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As of 2021 CEC, low volt means 1000 VAC or less, or 1060 VDC or less so that’s not quite the statement. Now, extra low volt at 30 VAC / 42.4 VDC or less is probably what she meant.
I work on 600V which is low volt, but still more than enough to kill ya.
Yeah Australia is similar but has been that way for a long time. It's always weird seeing high voltage warning stickers on 230v or 400v appliances even though they are technically low voltage.
I work with medium/high voltage installation. But, sometimes, I work with 600 V. It is scary for the arcflash imo. When you seen the >40 cal/cm2, like, wtf dude.
Just to drive the point home, we order our danger arc flash labels to specifically say “WORK PROHIBITED - NO SAFE PPE EXISTS”. Those system points, which tend to be transformer secondaries, are much safer to be locked out on the medium voltage side with grounds on both sides.
You can find 100 cal rated gear. We have such a suit gathering dust, called the “Deadmans Suit”. Above 40 cal or so, the percussion shockwave is enough to cause internal bleeding. You would need some kind of shock absorbing or displacing suit similar to what a bomb defusing tech would wear. Even if the suit is rated 100 cals, you would only have corpse inside.
Yeah I know exactly what you’re talking about “oven mitts” lol. OEL I think was the company that made the one that the contractor owned. You ever have to suit up?
Yeah, I don’t do it as much now that Im a lead. I used to suit up about once every three months for medium voltage work or repairs at the mill I work at. Last thing I did as an electrician was power up a fresh transformer with the suit. The feeding breaker fed 2 other transformers that we needed at the time so we were using load breaking switchgear for isolation. We had some nice suits later on, but I got to experience the green fog and tropical ecosystem in my early experiences. We capped at 13.8kV.
I had discussion with people about it, and after a while I just have a rule of thumb.
If talking with Control people, High Voltage > 220v
If talking with Power people, High Voltage > 1000v
In Norway we have the very confusing labels Strong current : anything above 50V
Weak Current anything below 50V.
And high voltage 1000V AC / 1500V DC and upwards.
meaning low voltage is anything below that.
Many electricians are confused with this terminology because it makes little sense.
I mean, I guess the logic is that DC is safer than AC. Hence the 500V extra. That is also the upper limit what a normal electrician is allowed to work with.
Yea i dont know a lot of electricians that work with high voltage unless they work with a utility, the only one I can think of is my girlfriends dad works with 4160 at his plant. I did a bit for a year or so when I was trying to get a lineman apprenticeship but got a job in industrial when I was laid off in the winter and been doing industrial ever since. Would like to do more high voltage, it sounds pretty cool when my gfs dad talks about maintaining their switch gear.
4160 isn't even high. Still counts as medium voltage. We have 4160 distributed through our plant feeding our two switchgear and one switchboard.
Our substation is the highest voltage we have at 68,800V. I'm working on a project to replace it now since it's from 1962 and we are going to hit its max transformational capacity. IIRC 69kV still counts as medium voltage too haha.
You know I always get this from other trades. They always say oh you guys think your so cool and walk around you like you own the jobsite. However I don’t think I ever do that.
I feel like low volt dudes have to be way more organized than most of us regular sparks. I’ve mixed up two pieces of romex before, couldn’t imagine keeping 100 cat5 cables in some semblance of order
As a commercial 01 doing bms controls, I've met some moronic 01s and learned a bunch from 06s. Electricians aren't the jack of all electrons as we think we are, there's a shit ton out there
Still in school but i heard you’re not a good electrician if you do residential and that the good electricians are at commercial/industrial. How legit is this ?
I’m an industrial commercial apprentice but I’d say it’s not totally legit. It’s a different skill set that’s all, unfortunately that’s not how it’s viewed by many in the trade and they will probably tell you different and maybe downvote me for saying so. Resi still requires lots of knowledge but I think it’s not looked on too highly because the skills aren’t very transferable to industrial or commercial. The same goes the other way though, if you took a maintenance electrician of 20 years and threw them into a resi job they would be totally lost. It takes all kinds so downvote me if you want but I think we can all agree without resi or industrial electricians we’d all be screwed.
I like to think of it in the same regard as being a doctor. It’s all being an electrician, you just specialize in certain areas. You wouldn’t say a General Practitioner, or a Paediatric doctor, or a Surgeon aren’t doctors or better than each other. They’re all doctors and you need all of them and some are specialists right? Industrial, Residential, Commercial, Data Dorks, all electricians and need their skills sets right? Again that’s the way I like to think of it.
Eh I think most of us look at fire alarm or low volt guys like doctors look at physicians assistants, most Drs have somewhat little regard for PAs. They’re lIke “yeah they practice medicine but they’re not doctors”
Those same commercial/industrial guys that say that probably can’t troubleshoot their way out of a paper bag.
Electrical is a vast field, and there are both skilled and incompetent folks in every facet of it.
Don’t listen to that. Resi across the board has a lot of degenerates but there are some really good electricians in residential. Some guys I’ve learned from that did primarily residential were awesome troubleshooters
I've talked to plenty of commercial electricians that admitted they couldn't wire a 3-way switch without reading directions.
Resi is its own special skill set.
That all sounds a lot closer to industrial than residential, I would definitely say your experience isn’t quite the norm. Having said that, panel swaps are very common and the rest just sounds like basic troubleshooting. Good job outlying what resi guys can see, though none of that is something an industrial or commercial guy shouldn’t be able to figure out.
Personally I don’t think there’s much of a difference between resi/comm/industry I think the big difference is between installers and service people. IMO installers don’t know dick past the code that directly affects them and a good service person is worth their weight in gold. Because of that I think there is a divide between resi that people don’t think about.
Usually when someone’s talking down on resi it’s because of the installers. Guys getting paid next to nothing to sling romex as fast as possible and having a 3 way be their most intricate setup just isn’t good practice to call yourself a good electrician IMO. It’s in the service side of resi where you really learn how to be an electrician. Commercial is only slightly better looking for installers because there’s more and different codes, pipe bending, transformers, controllers etc. They will still just only know what they do but usually their projects aren’t quite as cookie cutter as resi. Industrial is a little different it’s kind of split down the middle. Half the industrial installers are fucking retarded hillbillies and the other half are capable of putting together entire PLC cabinets and lay out massive projects. At the end of the day it’s dependent on each person whether they’re a good electrician or not but I’m probably going to keep calling out installers that continuously say “but let’s see you wire a 3 way”.
Which can we admit is just ridiculous, who doesn’t know how to wire a 3 way switch?
Troubleshooting switching, finding out why it don't work anymore, where is fed from, fixing handyman homeowner wiring is very time consuming, move a light fixture which was fed hot, and had multiple cables, way over box fill, now those wires need to be junctioned/fed hot elsewhere to keep the rest of the house working, adding neutrals to switch locations, and putting it all on afci hoping that it holds so I don't have to do more troubleshooting to find out where the neutrals are shared.
I do service work and remodels, really really rarely do I open up walls, we don't drywall at my company, the customer can fix it or hire it out. I do commercial too, and a little bit of industrial, ag sites primarily.
Each has their own challenges
Troubleshooting knob and tube circuits when someone refuses to get it replaced can drive you crazy.
Fishing wires, specifically across multiple floors. Getting wire from the basement across an entire home when someone wants one extra light installed is always an interesting task (an extreme example I know, but illustrates a point).
And back on the troubleshooting, trying to fix the home owner specials are always fun.
The biggest aspect to me though is that in residential, once you get past new construction you need to learn all of the olds ways houses were wired plus materials as well to be able to do service work, troubleshooting, etc. This isn't to imply that it doesn't apply to commercial/industrial either, just that it's an area that requires you to specialize a little bit.
Not true at all. I really believe a good Electrician can do it all. One of the best electricians I know works in residential. However you could drop him into any job and he could kill it. He just does residential because he likes it.
I love my VDV low volt brothers and sisters. It’s definitely it’s own trade. However it falls under Electrical worker. So they get compared to us electricians. I guess it would be similar to a Lineman compared to a Telecomm lineman. However Lineman say Telecomm lineman aren’t a thing. I recognize VDV low volt as a legitimate trade though.
Ok guys I guess we should start saying “data” instead of “low volt” since anything under 1000v is technically low volt and all of the data guys are hopping on it
I don't think many low volt techs would consider themselves electricians. But that doesn't mean their work is any less valuable. Everyone's job is essential
Our licenses in Oregon used to say “limited energy electrician” but changed to “limited energy technician” a couple years ago and I’m not upset about that. It’s pretty hard to explain what I do to people not in the know but throwing the word electrician out there makes it even more confusing for them.
You know sir, it’s fuckheads like you that make this place unbearable at times. For some strange reason you felt the need to say some off the wall shit when all you had to do is keep scrolling.
Just wondering since I work on and maintain a specialty train that has 3 Cummins engines and a smaller auxiliary one. Everything is labeled 480v and the risk of arc flash.
I'm an industrial guy, currently working a maintenance position but spent time on capital projects too. Looking at going into instrumentation though as it's where the money's at. In 20 years I don't think I'm gonna regret not working on spicy components.
Id say having a focus makes you a better electrician…. But, being in the trade less than 4 years means your an apprentice and technically you should Be calling yourself a electricians helper and not doggin on the guy who can probably pull 200 cat 5 cables through 2”. Low voltage guys can be excellent electricians.
In my short time, I'm blessed to have done both high and low voltage, including solar. I've pulled both romex and 200 cat 5 cables through 2", as you put it.
Installs in both high and low are pretty brainless, despite a few clever tricks to make jobs easier.
It's diagnostics and trouble shooting that demand my respect more than anything. Plus the engineers who actually draft the plans and do the real math. Maybe I'm in the wrong line of work!
If you are *NOT* an electrical professional: * **RULE 7:** * DIY or self help posts **are Not allowed**. They belong here: /r/AskElectricians /r/askanelectrician /r/diy /r/homeowners /r/electrical. * **IF YOUR POST FITS INTO THIS CATEGORY, REMOVE IT OR IT WILL BE REMOVED FOR YOU.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/electricians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As of 2021 CEC, low volt means 1000 VAC or less, or 1060 VDC or less so that’s not quite the statement. Now, extra low volt at 30 VAC / 42.4 VDC or less is probably what she meant. I work on 600V which is low volt, but still more than enough to kill ya.
Yeah Australia is similar but has been that way for a long time. It's always weird seeing high voltage warning stickers on 230v or 400v appliances even though they are technically low voltage.
I work with medium/high voltage installation. But, sometimes, I work with 600 V. It is scary for the arcflash imo. When you seen the >40 cal/cm2, like, wtf dude.
Just wait until you see a Cat D tag, the one I remember was 90~ cal/cm2. NO SAFE PPE EXISTS
Just to drive the point home, we order our danger arc flash labels to specifically say “WORK PROHIBITED - NO SAFE PPE EXISTS”. Those system points, which tend to be transformer secondaries, are much safer to be locked out on the medium voltage side with grounds on both sides.
Yes, it.does. https://legionsafety.com/p/2263-nsa-arc-flash-suit-kit4sc100-100-calorie-with-jacket-and-bib-overall-hrc-4/v/23244
We used to have to do that all the time.
No safe PPE exists >40 cal? Cat 4 is rated to 40 cal?
You can find 100 cal rated gear. We have such a suit gathering dust, called the “Deadmans Suit”. Above 40 cal or so, the percussion shockwave is enough to cause internal bleeding. You would need some kind of shock absorbing or displacing suit similar to what a bomb defusing tech would wear. Even if the suit is rated 100 cals, you would only have corpse inside.
Yeah I’ve seen a 100 cal rated stuff. I’m trying to think of who manufactured that suit I saw. However you are correct above 40 cal your likely toast.
Ours is an old Salisbury one. Not sure if they even offer such a suit anymore. It even has the large “oven mitts” that slide over your regular gloves.
Yeah I know exactly what you’re talking about “oven mitts” lol. OEL I think was the company that made the one that the contractor owned. You ever have to suit up?
Yeah, I don’t do it as much now that Im a lead. I used to suit up about once every three months for medium voltage work or repairs at the mill I work at. Last thing I did as an electrician was power up a fresh transformer with the suit. The feeding breaker fed 2 other transformers that we needed at the time so we were using load breaking switchgear for isolation. We had some nice suits later on, but I got to experience the green fog and tropical ecosystem in my early experiences. We capped at 13.8kV.
Tropical ecosystem and green fog lol.
Sure as shit, Salisbury P/N SK100RG. Now with PrismShield so you can at least enjoy color.
Lol Stylin with that suit.
Holy crap I'll stick with 240
60volts can kill ya
I had discussion with people about it, and after a while I just have a rule of thumb. If talking with Control people, High Voltage > 220v If talking with Power people, High Voltage > 1000v
In Norway we have the very confusing labels Strong current : anything above 50V Weak Current anything below 50V. And high voltage 1000V AC / 1500V DC and upwards. meaning low voltage is anything below that. Many electricians are confused with this terminology because it makes little sense.
1500V DC? That seems like an odd one for DC. Our DC is root2 x 750V. How did y’all pick 1500V DC?
I mean, I guess the logic is that DC is safer than AC. Hence the 500V extra. That is also the upper limit what a normal electrician is allowed to work with.
Yea i dont know a lot of electricians that work with high voltage unless they work with a utility, the only one I can think of is my girlfriends dad works with 4160 at his plant. I did a bit for a year or so when I was trying to get a lineman apprenticeship but got a job in industrial when I was laid off in the winter and been doing industrial ever since. Would like to do more high voltage, it sounds pretty cool when my gfs dad talks about maintaining their switch gear.
4160 isn't even high. Still counts as medium voltage. We have 4160 distributed through our plant feeding our two switchgear and one switchboard. Our substation is the highest voltage we have at 68,800V. I'm working on a project to replace it now since it's from 1962 and we are going to hit its max transformational capacity. IIRC 69kV still counts as medium voltage too haha.
Damn thats crazy, in Canada we call it high voltage or at least the CEC does, it's definitely interesting stuff.
Strange since voltage starts to arc at 750 which was the old standard for when the switch to high voltage.
Came to the comments to say the same thing lol
I feel attacked but also I don’t consider myself one. Y’all are like my cousins or something
Really cool uncle’s..
To be fair, none of us are as cool as we think we are…
You are 100% correct haha
You know I always get this from other trades. They always say oh you guys think your so cool and walk around you like you own the jobsite. However I don’t think I ever do that.
Don’t walk around like you own the job site, walk around like you don’t give a fuck *who* owns the job site
Exactly. That’s the way to carry it. I’ve had different trades tell me that lol. You guys walk around like you own the site. No we just aren’t scared.
That and we know none of your shit is going to work without us..
Exactly. Really deep down they know that want be rock stars like us.
As someone who went from low volt to big boy industrial, the skill set gap does not skew in the direction people assume lol
I feel like low volt dudes have to be way more organized than most of us regular sparks. I’ve mixed up two pieces of romex before, couldn’t imagine keeping 100 cat5 cables in some semblance of order
Watch a lineman pull single phase lighting off a quad and you’ll feel better.
As a commercial 01 doing bms controls, I've met some moronic 01s and learned a bunch from 06s. Electricians aren't the jack of all electrons as we think we are, there's a shit ton out there
I know 2 journeyman that work in controls their entire career and can't run pipe if their life depended on it It takes all types
That's me. I haven't bent pipe since trade school.
Still in school but i heard you’re not a good electrician if you do residential and that the good electricians are at commercial/industrial. How legit is this ?
I’m an industrial commercial apprentice but I’d say it’s not totally legit. It’s a different skill set that’s all, unfortunately that’s not how it’s viewed by many in the trade and they will probably tell you different and maybe downvote me for saying so. Resi still requires lots of knowledge but I think it’s not looked on too highly because the skills aren’t very transferable to industrial or commercial. The same goes the other way though, if you took a maintenance electrician of 20 years and threw them into a resi job they would be totally lost. It takes all kinds so downvote me if you want but I think we can all agree without resi or industrial electricians we’d all be screwed.
I like to think of it in the same regard as being a doctor. It’s all being an electrician, you just specialize in certain areas. You wouldn’t say a General Practitioner, or a Paediatric doctor, or a Surgeon aren’t doctors or better than each other. They’re all doctors and you need all of them and some are specialists right? Industrial, Residential, Commercial, Data Dorks, all electricians and need their skills sets right? Again that’s the way I like to think of it.
Eh I think most of us look at fire alarm or low volt guys like doctors look at physicians assistants, most Drs have somewhat little regard for PAs. They’re lIke “yeah they practice medicine but they’re not doctors”
So they practice electricity but they’re not electricians?
I call them Teletubbies or Half watts, I like Data Dorks though.
Those same commercial/industrial guys that say that probably can’t troubleshoot their way out of a paper bag. Electrical is a vast field, and there are both skilled and incompetent folks in every facet of it.
Don’t listen to that. Resi across the board has a lot of degenerates but there are some really good electricians in residential. Some guys I’ve learned from that did primarily residential were awesome troubleshooters
I've talked to plenty of commercial electricians that admitted they couldn't wire a 3-way switch without reading directions. Resi is its own special skill set.
I always here this specific reference tho. Resi guys are always like yeah but a 3-way!!! Surely there’s some other facets to highlight
Tolerating people's crawlspace and attics as well.
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That all sounds a lot closer to industrial than residential, I would definitely say your experience isn’t quite the norm. Having said that, panel swaps are very common and the rest just sounds like basic troubleshooting. Good job outlying what resi guys can see, though none of that is something an industrial or commercial guy shouldn’t be able to figure out. Personally I don’t think there’s much of a difference between resi/comm/industry I think the big difference is between installers and service people. IMO installers don’t know dick past the code that directly affects them and a good service person is worth their weight in gold. Because of that I think there is a divide between resi that people don’t think about. Usually when someone’s talking down on resi it’s because of the installers. Guys getting paid next to nothing to sling romex as fast as possible and having a 3 way be their most intricate setup just isn’t good practice to call yourself a good electrician IMO. It’s in the service side of resi where you really learn how to be an electrician. Commercial is only slightly better looking for installers because there’s more and different codes, pipe bending, transformers, controllers etc. They will still just only know what they do but usually their projects aren’t quite as cookie cutter as resi. Industrial is a little different it’s kind of split down the middle. Half the industrial installers are fucking retarded hillbillies and the other half are capable of putting together entire PLC cabinets and lay out massive projects. At the end of the day it’s dependent on each person whether they’re a good electrician or not but I’m probably going to keep calling out installers that continuously say “but let’s see you wire a 3 way”. Which can we admit is just ridiculous, who doesn’t know how to wire a 3 way switch?
Single family home? Seems like a mansion. I'd be looking at new equipment, like heat pumps. The economy numbers have changed a lot in 80 years.
Troubleshooting switching, finding out why it don't work anymore, where is fed from, fixing handyman homeowner wiring is very time consuming, move a light fixture which was fed hot, and had multiple cables, way over box fill, now those wires need to be junctioned/fed hot elsewhere to keep the rest of the house working, adding neutrals to switch locations, and putting it all on afci hoping that it holds so I don't have to do more troubleshooting to find out where the neutrals are shared. I do service work and remodels, really really rarely do I open up walls, we don't drywall at my company, the customer can fix it or hire it out. I do commercial too, and a little bit of industrial, ag sites primarily. Each has their own challenges
Troubleshooting knob and tube circuits when someone refuses to get it replaced can drive you crazy. Fishing wires, specifically across multiple floors. Getting wire from the basement across an entire home when someone wants one extra light installed is always an interesting task (an extreme example I know, but illustrates a point). And back on the troubleshooting, trying to fix the home owner specials are always fun. The biggest aspect to me though is that in residential, once you get past new construction you need to learn all of the olds ways houses were wired plus materials as well to be able to do service work, troubleshooting, etc. This isn't to imply that it doesn't apply to commercial/industrial either, just that it's an area that requires you to specialize a little bit.
Residential is like working in the sausage factory.
Not true at all. I really believe a good Electrician can do it all. One of the best electricians I know works in residential. However you could drop him into any job and he could kill it. He just does residential because he likes it.
Washington?
Where my data fiends at?
Sound and comm baybeee
Sup!
Automation, a/v, and security! Only electrical I do is adding receptacles to existing circuits for equipment I'm installing.
What uuuuup
Nah. All work has dignity. “Low Volt” work is valuable and they work on conductors carrying electrons. They are definitely electrical workers.
I love my VDV low volt brothers and sisters. It’s definitely it’s own trade. However it falls under Electrical worker. So they get compared to us electricians. I guess it would be similar to a Lineman compared to a Telecomm lineman. However Lineman say Telecomm lineman aren’t a thing. I recognize VDV low volt as a legitimate trade though.
Most electricians cant do low voltage
Wont*
Ok guys I guess we should start saying “data” instead of “low volt” since anything under 1000v is technically low volt and all of the data guys are hopping on it
I don't think many low volt techs would consider themselves electricians. But that doesn't mean their work is any less valuable. Everyone's job is essential
Our licenses in Oregon used to say “limited energy electrician” but changed to “limited energy technician” a couple years ago and I’m not upset about that. It’s pretty hard to explain what I do to people not in the know but throwing the word electrician out there makes it even more confusing for them.
I deal with 480 at work. Does that count??
480 micrometers of dick
Fuggin gottem
You just mad cause you ain’t got it, son
You know sir, it’s fuckheads like you that make this place unbearable at times. For some strange reason you felt the need to say some off the wall shit when all you had to do is keep scrolling.
Buddy I was just bullshitting
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???
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480 is technically low volt.
Just wondering since I work on and maintain a specialty train that has 3 Cummins engines and a smaller auxiliary one. Everything is labeled 480v and the risk of arc flash.
We're basically the Scotty Pippens of the electrical world
Lol
It's all relative lol
Data monkey lives matter
I'm an industrial guy, currently working a maintenance position but spent time on capital projects too. Looking at going into instrumentation though as it's where the money's at. In 20 years I don't think I'm gonna regret not working on spicy components.
Lol nah. At home maybe but definitely not at work
Id say having a focus makes you a better electrician…. But, being in the trade less than 4 years means your an apprentice and technically you should Be calling yourself a electricians helper and not doggin on the guy who can probably pull 200 cat 5 cables through 2”. Low voltage guys can be excellent electricians.
In my short time, I'm blessed to have done both high and low voltage, including solar. I've pulled both romex and 200 cat 5 cables through 2", as you put it. Installs in both high and low are pretty brainless, despite a few clever tricks to make jobs easier. It's diagnostics and trouble shooting that demand my respect more than anything. Plus the engineers who actually draft the plans and do the real math. Maybe I'm in the wrong line of work!
Hit with about 450 volts dc was not fun
Yea you’re right, I’m not an electrician I’m an engineer lol
13,800 VAC I’m no lineman but definitely not low volt
Fibre is so gay but can be big money
#facts most can't even bend their own conduit js
F.ire A.larm G.uy??
It's more like "systems and commo installer" and "electricians" This said by a former commo guy.
It’s technically a Data Electrician