Another example of why you can not trust a Digital volt meter and should have a Solenoid tester if you trouble shoot electrical circuits

 I never trust Digital Meters when it comes to working on live 120 and up AC  Alternating Current  Electrical Circuits .

I especially despise  Auto Ranging Digital Meters like Fluke 113

I like Digital Meters with Fixed scales like my Triplett  780B. so let me tell you why.

I recently had to call power company to a customer site after the B phase of their 120-/208 3 phase service was out .

I verified it with a digital meter and then double verified it with a Knopp Solenoid Tester meter.  This meter has a small coil which energizes and pulls up a marker flag or indicator this way you know you actually have Real electrical Power and not getting a Phantom Reading. can do both AC and DC  at 120  to 600 volts

Various Solenoid testers are available new and used from  Klein who made the famous Wiggy  , Ideal and others 

I have an older Knopp tester my dad gave me when he retired from the mill and bought a new Cat III  protected tester couple years ago .

at Stanton Electric Supply in Wilkinsburg Pa. 

Now I knew that phase was dead so power company trouble shooter shows up with his Fluke 113 meter goes up in bucket says No must be your problem  . so I had to put on PPE and open up the 1200 amp outside load center .

He starts testing and its then after checking a couple more times he was reading his meter wrong when he was getting strange readings on his 113 meter .

 

what he was reading on his meter was not 120 or 114 he was reading Point .120 point 114 which means the phase was dead.

when i put my knopp on and verified it he was pretty embarrased. 

So no harm no foul. 

He went back up and found where copper and alunimum wire on phase near transformer had gone bad and in 15 minute we had B phase working.

When he saw me pull out the solenoid tester he said your and old school electrician yes I am and my dad taught me the value of these solenoid tester too many times digital meters can throw you off.  

This is why you see old school electricians like myself carry the solenoid testers in industrial settings with 230 and 480 industrial services. So you do not get a false reading the cost around a Hundred dollars but solve troubleshooting issues because you know the power is there or not.

 

 

Why are colors being changed to white on UF Underground Feeder Non Metallic cables ?

 Ever since I started doing Electrical Work in 70s  UF Non Metallic Direct Burial and Sunlight Resistant  Cable  used for  swimming pools outside outlets and lighting where Protective Conduit is not required has always been gray .

It was always a way to tell UF from Common" Romex "  a trade mark  NMC  Non Metallic Cable 

as Romex was always white or black if aluminum which ended up banned  but in 90s a company called 

South Wire came out with a color coded romex wire jacket the industry started following and it instantly made it easy for inspectors and contractors alike to tell what type wire was in use .Especially when hard to get to it to read the jacket ID label

Gray UF 14 thru 10 Gauge

White 14# Gauge

Yellow 12# Gauge

Orange 10# Gauge  

So why now is UF coming out white 

It is just going to cause more confusion on job sites especially in residential now inspectors are going to have to make sure they read every label on every wire put in outdoor or in-ground install and unscrupulous contractors are going to cheat and run 14/2 romex instead of UF on jobs and there will be no way to tell unless you physically inspect it. Unlike Gray UF you know its UF when you see it .

Making Freon Refrigerant containers all a Generic White is a very bad Idea

 I have been doing HVAC type work since 70s and Freon and Refrigerant chemical always came in color coded pressurized containers . 

It was always easy to tell from a distance R12, which was white R 22 which was Green R 502 which was Purple Etc. Etc. even as new refrigerants cam on market they had there own colors or banding and could be easily known what it was . Especially  after they have been sitting for long periods tucked away in warehouses and been in service trucks the labels can wear off but the paint never did. 

 

But that's all gone away .

Tanks are now coming out in Generic White and that can lead to serious issues when a technician grabs the wrong tank because they misread or mistook  the label for what a product is and belive me those of us with Dislexia have a hard enough time as it is with labels.

Putting the wrong refrigerant in a system will damage and kill the unit. When labels wear off tanks will not be able to identified with out  sophisticated testing leading to tanks with virgin product being sent back for recycling  and refrigerant wasted.

hazmat teams will also now have to take even further safety precautions because they now will not know whats in a tank if label is missing they will not have a clue what they are dealing with 

Generic White Tanks are a very bad idea.