In article .com,
RayV wrote:
CB asked:
What am I risking by "shorting" out the outlet and having it trip the
breaker so I can find it?

Ray replied:
Burned fingers
Electrocution
Fire
Melted insulation that will short later
Damage to other appliances on that circuit
Damaged breaker

Probably none of these things will happen but if you really insist on
doing this it would probably be *slightly* safer to strip the ends of
an old plug and touch them together briefly while holding the ends with
rubber handled pliers. If you plug in something hard-wired to short
and the breaker doesn't trip, now you have to pull it out before the
fire starts.


Depending on the quality of the short, and the trip rating of all the
breakers in the path, it is possible for a bolted fault on a branch
circuit to trip the main breaker. I have seen it happen, with a 20a 240v
circuit (wired as a dead short between two phases*), that tripped a 400a
main breaker with no hesitation. In this case, the 20a breaker was closed
into the short, and the main tripped in the blink of an eye.


(* when wiring a 240 volt outlet, you DO NOT attach both phases to one
terminal, and the neutral to another. The stage carpenter didn't know this..
needless to say, he does now..)



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Bob Vaughan | techie @ tantivy.net |
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