electrician2.com Blog

Raceway fill Calculator application

2008-12-21T15:11:00.001-09:00

from
electrician2.com
I have started working on a new raceway fill calculator application using Visual Basic that will do all the wire insulations in NEC Chapter 9 Table 5 and cables together with auto, 60 percent, 25 percent, and a custom raceway fill percentage. This is a daunting task, but after doing a similar program in Excel in 1996, then a JavaScript calculator that is now online, the methods are quite clear, but the coding is different. This project is the winter/spring event of the year and today being the shortest day of the year with about 3 hours of sunlight makes for a great time to do this kind of thing.

Created Visual Basic 2008 Voltage Drop application

2008-12-13T23:26:00.003-09:00

from
electrician2.com
I finally got around to downloading Microsoft's Visual Basic express 2008 net version and created a new .exe voltage drop application. I used to program in Basic and then learned JavaScript, HTML, and some Perl, but I have to say, Visual Basic is about the neatest thing since sliced bread. It combines Basic, JavaScript and HTML features, and C# and is about the easiest programming application that I have ever used. Dang, I wished this stuff had been around when I was a kid! It also builds the executable exe file application for deployment from the Internet or from a CD with about 6 clicks of a mouse. I put a link to the vd calculator at both the electrician2.com and electriciancalculators.com sites for a free download. I am already building the full version with tabs so all the calculators can be accessed within one windows application using tabs at the top. This will include a print preview and print to printer buttons. I may even created a help menu. Since it is about 10 below with a foot of snow and dark about 20 hours a day here in North Pole visual basic programming is about the only exciting thing to do. There was a bull moose walking across the lake today with a nice rack. I filmed him from the upstairs balcony. He stopped for a while and looked a me then walked on to the bank and started feeding.

Plastic Conduit now allowed in Class I Division 2 areas

2008-11-27T17:30:00.004-09:00

from
electrician2.com
A new change in the 2008 NEC allows the use of plastic conduit in Class I Division 2 areas. It is at Section 501.10(B)(1)(7). There are some provisions that state PVC and RTRC conduit are only allowed when metallic conduit does not provide enough corrosion protection, the areas have restricted access by the public, and only qualified persons service the installation. I thought plastic coated rigid metal conduit that Robroy and KorKap make provided protection when corrosion is a problem. I inspected an installation where RobRoy was used where a company maintained its vehicles used for pumping acid down oil wells at Prudhoe Bay and it seemed to do the job. However, the plastics people are always trying to expand their domain. In the 1987 or 1990 NEC Metal Clad cable got approved for Class I Division I locations and that was a major blow to the people that sell their labor installing electrical systems in classified areas. Metal Clad cable often called industrial rope reduces the labor bill substantially when wiring in classified areas. But let us not fool ourselves; metal clad cable and plastic conduit are no substitutes for the real McCoy, Rigid Metal Conduit! You can’t climb and walk on metal clad cable like you can rigid conduit and after 20 to 30 years of people working in these industrial facilities the conduit or cable will be walked on, used for climbing, and in some cases for holding ladders and scaffolds . Plastic is worse. Plastic has a problem in cold climates. In 40 to 50 below zero F, plastic becomes very brittle and shatters with a minimum impact. Plastic also expands too much. For a climate with -50 degree F to plus 90 degree F temperatures an expansion joint is required for as little as 10 feet of plastic conduit. Carlon, a manufacturer of plastic conduit, boxes, and fittings said in 1993 that making a plastic product for cold temperatures was not cost effective so in cold climates we are out of luck.

New Article 708 Critical Operations Power Systems

2008-11-25T15:59:00.003-09:00

from
electrician2.com

High Impedance Grounded Neutral Safety Observations

2008-11-25T15:08:00.007-09:00

from
electrician2.com

High Impedance grounded systems as covered in Section 250.36 of the 2008 NEC are common in industrial installations where continuity of service is a priority. A phase to ground fault in these systems does not take the systems down and allows the maintenance personnel time to find the anomaly and correct it. A ground fault alarm may be energized for some time before the fault is cleared. This causes a rather unusual safety hazard while the ground fault is in effect. Since the ground fault places the grounding conductors at the same potential as the phase voltage the voltage between the other phases to ground remains at the phase to phase voltage until the fault is cleared. For older systems this is an added liability to insulations that may have been fine at the phase to ground fault potential but are now subject to a greater potential. It is something like a long endurance low potential high pot test for these conductors. I have seen a 480 volt system in a ground fault status for months at a time. In harsh out of door climates where snow grows to 24 feet in depth it is was not uncommon to wait until spring to clear ground faults. Unfortunately, this very situation existed in a classified area near large crude oil storage tanks that was a Class 1 Division 1 area until a second ground fault occurred on another phase causing a phase to phase bolted fault through the equipment grounding conductor material that existed at this site. Unfortunately, during the initial build of this facility 14 miles of cable tray called rigid cable support system in the 1975 NEC was installed using cables that had no equipment grounding conductors in them. This error was made with not only the 480 volt cables but in the 5 KV and 13.8 Kv cables as well. To compensate for the error the steel metal of the cable tray and conduits were bonded to form a compensatory equipment grounding system which in the case cited here had high enough impedance to prevent the 400 overcurrent device from tripping and caused arcing, sparking and smoke that set off quite a commotion amongst safety personnel. The conclusion to this little story which is true because I was there, is to clear ground faults ASAP especially when 800,000 barrels of highly volatile crude oil is flowing through the facility.

The second safety problem can be seen in Figure 77 below. In this diagram only one high impedance resistor is used and it is at the service. A neutral connection has been made from the grounding resistor XO side to the neutral point at the standby generator. The problem is that when the generator is off line and the service is online there is a potential of phase to neutral voltage between the de-energized generator windings and neutral point to the grounding conductors. A mechanic that may think the generator is off line may well find himself severely shocked if he works on the generator without having the interconnecting neutral disconnected. It might be a good practice to install a switch on the neutral for this purpose so the generator can be serviced without having to disconnect a hot neutral from the generator neutral point. Also signs should be used to warn workers about the possible hot neutral and windings.

Comments about bonding on the supply side of services

2008-11-21T16:40:00.005-09:00

from
electrician2.com
I have been reviewing Section 250.92 of the 2008 NEC. This is one of my favorite sections that covers bonding on the supply side of services. Services are unique in that the supply side is supplied from a utility transformer that has no secondary protection. The only protection, in most cases, are the fuses on the pole for the primary side of the transformer and these are set substantially high at 300 percent in some cases. This means that if there is a ground fault or short circuit on the supply side of the service sufficient current must be conducted to blow the primary fuses and in some cases this never happens. Of course such faults are rare and this design is practical if not practicable. Therefore the bonding on the supply side of services is the most stringent found in the NEC and does not allow the use of double locknuts or sealing locknuts to be the sole method of bonding. Bonding locknuts are acceptable if there are no concentric or eccentric knockout rings left in place. But the best bonding technique is to use a grounding bushing equipped with set screws with a properly sized bonding jumper. The UL standard that addresses the stringent test for these types of bonding fittings is UL 467. I wrote an article that references UL 467 at http://www.electrician2.com/electa1/bond.html if anyone is interested.
When the bonding requirements are delineated in classified areas in Sections 501.30, 502.30, 503.30 and for the installation of intrinsically safe systems in Section 504.60 the requirements in Section 250.92 are referenced as meeting the requirements in these areas. Now one might ask, “ Why on earth does an intrinsically safe circuit raceway require the same bonding as the supply side of service?” Section 504.60 refers to Section 250.100 that sends us right back to Section 250.92(B)(2) through 250.92(B)(4). The reason is as I found out many years ago was that when a fault occurs on a power circuit that may be in the vicinity of the Intrinsically safe circuit the fault current takes many paths and one of those paths may be the raceways used for the intrinsically safe circuits. Additionally, the bonding insures less arcing and sparking from static electricity. It should be noted that the NEC is not written to fully address static electricity or lightning either. For static electricity UL standard NFPA 77-2007 is referenced and NFPA 780-2008, for lightning is referenced in Section 504(B) Fine Print Note 3.

The bonding in a hazardous location must be installed all the way back to the source of supply although the supply may not be in the hazardous location. This requirement is often overlooked at gasoline dispenser installations when the raceways, boxes, gutters, and panelboards that are located in nonhazardous locations between the service and the dispensers are not bonded according to section 250.92. The stringent bonding used for the supply side of services is required all the way from the dispenser to the service for most installations. Since 250.92(B)(4) does not permit the use of standard locknuts or bushings as the sole means for bonding, EMT connectors with standard locknuts do not satisfy the bonding requirements of this section.

New information about Disconnects for Multiwire Branch Circuits and GFCI, AFCI, and ground fault protection

2008-11-17T19:28:00.004-09:00

from electrician2.com
Today I went to a local electrical supply house and bought the square D handle ties for QO circuit breakers labeled QO1HT. The instructions for these handle ties state that they can only be used for two single pole circuit breakers, not three.

I am in process of upgrading the change video for this change in the 2008 NEC in Section 210.4(B) that now requires that multi-wire branch circuit have a simultaneous disconnecting means located at the origin of the circuit.

While discussing the requirements that dwelling unit 15- and 20- ampere 120 volt circuits must all be protected by either a AFCI or a GFCI, the use of handle ties with these types of single pole circuit breakers appears to be forbidden. The GFCI single pole breakers definitely cannot be used for a multiwire branch circuit, but there is no concrete rule that I can find for the AFCI circuit breaker. Using two single pole AFCI circuit breakers with a handle tie for a multi-wire branch circuit is definitely a practice that should be avoided unless there are manufacturer’s instructions that state that it is acceptable.

Another comment brought out something that should be addressed. The statement that all 15- and 20- ampere 120 volt circuits in a dwelling unit must be either AFCI or GFCI protected except for the heating cables used on roofs or permanently installed fire alarm panels needs some qualifications.

The exception for the snow melting or deicing equipment is at 210.8 (A)(3). This exception states: receptacles that are not readily accessible and are supplied by a dedicated branch circuit for electric snow-melting or deicing equipment shall be permitted to be installed in accordance with 426.28. 426.28 states: Equipment Protection. Ground-fault protection of equipment shall be provided for fixed outdoor electric deicing and snow-melting equipment, except for equipment that employs mineral-insulated, metal-sheathed cable embedded in a noncombustible medium.

Therefore this receptacle still requires ground fault protection, but in this case the ground fault protection could be a 30 ma Class B ground fault protector instead of the Class A 5 ma protection.

The other exception for burglar or fire alarms is in 210.8(5) for unfinished basements. The is exception states: A receptacle supplying only a permanently installed fire alarm or burglar alarm system shall not be required to have ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection.

Summarizing, then the only receptacle in a dwelling unit that is not required to be either AFCI or GFCI OR ground fault protected is a receptacle supplying only a permanently installed fire alarm or burglar alarm system located in an unfinished basement.

Update in November

2008-11-13T11:53:00.004-09:00

from electrician2.com
I finally got around to updating this blog. I am not much into blogs, but after 9 months.... I have completed some new courses for Washington satisfying the 24 hour requirement and Alaska for the sixteen hour requirement and am still waiting on the approval from Alaska for the last two courses. I am still wanting to develop a Part 2 2008 NEC Change course especially for Article 600 on signs. I also made some 2008 NEC Change videos for the top 15 significant changes and may add more later. Making videos is now easier than ever because I have at last learned how to do it without wasting a great deal of time.
I remember in 1996 when I made my first computer generated video and put it on a DVD. It took three weeks to make a 5 minute video. The hard drives weren't big enough and the maximum file size back then with Win 95 was about 2 gigabytes. Actually it is fun to do now with the 500 gigabyte hard drives and the 4 gigs of memory and the software that is available, but I wish I had a studio where I could get dressed up and do the podium teleprompter thing.
I have been getting a lot of email about people using my calculators from engineers, etc. One person asked why I don't sell them. That is a good idea, but I would have to rewrite them using something like the Visual Basic developer's kit and then market them. Now they are in JavaScript and that is not a marketable type of software since it is source code dependent with no compiler. By the way, I have two other sites: http://www.alaskavirtualtour.com/ - this is my multi-media play around site, and http://www.electriciancalculators.com/ where all my calculators are also found.
The weather in North Pole is freezing and will remain freezing until the end of April. The snow came in September and will remain until April. It stays at about minus 10 to plus 20. Later we will see 50 or 60 below for sure.

2008 NEC Changes

2008-02-21T20:53:00.002-09:00

from
electrician2.com
I have been working on the 2008 NEC Changes since January and have finished 70 of the 200 that I will do. I placed them in a practice test page and put a link at electrician2.com. This time I am doing the illustrations with the test questions because I think this is a better method to get people to read the changes and not just do the tests alone. I should have this course complete by April 15, 2008 if all goes well.

Removal of multimedia

2008-01-07T12:54:00.000-09:00

from
electrician2.com
I removed the audio and flash video clips and shut down my Playstream account because the traffic was just not there. There was no commercial value in this at all and it was another 3 month/$2000 experiment that failed. Over the last 13 years I have done many such experiments in website design to find what is successful. I am content at providing continuing education for electricians, web page calculators, and maybe some journeyman test prep courses but that is about it. As a one person business there is only so much you can do. It is apparent that concentrating in the few talents I have is where I should stay and that is providing electrical computer programs and continuing education for electricians. This requires a knowledge of graphic design, web page design, JavaScript and Perl programming, and knowledge of electrical theory and the National Electrical Code. That is essentially all I have to offer and at this stage of the game that is enough.

Microsoft new IE 8 comments

2007-12-20T12:46:00.000-09:00

from
electrician2.com
The news is Microsoft is ready to release IE 8 that conforms to international standards and passes the Acid 2 test just like Opera. I am wondering now if all the javascript calculators that run in IE 6 and 7 will run in IE 8. I will wait and see. If necessary I will revise them to run in Netscape. I used to do this but it took about two weeks for a program that took 6 weeks to write.
I have learned there is a plugin for Firefox for the windows media player that should also run in Netscape. It is a never ending task to create late model pages.

Netscape compatability

2007-12-15T19:42:00.000-09:00

from
electrician2.com
Microsoft has stopped supporting Netscape plugins so the windows media player will not run in Netscape. Flash does run in both browsers. The software for windows media player comes with the windows operating system and is basically not an extra cost if you know the coding. However, the Flash software comes from Adobe who has expertly bundled their software into an expensive package making the production of Flash videos and audio juke boxes about a $1000 to $2000 investment in software plus a rather complicated learning curve. About 85 per cent of the users are using the Internet Explorer version 6 or later browsers. JavaScript programs that run in IE also are not always compatible with Netscape. These incompatibility problems are because Microsoft will not adhere to the International Standards but instead goes off on a tangent that puts competing companies out of business. Presently the company that developed the Opera Bowser, a Norwegian company, is suing Microsoft over this very issue.
Perhaps individual web pages are going to be placed in a noncompetive environment using these tactics so that service providers such as Facebook, Ning, Nexo, YouTube, Yahoo, MSN, Google, Metacafe, and AOL can control the Internet. The new Internet that is evolving is the big guys with big sites and lots of ads. What really gets me is their videos do not have a mute button for turning off the advertisements!

Update

2007-11-25T20:30:00.000-09:00

electrician2.com
So much has happened in my web world since the last entry. I bought the Adobe Creative 3 Production Premium suite and wow things started happening. It makes processing and making movies a reality. In 1996 I spend three weeks, yes, three weeks, making a five minute video. The rendering time was 5 hours. I turned it on, went to bed, and got up in the morning to find if my video made it through. Now that time is almost one for one, or five minutes for a five minute video. Anyway I have gotten up to speed and now can concentrate on content instead of the learning curve. Today I made the video page and inserted five flash videos into it. I am going with flash because I can get about one megabyte for one minute of video with sound and with good quality. Flash is also more flexible than windows media files and allows one to build transparent figures talking in a web page as found in the rovion.com site. I have duplicated all they can do there using off the shelf software. I do not know how this can be done with windows media or if it can be done. For an 8 hour course flash videos come to 480 megabytes which is affordable. It is my own style and I like it better than the stuff I see in so many pages. So many web developers are using boilerplates from the software they use that I think they forgot how to really develop from scratch.

Latest news

2007-11-15T11:50:00.000-09:00

from
electrician2.com

Time does pass quickly when you are busy. I have been doing a lot of learning about flash and making those transparent movies you see in web pages. I purchased the Adobe full package and have set up a blue screen and in process of putting those transparencies in power point slides for the 2008 NEC change course. This is a lot of work and I don't know if it is worth it, but it is now an obsession with me and I am doing it.
I started some radio transmission type broadcasts with music and code changes. I will see how they work out with the logs. I think there still is not enough bandwidth liberty for the music and will probably go with just the code changes and leave the music out.
I also have redone the electrical safety film and put it in to a flash video. The new electrical accident film was also done in flash video format and windows media format at the bottom of the page.
Weather is about 10 below zero (F) here in North Pole, Alaska with about 6 inches of snow so far. It has been a very mild winter so far.

Latest news from your host, Gerald Newton

2007-10-14T10:42:00.000-08:00

from
electrician2.com

After doing a lot of research I have reached the conclusion that AFCI's provide protection against electrical fires. They are relative new and tripping problems may occur, but they are incidental compared to the safety these devices provide. When installed in old wiring they have found many problems that could have caused fires.

I have started the 2008 NEC online Change course and a study of cascading style sheets or css.
CSS have been around for some time and I just haven't had time to learn them. Javascript will do many of the same things, but CSS seems to be the way to go. They provide much more control over a webpage than the plain hypertext Markup Language.
I have also done a lot of work with embedding video and sound into PowerPoint html pages using the various object tags. I would like to improve the 2008 online course by using video since most people now have high speed connections. It appears the Internet is finally ready for video. I tried this in 1997 but software, hardware, and the Internet were not ready.

Hot information about AFCI's

2007-09-14T07:19:00.000-08:00

from
electrician2.com

This is a copy of a post from alt.engineering.electrical newsgroup:

The real problem with rushing all of this into the code is this is an evolving technology that still can't detect a series arc (the one from a loose plug, cracked wire and all of those "aluminium" problems). They already have millions of obsolete AFCIs out there mandated in the 1999 code and enforced in the 2002 code that can't detect the bad power cord they scared us with when these were first proposed. The original AFCI only detects shorts in the wall. Finding a short in a power cord is what the "combination" unit is supposed to do. None can find a loose connection or partially broken wire. Then you have a bunch of Square D units that don't work at all and have been recalled but there is no tracking on this recall so most still remain in the customer's home. The technology is so proprietary that the industry can't agree on what a tester should inject in the line to see if the product works. An arcing short that trips a Square D might not be seen by a Cutler Hammer and vice versa. It is clear this is a product that is not ready for the public yet but has been jammed down our throat by NFPA and Cutler Hammer, the inventor and who proposed in in 1997. It is being tested in our homes, by force of law and the customer is paying for it.
by
gfretwell@aol.com

AFCI change in 2008 NEC

2007-09-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

from
electrician2.com
I have just attended the Northwest IAEI Section meeting in Anchorage Alaska where the 2008 NEC and Analysis of Changes were taught. A new rule is requiring that all 120-volt, 15- and 20- ampere branch circuits supplying outlets installed in dwelling unit family rooms, dining rooms, living rooms, parlors, libraries, bedrooms, sunrooms, recreation rooms, closets, hallways, or similar rooms or areas shall be protected by a listed arc-fault circuit interrupter, combination-type , installed to provide protection for the branch circuit. The combination-type means that the AFCI provides series and parallel circuit protection.
Also, the AFCI provides protection from bad arcs that cause fires but does not provide GFCI protection because the ground fault tip is set at 50 ma.
Now what came up with a Code making panel member during break was does anyone make a AFCI/GFCI that provides both the 5 ma GF protection and the AFCI protection and if they do, why not just go the whole course and require both?
It turns out that Cutler Hammer does make such a device, but Square D does not.
So now what should we do? Wait for the 2011 NEC or jump the gun and put these Cutler Hammer AFCI/GFCI devices in now?

Changes that need to be made for the next 2011 NEC

2007-09-13T12:53:00.000-08:00

from
electrician2.com
Hopefully, someone or I will get these in by November of 2008 for the 2011 NEC.

1. Motors for R/V's need to have overload protection and disconnects regardless of voltage. Presently these RV electrical systems' low voltage circuits escape the NEC by being part of the automobile electrical system. Motors used for tip outs are now burning up at a rapid rate and sometimes they take the wiring harness with them. Something needs to be done.

2. R/V manufacturers should be required to provide an electrical diagram with the R/V's. Presently they are not all doing this and it is a nightmare to try to work on these electrical systems.

3. Greenhouses. Where receptacles are used in green houses to provide power for auxiliary equipment they should be protected by a Class a GFCI. I have watched at least one worker working on a wet floor with a frayed extension cord dragging in water as they run a vacuum cleaner in a greenhouse. This needs to be addressed.

4. Cathodic Protection. Impressed current cathodic protection systems are not included in the NEC. The Canadian Electrical Code does include them. These systems are used extensively to protect oil industry tanks and pipelines. The conductors are often mistaken as grounding conductors and vice versa. Something needs to be done.

5. Natural Hot Springs. What are they and what do they become when modified with liners, pumps, and electrical lights. I know of at least one such spring that is an accident waiting to happen. We have all heard of swimming pools in Mexico and Puerto Rico electrocuting several swimmers at once. Let us hope this doesn't happen in Alaska at Chena Hot Springs.

2007-09-12T20:54:00.000-08:00

from
electrician2.com

I finally attended an IAEI Northwest Section Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska after 14 years. This one was a big one and the NFPA hurried their publishing date so the 2008 NEC would be there and for sale. The IAEI also had the Analysis of Changes for sale and given out to paying attendees. We had one half day on the CFR’s and application of NEC70E for employee safe work practices and two days of NEC changes taught by excellent instructors.
Now let’s get real. The seminar cost $340 plus travel and plus housing plus lost wages. Attendees could stay at the Hilton where the seminar took place for $150 a night. That would be 5 nights or $750. Then there is travel to and from Anchorage for those that do not live there. For some that comes to about $400 unless you bring your wife. So now we are up to $340+$750+$400 or $1490. Add to this your shopping and buying a few IAEI books and we are up to about $2000. Of course if you are working add lost wages so we now have about 3 grand into a sixteen hour code class for the 2008 NEC.
This is why I embrace the Internet online learning courses. They simply are the best and the most practical for most of us.
There were several code making panel members at this meeting and that was an enlightenment. I heard such remarks from them as we didn’t have time to really work this change out so we did the best we could and put in what we had, it will need further work. I was appalled. When I think about the number of inspectors and electricians that have put their jobs on the line for this NEC rule or that, and when you learn how casual the code panel members talk about the new rules, I wonder if they realize the consequences of their actions. I for one will never take the NEC to be the ultimate word as I once did. Common sense has to be applied. I have seen inpectors make a contractor tear out and completely rlocate a panelboard over a one inch clearance violation. That is simply wrong! On big projects for big companies I have seen inspectors work relentlessly to enforce the rules in the NEC to the "T" but after a company gets into serious trouble, who do they hire to supersede and intimidate the very inspector that tried to enforce the rules, no one but a distinguished Code Making panel member who comes in for $1200 and day plus per diem and who for that price tries to put the "bad" inspectors in place. I have been there and witnessed the events. That is simply wrong too. What is needed is a code of conduct for inspectors so they learn that the NEC is approximately correct, and in every case of enforcement a practical tolerance must be applied.

Improvements made to Motor Circuit Calculator

2007-02-13T12:07:00.000-09:00

I made some improvements in the checking of inputs to reply with alert messages. The maximum overcurrent device is 6000 amperes by 240.6(A) but for some larger motors this value is exceeded. I also dressed up the motor nameplate input to test for illegal variables and give alerts. While testing the outputs against the Ulgy's charts on pages 40 and 41 for three phase motors I found several errors in Ugly's. The conductor size for a 100 hp 460 volt motor should be 2/0 in place of 1/0. Also the conductor sizes in Ugly's are set for a No. 12 minimum while a No. 14 is sufficient in many cases. The small conductor size rules in 240.4(D) of the NEC do not apply to motor circuits. Also the Ugly's circuit breaker sizes do not follow the NEC rules for inverse time ciruit breakers. I do not know the rules they follow if there are any.

from
electrician2.com

Motor circuit Calculator quality check

2007-02-10T11:28:00.000-09:00

I have begun a thorough quality check of the motor circuit calculator. First I am checking all the NEC table entries in the program to make sure they are correct. Next I am creating an Excel Spreadsheet that duplicates many of the critical calculations. Then I plan to check the calculator against the spreadsheet. This project will take several weeks. Quality control is a major time consuming process with computer programs and is probably why so many programs require that you sign a no fault agreement before using them. Quality control and quality assurance are obiviously major expenses for large software corporations, but give the small guy an advantage. Small guys can always call it a "beta copy" and hope for the best.
from
electrician2.com

Range Calculator now Online

2007-01-14T19:56:00.000-09:00

It is 167K and about 4000 lines of code and appears to do the job of finding demand loads for up to 1000 ranges and more. It was a humdinger to write, but after breaking it down into doing just what the NEC does and not trying to make an all in one program it became easier. It has 9 examples taken from books, NEC, and some of my own. It is under the calculator menu or go to:
http://www.electrician2.com/calculators/rangecal_REV1.html

from
electrician2.com

Range Calculator status report

2007-01-08T12:46:00.000-09:00

I am continuing work on this calculator. There appears to be some holes in the NEC application rules for Table 220.55. For instance, what do we do with ranges, cooktops, and ovens when they are supplied by the same feeder or service and they vary in values from about 3 KW to 27 KW of unequal ratings? This project is attempting to find the feeder or service load for up to 1000 ranges, ovens, and cooktops including any combination of these for ratings of 1 3/4 KW to 27 KW allowing up to 10 unequal ratings. The input is by mouse selections using 0.1 increment values for KW. A separate calculator is being created for branch circuits.

from
electrician2.com

Starting another calculator for ranges

2006-12-31T13:02:00.000-09:00

I have begun the tasks of making sense out of the rules for ranges in Section 220.55 and Table 220.55. Again, 95 per cent of the time the rules are simple, but a computer program is suppose to be able to do all the problems. For instance how about 25 each 15 kw ranges, 6 stove tops at 3 kw, 10 ovens at 5 kw and 45 ranges at 12 kw, 14 ranges at 6 kw and one range at 20 kw? Now we are talking about some lines of code.

from
electrician2.com

Bug in Online Dwelling Unit Calculator at electricalknowledge.com

2006-12-25T15:54:00.000-09:00

I went to the electricalknowledge.com "single family dwelling Calculator" and tried it with the NEC Annex D example D1(A) and found it has an error in it. The name alone should tell a person an amateur wrote the program. It should be dwelling UNIT calculator. Anyway, for the 70 per cent calculation for the range neutral load they use 12 KW instead of the demand load of 8 KW. You would think that these people would at least try the examples to debug their programs. This tells me that they aren't good code people, but probably are programmers trying to do code programs.
Merry Christmas!
from
electrician2.com

Motor Branch Circuit Calculator

2006-12-25T15:05:00.000-09:00

Motor Branch Circuit Calculator
Branch Circuit Conductor Sizing Calculator
Voltage Drop Calculator
Conduit Fill Calculator
Cable Tray Pulling Tension Calculator
Electrical Calculator
Ohms Law Calculator
Power Calculator
All at:
electrician2.com
under the calculator menu
or try:
Calculators

from
electrician2.com

Thoughts about some really great electricians

2006-12-23T02:07:00.000-09:00

I wonder where they are tonight. Duke Kennedy, Adolph Ike, Pat Harrington, and Gene Gilbert. These weren't just electricians they were giants in the trade. They were the geniuses that I have met over the years, real champion mechanics. I wish we had a club where we could meet, but it is not that way. Just like the military, we all met and did our job and then went our ways, and now they have retired in different parts of the country. I guess I miss the camaraderie, the coffee break shacks and all the bull we talked about mainly politics, sex, and unions. I am into my second month of retirement and I must say it is an adjustment. I miss working, to be honest.

A day of research

2006-12-22T16:10:00.000-09:00

I spent the day doing research. I searched and searched at Google. I was surprised that a search for electrician.com comes up with electrician2.com. What's up with these Google guys? As a matter of fact a search for electrician does not come up with electirican.com at all! It was in the top two links for several years. Evidently, Google is on to the Click for Cash marketers and is weeding them out, since electrician.com that I sold is now a click for cash site. My search for electrician2.com now has 2600 pages and is a rising star. It should be with a $100,000 worth of online free calculators readily available. I sure wish I could have had those calculators at my disposal when I was a foreman on several jobs. I had to do all that math by hand and never knew if it was right or wrong. Nothing like being out in a remote part of Alaska in the middle of winter in the cold and blowing snow and having to figure out what size wire to use then drive to a snow banked dock and seeing if you can find it or a substitute. Those were the days, my friends, those were the days. Now the Internet is availble at almost every job shack in Alaska!

Today is the shortest day of the year in North Pole

2006-12-21T22:12:00.000-09:00

It was dark for most of the day and -21 degrees F. I got the Christmas and New Yearâ€™s cards online and running. Now I need to put the links in at the main page. I am listening to the music juke box at the Christmas card as I type. I sure like that Yanni guy. His music is comforting especially when it is so cold and dark out. I think the dogs like him, too. Other than that it has been a wasted day. I did absolutely nothing of value. Well not quite, the car wouldn't start this AM and I spent about an hour looking for the battery charger. So I hooked up the space heater and the battery charger and waited an hour and it started. The truck is in the repair shop because the heater fan quit two days ago. And it is only 20 below! I don't know what is going to happen if it gets 50 below. Cold weather takes a lot out of people and equipment. Day after day, cold and dark. Why I stay in this forsaken place is beyond me. Oh yes, my parents are buried here, and everyone I know in the world lives here. It is home for me; anyway it is the only home I know. I guess it is like that for lots of people. When you drive through some small town and wonder what keeps it going, I suppose just being a home is a lot of it.

New site for calculators

2006-12-20T18:21:00.000-09:00

I have started a new site at http://www.electriciancalculators.com that is already the premiere site for free online electrician calculators. Why premiere? Because no one else is doing it and I was first. My simple voltage drop calculator that I wrote years ago and placed at my old site electrician.com is all over the Internet because I allowed persons to use it. Well they used it and forgot where it came from. I can look at the source code at so many sites and see that they did not even bother to change the variable names. Talk about plagiarism! After writing my article on the mathematics of the offset bend and developing a calculator using my original equations, I started getting email from the Palm guys wanting to sell me their new calculator that allows you to pre cut pipe to 1/16 of an inch and do offset bends and come out right. They practically stole my words word for word. They seem to follow me around and steal my ideas and programs. Anyway, the new site is in the works and has as an index page with a fairly detailed description of the programs and links to them. I need to get back to writing programs and checking out the motor branch circuit program more. These programs do hundreds of thousands of combinations and it takes a lot of time to gain confidence that they work right all the time. I think I will do a load calc program for a single family residence, motor compressor, transformer, RV Park, Mobile Home Park, or welder program next. I wrote an RV Park program that did the sectionalized voltage drop many years ago in MBasic. I wish Webpage calculators could be written in Mbasic, but Mbasic does not work well with forms so I guess I am stuck with JavaScript. I like JavaScript because it so portable and readily available. The Internet changes so fast that by the time you get a program out on a CD or marketed online, it is almost obsolete. The Internet is humming faster and faster and JavaScript allows me to keep up with the hum.

electrical calculators for electricians

2006-12-14T19:33:00.000-09:00

http://www.electrician2.com now has 24 free online electrical calculators for conduit fill, voltage drop, power, ohm's law, Table 310.16 for wire size, OCPD, and continuous and noncontinuous loads, and parallel conductors and a motor circuit calculator. 23 of these calculators are written in JavScript and one is in Excel. The 2005 NEC Code is followed with these calculators.

Parallel Conductor Calculator uploaded

2006-12-13T18:37:00.000-09:00

I finished the Table 310.16 parallel conductor calculator. It is full of suprises. I also wrote another voltage drop calculator that finds the maximum distance for a given conductor size, per cent voltage drop, and load.

Starting work on Parallel Conductor Calculator

2006-12-10T13:56:00.000-09:00

I have begun work on a calculator that finds the amperage, OCPD, equipment grounding conductor size and voltage drop for parallel conductors No. 1/0 AWG and larger. I plan to use this calculator to build a Table for conductor sizes and OCPD's to 2000 amperes that will include the raceway sizes. Of course of even more interest is how cost effective are the different parallel configurations. I have always wanted to know which pipe and parallel configuration for a fixed load is the least expensive and would like to see a comparison chart. I may take it that far. This would require using the Means estimating book to find the labor costs, and of course the material costs vary every day with the price of copper fluctuating like it does.

T310.16 Calculator checked against WireGuide 2005

2006-12-04T13:09:00.000-09:00

WireGuide 2005 sells for $199 and is sold by Vision Infosoft. I found several problems with their program.
I downloaded the trial version to check it out against my own program written in JavaScript.
I found these problems so far.

WireGuide 2005 Service/Feeder Calculations

1. 20 ampere and 9 conductors input lists No. 12, rated 14 amperes on 20 ampere OCPD
2. 25 ampere and 3 conductors input lists No. 12, rated 25 amperes on 25 ampere OCPD (No. 12 is not allowed on a 25 ampere OCPD without exceptions)
3. 31 ampere and 6 conductors input lists No. 10 rated 24 amperes on 35 ampere OCPD
4. Only 75 degree C. insulation and terminal temperatures supported. (derating using 90 degree insulation ampacities is not allowed but is a common practice)
5. No provisions for continuous load and noncontinuous load inputs.
6. Only copper donductors are supported.

In my opinion, WireGuide 2005 is not NEC compliant and a warning should be attached to let users know.

Additions to Table 310.16 Calculator

2006-11-28T11:46:00.000-09:00

I added equipment grounding conductor size selection and CheckNum for the distance input in the Voltage Drop part. The CheckNum function checks to make sure the typed in entries are positive real numbers without commas, negatives, etc. This is about it for this calculator. I am going to obfuscate the code so the size will be decreased by about 70 per cent. This will allow a faster download. It has taken a long time to program Table 310.16 and many of the rules. I first did this using Excel in 1996. It took six weeks working about 12 hours a day. Actually I started attempting to do this in 1982 using an Hp67 and again in 1985 using a Kaypro 10 using MBASIC, but neither machine had enough memory. Fortunately after writing the Excel code in 1996 I wrote a description of how I did it using four OCPD selections. It is a real juggling act to get all the numbers to come out right after changing so many variables and using so many less than and greater than choices.

Table 310.16 Calculator Revised again

2006-11-26T16:21:00.000-09:00

After the nth time at revising this calculator I must have at least 6 months into writing this thing counting my earlier attempts at the Excel calculator in 1996. I found another bug, and I think this was the last one. A derating factor was being used in the wrong way giving some slight errors and over sizing the conductors, but now it is corrected and the answers come out right for every problem I can find for it including the NEC Handbook, the American Electrician's handbook, and some of the Mike Holt online examples. Let me tell you this was no easy task writing this one. I guess all the features add up with all the combinations and all. Also, the Tables and rules in the NEC for smaller wire sizes make it a real bugger. I seriously doubt that 95 per cent of the electricians and engineers use all these rules correctly. How could they when it takes six months to put them into code. I used the same method as described in one of my archived articles using four overcurrent device selections.

electrician2.com

2006-11-26T16:17:00.000-09:00

electrician2.com

Working on Calculators

2006-11-12T19:21:00.000-09:00

I have again begun working on the Table 310.16 and motor circuit calculators. They are still in the beta stage meaning that there may be bugs yet to be fixed and of course the checksum type things like making sure entries are numeric, within range, and in some case making sure the entries are made are needed. I was going to obfuscate the source code using a program, but after accidentally doing this to a program where I did not save the original code I don't think I will bother. I know some programmers for the Palm have used my code to develop their programs and that my code is readily copied from the JavaScript but such is life.

Anyway, the snow has come, but only a few inches. The temperatures stay around -5 degrees F and the days keep getting shorter and shorter by about 6 minutes a day.

An Interesting Summer

2006-08-28T21:29:00.000-08:00

It has been a lousy summer in North Pole. I think we had three really warm days. The wasps, yellow jackets, and hornets have been in a plague state. I have done a lot of work on the house - building a foundation using a Kabota trackor with a front loader and back hoe. I hired some people and had a lot of problems with them. I never realized there were so many people with marriage, money, and alcohol problems. I am getting back to the computer and preparing to do some really serious programming this fall. I also want to complete preparing a grounding course and the book.

Weather too good for computer work

2006-04-16T18:53:00.000-08:00

After 8 months of winter the weather is beginning to break. The snow is actually melting. It is very difficult to stay in doors after such a long winter. However, I have three programs that need finalized and hope to get with it before summer comes. There is no place like Alaska in the summer. There is so much to see that has not been developed. A person can walk for miles and not see any evidence of civilization. It is truly America's last frontier.

The sale went through

2006-04-04T19:38:00.000-08:00

electrician.com now belongs to anything.com. I have moved all the pages from electrician.com to http://www.electrician2.com They paid a good price for the domain anme and the money is in the bank. I hope them the best. If any of you are interested Ari Goldberger, the attorney that acted as the escrow agent, is trustworthy, reliable, and honest. His site is http://www.esqwire.com and I recommend him for all domain name legal matters and sales. He is also a contributing editor to the online domain name journal, http://www.dnjournal.com

Now I will be able to get back to my three Table 310.16 and motor circuit calculators and maybe, just maybe get them finished before the snow melts. The snow is melting fast here and spring is on its way.

Even further problems with reading Table 310.16, etc

2006-03-27T11:34:00.000-09:00

I just purchased the McGraw Hill National Electrical Code Handbook for the 2005 NEC at our very fine brand spanking new Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Fairbanks, Alaska.
I have been reading and using McPartland's writings for years so I consider this a reliable source. There is much information on derating and using the ampacity tables in this handbook including some history on the subject. It is necessary to study this material in detail and compare it to the NEC handbook and find a solution as to exactly how ampacity and derating shall be applied consistently in a computer program. Evidently, this subject is one of varying opinions and inexact decision making. The question is, of course, how do electricians read this material and apply it on the job? I do believe this whole subject should be studied by a NFPA task force and simplified for real world applications. In my humble opinion, the code rules on this subject are entirely too complicated for wireman to apply in the field.

On the other hand, I am selling electrician.com domain name only and have moved everything of value for the continuing education courses, articles, calculators. etc to electrician2.com and that will be my new homepage location.

Table 310.16 and Motor Circuit Calculators Update

2006-03-25T09:37:00.000-09:00

I have removed the links to these calculators until I can fine tune them. I have found that the NEC Handbook is arbitrary for some calculations and for determining equipment grounding conductor sizing. At least, that is what it appears to me. Until I can get a determination on just what the NEC people are trying to say, I think I will hold off on finishing the calculators. It appears that some people write one part of the NEC and others write other parts and they are not always in harmony. Of course, how dare I make such a statement as to question the integrity or validity of the almighty NEC, but it is so! It may be that the NEC rules have never been programmed to such length as to require a concrete and thorough application of semantics, syntax, and logic.

Also, I am selling electrician.com and will be involved in some new endeavors for a while. I have already moved all the pages to electrican2.com from electrician.com and most of the test scoring, etc. has been done at the electrician2.com server for some time anyway. I still need to go through and make sure all the links that refer to electrician.com are removed. The site is quite large about 65 megabytes and I think there are somewhere around 58,000 files. So removing all the electrician.com from electrician2.com may take some time.

On the back burner is completing the calculators and publishing a book titled computer applications for electricians where I plan to publish the source code, flow charts, and detailed information and instructions with a CD containing about 25 or 30 computer programs that can be used by electricians and engineers in the field. Part of my reason for selling electrician.com is to fund this effort.

Equipment Grounding Conductor Sizing Problem

2006-03-24T00:05:00.000-09:00

I tried to put the equipment grounding conductor size in two of the calculators and that has opened a whole bottle of worms. The problem is the Code requires that the grounding conductor be resized in proportion to the resizing of the ungrounded conductors. This is not such a great problem for voltage drop and I added that to the 310.16 read calculator. The problem is for derating of conductors. This requires that a baseline be established for determining the original size for the equipment grounding conductors. The only baseline I can find is to use 60 degree ampacity for a load of 100 amperes or less and 75 degree ampacity for over 100 amperes 110.14. So each problem has to first determine what the OCPD would be for these temperatures and ampacities then find the correct initial size for the equipment grounding conductor. Then a proportionate determination has to be made for any increase in size of the ungrounded conductor because of derating and voltage drop. The total sum of programming for this just about doubles the program size when adding equipment grounding conductors. Furthermore, for No. 12 and 10 AWG sizes the calculations make the equipment grounding conductor size the same as the ungrounded conductor size. This becomes almost amusing. For instance for a total derating factor of 0.14 there would be a 4/0 equipment grounding conductor for 4/0 ungrounded conductors on a 30 ampere circuit breaker. This just does not seem right. Anyway, I am working on this additional programming for the calculators. Motor circuits are even more interesting.

New Table 310.16 Read, OCPD, and VD Calculator

2006-03-18T12:49:00.000-09:00

I finished the final version of this calculator this AM. It lets the user select the wire size, insulation, ambient temp, number of conductors in a raceway or cable, and other special parameters. It then finds the derated ampacity, maximum overcurrent protective device, and sends the output to the voltage drop calculator. It is for persons that don't know the load yet, which is the case many times. It seems to check out ok, but as usual, there are more combinations to check.

Today the sun shined for over 12 hours here for the first time this year, and breakup is about 3 weeks away. I can't wait for the snow to melt after 6 months of it. I am getting anxious to do some hiking in the wilds of Alaska. I want to go down by the Alaska Range and hike to the very top of one of those mountains by Isabel Pass then sit there and take a long rest. There is nothing like reaching the top of a mountain after about 5 hours of hiking. Alaska has many mountains to climb.

More work on the Motor Circuit Calculator

2006-03-14T19:27:00.000-09:00

I spend the day adding new features and debugging. The results now provide the overload sizes and equipment grounding conductor size. A bug where the calculator rounded up instead of down for high value branch circuit and ground fault protective devices was fixed. I also, provided code so that when the nameplate full load current is entered that value is transferred to the voltage drop calculator instead of using the full load current from the tables. I placed the new version online and will continue trying to find bugs, and other anomalies. This calculator now reads six tables and follows the NEC as far as I know how. It appears to find all the correct values when doing text book and handbook examples. But it does a lot of combinations, more than I care to ever try, but I will try to keep testing it.

More work needed for Motor Circuit Calculator

2006-03-13T23:37:00.000-09:00

After reviewing the issues I must criticize my calculator. It does not give enough information. It should also provide the disconnect, equipment grounding conductor, raceway, and controller sizes. Also a summary with a graphic is needed to show the various components and sizes for a motor circuit. If only one size conductor were used for each motor this would be a simple technique of making up a table and then extracting the information. However, since the calculator determines size of conductors based on several variables the calculation method must be used. This can become very involved since the raceway fill calculator alone is 85k in length. So I may leave out the raceway size and make that another operation altogether. I spent most of the day again adding features to the calculator. Today I added the maximum allowable branch circuit ground fault and short circuit device sizes.

Motor Circuit Conductor and voltage drop Calculator uploaded

2006-03-13T05:42:00.000-09:00

The new calculator for motor circuits finds the size of conductor and size of short circuit and ground fault protective devices. It does this for AC motors under 600 volts single phase and three phases as given in Tables 430.148 and 430.150. The duty cycle Table 430.22(e) is also included. Derating for ambient temperature and more than three current carrying conductors is also included. I have checked out many combinations of problems and there seems to be no bugs. I did notice that for small wire sizes of No. 14 copper, No. 12 and No. 10 copper and aluminum the limitations placed by the note at the bottom of Table 310.16 (Section 240.4(D) do not apply. This allows a higher ampacity to be used for these wire sizes. I plan to expand the results to include size of disconnect, overload devices, and controller.

The next project is to design a calculator to do a reverse Table 310.16 lookup. This program will find the ampacity after the user selects conductor size, insulation temperature, and other conditions.

New motor circuit calculator

2006-03-10T20:41:00.000-09:00

I have begun work on a motor circuit calculator for under 600 volts and for up to 500 horsepower for one and three phase. This calculator uses features from the Table 310.16, OCPD, and voltage drop calculator expanded to find the nontime delay fuse, dual element time delay fuse, instantaneous trip circuit breaker, and inverse time trip circuit breaker sizes. It uses data from Tables 40.248, 430.250 and 430.52. I may add duty cycle from table 430.22(E), disconnect size, and motor controller size. I just started today and was surprised how fast it is coming together. After this one, I think I will do a motor compressor calculator.

On electricians and computers

2006-03-04T22:22:00.000-09:00

I am sure not everyone shares my views about electricians and computers. Many contractors consider electricians specialized laborers that need few if any intellectual skills or what we call cognizant learning. I recall a contractor telling me that all he wanted was electricians that could bend and install pipe. He didn't care if they knew ohms law or how to use a meter, as long as they could run pipe and do a days work. That is all he cared about. However, this same contractor's wife ran the office for him using a computer. She did the payroll, the taxes, the billing, money in, money out, and all of it. The contractor himself could hardly turn the computer on! By the way this contractor is now retired and collects old automobiles for a hobby. He lives in Nome, Alaska, the last I knew.

Now about my views. I recently purchased two current college Calculus textbooks. Both contain CD's and both incorporate the use of computers and software such as Mathematica and Maple into the text assignments. The modern process is to use computers as a tool to increase understanding, learning, and perceptual intuition. A computer can in seconds graph a complex function and repeat the same process over and over with new inputs so a student can learn faster and better. I believe computers can be used the same way for electricians. The Table 310.16 calculator, for instance, can be used to better understand how wire size, derating, and overcurrent protection are related by speeding up the process so one can immediately see accurate results with new inputs.

I think this makes better electricians. It also enlightens us and allows us the opportunity to integrate computers into some of our tasks. I believe the NFPA should set up a department that accepts and evaluates, and endorses software that makes using the Code easier and faster.

It is in this respect that I am creating my next online continuing education course on computer applications for electricians.

Final edits to the Table 310.16 Calculator

2006-03-03T11:57:00.000-09:00

This AM I addressed some of the out of range problems and the stop program function. I also, did final edits on the AC and MC Cable special features. I haven't put it online yet, but it looks like I have reached the final version. I will again attempt to get the program to do something abnormal and test it thoroughly before uploading it. That should happen within the next few days.

Type AC and MC Cable exception added to Table 310.16 Calculator

2006-03-02T20:18:00.000-09:00

I spent most of the day adding Section 310.15(B)(2)(a) Exception No. 5 to the calculator program. This is where the special 60 per cent derating applies to MC and AC cables. Ambient derating still applies but the over three current carrying conductor derating does not apply as long as there are less than 20 current carrying conductors and each cable has no more than 3 current carrying conductors. There is one problem, though. The Code does not specify 90 degree insulation for the Type MC cable conductors but does so for the Type AC conductors.

Here is the exception:
310.15(B)(2)(a)
Exception No. 5: Adjustment factors shall not apply to
Type AC cable or to Type MC cable without an overall
outer jacket under the following conditions:
(1) Each cable has not more than three current-carrying
conductors.
(2) The conductors are 12 AWG copper.
(3) Not more than 20 current-carrying conductors are
bundled, stacked, or supported on â€śbridle rings.â€ť
A 60 percent adjustment factor shall be applied where the
current-carrying conductors in these cables that are
stacked or bundled longer than 600 mm (24 in.) without
maintaining spacing exceeds 20.

Another day at computers, pipe tobacco, grinding coffee, and Calculus

2006-03-01T13:40:00.000-09:00

I started the day by adding some code to the Table 310.16 Calculator. It didnâ€™t have any check entry code and sure as anything some one will raise holy cain if they enter negative amperes and come up with an answer. So I added some dumb and dumber code to make sure negative numbers and letters cannot be entered. There are also some code that checks to make sure the maximum ampacities given in Table 310.16 are not exceeded. But I am sure there are other places where some form of concoction of entry will produce some ridiculous output that I have not found. So be it.

So what about the pipe smoking? I quit smoking pipes over 20 years ago, but have always had an affinity for the smell of good pipe tobacco. I stopped by our one and only genuine pipe and tobacco shop in Fairbanks owned by Dave Shaw and bought a small pipe and some of his famous Black Bear tobacco mix and some Black Vanilla mix. I also ordered a couple of Kirsten pipes from the shop in Seattle. I bought my first Kirsten pipe in about 1970 while working at Singer Kearfott in Little Falls, New Jersey when I was working my way through college. I was going to teach math after college, but after finding out I was making more than my professors on my night job, I just kept on going for the electrical career. Electrical covers a wide range of work, too say the least, and the pay is usually very good. I suppose I was just not dedicated enough to be a teacher or mathematician. Of course, graduating college with a wife and two kids had a lot to do with it. It was always a balancing act, and the electrical with the money won. Also, in general, mathematicians have always been as poor as church mice.

Now, about the Calculus. I studied Calculus over 30 years ago, but have always wanted to study it more. So I ordered Thomas' Calculus over the Internet thinking I would get the same book we used 30 years ago. Well, things certainly have changed. This new book incorporates computers, graphing calculators, and Mathematica and Maple software. Just to add some more variety, I also purchased Stewartâ€™s Calculus from the University of Alaska Bookstore. I think I would just love to go back to school at the University of Washington and study just one subject - Math. I really would, but probably won't. The Stewart book has a online calculus course that comes with it. The book cost $156.00 so I guess I was paying for the course, too. It will be interesting to see how they put together an online course.

Now, about the coffee. I bought an individual coffee bean grinder at Fred Meyers and a bag of Star Buckâ€™s coffee beans. Talk about coffee, now that is what I call superb coffee. There is nothing like freshly ground coffee beans for making fresh coffee, and a pipe full of black vanilla!

Just one more major revision to the Table 310.16 Calculator

2006-02-27T16:28:00.000-09:00

I removed the option choices and went with a conservative selection. If the terminal temperature is less than the insulation temperature then the overcurrent protective device (more than likely a circuit breaker) is selected based on the terminal temperature. The next higher or equal standard size device per Section 240.4(D) is selected unless the circuit supplies multiple receptacles. In this case the next lower or equal device is selected based on the terminal ampacity. The terminal ampacity is determined by the size of the conductor and the terminal temperature rating. This is now in the program. The NEC does not address this method explicitly but it is implied in several examples in the NEC handbook. Basically it says if the terminal temperature is lower than the insulation temperature treat the conductor as if it has the lower temperature rating, but derating can still be done with the ampacity at the higher conductor temperature as long as the conductor is not used at a greater (derated) ampacity than the terminal ampacity. That is what the calculator program is supposed to do, if it all works right. Every problem I have done with the program so far does this correctly.

On a lighter side, I just returned from taking the dog for a walk when not less than 300 feet from the house we jumped two moose. It has snowed about six inches in the last two days. The 800 foot driveway is now too deep for the car so we fired up the four wheel drive truck and made us a road. I havenâ€™t had the drive way plowed all winter and I think I will keep on going this way. All the people that visit us have four wheel drive so that should not be a problem, but the fuel truck may have one. We are down to 8 inches of fuel in the tank. I went online and found a fuel tank calculator for free. You just enter the size of your tank and the inches of fuel and it gives you the gallons. We have about 44 gallons that should last another week before we call for fuel. I am going to put a wood stove in here next summer and maybe just forget about oil.

Table 310.16 Wire Size, OCPD, and voltage drop Calculator is now online

2006-02-25T20:43:00.000-09:00

At last the calculator is online at http://www.electrician.com and http://www.electrician2.com. It is only 35k in length and the source code is organized and maintainable (the online version has been thoroughly obfuscated.) The Excel Table 310.16 program was a maze that I couldn't decipher myself. Also it would not do aluminum and had a few bugs where it oversized the wire. I think this new JavaScript online program is a dandy, but we shall see. If any of you find bugs please let me know.

I have begun flow charting the program for a continuing education course and preparing a few NEC change proposals related to some discoveries. You are suppose to flow chart first, but I always do it backwards. How do you know what the program is supposed to do unless you write it? I tried four different programs before I found the correct solution. The first one was a monster and went to 2000 lines before I decided to scrap it entirely, but not after spending a week trying to get the bugs out. Of course I am not a professional programmer or I would probably be better at this. If programming is like everything else it takes five years to reach journeyman level. I only have about two years worth, I suppose. Anyway, it has been fun, and of course I owe the people that buy my continuing education courses gratitude, or else I would be out on some job probably living in a camp working 7-10's and only eating, sleeping, and doing electrical construction work. That is about all you do when on one of those remote camp jobs like I have worked so many times.

Latest on the Wire Size, OCPD, and Voltage Drop Calculator

2006-02-23T21:55:00.000-09:00

The program is humming. It is like a high speed race car. The code that was about 150k in length is now about 35k and the program is doing what it is supposed to do and it does it well. I just keep doing problem after problem trying to get it to fail. It does copper and aluminum, ambient and fill derating, Table 210.24, Section 240.4(D), 60, 75, and 90 degrees C insulations and terminal temperatures, nipples, receptacle circuits, continuous and non continuous loads, and it gives you the minimum and maximum over current protection and wire size. The output is transferred to a voltage drop calculator that requires the voltage and phase and one way circuit length to calculate the voltage drop. You can also upsize the wire size by clicking a button to decrease the voltage drop or click another button to go back to the original size.

I bought an obfuscating program to reduce the size of the JavaScript program even further and to make the program almost undecodeable. I also built in the copyright information so if it is removed the program will not run. I have had too much of my code stolen!

Work on the Wire Size and Voltage Drop Calculator

2006-02-23T15:09:00.000-09:00

Work is just about complete. I a wrote three unsuccessful programs before I finally decided that I should go back and look at the Excel Spreadsheet algorithm that I wrote 10 years ago this fall. Fortunately after an intensive six weeks of writing the Excel program I wrote down how the program worked. It is an interesting algorithm that actually solves a very complex problem of linear programming. For those of you that did not have the good fortune of studying mathematics for 8 years and living in the poor house like I did, linear programming in this case is the solution to many greater than, less than, and/or equal to lines on graphs. In the case of using the NEC Tables and rules these lines are not continuous and have many breaking points for exceptions. It is truly an interesting problem that requires a very complicated analysis. I now have over four weeks time in writing this program using JavaScript and six weeks creating the Excel spreadsheet in 1996.

Work continues on the Table 310.16 and voltage drop calculator

2006-02-20T22:33:00.000-09:00

I have been working about 14 hours a day debugging and testing this program. The special limitations required by the 15, 20 and 30 ampere circuits are taking much time.
I plan to develop my next course following completion of this program. I want to develop a computer applications course for electricians.

Wire Size, OCPD, and Voltage Drop Calculator

2006-02-16T14:44:00.000-09:00

The program is complete. The final dress and check out is in process. It is a difficult task to test all combinations that a large program does. This program is now 87K or about 2,000 lines of code and does 10,080 combinations of problems. So how does one check out all combinations? That is why software publishers issue beta versions in an attempt to get users to find any bugs. Also, I am looking into scrambling the JavaScript source code to keep other software publishers from stealing it. I have invested a total of about 10 weeks in writing this program since it is a derivative of the Excel program written in the late 1990's. As I search the web for various electrical calculators I keep finding my JavaScript code at many other sites, along with inaccurate applications of other programs. I am convinced that many of these people have no idea of what these programs are supposed to do.

More on the wire size and ocpd protection computer program

2006-02-13T14:09:00.000-09:00

The program is about 2/3 complete. The marvel of writing a computer program is that it requires that you break down your decision making process into discrete steps. Have you ever asked some one how they come up with that answer, only to receive a reply that they don't know how they figured it out, but they just did it? A computer program requires that you analyze the process of decision making to its most fundamental operations and that you write code that mimics this process so the computer can repeat what you have done. This is not always an easy process and becomes more and more entangled until the program itself operates without you knowing how it does it, but somehow it comes up with the right answers. It is an amazing feat.

Work continues on Wire size and OCPD Calculator

2006-02-11T21:08:00.000-09:00

First a comment about the weather. Today it is thawing at about 45 degrees F. All winter we have had only 8 inches of snow. We have been able to drive the car down our 800 foot road all winter without having to plow. Other than the cold snap during the last week of January when it went to -51F this winter has been very mild indeed. Today, I read that the east coast is bracing for 12 inches of snow. Alaska has a reputation as being a cold and difficult place to live. That is not entirely true, but many Alaskans like to make it that way to keep the population down. We only have 600,000 people or about one square mile per person. The months of April, May, June, and July are absolutely beautiful and for the most part Alaska is undeveloped with thousands of acres of wilderness with no fences.
Now about the computer program. It is coming along, a struggle but coming along. As I said before in 1999 I spent six hard weeks writing an Excel Spreadsheet to perform this function. Believe me when I say that a computer program that selects the wire size and OCPD based on the continuous and non continuous loads, 6 tables and numerous other variables is one very complex program. I read somewhere that it is a simple five step process. That is not exactly correct.

Work beginning on Wire size and OCPD Calculator

2006-02-09T11:11:00.000-09:00

I have begun the JavaScript version of an improved wire size calculator. I wrote the original one in excel in 1999 in about six weeks time. It is at the electrician.com site under calculators. But I have noticed that this older Excel Version does not always open in IE for some reason.
There are numerous variables required for selecting the correct size conductor and OCPD using a computer program. As usual, 98 percent of the time the process is a very simple technique of using Table 310.16. But the other 2 per cent is very complex requiring the logical connection of continuous load, noncontinuous load, number of conductors in a cable or raceway, ambient temperature, conductor insulation temperature, the type of circuit, the length of raceway or bundled conductors, the termination temperature, the type of cable if used, the standard sizes of overcurrent protective devices, the ampacity tables, and of course whether the conductor is aluminum or copper. These requirements are located throughout the NEC making this an arduous task to do without a computer program. It is with awe and wonder that a computer program can do this process because in some instances the calculations have to be checked against themselves to determine if an additional calculation shall be performed.
It utterly amazes me that the people that write the NEC expect anyone to get all this right. Perhaps that is why there is so much redundancy and overkill in the NEC - so when errors are made, and they must be made often, buildings will not burn down from overheated conductors.

-51 degrees F. in North Pole, Alaska

2006-01-27T07:51:00.000-09:00

Do you want to know what it is like....Well it is very cold.
Today, there will be no outdoor activities. Just stay inside and stay warm.
Make sure you have communications with the outside world and the heater stays on.
It is days like this that I wish we lived in a condo. Living where there are no neighbors and where we have all this privacy is not an asset at -51F.
So far the water hasn't frozen and the septic line is still working.

Offset Pipe Bending Opinion

2006-01-24T12:13:00.000-09:00

It seems almost impossible that for 60 years electricians have been given the wrong information for bending offsets in conduit. The multiplying factors are not correct and using the cosecant of an angle as a multiplier to find the distance between bends is incorrect. Someone has been pulling the shade down on electricians and no one bothered to check the information for over 60 years, that I know of, and I have read a lot of information on this. I am convinced that someone years ago was so desperate to sell EMT and benders that they over-simplified the bending math to convince users that bending offsets is simple, easy and fast. Or someone has been fooling the labor market by deliberately publishing the wrong information to make pipe bending more labor intensive. Anyway, the bottom line is my research into the mathematics of bending offsets has revealed an almost flagrant ignorance of the facts. I shudder to think of the erroneous offset tables now being so widely accepted that they are now attached to hand bender handles, and the person responsible is bragging about this in one of his books that has sold over two million copies.
The article at http://www.electrician.com/electa1/offset.html
explains my findings.

More on the Offset Bend math and calculator

2006-01-21T12:12:00.000-09:00

I updated the offset calculator and article again. I was curious about finding if the method to find the distance between bends by multiplying the height of the offset by the cosecant of the angle was correct. This is where those multipliers of 6 for 10 degrees, 2.6 for 22.5 degrees, 2.0 for 30 degrees, 1.4 for 45 degrees, and 1.2 for 60 degrees come from. This method is an approximation and is not mathematically correct. For most offsets of up to 45 degrees, there is little difference in using this method or using the correct mathematical calculation. However, again for steep angles and large pipe these multipliers will give you errors that require recutting the pipe and/or altering the bend angles. I have placed the correct calculation in the offset calculator and added a conversion for decimal to the nearest 16th of an inch in fractions.
I purchased Jack Benfield's Benfield Conduit Bending Manual from Amazon.com. I read in this book that has sold over 2 million copies that there is no need to use complex trigonometry and that the tables and methods in this book can be used for any size pipe. I differ with Jack on this because I have used his famous zip tables in the field for large rigid pipe and had nothing but curse words for whoever invented these inaccurate tables. Jack Benfield wrote the book based on his experiences starting back in the 1930's. Perhaps from the 1930's to the 1960's using precise mathematical calculations was a bit of a task. However, today, with a desktop computer in every job shack, I think the time has come to quit being simple and inaccurate. Jack's book is, in my opinion, outdated. Today's electricians are computer literate. The IBEW apprenticeship school in Fairbanks, Alaska even has a computer lab to teach journeymen and apprentices how to use a computer. I believe that using computers for bending pipe has come of age.

Even more on the Mathematics of the Offset Bend

2006-01-16T15:59:00.000-09:00

I have again revised the article and calculator in the mathematics of the offset bend, and did some bends to verify the calculator. I also added a calculation for the straight pipe length that is the straight piece of pipe between the two offset bends. Oh yes, many a time, I have made the first bend to steep only to find that I couldnâ€™t make the second bend. Then I would have to take degrees out of the first bend and wrestle the pipe around trying to get the correct offset height. Anyway, the offset calculations appear to be more accurate than the Tables supplied with various benders.

More on the Mathematics of the Offset Bend

2006-01-08T17:27:00.000-09:00

I again revised, revised and revised again the article on the offset bend shrinkage math. It has become an algorithm unto itself now and no longer bears resemblance to the real world. The math checks out, but I wonder how a field verification test will hold out. I should go get a 555 Greenlee bender and at least try it out, but it is 20 below zero and I am not going to do it in the house. There are also so many field variables such as the type of bender and the wear and tear on the shoes. Does the pipe stretch or does it compress or do all pipes have the same malleability? Then there is the case of the oiled shoe. My partner and I had a problem with 3 inch pipe flattening using a one shot Enterpac at Pump Station 7 in about 1981. The hydraulic fluid kept leaking and the shoe got oiled. It was years later that I learned that an oily shoe will cause the pipe to flatten. I learned that a shoe properly treated with vinegar is better.

I do think that the new electricians should make the big move to laptops. If the infantry soldiers can fight a war with them, perhaps electricians can do a better job of wiring. It is fact that almost every job shack in Alaska now has a computer with an Internet connection. Many as-builds are now required in Auto Cad format. So why not!

Mathematics of the Offset Bend Article Updated

2006-01-07T15:38:00.000-09:00

I received a call about the Mathematics of the Offset bend Article that I wrote a few years ago. So I reread the article and decided it should be revised. I added 5 pages and a downloadable spreadsheet calculator. I wrote the article because the shrinkage multiplier zip guides that so many electricians use never worked for me. Usually when I used this guide to precut rigid pipe the pipe came out short and had to be put in the dog pile. I always thought it was me, but now I know the zip guide is just that, a guide and is not precise. The offset JavaScript calculator in the article on page 6 that determines and applies the gain from the arc of the bends is mathematically more correct, but needs further verification in the field. It is almost unbelievable how much math is involved in the calculation of shrinkage. In the field, most of us do not do these calculations. Most of us develop our own techniques for the situation at hand and the bender(s) at hand and make them work. I have seen one electrician use a back hoe to bend rigid pipe for underground installions. He placed the pipe in soft dirt and applied pressure using the back of the bucket and did a fine job of it. This method is not recommended and is illegal by Code, but it seemed to work just fine at the time.

I also added more Code to the alaskavirtaultour.com index page. Talk about CSS ad DHTML that page is full of it. It isn't a page at all but a computer program. It combines JavaScript with CSS to produce effects never achievable with standard HTML. The page is only viewable using Internet Explorer version 5 and above.

Bye, bye Netscape

2006-01-06T00:58:00.000-09:00

For years I have tried to keep web pages compatible with the Netscape Browser. This was an immense task requiring many hours of work and requiring that the advanced features of Microsoftâ€™s Internet Explorer be forsaken for the sake of compatibility. In the 90â€™s Netscape was the leading browser, but then Microsoft came along with Internet Explorer and now 98 per cent of the visitors to electrician.com use Microsoftâ€™s Internet Explorer version 5 or above. I have tried Firefox, Mozilla, and Opera and they all have compatibility problems. I no longer am going to even try to stay compatible! My pages are designed to work in IE 5.0 or better and that is all there is to it. Additionally, my multimedia pages at alaskavirtualtour.com are being designed for speeds of 150k or higher and for screen sizes of 1024 by 768 or 1280 by 1024 at 32 bits. 60 per cent of the visitors have these resolutions.

During the last several weeks I have become totally committed to developing the code for the multimedia site alaskavirtualtour.com. About 70 per cent of the code took me about 300 hours to write, and much of the work was done in all night sessions. I borrowed, begged and stole the other 30 per cent. Now I suppose any number of web page designers will borrow all that I have done. There is no way to hide the JavaScript code that I know of. You can jumble it, or make it difficult to find, but it is always there somewhere, and a persistent designer with enough savy can always find it. For you new comers just right click in any page and select source and you can see the source code for that page. Donâ€™t ever under estimate the value of the right mouse click!

My multimedia talents have been honed some more for what comes later â€“ developing multimedia training courses for the Internet. In 1996 I purchased a Sony VX 1000 for $3500 with the intent of making digital training videos. This camera was about 8 years ahead of computers, memory, hard drives, connection speed, and software. I made movies alright, but I had to buy a $1800 Seagate 9.5 gigabyte hard drive and a $1000 capture card that only connected using the VHS cables while the Sonyâ€™s digital firewire was not useable. It took 5 hours to render a 5 minute film! And the hard drive had to be partitioned into 2 Gigabyte partitions because Windows 95 could not access more than that. Today all that has changed. Multimedia is here and the Internet, computers, and software are ready!

My favorite Music

2005-12-24T19:27:00.000-09:00

Yanni's album "In My Time" is my favorite of all time. It is amazing how Yanni's music escaped me for so long. Perhaps, I just wasn't ready for it, or maybe his being on a private label kept it from being found. It is original music and from a person who graduated from college with a degree in psychology and who did not know a note of music; He taught himself how to play the piano starting at the age of eight. His music is from a truly gifted individual that found his gift.

Christmas and New Years time

2005-12-20T23:10:00.000-09:00

I built the online Christmas and New Years cards and placed them online today. I should not say I built all of them because I didn't. The applets were free, the music was free, one picture was mine and I don't know where the other came from. After 10 years of building web pages I have so much stuff on my hard drives, I have to run searches to find things. It is like googling my hard drives. I do like the Scottish version of auld lang syne in the New Years card and listened to it well over an hour tonight while thinking about past times. I think the fireworks go along with the music, too. Does anyone know what auld lang syne means? After all we have been singing or listening to this since God knows when or at least since Guy Lombardo made it popular starting in 1929. So what does it mean? Hang on, I have to go to google to find out. Well it means "old long ago" and is better described as "times gone by." It is an old Scottish song originally written in old Scottish.

So here is wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a very Happy and Prosperous New Year with good health.

Still hacking away at Perl

2005-12-18T12:09:00.000-09:00

For the last month or so I have been working on learning Perl again. I now have 11 books on this and am beginning to appreciate the humor side of being a geek at age 61. Oh yes, I am an electrician, but my real aspirations is more on the computer side, I suppose. It all comes from when I was a kid and bought J. E. Thompson's math series of books for the Practical Man when I was 13 years old. I sent away for them after seeing the ad in a magazine when we lived in Ketchikan, Alaska at 11 1/2 mile North Tongas. I will never forget learning how to extract the cube root of a number that I learned from the Arithmetic for the Practical man book. It rained a lot in Ketchikan and I had plenty time to learn from these books and experiment in rocketry. I found some old chemistry books and learned how to make my own black powder. I baked charcoal by placing alder wood in a coffee can on an open fire and bought the saltpeter and sulfur by going to several drug stores in town. I also tried making gun cotton but never got it to work. My rockets turned out to be pipe bombs with one end open. Several blew up and several flew like a pipe in the sky. Well I am getting of the topic here, aren't I? The cube root of a number did amaze me and there was some sort of magic there - just like computers. To me they are magic and every time a program works I feel as if I have approached some God like being because I have created something that works like magic. After 40 years of this, the ah and wonder of computers still amazes me. I started programming with an Olivetti Programma 101 in 1969 that only held 48 instructions on a magnetic card and had no built in functions. I had to write a program to find something as simple as the sine of an angle all in 48 instructions. My next experience was with a HP 2000 that had an 8K drum memory using Fortran 2. My, how things have changed. My present computer now has a one gigabyte RAM and 370 Gigabytes of storage on two hard drives.

Anyway, one of the books I have studied is Teach Yourself Perl in 21 days. It is written by Laura Lemay, who is a technical writer of sorts. She also writes fiction and has a blog at http://blog.lauralemay.com/ if you are interested. Her book is the best of eleven and I wrote her an email to let her know.

Raceway Fill Calculator corrections and Latest News from electrician.com

2005-12-05T22:06:00.000-09:00

Raceway Fill Calculator Problem

The cross sectional areas for No. 14, 12, 10, and 8 THHW, THW, and THW-2 have areas in the 2002 and 2005 Code Chapter 9, Table 5 that are not the same as in the 1999 Code. Starting in 2002 these insulations were moved to the TW slot in Table 5, but this was not done in Appendix C, Table C. Table C is still the same as the 1999 NEC for these insulations.

The raceway fill calculator recalculates Table C using the 1999 areas and still duplicates Table C in the 2005 NEC for conductors of all the same size and insulation (at least so far as anyone knows.) There appears to be an error in the NEC and until it is corrected I am not going to change the calculator until this problem is resolved (maybe in 2008).
Temporary fix

If you are installing Nos. 14, 12, 10, and 8 for THW, THW-2, or THHW insulations and want to use the 2005 areas from Table 5 substitute TW for the insulation type in place of THHW, THW-2, or THW for sizes 14, 12, 10 and 8. This will overcome the problem for the time being and allow you to place more conductors in a raceway for these insulations and sizes, but will not duplicate Table C in Appendix C where all wires are of the same size and insulation.

Here is a breakdown of the differences for THHW, THW, and THW-2:
(areas from Table 5 and all areas in sq inches)

Wire size	1999 NEC	2005 NEC areas
No 14	0.0209	0.0139
No 12	0.0260	0.0181
No 10	0.0333	0.0243
No 8	0.0556	0.0437

I had a call today from an engineer about the Neher McGrath Excel Calculator at electrician.com. He was working on an underground 4160 volt duct bank. I explained that the calculator was only for above ground 600 volt wiring in conduits and was only for teaching electricians about Neher Mcgrath. I suggested several sources for him one being the Calcware program for Neher McGrath that sells for about $2,000. Complete Neher McGrath calculations for underground Duct banks are far beyond the normal tasks performed by electricians and most engineers. Appendix B of the NEC has some tables for Neher McGrath Calculations.

I received an email asking for a cable tray fill calculator. It has been my experience that calculating cable tray fill is not a normal task for electricians, and such a calculator would only be used by very few, and I doubt that they would rely on a web page calculator for such an expensive installation. I know I wouldn't. Cable tray installations in industrial establishments are usually done under engineering supervision. Of course electrician tests can have at least one very difficult tray fill problem, and the electrician test course has one such example.

I have also seen a bitter mistake made when 4 each per phase paralleled 500 Kcmil 480 volt single conductor cables were installed with all the A phases, then all the B phases, then all the C phases in flat configuration. The code clearly states for very good reason that paralleled single conductor cables in cable trays shall be bundled in groups of A, B, and C Phase and the neutral if there is one. I actually had the experience of finding such an installation where the cables were not bundled in 1978 on Alaska's North Slope. The adjacent A and B phase and Adjacent B and C phase cables had such low inductive reactances that in a run of only 20 feet they carried about 90 per cent of the current while the outside cables for A and C phase carried about 10 per cent of the current.

Now about the alaskavirtualtour site...
I added a link to electrician.com for this site. It is a hobby of mine to develop various multimedia productions about Alaska and I place them at my domain alaskavirtualtour.com That is a long name but all the short ones were taken.

It's getting cold in North Pole

2005-11-28T23:40:00.000-09:00

I wouldn't be right if I didn't complain about the cold here in Alaska. That is a favorite subject around North Pole this time of year. Last night it got down to -38 F and now it is only -25 F. If you want to see the temperature for North Pole a website with a weather station readings and graphs on it is at wild Alaska

Today I added a new bulletin board to electrician(2).com. I used to have almost the same bulletin board up for years until the gambling and porn sites bombed it with so much spam that I was spending an hour a day editing the stuff out. This new board has some neat security features such as banned word and ip lists. A group calling themselves the nms group has taken several of Matt Wright's Perl scripts and rewrote them to be more secure. Matt Wright was a 17 year old kid in the late 90's that gave away many scripts for guest books, bulletin boards, and form mail processors. He was heavily criticized by the professionals because his scripts had security flaws in them. They were ok in the beginning but as more and more abuses cropped up on the Internet, his scripts became rather useless. Today, the Internet is plagued with abusive users from all over the world that will do mischief just for the fun of doing it.

As the World Turns....

2005-11-10T05:30:00.000-09:00

Well here it is Thursday. Judith Miller is out at the NY Times, Al-Qaida has attacked in Jordan, Oil Chiefs are being grilled by Congress and ANWR drilling has been killed in the House, and I have just spent three hard days trying to get water into the house. It seems impossible that everything from the pressure tank to the well went bad. The 1 1/4 inch union at the well even broke. The one inch heat traced line to the house plugged with sand, the 1/2 hp well pump went out. So after $600 in pumps and parts and three days of labor in minus 10 degrees the water is back. I remember the old days in Alaska back in the 50's and 60's when we lived on a homestead where my Mom used to melt snow for three days to get water to wash clothes. I don't know how she survived those first three years with no water, but she lived to be 86.

So now it is back to the electrician.com activities. Now I can continue developing training programs and learning Perl more. I want to write a Perl program that will check the test scores, the notification of completion and the payment records then generate a certificate of completion. On the back burner is writing a program that selects wire size and overload device after reading in the number of conductors, load, insulation temperature, termination temperature, equipment temperature, etc. I wrote a Excel program in 1999 that did a good job at this, but I want write this in JavaScript or Perl. Never again will I try to write a program in Excel.

New feature added to search utilities

2005-11-07T06:48:00.000-09:00

At 5 AM this morning....After reading through some 9 books I have on Perl and CGI programming with Perl and reading the online material at cgi 101, I added file locking to the two cgi search scripts used at electrician.com and electrician2.com. Evidently, if a file is opened and not locked and programs from two separate users access the file at the same time the contents can be destroyed. The probability of this happening is slim, but just in case a file can be locked while it is being read or written to. Writing a program to perform a task is only half of the job. The contingency modules that address security, human error, and possible crashes are the other half.

Now to get to that well pump...this should be fun. It is only 9 below zero today.

Plumbing problems at home

2005-11-06T11:37:00.000-09:00

Electrician.com comes to you from our home in North Pole, Alaska while the servers are in California, Washington, and Alaska. Actually, we don't live in North Pole but just outside the city limits at the end of a road. There are no other homes within sight and we have a lake and about 500 acres to look at with nothing but birds, moose, and some really big long nose sucker fish in the lake. It is nice living at the end of a road where there is so much privacy and where it is very quite. We are about 1 mile from the one shopping mall in North Pole and about 800 feet from the borough bus route, and about 14 miles from Fairbanks where there are plenty of things to do including the new megastores. Yes, we have a WalMart, Home Depot, and Lowes in Fairbanks. So you could say we have the best of both worlds, country living and a civilization close by. The down side is that we have to take care of our own needs when it comes to water, sewer, and garbage collection. As luck would have it, the temperature has dropped in the last couple of days to 20 below zero (F) and that is when the pump quit pumping water from the well that I drove last summer. Now did the line freeze? I don't think so since it is heat traced using chemelex heat trace. But being a cheap shot, I heat traced it with 3 watts per foot heat trace. Or did the well go dry? We are just several hundred feet from the lake and the water level was at 9 feet last summer. The well is 42 feet down. So I don't think the well went dry. However, when I drove the last 10 feet of pipe using a 90 pound jack hammer the pipe seemed to be too loose. It is possible that the thread broke on one of the upper lengths of well pipe and the pump has only been working while the water level was above that joint and now the water level has dropped below that joint. Tomorrow I will take out the pump and 1 1/4 inch check valve and take them to a qualified plumbing shop to see if they check out. I have a hunch that the pump has gone bad since it has been making some awful noise lately. If the pump is ok and I have to drive a new well that will be interesting to do at 10 to 20 below zero. It will require a shelter and a heater, both expensive items. But that is life in the interior of Alaska where we have six months of continuous freezing weather. At least it is not 40 or 50 below, in which case, you simply don't work outside especially on water wells. In the mean time it is living without water except that which we haul.

Update to search programs

2005-11-05T21:59:00.000-09:00

Today I added email validation to four scripts that perform the notification of completion filing and emailing, and to the scripts that find the test results and the notification of completion submittals. The email blocks now have to have some form of valid email address entered or the program kicks back an error and informs users to enter a proper email address format. I had to do this to keep the search utility from listing the entire test score database when a non email word was entered. It took all day using Perl which I am beginning to respect more. In computer languages I would have to say that Perl is the ultimate text processing language. FORTRAN is known as one of the ultimate number crunchers, but FORTRAN is not the language of choice for text processing. So why am I saying this to you all.... Well, if you have kids tell them to learn Perl if they are into computers! Microsoft has VBScript and C#, but anytime Microsoft licenses a product you will pay through the nose for it, and MS will drop the product any time the market conditions determine it isn't a money maker, like they did FoxPro. I and others wasted many hours and dollars learning FoxPro and buying the developer products from Microsoft only to have them drop it entirely without notice.
Perl is a public domain language that can be downloaded and installed in your computer for free. It is an extremely powerful tool that grades tests and records test results among other things. As I recall, the founder of EBay was a Perl programmer.

Historical observations

2005-11-05T03:56:00.000-09:00

This winter I plan to finish creating a course on Ampacity. I have gathered some very outstanding papers from Neher-McGrath, Samuel Rosch, Matt Brown, Donald Simmons, Peter Pollack, and John Caloggero dating from 1932 to 1988. I obtained most of these from the Engineering Societies Library that used to exist in New York City where you could order just about any paper you needed using the telephone and a fax machine. Unfortunately this service is no longer in business and now one has to search through the Journals at the nearest University library. Many of the NEC rules come from such papers and it is very interesting to find the actual research and analysis that was done so many years ago. Many times we do not have the time to perform this research and the history of subjects such as ampacity of conductors stays buried in the journals of long ago. The original heat transfer equation used to develop ampacity tables comes from the work of Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768 - 1830).

Fourier was born in Auxerre, France, the ninth of twelve children. He trained for the priesthood, but spent much of his life teaching mathematics at French universities, principally the Ă‰cole Polytechnique. He was active in the French Revolution, and his activity twice resulted in imprisonment and a potential visit to the guillotine. From 1798 to 1801, he acted as Napoleon's scientific adviser and sometime administrator in the Egyptian campaign. From 1804 to 1807, he served as prefect of Grenoble, a post he reluctantly accepted because the appointment was made by Napoleon. He was elected to the AcadĂ©mie des Sciences in 1817, and served as its secretary.

(In 1807, Fourier submitted a paper on heat transfer to the Institute of France.) The paper caused great controversy among the examiners . . . Fourier sent in papers in 1808 and 1809 to meet criticisms, and eventually a prize problem on heat diffusion was proposed by the Institut de France for January 1812, to which he submitted a considerably revised and extended version of the 1807 paper. . . He won the prize; but publication was still delayed. So he began a third version of his work in the form of a book, which eventually appeared as ThĂ©orie analytique de la chaleur in 1822. The prize paper also appearedâ€”unchangedâ€”in two parts . . . in 1824 and 1826.

On a more current side....
State of Washington's L and I has issued a special edition of Electrical Currents describing the Class B electrical permitting system. It can be found at by clicking here
If you work in Washington in the electrical trades you should subscribe to the Electrical Currents newsletter that will be sent to you by email at no extra cost.

New Features at electrician.com and electrician2.com

2005-11-03T20:49:00.000-09:00

Welcome to my new Blog!
Now, for the first entry.
After several months of programming in PERL and CGI.PM I have built a new search utility and installed it at the main pages for electrician.com and the mirror site electrician2.com. . Many students taking courses have asked for (rightfully so) the ability to review test scores and other information. The new search utility uses the email addresses of users to find their passed tests and searches the file created from the new Notification of Completion Form to tell the users if they have submitted a Notification of Completion for a particular course. This search utility requires the same password and username as provided for taking the final or recorded tests. It is also server unique meaning that electrician.com results are not revealed at electrican2.com and vice versa. This search utility searches a total of 36 files and uses two new PERL scripts. I started writing these programs in September, 2005 and finished on November 2, 2005.There still may be some minor bugs, but it seems to work fine so far. (Test answers marked with an x are the wrong answers.)I have also started this Blog to update you on what is going on at electrician.com and report other interesting related tidbits.