Can a load center have a breaker as large as its main?

[Cookie]

Reminds me of the movie, My Cousin Vinny... and, only mrs. smith answer many fingers I am holding up! LOL.

there is a screw you know, lol. but, where o where is that little screw.

 

[JWelectric]

lol, nope, trick question. no black wire. chassis is metal and hanging bracket is metal, must be grounded. don't you have those dangly straps hanging from the back of your truck to ground it? lightning strips? lol

Well I have heard of this grounding before but have never been able to figure out just how to ground that CB radio in my truck as defined in the NEC. The word ground in the NEC means "earth" although all our lives we have called the negative post on our car batteries the "ground"

It is due to this mislabeling of the terminal of a battery as ground that has led us to believe that the ground in our panels means the same thing.

The ground rods we install at our services and remote buildings is to allow lightning somewhere it can get to the place it is seeking which is earth.

Just for the fun of it I am going to go outside and drive a rod at the front of my truck and connect the positive post to the rod. Maybe I will have a dead battery in the morning and I can call triple A.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Chad Schloss]

lol yeah i know what the ground rod is for and I studied electronics in high school. I've worked on many things, even worked for sony as an electronics technician for 8 years. I get it I studied dc more than ac, and I am now just getting interested in this stuff again, especially the ac stuff. My dad was a master mechanic and I learned a lot about cars and 12v systems. One thing I remember him teaching me was that a car has 3 separate 'grounds' that must be all tied together. A chassis/frame ground, an engine ground, and a body ground, because those parts are all mounted in rubber mounts. It gets fun troubleshooting lighting circuits that fade and things do weird things they shouldn't when it is not properly bonded. It is strange that we call it a ground, and it is also strange that some call the positive terminal the hot side too, lol. It helps reading these forums when you actually want to gain knowledge. I learned this year about subpanel wiring, proper bonding practices, generator installs, bonding vs grounding, etc. some people need to open their mind to others viewpoints who are in the know

 

[JWelectric]

Just for the fun of it I am going to go outside and drive a rod at the front of my truck and connect the positive post to the rod. Maybe I will have a dead battery in the morning and I can call triple A.

Darn, that battery is not dead so I switched the ground to the other post to see if it will die

 

[Leejosepho]

... I think you are out of your element here, not expert enough, and risking your life.

If you knew me more completely, you would not say that. However, I do not fault you for not knowing any better. I was baffled for a bit by the voltage readings I was getting just before I found the shorted black wire, but at no point was I ever truly in any great danger ... and all of the hoopla that has been going on here is simply because of certain word choices made during the discussion of the protection I had received while that wire was shorted. When some people cannot dazzle others with brilliance, they just try to baffle them with bullcrap ... and I was not buying it!

In relation to the discussion of CB radios and "ground" ...

The typical CB radio has a red wire and a black wire for power, and neither of those wires usually shows continuity to the chassis of the CB. Hence, at least certain "ground plane" antennas need for the CB chassis to be bonded to the vehicle body or "ground plane", and I learned about while installing this antenna on the roof of my house ...



The old charcoal grill turned out to be too small to provide a large-enough ground plane for that particular antenna to work well, but adding a ground wire from the dish back to the chassis of the radio did help a bit. So even with DC, a separate "ground" is occasionally needed even up in the air whether sitting on rubber tires or on rafters ...

... and no, I do not have to be concerned about lightning and that antenna since lightning comes out of the ground (or so I have heard) and that antenna is not bonded to earth.

 

[JWelectric]

So even with DC, a separate "ground" is occasionally needed even up in the air whether sitting on rubber tires or on rafters ...

... and no, I do not have to be concerned about lightning and that antenna since lightning comes out of the ground (or so I have heard) and that antenna is not bonded to earth.

Here in lies the area of your misunderstanding. You are using the word “ground†out of text as the CB does not have a ground at all of any kind as it pertains to the premises wiring of your home. The ground plane of an antenna for your CB has nothing to do with earth or even the chassis of the equipment. The ground plane for the antenna can even be the roof of the house itself as the ground plane is the reflection of the wave form back to the antenna not the connection to earth.
For the 120/240 volt circuits in your home the term ground means earth but with the CB the term ground as you are using it means connected to the chassis. The tern ground plane is the second half of the antenna. All three mean something different.

The mobile antenna you have on your roof is required by the NEC to be connected to your grounding electrode system in case lightning strikes but then again it is your equipment and home so I suppose you can do with it as you wish.

 

[Leejosepho]

Here in lies the area of your misunderstanding. You are using the word “ground” out of text ...

No, I was just showing it needs to be spoken/heard within a given context in order to be understood at all -- much of this entire thread is about that -- and you would do well to stop talking about me altogether since I am not the subject of any thread here in this forum anyway!

The ground plane of an antenna for your CB has nothing to do with earth or even the chassis of the equipment.

My point was only that is has one, and that the word/term "ground" needs to be understood properly in order to understand that.

The ground plane for the antenna can even be the roof of the house ...

Not for that particular antenna. I actually even tried adding a spider-leg-looking ground-plane booster there, but that only made matters worse because my actual ground plane is so small. However, bonding/grounding/continuity-connecting that dish to the radio chassis after the booster had been removed did help a bit.

The mobile antenna you have on your roof is required by the NEC to be connected to your grounding electrode system in case lightning strikes ...

I am aware of the connection requirement, and I also remember the day people stopped placing lightning rods on houses because they seemed to be *attracting* lightning (such as when our own house caught fire in the '50s and my dad took those lightening rods back down the next day). Hence, I just leave it to the many overhanging trees around this house and the tall pines directly behind it to deal with the matter of lightening.

 

[JWelectric]

It is you Lee that I am talking to and your misunderstanding of ground is the subject to which I am addressing.

You repeatedly keep saying that you understand but in the same breath make the statements like this one;

of the protection I had received while that wire was shorted....................... and that antenna is not bonded to earth.

Here you are Implying that the ground rod gave you some sort of protection which is a false statement and then go on to make reference that the antenna is not “bonded†to earth instead of using the correct words which are, “the antenna is not grounded.â€

By your own post you show a complete lack of understanding of the purpose of grounding an electrical system and sadly the unwillingness to learn. Instead of listening when someone is trying to explain something to you, you are doing everything in your power to prove just how much you do know which ends up to be little or nothing.

In a 120/240 volt electrical system the word ground means earth, nothing more and nothing less. The system is grounded for four reasons and four reasons only as outlined in 250.4 of the NEC. You or my protection from electrical shock is not one of these four. To give electricity somewhere to go is not one of them. Grounding is not a safety issue at all. A system would be just as safe with or without a ground rod ever being installed.

Safety in the system comes from the bonding to the system neutral in the service equipment with or without a ground rod ever being driven.

250.4 General Requirements for Grounding and Bonding.
(A) Grounded Systems.
(1) Electrical System Grounding. Electrical systems that are grounded shall be connected to earth in a manner that will limit the voltage imposed by [1] lightning, [2]line surges, [3]or unintentional contact with higher-voltage lines and [4]that will stabilize the voltage to earth during normal operation.


I put the brackets [] with the numbers in the text to show the four reasons.

 

[BobL43]

No, I was just showing it needs to be spoken/heard within a given context in order to be understood at all -- much of this entire thread is about that -- and you would do well to stop talking about me altogether since I am not the subject of any thread here in this forum anyway!


My point was only that is has one, and that the word/term "ground" needs to be understood properly in order to understand that.


Not for that particular antenna. I actually even tried adding a spider-leg-looking ground-plane booster there, but that only made matters worse because my actual ground plane is so small. However, bonding/grounding/continuity-connecting that dish to the radio chassis after the booster had been removed did help a bit.


I am aware of the connection requirement, and I also remember the day people stopped placing lightning rods on houses because they seemed to be *attracting* lightning (such as when our own house caught fire in the '50s and my dad took those lightening rods back down the next day). Hence, I just leave it to the many overhanging trees around this house and the tall pines directly behind it to deal with the matter of lightening.

Lee, you said early on in this this thread that you have Aspbergers syndrome. What I have read about that is that most people who have it are very intelligent, but just lack some social skills and are unable to "interpret" facial expressions or intonnations in spoken words. But this venue is all in writing. I don't think it is anybody's intention here to imply that you are anything less than intelligent, just unwilling to accept your mortality. People HAVE died from ground faults.
We are more concerned for your safety than you seem to be. Get the licensed electrician in to make it right. if you get killed after that, then you can sue him.

 

[Leejosepho]

It is you Lee that I am talking to and your misunderstanding of ground is the subject to which I am addressing.

You repeatedly keep saying that you understand but in the same breath make the statements like this one;

of the protection I had received while that wire was shorted....................... and that antenna is not bonded to earth.

Here you are Implying that the ground rod gave you some sort of protection which is a false statement ...

Then please tell me where that shorted current went! Even your own statements here eventually said/implied/acknowledged ground rods delivering current to other ground rods such as the ones under transformers. If the current from that shorted leg in my workshop did not find that kind of path, then please tell me where it went! To say or to imply there was no flow at all is utterly ridiculous since there was no power available anywhere in that sorted circuit and I only felt a small tingle when I touched the panel. If you really want to find fault and bust somebody, then address the matter of the wrong assumption made about my EMT in the first response in this thread and the potentially-deadly suggestion my panel should therefore not be bonded. I have no complaint at all about the understandable error that had been made in that particular post, but I am alive today and able to be here interacting with you and others because the shorted current in my non-bonded panel found its way through some kind of "ground" of whatever definition and then back to a transformer or whatever else somewhere rather than through only me and on into the concrete floor and wherever it might have gone from there. Anyone who reads this thread carefully and thoroughly will see you ultimately confirmed what I had suspected had protected me from possibly-great harm, but it matters not to me whether you ever acknowledge that yourself.

Lee, you said early on in this this thread that you have Aspergers syndrome. What I have read about that is that most people who have it are very intelligent, but just lack some social skills and are unable to "interpret" facial expressions or intonations in spoken words. But this venue is all in writing ...

You are correct in your understanding of AS/HFA (High-Functioning Autism), at least as in my own case, and I actually often have to be careful in this kind of written venue since I am very literal-minded where other people are not always so.

I don't think it is anybody's intention here to imply that you are anything less than intelligent, just unwilling to accept your mortality. People HAVE died from ground faults. We are more concerned for your safety than you seem to be.

No, nobody is more concerned about that than I am. However, we do not all have the same approach to the matter.

Get the licensed electrician in to make it right ...

There is nothing that needs to be fixed! When the electrician was here a few weeks ago to take a look at what we need him to do at our service entrance, he saw only two wires connected in the feed going back to the workshop and he asked me what was the deal there. I explained how that had been done many years ago, and he was pleased to know I would get that matter corrected before he came back to do the service-entrance update ...

... and now I need just a little more help:

I ordered a PK4MB2LA "Back-Fed Circuit Breaker Retaining Kit" for the main breaker in my workshop panel, but that retainer is not the correct one for my panel and I cannot find what I *do* need. The panel I have is a QO612L100S, and it seems the only screw hole it has available for retaining a main breaker is on the left side of that breaker. The instruction sheet that came with that panel listed a part number for the retainer kit, but I no longer have that instruction sheet. So, can anybody here either straighten me out if I am missing something there or else help me find the retainer I actually do need?



Here is another QO retainer I can find ...

http://www.superbreakers.net/pk2mb.html

... but it does not at all look like what I need.

This page lists a PK4MB2HA ...

http://stevenengineering.com/pdf/45LoadCenter_QO_ACC.PDF

... but it does not have a picture of same to show whether the "H" in place of the "L" might mean "Horizontal" or whatever rather than "Left" (if that is what the "L" means).

 

[Ballvalve]

Only thing Im getting here is the importance of wearing shoes when working. Especially on power. How many panels did JW troubleshoot barefoot and wearing a bathrobe?

 

[JWelectric]

Then please tell me where that shorted current went!

The basic rule for current flow is there must be a complete path for it to flow through. If you felt a tingle then current was flowing through your body.
Just because something is energized does not mean that current is flowing. What I said was that the second you touched the panel with the black wire touching the panel you became part of the path from the energized panel through the earth back to the transformer and the high resistance of your body added to the high resistance of earth is what limited the amount of current that flowed through your body. The ground rod played no part in the circuit.
Your body equal about 50,000 ohms of resistance
The earth between your feet and the pole about 500 ohms of resistance
At 120 volts this would equal about 2 milliamps of current or enough to make you get back quickly.

Being that there was no ground rod in the circuit between the short in the panel, you, the earth, and the transformer the ground rod had nothing to do with how bad you got hurt.

If the panel had been properly bonded there would have been a low impedance path back to the service and the breaker would have tripped and no current would have flowed anywhere.

 

[JWelectric]

Only thing Im getting here is the importance of wearing shoes when working. Especially on power. How many panels did JW troubleshoot barefoot and wearing a bathrobe?

None. Being that I do know the dangers of current flow when I trouble shoot in a live panel I always wear the proper PPE.
The four biggest reasons for someone getting hurt by electricity are
Lack of knowledge
Lack of experience
Distractions such as horse play, one’s mind on something else
Pressure to get the job done

 

[Cookie]

Lee, you are arguing with those who hold a masters and are professionals in their field. What more anyone say. I really think you should pay attention to JW's advice. If you don't, fine. Go about your business.

 

[Jadnashua]

While DMMs are nice tools, they can give some hard to understand readings because they have such high input impedances...you can get some significant voltage readings in places you wouldn't expect them but have little ability to actually flow any current. It can get pretty involved to determine the actual path. ALso, with that very high impedance (many megaohms in most cases), there's a miniscule current flow (which helps to be able to take the measurment without distrupting the circuit under test in most cases).

 

[Leejosepho]

Lee, you are arguing ...

No, I am only asking a question: Where did the current go?

A circuit's black wire was shorted to the panel, and that left that circuit showing no current available and I only felt a small tingle when I touched the panel. So, where was the remainder of that current going?

If it had been a garden hose that had been pinched, the water would have been unable to flow at all ... but we are only dealing with a pinched conductor here, not a pinched conduit.

I keep hearing stuff said about where the current is believed to *not* be going, but that is not my question. I am asking where that current *was* going since it did not appear in the shorted circuit or between me and the concrete floor (apart from just enough to produce a small tingle).

Question number 2: I ordered a PK4MB2LA "Back-Fed Circuit Breaker Retaining Kit" for the main breaker in my workshop panel, but that retainer is not the correct one for my panel and I cannot find what I *do* need. The panel I have is a QO612L100S, and it seems the only screw hole it has available for retaining a main breaker is on the left side of that breaker. The instruction sheet that came with that panel listed a part number for the retainer kit, but I no longer have that instruction sheet. So, can anybody here either straighten me out if I am missing something there or else help me find the retainer I actually do need?

 

[Leejosepho]

While DMMs are nice tools, they can give some hard to understand readings because they have such high input impedances...you can get some significant voltage readings in places you wouldn't expect them but have little ability to actually flow any current.

I had something like that happen yesterday, I believe. I was cleaning some junk from the attic in order to clear the way for the electrician when he comes, and I saw a clipped-and-taped end of a piece of old Romex hanging out of a box with no cover and laying loose up there ... and I decided to remove it and cover the box. Looking more closely, however, I also noticed another piece of old Romex connected to that wire inside the box and then running out and going down into a wall where an old mechanical timer is mounted, and I decided to remove all of that wire since that timer is obviously no longer in use or needed. After removing the cover from the timer, I checked for voltage before getting near any connections, and I saw something like 36 volts across the terminals in the timer ... and that means there must have been a very small "leak" at that clipped-and-taped end of the piece of old Romex hanging out of a box and laying loose in the attic ...

... and since safety is always first for me, I clipped the unneeded wires at the box by using a pair of insulated dikes while standing on a fiberglass ladder on a wooden floor before touching the terminals on that timer with anything other than my meter.

As an aside here: What was that timer about in the first place? It is a mechanical, 12-hour, wind-up timer with a mercury switch inside and its output circuit appears to have been clipped when a new furnace was installed many years ago, but it is definitely not a thermostat, just a switch. So, was there a day when furnaces were run with simple on-off timers?

 

[JWelectric]

No, I am only asking a question: Where did the current go?
A circuit's black wire was shorted to the panel, and that left that circuit showing no current available and I only felt a small tingle when I touched the panel. So, where was the remainder of that current going?

I do believe that you have no understanding of current flow at all but are trying to sell everyone including yourself that you do. How much if any training or schooling have you had in electrical theory? Is everything you know about electricity been learned by doing?

When a switch is open (turned off) how much current is flowing? Would the amount of current flowing be any different if there were five 60 watt bulbs verses three 60 watt bulbs? Where is that available current for the five bulbs flowing?

What type of meter do you have that will show how much current there is available to flow in a circuit? I have been doing this for over 40 years and have never seen a meter that would give the available current in a circuit.

The only current that matters was flowing through you and there was no remainder.

The four main components of current flow are voltage, resistance, wattage, and current. In your case the voltage was a known of 120. The resistance of the path is what controlled the amount of current that flowed. If we knew the total of the resistance we could accurately figure how much current that flowed through your body.

This does not work like you seem to believe. A twenty amp breaker does not allow 20 amps to flow continuously through the circuit it only protects the circuit to 20 amps. The load (resistance) will mandate how much current that flows through the circuit sort of like you explained about the welder in the other thread.
Using you thinking the 50 amp breaker for the welder that was only drawing 30 amps must be letting the other 20 amps leak out somewhere. Where is that current leaking out to?

EDITED TO ADD;

Lee

The last couple of pages on this link will tell you all about the available current on a single phase circuit.
It does a better job of explaining where all that available current in you circuit was going than I would ever be able to do. Once reading this please post just how much available current you had in your little panel.

http://www.cooperindustries.com/con...ch_Lib_Short_Circuit_Current_Calculations.pdf

 

[Leejosepho]

The ground rod is primarily for protection during lightening strikes...don't count on it for an effective ground ...

... asking a question: Where did the current go?

I do believe that you have no understanding of current flow at all ...

Please stop talking about me. I am trying to learn something useful here!

@jadnashua: While searching for an answer to my "Where did the current go?" question, I now see I have been making some wrong assumptions and/or drawing some wrong conclusions based on mere anecdotes ... and I now know for myself what everyone here has been saying is actually quite true:

Ground rods do *not* offer protection from stray/shorted current.

My brother will likely not believe that since the work he did at the campground I had mentioned actually did help put an end to campers being shocked at their sites, but that is a matter for another day. For today, and while being completely safe about how my test was conducted -- "Mythbusters" is a great show for learning about safety -- I just went out and did a test that has proved to me in a very real and physical manner that my ground rod is definitely *not* a "neutral" and/or "ground" connection sufficient even for lighting a 60W bulb. With 120V available to it through my panel's ground wire, the bulb displayed a very light glow "to ground" ... and that glow was so low that I almost missed it altogether. So while that means at least a little bit of current was going "to ground" via the ground rod, I now know the level of "tickle" I had received a few days ago was not at all significantly affected/effected by that ground rod. So yes, and to all: I have been wrong here!

New question: While that one circuit was shorted to ground a few days ago, why did some current flow "to ground" through me and no current at all flow through my meter between that incoming leg and the panel's neutral bar? And remember, the panel was not bonded at that time. I can now understand why I felt so little current going "to ground" since it really had no place to go, but I cannot understand (or actually, I just do not know) why no current could flow even through my meter and on back to the panel's neutral bar.

@jwelectric: I am an Aspie who hardly ever learns anything by reading academic material. I need to either see something for myself or be shown or have it clearly explained.

 

[Leejosepho]

... Using you thinking the 50 amp breaker for the welder that was only drawing 30 amps must be letting the other 20 amps leak out somewhere.

Not true. That breaker would only see 50A as its maximum, and it would not care at all whether that amount of current ever went anywhere.

Your self-choking ego and its continual desire to compare yourself to others and then find yourself greater is sickening, at least to me. But of course, I also am human and have some of my own issues in the security department.