Good reason both never to trust new or should we say assume (Ass out of you an me) gear. Also never to pull gear for a show without testing it.
Got in some
Soca to
Edison fan-out adaptors today. Not only did I
meter the pins to ensure it was wired for 120 instead of 208v, but I also took apart a sampling of the plugs to ensure the correct
conductor went to the proper
terminal. One can never tell who besides you in building your gear knows what they are doing in building it for you. Just because it comes from a distributer, does not mean someone building it for your order knew what they were doing. Hopefully they do but you need to verify still.
In my case, they were using Hubble brand Commercial grade
Edison cord mount receptacles on 12/3 SJ
wire. The person that wired them did it properly up until the
point he or she installed the
strain relief. Note to all, a 16/3 SJ
cord has a different outside diamater than that of a 12/3 SJ - much less SO
cord. A
strain relief on a
plug is designed to
grip any number of cable types and
wire sizes within it. In other words, just because your
strain relief will screw down further or all the way, does not mean you should.
Hand tight plus some should be sufficient to
grip the cable.
This company in using the plugs already not well suited for 12ga
wire, screwed the
strain relief down all the way in now making a cable that's about 3/8" in dia. now about less than 1/4" in
thickness under the clamp. Hmm, it's rubberized
wire. Once under pressure, it would tend to stretch with the bulk of it moving out of the way. What's moving out of the way? The
insulation coating the conductors and protecting it from shorting to each other. Cut a cross sectional area of a
plug that's been over tightened in
strain relief and at times you will see as little as 1/32" of rubber
insulation between conductors. Given the wires flex and move about some, that's very easy to cut
thru in causing a short.
Point of this is that even if "professionally done" and wired properly, those making it at times don't know any better than a amature. Inspect what you get before you use it.