Congratulations!!!

I have a question.

Was there a black-market somewhere for buying points?

I know that Vic came by all his points honestly, but if somebody was unscrupulous, could points be purchased?

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Congrats Vic. Glad I was able to help.

Oh and Angela, want to buy some points? I like Dew and Doritos.

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And I have a TCL 55S401 4K TV on the way too.

Sweet...

It is going to knock your socks off.

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Do you have to pay the shipping charges for the xbox and game you just won, or are shipping charges included in your win?

Congrats Vic. Glad I was able to help.

Oh and Angela, want to buy some points? I like Dew and Doritos.

LOL!!! If a black market for PepsiCo/Frito-Lay points wasn't previously established, I think Carlos and I just started one.

And no, I do not want to buy any points to win a gaming system. The last thing I want in my living room is more electronics!!!

When does the market close? Maybe people will have lots more points for you by the closing date.

Just watch the price boom after Thanks Giving and again after Christmas (and probably New Year) when families collect together all their bags and bottles for points.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Congrats, Vic!

I hate to bust in on an ad for Pepsico, but I'm drinking Cherry Coke Zero, and having a slice of rye toast.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Those are quite small, but significant loads.
The TV will draw about 1.3A (running) and probably about 2A on start-up (not start from standby)
The X-Box will draw about1.7A running, so about 3.5A on start-up (again, not start from standby)

From memory you have suffered quite a number of power distribution issues with breakers that are damaged and outlets that are physically "not as good as they should be" - I would sorting your wiring out to the top of the list, not let it fester at the bottom while buying more "toys". A house fire for someone fully insured is bad enough, but for someone like yourself who has only limited cover it is a very bad thing to have happen - and a very large proportion of house fires are down to faulty electrical installations.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

my main concern would be that the potato chip/soda companies were running automated background operating tasks with fabricated points to keep the winning auction levels out of reach

but if that's not the case, you could use the $800 to buy a ton of soda and chips and then get the xboxes and sell those

Vic, stop abusing folks who try to help.

You say you've got three "failed" breakers, out of five - that is NOT a good situation, indeed it is a very bad situation to be in. You had an electrician in "some time ago" who did some work, but that was some time ago, presumably before the breakers broke, thus he wouldn't have seen the condition of the equipment today.
Now breakers break for a number of reasons, as you are aware, sometimes they mechanically break, other times there there are internal faults, and other times there are faults in the wiring that make it look like a breaker fault. Any breaker that is mechanically broken is a safety hazard and needs to be replaced as soon as possible. Any breaker that "won't hold in" for no apparent reason also needs to be investigated, it might just be a faulty breaker, or it might be something far more serious. So get an electrician in as soon as possible to replace any mechanically broken breakers and investigate the others. I know this will cost you money, but your life, Gracie's life and your home are far more important than having the latest X-box or fancy TV.

Much the same goes for outlets that are worn out - I know its hard to accept that this happens, but the US mains plug and socket are not the strongest in the world, they look to be "designed to fail".

As for trailing leads - they have their place, and using them to run power around your home to supply power to areas that haven't got any due to breaker faults is, in anything other than the very short term very unsafe.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I well remember those breaker boxes from when I worked in LA in the late 1970s...... And they are actually very similar to the sort of breakers we had in the UK back then. These days most re-wires and new installations are like that shown in Chris's picture.

We had an "issue" with the red/blue breakers in the (LA) house - red was meant to be one phase and blue another, but somewhere or other there was a crossover and there was a room which should have been on the "red" phase according to its breaker, but was really on the "blue" phase...

Those old "hynerman" style breakers were rather fragile when new, and will undoubtedly be getting worse with age.
Like you I'm somewhat skeptical about the availability of spares for that box, and the price of a new box may be "scary" to you :-(

Depending on the construction of the box it may be possible to replace the front plate with a more modern one which will take the more recent (and far more reliable) breakers - It is far better to have only one family of breakers, probably in two "sizes", smaller for the low current (up to about 30A or so), and larger for the main incoming 100A - Chris's photo clearly shows the more modern way of doing things with all the breakers work in one direction, the division of the board into sections with ELCBs (RCD on the labels). It is possible (but I can't read the labels to be certain) that Chris's board has three or four different breaker ratings (e.g. 10A lighting, 15A outlet circuits, 30A cooker) in the "distribution" area and a 60A or 100A incoming breaker.

A word of warning - Do not be tempted to tape or jam a broken breaker "on" - if there is a fault on the fed circuit that breaker won't work properly :-(

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

If you need 50' extensions cords in your house To run anything. You have a problem. Ive seen that picture Vic Of the octopuss of outlets you had on one outlet. The one where you had the CO detector. That's bad also.
You have crappy outlets so you over load the ones that work? Then you have bad breakers and you overload the good ones? Hopefully you do NOT tie breaker to keep it on?
And please never ever put an extension cord under any rug. If you cant see it you will walk on it. and it will fail at some point and start a fire.
Maintanance of ones house should take precendence over E-bay junk or eating junk food for a auction that you will not win.

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[/quote]

Old James

A few months ago, I bought a freezer to be put in my basement, and was told I should have a dedicated outlet close to it. I called an electrician, and had the situation fixed.

I wouldn't run extension cords for major appliances; it's dangerous.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Yes.....
Vic needs to prioritize some things a bit better.
New TV and xbox are fine, but no good if the electrical service puts the whole shack, Vic, and Grace at risk.
I ran a subfeed box to the crunchers long ago because I was overloading the branch circuits.
Gotta prioritize, Vic. Gotta prioritize.

Meow.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Vic,
Looking at the picture of your board - it would appear that all the breakers are "on" - I realise this picture is old, and so the status may well have changed since the picture was taken. That aside, there appears to be a bar connecting the two "blue" breakers" on the right - is this the case, or is it an optical illusion? - if it is a bar then it might be that those four breakers actually operate on the same set of circuits, just providing an additional current capacity to a group of circuits (this was a common practice all over the place until the mid 1990s). Such practice is now frowned on universally as there have been far too many incidents where the circuit should have tripped, but one breaker has dropped and the other has welded.
As to how breakers work - there are two main ways:
- Thermal - there is a bi-metallic strip in there that gets hot (well, not really that hot) and releases a mechanical latch, so the breaker drops out;
- Magnetic, a small electromagnet is arranged so it releases a mechanical latch when the breaker goes into over-current.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and both "age", and that's a problem (I could write a book about the issues of aging in circuit breakers). Depending on the exact construction of the breaker so aging can result in the breaker dropping out early or late - early is better. By dint of design work and materials selection more modern breakers age in a "safer" manner than many old ones.

Ratings, this is a real headache. When rating a breaker there are a number of things to consider, some are very easy, like AC/DC and cable current capacity, but what about impulse breaking current, DI/DT curve and so on. Fortunately in the domestic market most of these have been taken care of by the national standards bodies, so it's just a case of going to the catalogue and choosing a breaker with the right current rating for the load class (resistive/inductive/capacitive). A quick look in a couple of US catalogues shows that you can get single phase 110v/60Hz beakers up to 60A, and phase summing breakers up to 200A - more than enough for your needs! (Not forgetting of course that your incoming supply is only rated at 100A, but in complete ignorance of if that is 100A/phase or 100A total....).

I think in your situation the limiting factor is going to be the actual wiring in your home - wiring is expensive and intrusive to replace (unless it all runs in accessible trunking in which case it's only expensive). Given the age of your place it could be wired with plain copper, or copper clad aluminium, or plain aluminium - copper is by far and above the best, and I just hope that's what's been used.

In most places the incoming mains is in an armoured cable, so it will appear to be "quite massive", but the conductors will be typically between 0.125 and 0.25 inch diameter (maybe 0.375 if folks were feeling really generous) buried in something many times that diameter.

So get an electrician in to inspect the whole of your installation and then take his advice.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Vic's panel looks typical for a 100A service entrance and it looks in good shape for the age, especially if it is outside. Typical 100A 110v/220v service is #4 to #2 AL overhead and #2 to 1/0 AL underground wire. Copper wire is almost a size smaller.

Mobile homes in US everything is bonded and grounded back to distribution system earth/ground/neutral. All conduit and receptacle/switch boxes are grounded back to system earth/ground/neutral. Most any kind of fault in mobile home (it's a metal box) will trip breakers. Yes, a fire is always possible, nothing is 100%.

Typical US houses are 3 wire "Y" with a bond back to distribution system earth/ground/neutral. I don't know if UK has changed but they used to be 2 wire Delta with two hot legs and your earth/ground is in your house, not back to distribution system. Delta can be more efficient but "Y" is safer for people and equipment. I lived outside London (Denham, Bucks) for four years in 60s.

Typically a person that lives alone (been there) only has stuff turned on in the room they are in. Much different usage than a couple or a family.

A cord/plug that will not stay plugged into wall outlet the outlet needs to be changed.

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Ok I found a pic of My breaker box, I have 10 single breakers and one dual ganged breaker, the two 20A breakers are in the bottom left, the two 15A breakers on the lower right each have a broken(missing) hold down and when it rains from the SSE, they get shorted out, but since they are each controlling only 1 GFCI outlet, it's a nuisance that one day soon I hope to fix, the broken breaker is the bottom red breaker. This is an old breaker box, oh and the top beaker is the 100A main breaker, throw that breaker, and the whole house would have no power, the box was made by Slater in 1987.

This is a Type BR panel Any breaker labeled "BR" will work. These are common breakers and Home Depot has them in stock. BR breakers at Home Depot

Also get that cover screwed back in place. Having it sag is putting stress on the breakers where they plug into your load center.

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