Hot adapter!

[photoatdv]

Though you guys might find this one interesting...

So I was setting up a couple of stage lights for this awards ceremony we had in the multipurpose room thing. They are just 2 pars behind the 'stage' (platforms we stole from drama) pointing up on the walls gelled with the school colors. No big deal. So after our setup session I unplug them to find the plug for the adapter is hot . Not good-- both the edison and stagepin plugs and the wire are rated for 15+A and I'm only running 10-11A (I didn't get out a calculator). So I figure there's a bad contact in the plug and take it over to the shop to find:

-Ground not connected
-Neutral has some kind of very corroded crimp on it
-Hot has maybe 1/8'' of wire stripped and isn't making a good connection
-No strain relief (I had already noticed that)
-Outer insulation strippped about 1 inch outside the plug
-Inner insulation cut on that part in about 5 places (I could see copper)

I prompty fixed that one!!! And our shop teacher and I had a good laugh about how crappily it was made. But seriously-- how can someone wire an adapter that poorly? I mean that required some serious skill to wire it that poorly and still get it to power lights. BTW I am going to recommend that the check all of our homemade adapters.

 

[w3st0n21]

wow. the worst i have seen is a dissconnected ground. we just recently made 10 twistlock (m) to stagepin (f) for lights i borrowed from my church. and we had a problem with one of them...couldnt figure out what it was though.

 

[mnfreelancer]

Bad strain relief seems to be the biggest culprit, especially with 12/3 and 10/3 as edison connectors that properly clamp a jacket that thick are hard(er) to come by at walmart/ace/home depot etc. I've also seen type SJOW that was really old and whose insulation cracked when you severely bend it......in the scrap bin it goes.

 

[coolbeam]

They are just 2 pars ... and I'm only running 10-11A (I didn't get out a calculator).

One doesn't need a calculator to to determine you either have 600-660W lamps or your numbers are off.

At 120V, a 500W lamp is just over 4A; a 750W is 6 1/4 A; a 1000W is 8 1/3 A.

 

[dramatech]

Today I was checking several male edison to female stagepin adapters, that came with some instruments, I purchsed on ebay. They were from a production company in New York City, and had a union sticker on the cables stating that they were "union made". I had no continuity in the ground connection, so I opened up both connectors. The stagepin was just fine, but in the edison, all three wires were tightened with the insulation under the screw. The ground didn't make continuity at all and the hot and neutral both lost continuity as soon as I loosened the strain relief. It seems the hot and neutral were only touching metal because the strain relief forced them to.
There are three more adapters that came with the instruments that I had only checked the continuity, and it was fine. Tomorrow when I have time, I will open up the edison connectors, to see if the same tech had used his or her extra ordinary skills in constructing the adapters.

 

[BillESC]

Some take pride in their work, others in their take home pay.

 

[Footer]

I could write a book...

This was discovered a few weeks ago, all of my S4 pars were wired like this...

This is one of my favorites that I found while in college.

 

[tjrobb]

That kind of amazes me. I once had 5 minutes to build an adapter before the UPS to the WHOLE network (servers, switches, etc.) ran out of juice. I had to demo the old twistlocks and then wire the new ones in (using borrowed gear, needed a 30A 120V). 12 wires, in 5 minutes. Made it with time left, and I STILL had no errors.

Like was said earlier in the post, it really matters whether the tech cares about his work... and knows what they are doing.

 

[DimmerDotCom]

I once was commissioning a job for Strand and the EC noticed that the supplied plug boxes were faulty in that the nuetrals were not stripped back and had been landed on their insulation. He mounted them to the wall about 40 feet up anyway instead of either 1: fixing the 6 boxes (3 circuits each) 2: calling the factory so a tech can fix it for him or repalcments sent out. We had to rent a lift, come back another day, re-schedule training. See this sort of stuff all the time now that most factories outsource their distro products.

Maurice Garcia
dimmer.com Home Page

 

[willbb123]

I have encountered this aswell...

This guy I hung and when I started focus I realized I could shake the plug and it would turn on. I opened it up and just started laughing... The hot was secure, ground wasn't connected, neutral was touching the ground pin when I shook it.


This was a 3 pin to Edison adapter. I found it up in the cats missing the 3 pin connector...

 

[NickJones]

I found a LIVE 3phase, with no plug on it, the cable ran into a plastic box, about 10cm x 5cm. I saw it and thought, "It can't be live" went out to the circuit breakers, killed the power, just to be safe, and then opened up the box, to find the cable had just been cut, and somehow, none of the smaller strands had hit each other. It looked like the kind of job an electrician would leave to come back to first thing in the morning before going home, but instead just left there. I made sure it got fixed, and instead of getting it pulled out, it now has a plug on it to let me run yet another dimmer rack.

I cut of the plug on a PAR can after it got crushed about a year ago, safety tagged and dated this year.

Yey for safety.

Nick

 

[JD]

In 35+ years I have seen things that would make you toes curl! My pet peeve is this ongoing habit some have of tinning wires that go into connectors! I have even see it in commercially built UL approved adapters from time to time. NEVER, I repeat NEVER do this! It is a ticking time bomb. At first the connection is fine. With time, the tinned amalgam migrates leaving a high resistance gap which overheats or worse. There is a partial exception, such as low current connectors which use solder cups, but these connectors are designed to be used this way.

The lesson was learned in the 1920's when soldering house wiring was banned as so many houses were burning down. The use of solder-less connectors (wire nuts) became the standard to solve this problem more than the fact that they were more convenient. Still, for years afterwards some electricians continued to solder under the false belief that the wire-nut was the lazy man's choice!

Here we are 90 years later and people are still soldering high current wiring! Crazy! The best connections are between the same metal. (Copper to copper, etc.) The need to use stranded cable is met with the answer of the crimp. (ahh.. The properly applied crimp!)

/rant

 

[mrb]

In 35+ years I have seen things that would make you toes curl! My pet peeve is this ongoing habit some have of tinning wires that go into connectors! I have even see it in commercially built UL approved adapters from time to time. NEVER, I repeat NEVER do this! It is a ticking time bomb. At first the connection is fine. With time, the tinned amalgam migrates leaving a high resistance gap which overheats or worse. There is a partial exception, such as low current connectors which use solder cups, but these connectors are designed to be used this way.

The lesson was learned in the 1920's when soldering house wiring was banned as so many houses were burning down. The use of solder-less connectors (wire nuts) became the standard to solve this problem more than the fact that they were more convenient. Still, for years afterwards some electricians continued to solder under the false belief that the wire-nut was the lazy man's choice!

Here we are 90 years later and people are still soldering high current wiring! Crazy! The best connections are between the same metal. (Copper to copper, etc.) The need to use stranded cable is met with the answer of the crimp. (ahh.. The properly applied crimp!)

/rant

that drives me NUTS. These idiots that learned to solder so they think soldering every connection makes it better. The instructions for connectors (edison, twistlock) even say to not tin the wire. The pressure plate terminals are for stranded wire only and if you stick a tinned or solid wire in one, when you tighten the screw the plate bends and the connector eventually melts.

 

[Grog12]

Bad wiring happens everywhere..I believe I've posted this before

you can see that just because it was done by proffesionals doesn't mean it was done right.

 

[mrb]

Bad wiring happens everywhere..I believe I've posted this before

you can see that just because it was done by proffesionals doesn't mean it was done right.

the burned terminals dont look like they are properly crimped with the right tool.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

Wasn't the problem on that one the use of low-temp vinyl terminals?

 

[mrb]

Wasn't the problem on that one the use of low-temp vinyl terminals?

not at all. a properly installed crimp terminal would never get hot enough to melt. Crimp terminals that arent properly installed, or the screw theyre under comes loose, burn up.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

However, even the most properly installed terminal will burn when wet, such as in floor pockets.

AND

"Standard" vinyl crimps will melt under full 20 amp loads. Thats why fixture whips and cables use uninsulated terminals.

 

[JD]

Don't like any plastic coated crimps. In my mind, the plastic gets in the way of the tool making a solid crimp. In close proximity, I like to use metal crimps, then heat shrink after the crimp is made.