TURTLE wrote:
"Jeff Wisnia" wrote in message
...
TURTLE wrote:
"Matt" wrote in message
groups.com...
Perhaps you are right Turtle.... but nothing ****es me off more than to
take the time to try to help someone, at their request, and then have
them come back and insult me for it.
Even if I'm completely off base with my answer, it just irks me to have
the OP slam me for trying to help. We all know the others here will do
a nice job of gutting anyone who gives a completely wrong answer....
and I can accept that, ask for forgiveness, and move on.... but not
from the OP.
In this case, the guy had a disconnect that's overheating. His
solution? Replace a fused disconenct with a non fused one. This does
nothing to address the core problem (which I believe you and others
have very well pinpointed - his disco is undersized). No, his brilliant
solution was that GE makes crappy disconnects, he heard it from someone
who knows somebody who knows an electrician, after all.
Maybe I was off base by getting my panties in a twist. If so, I
apologize to the OP and others. And as you mentioned what I admitted,
I'm not an electrician.
But it doesn't take an expert to know that when an electrical circuit
is overheating to the point where cartridge fuses are melting,
something is wrong somewhere, and the very last possibility to consider
is that someone mfrs a crappy product. This guy even went to the
trouble of replacing his "crappy" product with the same "crap", and
surprise! Got the same results. Yeah, it's gotta be a bad disconnect.
I'll replace it with a non fused one... that will fix it!
Had he gone ahead and done that, what do you think the outcome would
have been, assuming he replaced it with the same specs as the disco.
Fire? I think it's likely, especially in an attic.
Which is all I was trying to point out in the first place.
And now I'll jump off my soapbox.....
This is Turtle
Get a Grip This is UserNet !
TURTLE
We know that, but you'll never convice Matt. He seems so touchy I think maybe
he sleeps on sandpaper sheets or a bed of nails every night.
I should be the one ****ing and moaning about the distortions he makes about
my posts and the sarcastic things he says about me, all because I told him he
missed the central point in my OP and then I asked him to explain why he
thought replacing the fused disconnect with a non-fused one was going to set
fire to my house.
Oh well, I guess I'll just have to accept Matt's garbage graciously, the
phrase noblesse oblige comes to mind...
I'm gonna check the paper label inside that GE fused disconnect when I get
home tonight, I'm curious to know if I missed seeing something on it about the
maximum continuous current rating being lower than 60 amps. If so you've sure
tought me something - along the lines of "The big print giveth and the fine
print taketh away." G
Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
"As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public
schools"
This is Turtle.
Sometimes it is written on the plastic cover in the front and in the plastic
where you can't see it very well. Most of the rating they give these disconnects
is they run the disconnect at different amp rating for a day and find out just
how much it will take to burn it up. Then what ever the disconnect will run at
for a day. That is the amp rating it is set at. Most of the time if the rating
is for 60 amps and you run 61 amps on it for a day. It will fry and burn so the
set it just below that burn level at 60 amps.
Alway stick to the Disconnect rules of only run 1/2 the amps of a disconnect
rating and call it Max.
Hey i was tring to support old Matt and give him some support in his feeling of
being disrespected in his post by what he as saying and low and behold he chops
on me for be a Asshole disrespecting others and me tring to give him some
support and respect. i guess the only respect old Matt will find is by looking
respect up in the dictionary and get it there by reading about it.
TURTLE
Well TURTLE, once again you are the voice of experience I was looking
for with my OP.
I climed up and looked at the paper label inside the GE fused disconnect
last nnite (Cat #TG3222-MOD6 to be specific). Off at the bottom of the
label in type so small I had to work hard to pick it out, it reads,
"Contact current not to exceed 80% of fuse rating for other than motor
circuits." Now that's still 48 amps, and the draw I measure with the
auxillary heaters on is a bit below 40 amps, but I won't quibble with
the results I've got (on a sample of two), namely that the switch
contacts oxidize and heat up enough to melt the solder in the fuse end
caps 1-2 years after I clean them up all pretty again. And those
auxillary heaters aren't working 100 percent of the time the heat's on,
except in really cold weather.
There were also words on the disconnect's label cautioning against the
use of replaceable link fuses in that unit. It was a caution, not a
rating, but there's probably good reason for them to say that.
My 45 years of designing everything from fuel oil truck delivery nozzles
to atomic clocks tought me that a month or so of lab testing does not
equal years of running in the field. I used to have a sign on my office
wall which read, "One good field test is worth a thousand expert
opinions.", and another one which read, "Ther's no right way to do the
wrong thing."
Thanks again,
Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/jeff/
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
"As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public
schools"