Life cycle of 240v plugs

[Marc Jeske]

DANGGG !!!

Seriously, that was a crazy interesting situation.

Marc

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Julie, a flying flaming phone? You don't see that every day!

[Charles Taylor]

Julie, a flying flaming phone? You don't see that every day!

You might if you work for Samsung...

[Carlos Alvarez]

Will flipping the main prevent a power surge from zapping my tools?

The switch on your tools already prevents a power surge from zapping your tools. You are worried about nothing. The radio control is the only thing still connected to power, so yeah, you could theoretically damage that. The power tool switches already disconnect them from the power when turned off.

[Rod Sheridan]

Will flipping the main prevent a power surge from zapping my tools?

Not necessarily.

A large enough transient can bridge the open breaker contacts, or it can be coupled into the panel via the ground or neutral wire. Admittedly, destruction of equipment is fairly rare due to transients.

regards, Rod.

[Mike Heidrick]

If that happens tools will be least on your mind i bet. They probable stand the best chances of surviving as well. It would have to do Rods rare feats, and then brige your disconnects and power switches too.

[William Hodge]

I have a shop on the top of a ridge, with a lot of bedrock outcroppings. We have always had a lot of lightning strikes nearby.Fortunately, it usually hits trees. A few years ago lightning struck a tree several hundred feet from the shop. It blew the center out of a 18" diameter white pine, so that the top all of a sudden was sitting on air, like the coyote. The lighting blew up roots on several surrounding trees. It also took out my invisible dog fence, a voltage sensor, blew the tops off light bulbs, and killed a 7 1/2 hp 3 phase motor on a table saw. The three phase system was all shut off with a three contact knife switch. The lightning came in on the ground.

After that, I put plugs on all the stuff that was direct wired to shut offs. Everything gets ungrounded every night, and whenever there is a storm.

I have been doing this daily for ten years. The plugs are fine.

[Julie Moriarty]

I was thinking about what type of disconnect could be used to prevent an arc from jumping across open terminals and thus prevent a lightning strike from zapping your tools. I thought of all the types of disconnects I worked with and a knife switch came to mind. But the gap on even a 480v knife switch wouldn't guarantee protection.

The highest voltage installation I did in my career was 12.8kV. Two different jobs, both to run medium voltage distribution through high rise buildings. One of the disconnecting means we used in both applications was by pulling an elbow off a disconnect rack we called "chairs". The elbows looked like this:


When the system is energized, there's a tool called a hot stick, up to 10' long, that grabs the eye on the back of the elbow and pulls it away to make the disconnect. Then the disconnected elbow is set on an isolated rack.

When it comes to what we think of as a disconnect cabinet, medium voltage switchgear is substantial and far more complex than what you'd see for low voltage applications (480V on down). And this and for only 12.8kV.

So when it comes to the safest, cheapest and easiest way of protecting power tools from lightning zap - pull the plug.