al

Al: I know exactly the FPE cover you are referring to... Found that the little clamp would also tend to break rendering the entire screw and clamp assembly useless.

A.D

Re: Pump station built in 1908.

As it turns out, the pump station was built in 1908 as it said on the plaque ojn the outside wall, but apparently the pumps were not electrified until 1910. Here is a picture of the pump station I worked on, the slate boards are on the right, the "suicide room" is directly behind them through a door past the fartest column.


Here is the website link for the story, no mention of the suicide room however. I am still looking for the pictures I took. http://www.spokanewater.org/history/

Here "widow maker" is the name for the old metal 3 phase plugs. The pin layout was symmetrical, so if the plug got put together the wrong way, the ground (and with it the plug casing) would end up being a phase. They're the reason why metal plugs have been entirely banned in any European country I know of.