Ignoramus23561 wrote:

After a short while, I opened up the receptacle. It turned out that it
was full of grinding dust (! -- how did it get inside) -- and,
apparently, the dust shifted and shorted the contacts. It was a short
circuit, but with a lot of resistance from the dust, so it caught
fire, but did not trip a breaker.


I'm glad there wasn't an explosion. A long time ago, at a company long auctioned off, a
30A 480V twist lock cord fell into a mop bucket. In addition to the bang that sounded
like a rifle shot (wires slapping in conduit), a marathon splice block that was part of
200 amp run to the panel this cord was attached to exploded along with tripping the 4000A
breaker in the boiler room.

All that from a little 10 ga SO cord and water.


Wes