Shovelhead

Like they're any different today?

Jim Lane

Why yes,
That does look like some of our police vehicles in the background.

A few weeks ago they were delivering a few Urban Assault Vehicles to our local police departments.

Yes these will be used for Rescue.

Jim Lane

Yesterday I caught this guy driving down our street stealing neighbors privacy, so I went to have a closer look.

Shovelhead

Sure makes ME sleep better at night knowing the Cops have better armor than our guys overseas............ NOT!!

Kidrod

To rescue our guns from us perhaps......

Jim Lane

Exactly,
I have been inside these, didn't look a bit like any ambulance I have been in,
All of the locals are getting theirs.

Remember Blue Thunder?

Colo_River_Ram

I had a chat with a long haul driver yesterday, he says there is a lot of those "Armored Tonka Toys" being delivered all over.

The eye spy car is probably a Google Earth Street View recorder.. and yes I do remember Blue Thunder.

Jim Lane

Blue Thunder,
Filmed in Los Angeles
About Los Angeles Police Department Aero

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Thunder
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085255/

DieselDaze

Be sure to always secure your load:

Shovelhead

Yeah.... secured load.

Bark

Cattle trailer

Trying to find the news story from last year about the villagers in Peru (I think) who beat the Google street view vehicle with rocks and sticks.

NE frmhnd

If I see it come up "unknown road" that I live on, there's a good chance it won't make it to the other end.

Jim Lane

I got an emergency call about a week ago, the tenant had no hot water, so I got there and checked the usual circuit breaker and then pulled the thermostat cover to access the internal circuit breaker and the first thing I noticed was the nasty smell of something burned up.

So now I am thinking this is going to be a bit more than just replacing an element, I went and after removing the breaker panel cover I identified the breakers and shut off the power.

I removed the wiring access and found I had a nasty burned mess in my hands, so after taking pictures for documentation I carefully cut away the wiring so I could determine what had happened.

This apartment building was built back in the late 60's, when all of the wiring in the building was aluminum wire, aluminum wire has burned down many houses here in California before it was outlawed.

Besides aluminum and copper being dissimilar metals, when when passing current they both expand and contract at different temperatures, causing loose connections leading to overheating leading to fires among other problems.

This water heater was replaced about 1 year ago by one of the other guys in the maintenance crew however he is not an electrician.

It appears there was a loose connection between the aluminum wire and the copper pigtail of the water heater under one of the red wire nuts, the connection started overheating to where it eventually got so hot that the THHN insulation melted on the wire to the water heater and since the wires were crossed when they were just bunched up, the 2 conductors got shorted together resulting the final arc that broke the connection.



See how all of the old rubber insulation has melted away?
Part of the disintegrated wire nut in behind the mass of wires.



Here is the melted mass up close,

I cut this out and I left it on my bosses desk just as a reminder of how good I am at repairing things and how it seems like I can always repair the impossible.

To repair this I cut out all of the wiring down to the top thermostat and replaced all of the wires using new stranded THHN.

Since the supply was one continious pull from the breaker panel I cut off 6" and terminated it in a 4-11/16 box and a new section of 3/4" flex from the heater to the box.

The 10-AWG connected to the aluminum wire was with split bolts and anti corrosion paste.



http://www.alwirerepair.com/whats_the_problem.htm

Just thought would share this adventure with you.

Jim

Bark

Neat stuff. All of the wiring in my house is 12G copper except for the run from the pole and two runs from the main panel box to the two sub boxes.
They have AL wire. I kind of worry about it a little since they are connected to regular 220 volt copper breakers.
However, I have seen the same thing used other places.
Any thoughts on it?

j_martin

If the connections are properly made, they should last a long time. If the equipment is mounted in a space that has wide temperature swings, ie the garage, it could theoretically cause the connections to loosen with time. No big deal to take the cover off and inspect them when under load with a hand held infrared thermometer.

When aluminum for service entrance use came out, they had us use split bolts and tape on outside connections. They totally failed within a few years. Replacement was gas tight, protective gel filled crimp connectors and pigtails. No problems since. Only mod on the inside connections was terminals with higher pressure (AL-CU rated), wire brushing the conductor immediately before connection, and a compound of anti-oxidant gel with a conductive grit in it.