On Saturday 30 January 2016 01:11:05 MC Cason wrote: > Gene, > > Just be aware that the Square D Homeline series has aluminum bus > bars. I had to replace a 8 year old box, due to some arcing issues > between the bus bar, and the breaker, so now I put noalox on all of my > breaker contacts. Since doing that, I have not had any more issues. > > The Square D industrial boxes use nickel plated copper bus bars. > Thats good to know. I thought it looked like alu, but wasn't positive as the stickups for the breaker to grip must have some sort of a yellowish coating on them. This one was new in 2013 when it was installed after the transfer switch when I had a 20kw generator installed. So the original box, with the meter socket in it, now in front of the transfer switch, was installed in 2007 in preparation to adding the semiattached garage in 2008.
So the next time I goto Lowes, I ought to pick up a tube of that grease, and grease them all before I re-install the cover. As I've indicated before on this list, alu wire is a %$#@&^()+ time bomb. I had some of it try to burn down the house at 3 am on a -15F night in Carrol Nebraska in the early '70's. Old house, meterhead outside, with about an 8" long jumper of 8/3 alu from the meters load to the top of the box, fortunately located in a closet in the bedroom we were sleeping in because the arcing noise woke me up. So at 3am I had to dress for -15F weather, locate the arc, disconnect most of the electric heaters, go out, cut the seal off the meter (thats a felony in Nebraska) go out to the transmitter & round up enough copper to replace that shit, replace it, put the meter back in & start taking the chill off the house before the pipes froze. Called Ron at Wayne County Public Power first thing in the morning and told him to come by and put a new seal on the meter. He had a cow, but did. He and I knew each other well before that since the tv transmitter at KXNE-TV that I was in charge of, was their biggest customer, pulling around 230 kwh when it was on, until somebody built a pair of 150'x450' air conditioned hog barns out east of Wayne a few miles. Now I am forced to use the shit here & there, simply because you can't buy copper in 8 gauge around here, like the 8/3wg run of UG to the shop building, but every box in that run gets opened and the screws tightened another 1/4 turn at 3 or 4 year intervals. So my distaste for alu wire is a long standing and bitter issue. I don't care how tight you think the connection is, that shit cold flows over time and it _will_ come loose, destroying what you thought was a gas tight joint. The use of noalox doesn't change that other that its sealing effect if slathered on thick enough to keep airborn oxygen out of the joint even if it does flow & reduce the contact pressures exerted by the screw/bolts. That will extend the time frame to failure, perhaps by 100%, but it will still fail. Unless tightened occasionally to restore the gas tightness of the connection. This time when I go around and do the tightening, I'll magic marker the date on the box cover to serve as a reminder as to when it was done last. At 81 & holding a year at a time, my memory isn't what it was 25 years ago and isn't expected to get any better. I bought an IR thermometer just to survey the crap while it was under power. It has warned me once already. Thank you very much for the heads up, MC. [...] Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311&iu=/4140 _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
