Glad you get it. There are a lot of "installers" in the field who think they are electricians.

⁠@@professorg8383 do you have a J card?

@@tfun101 Back in the early 1970's completed a 7 step Electrical Apprenticeship in an industrial program and received a Journeyman's Certification. The Apprenticeship program at the time was recognized by the IBEW to be fundamentally equivalent and obtaining the IBEW Journeyman's card was mostly a formality. At he time both the IBEW and the automotive industry were recruiting our guys. I was USWA at the time so we had a pretty good package and plenty of OT available. I was considering making the move but the company offered me a position in electrical management. That included education reimbursement so I could pursue my EE degree. Our apprenticeship had included multiple EE classes at a highly recognized engineering university extension and my credit could carry over allowing a fast track path toward my degree. I chose that option. It was a great opportunity. Sadly these kinds of things don't exist much anymore. I don't regret the decision at all. I as very much a hands-on kind of guy, but realized could accomplish much more in management and ultimately make more money too. The choice got me into some huge projects working with the latest technologies. It was tough though because managing a full time plus job and attending school at night meant I was on the go all the time. I got my degree and continued to advance in the companies management while making a lot of contacts within the industry. Amassed a ton of CE credits ang the way through numerous manufacturer programs. I became a project engineer in a billion dollar joint venture green field project. I spent close to 15 years on the design and build of that project and was then chosen to run all the electrical and instrumentation at that facility. That included hiring and training all of our technicians and developing our own apprenticeship program. At the same time I was very involved in higher levels of corporate management. Then about 20 years ago I took full retirement and quickly joined up with an engineering company doing project engineer and project management, Probably spent 80% of my time in the field. We worked exclusively with IBEW guys. In between some big projects I got involved in doing training of our clients and also for the IBEW. I started making a shift between project management and training. Over time, passed on a lot of big projects as project manager because these are enormous high demand roles and instead did limited consulting on them. I reduced my field work to about 20% and focused more on the engineering management side and building training programs tied to the projects. As I was aging and wanted more free time, I moved more into a consultation role. Project management is very demanding and because oi the pace, it can be a 25/7 job. (Not a typo, but an expression of the demanding role it can be.) Tried to pick smaller projects to consult on. That included some with both commercial and residential contractor companies. That is pretty much where I lost all respect for those doing residential construction. I had never in my entire career come across such unqualified people. And the management folks were even worse than the guys on the job. I pissed off a lot of owners when I told them they were violating laws with their total disregard of OSHA and the NEC code. They even expressed that they did not care at all about this and they got paid for delivering good enough, fast and cheap. I even had one tell me that if they ever got into trouble, they'd just get out of it through bankruptcy and then build a new LLC. They told me that none of their workers had the resources to pursue any legal actions and they would destroy them in court. Absolute worst case was having to buy them off with a few thousand dollars. Almost all these guys said they would not hire IBEW guys because they wanted too much money and were more trouble than they were worth. I saw plenty of examples at several jobsites where these guys operated with the same mentality as the guys managing them. Some of these contractors tried to bid jobs with our engineering company and they were quickly disqualified. I knew the right questions to ask in bidders meetings to where these guys showed themselves as complete idiots. Although it was not a written rule, our engineering company did not do any jobs with non IBEW workers with the exception of a few small companies specializing in IT stuff. Ultimately, I scaled back to where I worked part time for these guys, only consulting on hand picked smallish projects or for specific limited parts of bigger jobs. Then I got offered teaching project for local community college with multiple campuses across the state. We built a program for HS kids tied to one of their technical degree program. Somewhat to my surprise, I was very well received by these kids. All the teaching had done before was with adults. Didn't know how well I would do with today's HS kids. Also sometimes doing custom classes for local companies. most of the college staff were some pretty sharp guys but only had experience in academia. They didn't get rated very high for any of there custom stuff with local companies and I was very well received. I added another dimension they did not have with their traditional staff. Through the years as became more management and more engineer with less hands on, I missed that kind of work. So over time. I built my own shop with capabilities that make a lot of guys jealous. I do some mentoring with promising students and other wise a variety of miscellaneous stuff, including experimenting and creating some of my own stuff. Built some PLC trainers for use in my classes and always looking at making training aids for hands on labs. I also enjoy testing some of the, so called, "latest and greatest" wiring devices. Particularly stuff with questionable claims. And of course, often do a lot of repairs for friends and family. Almost always have some sort of project going that includes both mechanical and electrical skills. I get some of my mentored kids involve in these things. I have in the past been involved in issuing opinions on NEC code changes too. My roots are in industrial and automation, however I'm a strong believer that all the electrical theory applies across all the different sub fields. Part of my low opinion of "installer electricians" is that few have had any real training in the theory of the work they are doing. And guys who will tell me that something doesn't apply to residential wiring. My guess is they often hear about things they do being wrong and they seem to have a distaste for engineers as guys trying to make their jobs harder. Maybe it comes from being shown that they are doing something wrong. But it's something I see in a lot of guys doing residential work including things like concrete and roofing. IDK when it happened, but it used to be that most of these guys had respect for what the engineers told them and that seems rare anymore. IDK, but I think some of this comes from the shady contractors that employ them and some may com from the fact that so manyof these guys were HS dropouts or barely graduated.

This is why they make you take an electrical theory course. So, when you install or troubleshoot, you know how and why you're doing something.

That is at 120v. At 240 volts it would be only a 3% drop. But at 12v that 7 volts is a 58% voltage drop. This is one of the big reasons we increase the voltage when we know there will be a voltage drop.

@@ecospider5 Voltage drop does not decrease to 3% at 240 volts. To begin with ANSI sets the national standard for voltage tolerances. There is an A and B range for voltage tolerances at the service entry. Range A is +/- 5%. This allows 5% for the utility and 5% for the customer. As for a motor, there is no such thing as a 240 volt motor. It would be a 230 volt motor that is used on a 240 system and can be utilized from 207 to 253 volts (+/- 10% of nameplate rating) per NEMA standards. These are national standards that are recognized across all industries.

Code aside, how much is acceptable depends on what the load is. Something like a battery charger might not care at all, it will just take a little longer. Lights can be very sensitive. And transferred power is what really matters, and it varies by the square of the voltage. So a small change in voltage may cause a significantly larger change in power.

@@strehlow that is also covered in a code, PST flicker. It is the perception of flicker in an incandescent light the human eye can notice. It is on a curve, the smaller the voltage drop the more events are allowable in a given amount of time.

I have a question. After you run the wire, if you take a voltage reading. Would it should the voltage drop? Or this is only going to happen when a load is applied?

I'm gonna call BS. 2/0 aluminum at 1000 ft and 50 amps. You will get about a13% V drop, or 104V at the meter. You would need 500 mcm to stay within 5% at 1000'.

@@TnTBLACK95 ... I was going from memory, and that 5% should have been 15%. (my mistake) Now that you mentioned this the goal was to stay above 105 volts. IOW, my draw had to be well under 50 amps. Again, going from memory.... I recall loading one leg at a time and the real numbers for continuous draw were probably in the 40 amp range with something closer to 110 volts. These days the service is used for other things and real draw is under 20 amps a leg. Of course, we also cut the feed short so now just under 800 ft. Since this thread is about how to avoid voltage drop I will mention that one guy thought we could do the run in #6 wire... till we had a little talk about using the charts. Charts are a handy thing to have!

@@rupe53 that makes a lot more sense. lol I'm a power quality tech for the utility company and run into these types of situations regularly. To save money a secondary will be extended to serve a new customer or these old houses are being remodeled with multiple hvac units. Since engineers go by what "their book says" I downloaded a pretty handy app for figuring wire size, load drop, power factor, resistance....

the problem with trying to measure anything while the wire is on a roll / spool is it will act like a transformer because the wire is packed close to itself. A prime example was back in the days when they were skeptical of doing a transoceanic telegraph line. In theory they figured they could hook up to a spool that was 100 miles long and test each spool before laying it. It didn't work.... till they laid it the distance. (some engineer pointed out the flaw in testing) Yes, there was continuity, but the pulsing of the power (Morse code) caused a change in the resistance.

Well stated! I designed a branch circuit to a fuel pump based on footage from panel to pump. In the field, the owner requested the pump be controlled by a switch installed in an office a considerable distance from the panel. The PM priced the change and had the switch installed. The pump burned out after a couple months after they moved in.

Vacuum cleaner motors are brushed motors, not asynchronous ones like in industrial applicstions. They will just slow down with undervoltage.

Ur a car guy not an electrician

Hey Jeff, we’re these with soft starters?

@@RR42636 yes. And I am working from memory (1999). Concept is sound, though. Inrush is stunning. Common starters for electric motors use a "slow blow" breaker to survive inrush. Brutal solution, and the expensive (but helpful) soft-start units don't entirely disappear the problem.

Yes actually. Mostly of the time stranded copper will have slightly less impurities than solid copper wires. That said, most of the time the impurities are so small that they won’t make a difference unless the run is hundreds of feet long.

I believe he has a video on what you're asking. Check the catalog.

@@Makitafan thank you I have to go through his videos

The 80% derating applies to continuous loads. See 210.20(A). 210.21(B2) and 210.23(A1) also mention 80% loading for cord-and-plug-connected loads.

Typically, the utility company wires are not your responsibility to consider and they do their own calculations to deliver power to a meter. Here in Austin we submit a proposal for what conductors we'd like to use and they look at everything and if they see a problem they'll address it. Just depends on the situation really. If you're responsible for installing the secondary wires from a pad mounted transformer 300 ft away from a meter, yes you need to upsize for voltage drop, especially if there's several hundred more feet of conductors going in to other buildings. The more loads on the system, the worse the drop will be, so keep that in mind with the types of structures you're wiring. For most instances your responsibility for voltage drop begins at the service point where their wires hook up to yours through the rest of the system. Being ahead of the curve, however, I would definitely factor that in when building a service if I think there's going to be a drop.

Isn’t a Loss of voltage really a lack of voltage?

@@howtodoitdude1662 No, at the breaker box you will have full voltage. Loss is at end of line set. Edit; or I should say 'loss' is IN the line set.

IIRC they actually make something for that problem. It's basically a combination of a 240v extension cord and a transformer to reduce the voltage at the point of use. Instead of running a 120v line that long distance with the high voltage drop (to what I can only assume is something like a house or commercial building under construction), you run a 240v line with thicker conductors that distance, and then you run regular (not daisy chained) 120v extension cords (probably 12 AWG wire at least) the remaining distance to where the actual power tools are being used. And if "they" don't make one, I'm sure YOU could, provided you can find a suitable 240v-120v step-down transformer and know how to hook everything up correctly. An auto-transformer "will" work, but an isolated transformer is preferred because the isolation provides another layer of protection against potential electrocution because no current can flow from the 240v ground or neutral to the isolated windings of the transformer.

Would that not require a step up then a step down transformer?

A momentary light dimming will happen with a furnace motor(s) start, or especially when AC starts up. This is worse when furnaces are dirty/clogged and/or AC units are not running well. Any big power draw will cause a quick dimming or flicker, but should only be caused by HVAC equipment or something like a microwave or vacuum starting. This is worse in older homes but this should last for less than a second or two. Beyond that, terminals may be loose, a motor may be going bad and drawing high current, wiring may be botched, etc. First and forement, make sure the HVAC is off and if it persists, you have a problem

2KIL multiplier of 2 is to correct that on single phase runs

Uh, what? So if I upsize my wires AND upside my breaker/ fuses I magically get more torque?

@@that1electrician 240 would pull less amperage, so take it easy. internet sandbox bully

The short answer is "yes" it accounts for a 4% voltage drop of nominal voltage from the utility. NEMA standards are 10%+/- of nameplate voltage. Your 460v motor has an operating range of 414 to 506 volts. Overvoltage can lead to saturation of the motor windings which will cause heating and early failure. In most cases you find low voltage rather than high though. Stay with a good quality motor and run within the voltage operating range and all should be good.

@@TnTBLACK95 ...Awesome. Thanks for the reply. I always do my calculations to make sure we're in range before we energize anything, but was just curious if it was in fact the case so that as I'm explaining it to my guys, I'm not passing along any incorrect information.