Electrical Student - Electrician Talk - Professional Electrical Contractors Forum

bennyberrios · 02-20-2007, 10:16 PM

I am an electrical student at Pennco Tech in New Jersey. I am doing a research in "the latest electrical problems in the field", I hope I can get some support in this matter. Thank you in advance and thanks for letting me be a part of this forum.

MDShunk · 02-20-2007, 10:22 PM

Benny... you can start with these new low mercury fluorescent lamps (green ends) that won't fire up reliably on an old ballast, but an "old design" lamp, with all the mercury God intended to be in it will work just fine.

Don't know if any others have observed this or not. I find that especially with the 24" T12's in low mercury, it's a crap shoot if they'll fire up or not. I've been keeping the old style on hand for the 24 inchers, and intend to for as long as I can buy them.

K&R · 02-21-2007, 02:33 PM

I trained for Marine Diesel at Pennco Tech in Blackwood graduated in 1997. My problem is not a new one but of untrained electricians. Alot of times they make the repairs cost twice as much. If we have to go in and remove 20 pieces of romex out of a single gang switch box before we can even start figuring out the problem we have to charge. I am glad to see your getting training. Planning on moving south by chance?

Magnettica · 02-21-2007, 04:53 PM

Fluorescent lighting, like MDShunk mentioned, has a lot of new problems. See, the ballasts used on fluorescent lights used to be all magnetic. Now all the new ones are electronic. T-12 lamps vs T-8 lamps vs. T-5 lamps, etc.

Another recent phenominom are harmonic currents and the over heating of voltage transformers on the grounded conductor because of things like computers.

Good luck, this is a great trade.