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Hey all,

Just a little hello from me.

No qualifications as of yet however I am studying for 18th Edition, but not actively working in the industry so I'm not sure I'll ever get the opportunity to get enough practical done to obtain the qual.

I do have CUs on boards at home to practise with, though.

I do have 20 years experience working with mains wiring around domestic installations and very small commercial installations.

I guess I'd say I've joined the boards to pose queries to those more qualified than I in the hope that I am always working safely and able to provide sound information.
 
Hi there are many stages of experience and knowledge on here. We on the whole tend to help and encourage. Welcome.
 
Welcome to the asylum mate.
 
Hey all,

Just a little hello from me.

No qualifications as of yet however I am studying for 18th Edition, but not actively working in the industry so I'm not sure I'll ever get the opportunity to get enough practical done to obtain the qual.

I do have CUs on boards at home to practise with, though.

I do have 20 years experience working with mains wiring around domestic installations and very small commercial installations.

I guess I'd say I've joined the boards to pose queries to those more qualified than I in the hope that I am always working safely and able to provide sound information.
What did your 20 years experience give you in the skill set range? what qualifications do you currently hold, as your profile is unavailable at present.
 
Welcome Iain ,
practice makes perfect
(Working on dead equipment is preferred -
especially if your only light source fails,getting "hands on experience")

Hey static zap,

Thanks for the advice there.

This is the main part of my learning curve, I'm not using the best terminology. I should have said mains powered equipment, rarely is it ever live powered when I am involved with it.

The only live works I really tend to do is working on opened up power supply units and checking the low-voltage lines with a meter.

What did your 20 years experience give you in the skill set range? what qualifications do you currently hold, as your profile is unavailable at present.

I have quite a bit of hands on experience but very little theory, coming from no formal training what so ever.

I started to investigate circuit design pretty young, age 8 or so, working initially with only low voltage stuff but came across some old books one of which in particular interested me. I cannot recall the name of it or locate an obvious image of the cover online right now but I'll see if I can dig this out. Unfortunately the actual book was lost in a house fire a few years back (non electrical, lol).

These were not modern books, they encouraged running your experiments directly from a fused plug into the mains, which at a young age I was more than happy to give a go with no further thoughts than well, the book tells me to!

I recall building an electro-magnet that was literally just a thick coil plugged straight into the mains with no grounding at all. I made a simple step down transformer and powered a 12V bulb from the 230V mains.

As I grew older I had less time to mess about and more need to just get things done.

I don't like extension cords lying around so I like to run proper patress boxes and brand new MK sockets to the locations I want, 2.5mm2 twin+earth through appropriately sized trunking to a plug on the end.

My guess is that the plug serves the same purpose as a fused spur but also makes the installations non permanent so should be legitimate for me to put in place. I've done this in pretty much every property I've lived in.

A recent socket install could probably do with some love as the power goes straight into a socket in the middle and then goes from that into two sockets, one on each side, pretty sure that's not legit but it's only got really low power (under 50W) devices plugged in under that desk so I have not rushed to fix it.

In terms of more typical actual domestic installation stuff, I've run radials from CUs to rooms under the supervision of a spark, added sockets to a ring, changed lighting fixtures including running new earth, changed switches (standard live on/off, dual control, smart switches as well), install mains smoke alarms where the fused spur is already present, check power supplies for faults and purely for the experience I've wired up a few CUs (on boards, not domestic installs).

In terms of work experience I mostly run low voltage cabling just now. Cat6, alarms, etc. It often carries PoE signal (up to 48V DC) but for some reason that's still classified as low voltage cabling work? (I thought 12V DC+ was typically 'high voltage' but cant see anything stating I can't run the Cat6 with PoE myself).

That's about it really. I've watched over many a spark doing commercial works too like running power to the floor boxes that we're terminating Cat6 into, new circuit installs whenever I've had them done and I'd be confident with researching and installing anything myself, however, I know there are things that could cause me liability if anything did go wrong and want to avoid that.

Soz for length of this reply.
 
Re House fire , I had a few close shaves as a budding pre-teen scientist !
( Even finely suspended flour/air is risky )
-- Blamed hole in rug on meths burner !
..I enjoy waffle.. But attempt to keep my replies Concise/memorable.
Safe touch voltage seems to be getting lower 48 - 36 - 24
But all depends on size of piece of metal in your hands (and how hard griping) Remembering 36V found in satellite actuators deemed risky ...
May be to do with older aged populous , thinner skin etc.
LV in this forum is more about not being DNO 11kV etc + .
LV 220 - 400 .... 250 / 440 old school ? ...
But peak volts are more nasty than that !
 
Well thankfully (I guess?) the house fire was caused by smoking. I'd rather that than something of mine went wrong power wise and the fire investigation team seemed pretty conclusive on that being the cause, even after I pointed out electrical works near-ish the break out.

It did take out my place pretty good though including the crappy plastic CU in the hallway a good bit away from the break out:
Just a little hello from me! {filename} | ElectriciansForums.net


Had to have power cut by the DNO to the place until 60k of damages was put right.

The room where the fire broke out, the power cable and the coax cable from the virgin media box melted together and blew the vmedia for at least a few neighbours in the process.

So whilst not directly related to any electrical works, it scared me even more into safety first, that's for sure.

And i'm all for metal CUs.
 
doing the work under supervision is good, and your preference of working non live is commendable. The sparks here can point you in the right direction for schooling and we highly encourage you to do so. Good luck to you mate! work safe!
 
My dad a Telecom Eng at the time , explained about plenty of US Books / magazines ,showing designs direct to mains .
He explained in the UK we would need a transformer in line , much like my train-set transformer , before you went touching any wires with the power on.
( switch mode PSU s succeed in increasing the danger working at peak voltage AC changed to DC) Neither were micowaves available back then !
Early lessons about capacitors came from 2-10kv B&W TVs.
(Stay safe plenty of stickers tell the "Truth").. if not in chinese .
 
I don't believe that these were US books as they referenced everything in 230V.

I think they were from around WWII time, just based on how I roughly recall the covers looking and the particularly the small range of colours used in print (press?).

My guess, having very little US experience, is that typically a 230V line in US must have been really rare if at all installed for any domestic use back then, but could be wrong.

Would have been handy for me to have a dad in the trade. Had to just teach myself young. Touch the 230V line connector once, you won't knowingly again lol.
 
I don't believe that these were US books as they referenced everything in 230V.

I think they were from around WWII time, just based on how I roughly recall the covers looking and the particularly the small range of colours used in print (press?).

My guess, having very little US experience, is that typically a 230V line in US must have been really rare if at all installed for any domestic use back then, but could be wrong.

Would have been handy for me to have a dad in the trade. Had to just teach myself young. Touch the 230V line connector once, you won't knowingly again lol.
220Volt Knob and Tube it's called mainly residential I think
 

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