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Random question about electricians in general

7K views 119 replies 19 participants last post by  Speedy Petey 
#1 ·
I think I've been handling this the best way I can, but it's really annoying, and I'm curious if anyone else has encountered this at work. In general, I find that some electricians consider themselves experts on "electricity", rather than "electrical installations".

Here's the background... Right out of high school, I earned an honors bachelors degree in physics, and was halfway through a masters degree in the same field before I discovered that I'd really rather be working with my hands than in a lab or in front of a computer all day, so I became an electrician.

One nuisance I've encountered in the field is coworkers who fancy themselves electricity experts, and confidently make statements about electricity that are completely wrong, and I have to bite my lip to stop myself from correcting them unless its important for the job that I do. And I swear to god, I hear at least two or three of these statements a week.

Some of my favourite examples:
- A foreman tried to tell me that pure water is conductive (Water, as long as it's pure, is actually a much, much better insulator than the insulation that most of our wires are covered in)

- Another tried to tell me that there's actually a use to putting a ground clamp on a PVC pipe system, something about bleeding off accumulated charge (Any accumulated charge on PVC will remain exactly where it started unless physically moved toward the ground clamp, since electrons don't move in insulators. You're effectively grounding a 1 inch section of pipe)

- Same guy tried to tell me that there's no change in a cable's susceptibility to interference when you switch from twisted-pair to untwisted. (Wrong, but the explanation is too long to type here)

- Someone else tried to tell me that electrons in a wire travel near the speed of light (they actually travel slower than walking speed)

I guess it's just annoying for me to have a field of expertise, yet need to completely shut up about it because I don't want to make a superior feel stupid, even though they're regularly spouting completely incorrect statements about science with the confidence of Donald Trump.
 
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#5 ·
Not exactly what I said. Don't go putting words in my mouth.

In fact, my company recently had to downsize due to lack of work, and the remaining 20% of the guys there are actually awesome, and work just the same as I do. The issue I was having was with the lazy, ass-dragging people we had hired previously because we simply needed bodies. Every company suffers from those now and again.

My annoyance is with guys who pretend to be certain about things that they are, in fact, completely wrong about, and unfortunately this trade is full of them. MOST electricians have a good handle on where their knowledge ends, but there's a special group that thinks they've become scientists from the 9 months they spent in trade school.
 
#8 ·
Some of my favourite examples:
- A foreman tried to tell me that pure water is conductive (Water, as long as it's pure, is actually a much, much better insulator than the insulation that most of our wires are covered in)

- Another tried to tell me that there's actually a use to putting a ground clamp on a PVC pipe system, something about bleeding off accumulated charge (Any accumulated charge on PVC will remain exactly where it started unless physically moved toward the ground clamp, since electrons don't move in insulators. You're effectively grounding a 1 inch section of pipe)

- Same guy tried to tell me that there's no change in a cable's susceptibility to interference when you switch from twisted-pair to untwisted. (Wrong, but the explanation is too long to type here)

- Someone else tried to tell me that electrons in a wire travel near the speed of light (they actually travel slower than walking speed)
People that say things like this genuinely and with confidence need to be told how wrong they are. Use proof if you need to. We all have the internet in our pockets these days, right?
 
#10 · (Edited)
The issue would be this person has an air of arrogance and would not know how to diplomatically explain the issues he brought up and would get smacked up side the head with a 4' piece of 750 kcmil.

In 47 years in the trade I have worked with 100's of apprentices some very smart, some dumb as a box of rocks and most somewhere in between, generally decent folks. Then there are the arrogant brats and when I see them years later most are still hampered by a sh*tty attitude and work for several contractors every year because no one wants to have anything to do with their sorry azzes.

Take a look in the mirror and ask yourself are "Am I an arrogant Ass"
 
#9 ·
I knew all those things and I didn't get a physics degree. How silly of me.

By the way, that walking speed must be a very very thin wire, much smaller than electricians encounter, because the speed in our stuff is more like cm/hr for dc and three or four zero's in front of a digit for ac current.
 
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#16 ·
Granted - by my math a 15A current through #14 copper should have a drift velocity of roughly 0.00053 m/s, half an hour to travel a meter, haha.

Pretty sure that the time-average speed in AC should be exactly zero unless there's a ground fault somewhere though.
 
#23 ·
The average North American electrician is mainly trained to install to code Quarky

Fundamental electrical theory is taught to us, but only within the limits of what we're expected to work with.

This is why our (NEC) article 250 ,that addresses grounding , is usually the hardest one for us to grasp, along with a contingent of tutorials (Soares) aiming at the theory

This is also why manufactures , specifically those marketing AFCI's can snowball us

The list goes on , and you're spot on posting your discontent , because it's a real issue .....

~CS~
 
#37 ·
Look at how Steve is pretending again to be a vastly more knowledgable electrician than the bulk of us poor rubes. Fantastic. I remember pretty good how clueless you were upon arrival to ET. And we got pictures to prove it!
 
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#63 ·
Interesting.

How does the light turn on so quickly?
Because the electrons, collectively, can propagate an electric field through the wire at an extremely fast rate, near the speed of light.

The best analogy is to think of a ten foot long pipe completely filled with marbles. If you push another marble in one end, a marble falls out the opposite end almost immediately, even though each individual electron didn't travel very far, or very fast.
 
#66 ·
- A foreman tried to tell me that pure water is conductive (Water, as long as it's pure, is actually a much, much better insulator than the insulation that most of our wires are covered in)
Don't need a degree to know this.
- Another tried to tell me that there's actually a use to putting a ground clamp on a PVC pipe system, something about bleeding off accumulated charge (Any accumulated charge on PVC will remain exactly where it started unless physically moved toward the ground clamp, since electrons don't move in insulators. You're effectively grounding a 1 inch section of pipe)
MOST people should know plastic doesn't conduct electricity. You don't need a degree to know plastic isn't a conductor either. Code doesn't even require pvc to be bonded (As far as I know? Maybe in special installations) so again, no degree needed.
- Same guy tried to tell me that there's no change in a cable's susceptibility to interference when you switch from twisted-pair to untwisted. (Wrong, but the explanation is too long to type here)
This is actually neat thanks for sharing. Correct me if I'm wrong but wire is less susceptible to interference if it's twisted right? That's why cate5 and similar cables are twisted. Would stranded wire have the same affect? I'll probably keep this in the back of my head you'll never know if it'll come in handy.

- Someone else tried to tell me that electrons in a wire travel near the speed of light (they actually travel slower than walking speed)
The way it way it was explained to me in physics is that the reason electricity is so fast is because the electrons push each other. Like if a straw was full of marbles and you pushed another in one end a marble would pop out the other end. I dont remember much physics but isnt there scenarios where electrons can be going that fast? He probably just assumed it was always like that.

Most guys don't know this but it doesn't really affect you're performance in the trade. If you thought electrons were the speed of light or slow it doesn't matter because once you turn something on it's live immediately on the other end.
 
#68 ·
This is actually neat thanks for sharing. Correct me if I'm wrong but wire is less susceptible to interference if it's twisted right? That's why cate5 and similar cables are twisted. Would stranded wire have the same affect? I'll probably keep this in the back of my head you'll never know if it'll come in handy.
Twisted is better for avoiding interference.

The electric currents that are doing the interfering create stray magnetic field lines that pass through the wire sideways. If you increase the magnetic field in a closed loop, a current is induced in the loop. All the space between the two wires in the cable effectively forms a loop, so any magnetic fields will tend to create currents. If you twist the wire, then at every twist, the magnetic field faces the "loop" in the opposite direction, creating a current in the opposite direction to the adjacent loop, cancelling it out.
 
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