# Fugly Splice



## dronai (Apr 11, 2011)

We got a new dust collector with a larger motor to replace the old. Had to run larger wire to the new control panel. Replaced the #10's with #8. When we went inside the gutter where our disconnect was picking up power, we found a nice looking splice, where they had taken #12's and spliced to the 10's !!! circa 1950's


----------



## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

Looks like every old abandoned textile mill around here.


----------



## dronai (Apr 11, 2011)

MTW said:


> Looks like every old abandoned textile mill around here.


This place is in the process of doing induction furnace renovations, including all new motor controls. One scheduled for thanksgiving, and the other for Xmas ! Happy holidays for me


----------



## emtnut (Mar 1, 2015)

dronai said:


> This place is in the process of doing induction furnace renovations, including all new motor controls. One scheduled for thanksgiving, and the other for Xmas ! Happy holidays for me


Double bubble :smile:


----------



## 460 Delta (May 9, 2018)

```

```



MTW said:


> Looks like every old abandoned textile mill around here.


If it was covered in sand and gravel it could be one a couple r-mix plants I have. 
Were the textile mills on a 550 volt Delta or on a 2300 volt system?


----------



## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

460 Delta said:


> If it was covered in sand and gravel it could be one a couple r-mix plants I have.
> Were the textile mills on a 550 volt Delta or on a 2300 volt system?



Almost all 600 (550) volt ungrounded delta from what I've seen and know about the mills here. I've never seen a 2300 volt one but that doesn't mean we never had any, I wasn't around back in those days. :laughing: Wasn't 2300 common in steel mills and the like?


----------



## CoolWill (Jan 5, 2019)

460 Delta said:


> ```
> 
> ```
> If it was covered in sand and gravel it could be one a couple r-mix plants I have.
> Were the textile mills on a 550 volt Delta or on a 2300 volt system?


The ones I cut my teeth on were 575 volts. It was really 600 off the transformer. I saw it all at those places. There isn't a three phase utilization voltage and transformer configuration we didn't have. Wyes and deltas, zig zags, grounded, ungrounded, corner grounded, high legs, impedence grounded, buck-boosts, European voltages, Asian voltages, auto transformers... It was a mess. A wonderful mess. I learned more working there than any other place I've ever been.


----------



## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

CoolWill said:


> The ones I cut my teeth on were 575 volts. It was really 600 off the transformer. I saw it all at those places. There isn't a three phase utilization voltage and transformer configuration we didn't have. Wyes and deltas, zig zags, grounded, ungrounded, corner grounded, high legs, impedence grounded, buck-boosts, European voltages, Asian voltages, auto transformers... It was a mess. A wonderful mess. I learned more working there than any other place I've ever been.





Did they make their voltage decisions based on whatever transformer they could find at the scrapyard that day? :laughing:


----------



## CoolWill (Jan 5, 2019)

MTW said:


> Did they make their voltage decisions based on whatever transformer they could find at the scrapyard that day? :laughing:


They would get used equipment from all over the world. And they never got rid of anything. So the old part of the mill had delta-delta transformers and the newer parts had high leg deltas and wyes. It was a hoot keeping 70 year-old machines humming or converting trashed European machines to work with American parts. Good times.

Those old mills are now hipster studio apartments


----------



## 460 Delta (May 9, 2018)

MTW said:


> Almost all 600 (550) volt ungrounded delta from what I've seen and know about the mills here. I've never seen a 2300 volt one but that doesn't mean we never had any, I wasn't around back in those days. :laughing: Wasn't 2300 common in steel mills and the like?


Yeah, that and 11KV I was told.


----------



## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

CoolWill said:


> They would get used equipment from all over the world. And they never got rid of anything. So the old part of the mill had delta-delta transformers and the newer parts had high leg deltas and wyes. It was a hoot keeping 70 year-old machines humming or converting trashed European machines to work with American parts. Good times.


We had a place like that around here, I did some work there with Iwire. Just as old and convoluted, not as many voltage systems but they had every imaginable wiring method in there. A true hodge podge of decades worth of factory electrician wiring. 



> Those old mills are now hipster studio apartments


All the remaining mills here are being converted into those too. If those people who worked in them 100 years ago could know they would one day be inhabited by millenial hipsters, they probably would have imagined it was an alien invasion.


----------



## dronai (Apr 11, 2011)

This is a foundry, the furnaces use 12,000V /2800V, most of the plant uses 460V for everything else.


----------



## CoolWill (Jan 5, 2019)

dronai said:


> This is a foundry, the furnaces use 12,000V /2800V, most of the plant uses 460V for everything else.


Looks like someone turned a 3 into an 8 with a marker.


----------



## circuitman1 (Mar 14, 2013)

that's bad being away from your family, but the $$$ i bet are going to be out there.:devil3::devil3:


----------



## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

CoolWill said:


> Looks like someone turned a 3 into an 8 with a marker.


That's cuz nobody makes signs that say 2800V! Melt furnaces are mostly custom built to order and so are the transformers for them. When I worked at a steel mill, one of ours was 3600V. We had to have all of the signage custom made.


----------



## Norcal (Mar 22, 2007)

You can get similar strange stuff with old almond hullers around here, one had a 12 X 12 gutter with 12 AWG taps w/ white insulation going to safety switches & motor starters down the line. With the Westinghouse & ITE discos and Westinghouse & Furnas starters knew which supply house it all came from.


For many years AG was not inspected here.


----------



## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

dronai said:


> We got a new dust collector with a larger motor to replace the old. Had to run larger wire to the new control panel. Replaced the #10's with #8. When we went inside the gutter where our disconnect was picking up power, we found a nice looking splice, where they had taken #12's and spliced to the 10's !!! circa 1950's


A post twister meets a non twister.


----------



## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

That's like every damn starter gutter ever lol


----------

