[SML] Self resetting gfci outlets.

[Dale Farmer]

On 7/21/2016 8:52 AM, Stephen Litterst via Stagecraft wrote:
> On 7/20/16 5:52 PM, Dale Farmer via Stagecraft wrote:
>
>> I've never used them before, and I'm wondering if anyone else on the
>> list had experiences with them.      Automatic self resetting should
>> reduce the number of calls on me for nuisance trips during the festival,
>>  which is a fine thing.  But I'm a little concerned that they may
>> reenergize a tripped circuit while I'm working on it.    Or some other
>> issue I can't think of with them.
>
> Dale,  you should always kill power at a breaker and lock it out while
> you're working on a circuit.
>
> Steve L.
I do that whenever I can.  But I have learned through painful experience 
that the damned food and craft vendors just don't give a shit about 
anything but their stuff. *mutters something about the first ones up 
against a wall.*   They are often also shielded by their invincible 
ignorance of things electrical.

   I have had them remove tape over outlets, tags from breakers, and 
turn them on because they are impatient, needy, greedy ($*&# who will 
turn on every breaker in the panel since they don't bother to figure out 
which breaker their overload tripped out.

   It's made me a real believer of those non-contact voltage sensors. 
It's also made me seriously consider carrying an edison plug in my tool 
bage with all three contacts wired together.  Usually I will unplug the 
cord feeding whatever I'm going to work on and pull it back out of sight 
from the power distro.  They haven't yet found it and plugged it back in 
yet.

    I also mostly don't fix their stuff. (exceptions have been made in 
exchange for baked goods)  I will tell them where the local big box home 
center is and let them take it from there.

Story time.  You can ignore the rest of this post if you want.

Food vendor at the festival.  They had only paid for the single 20 amp 
circuit that came with their booth space.   It was a lovingly built 
little alpine style hut for one of the local churches to sell food at 
fairs.   Inside were a couple of small fridges/freezers, and a bunch of 
portable electric skillets.  They mostly were selling sausages. 
Whomever had wired it up was obviously a skilled electrician.  There was 
a small load center, bunch of outlets and built in lights, all fed from 
a goodly length of 8/4 cable with a 50 amp dryer plug on it.

   This cable reached about halfway to my power panel.   Then there was 
the adapter.  This adapter had a dryer receptacle and a 15 amp edison 
plug.  They then had brought in a light duty extension cord from one of 
their homes to reach the rest of the way to the power panel and duly 
plugged it in.

   So all the fridges ran, and some of their lights came on, and only 
half the outlets were working.  So they had three electric skillets 
plugged into the working outlets, where they were frying up the 
sausages.  They were, I should mention, a couple of elderly ladies and 
one of their sons (in his 50s) to do any heavy lifting and fetch things.

   They were not happy with the electric service, as they had to keep 
going back to the power panel and turn the breaker back on. (They 
referred to it as the switch)  Eventually, one of the other food 
vendors, who actually had a clue, suggested that since they were having 
an electrical problem, maybe they ought to call the festival 
electricians about it.

    So I get the call on the radio, and since I was close by, drove my 
trusty golf cart over there to look things over. The other electrician, 
Carl arrived about the same time.   The first thing I noticed was the 
smoke rising from the light duty extension cord.   So I snatched it out 
of the outlet, as it was starting to arc and start grass fires.  Burning 
my thumb badly enough that there was a scar there for a couple of years.

    We surveyed the situation as we stamped out the smoldering grass 
fire, and marveled that nothing worse had happened.  The elderly church 
ladies were indignant that we had unplugged their trailer.  They were 
frying the sausages and needed that electricity for the skillets.  I was 
not feeling very diplomatic at that moment as the pain of the burn was 
making itself known, so Carl went and gently explained to them that the 
cord they were using was inadequate while I sucked my thumb and assessed 
the damage.

   An hour or so later, the son was back from the home center, having 
completed the shopping list we gave him.  Wired into the panel a dryer 
plug, a new 50 amp breaker, and made a very heavy duty extension cord 
that was long enough to reach the panel.  Shortly thereafter, sausages 
were frying, and I avoided that booth for the rest of the festival.
But that booth still comes back every year, along with the very heavy 
duty extension cord we made for them ten years ago.

--Dale