Playing with electrons?

[Guest]

Hey everyone.

For those who frequent the B3 forum, you may recognize the username.

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a portion of a show dedicated to working with electricity and focused, of course, on safety.

I have posted quite a bit regarding electrical safety and how and why things should be constructed in a certain way on the B3 forum.

I have never officially introduced myself, so here goes. I have a BSEE and am a licensed professional engineer in California and Washington. I also hold a supervisory electrical certificate in Washington.

For the past decade, I have been working extensively in the electrical safety realm, dealing with UL and NEC codes.

I am licensed to teach the NEC in 6 states and frequently do so. Additionally, I work on large contracts for large, well-known corporations who need consultation, education and electrical oversight.

Currently, I manage the major and key accounts for the Western Division of my company, which is everything West of the Mississippi. I can't really name my company and offer advice without getting approval from the legal and regulatory department, which isn't fun.

I was thinking it may be a good thing to talk about electricity, how to use it, what all of those gadgets do and cover typical electrical systems and components. NEC requirements as well as component requirements could be covered as well.

There seems to be a ton of questions on motor control, pid control, wiring size, power calculations, gfci breakers, electrically operated gas valves, branch circuit sizing and the like.

Obviously, I like the subject, but then again, my view is slanted.

What do the rest of you think?

[Guest]

Well, it looks like I forgot to log in and ended up posting as a guest.

[Dogger Dan]

For what its worht its doing the same at my end

Dogger

[trans]

Personally, I don't know if discussing electricity would really be within the scope of most homebrewers. I'm may be short-sighted though, as I am a full-boil extract brewer who doesn't use any electricity at all in the process (well, except for fermentation).

Yes, it may be somewhat relevant to discuss electricity and electronics, but I don't know how much of the audience would be interested. Being a BSEE myself, I could appreciate the material, but it may put some people to sleep. So I guess you should see what the overall response is, as perhaps there is a bigger demand for this information than I thought.

For me, most practical electrical knowledge can be found fairly readily. In fact, most real-life practical stuff I learned on my own, as being an EE really only taught me stuff like finding a differential equation to describe an RLC circuit, and not "how many amps can I run through this wire?" So I think if somebody is really interested in a certain electrical topic, they will either Google on it or pick up a book to find the information. I think there are way more subtleties in brewing than there are in electronics, and as a result, hearing the discussion from various people on the topics of brewing makes it interesting. Hearing about Ohm's law, loading effects, circuit breakers, and electrical codes may not be very interesting to people.

But yes, obviously you are knowledgeable on the material and could probably describe it succinctly in layman terms, so it could very well be doable. I say wait to see what the overall response is and take it from there.


- joe

PS: Sorry if it sounds like I'm bashing the idea, as that is not my goal. I'm just stating that people may not be open to hearing about all of these things, even if people like you and me may find them interesting.

[Lufah]

I don't know about doing a full show on it, but I think it would go great on the gadget show. I see a lot of stuff out there about heat sticks and electric boil kettles. I don't do any of it, but will be puting in a pump and some other gadgets that will use electric. Past putting it on a GFCI outlet, I really don't know that I need to do anything else

Travis

[Stein]

That's pretty much what I had in mind, a partial show on it.

The problem with Googling something is that if you don't have the knowledge, the answer won't help. Someone without an electrical background has about zero chance of correctly and safely building a pid controller for heating elements, for example.

More electrocutions and accidents occur with 120 V than any other voltage.

I am amazed at the amount of people who are now using electricity in their brewery. From heat to pid control and pumps, it seems like an industry trend towards more complicated and potentially dangerous systems. Throw in water, propane and fire and you have a monster on your hand.

I have personally taught over 2,000 electricians and I can tell you that they have questions and trouble with interpreting complex codes and making informed decisions. If electricians have questions, I am sure laymen do as well.

Ignorance is bliss, until you fry yourself.

Electrical safety is similar to wearing seat belts. "I have brewed 52 batches this way and have never had a problem, so my system is safe." It is the 53rd time that hurts.

[trans]

That's pretty much what I had in mind, a partial show on it.

It sure seems like a lot of material to cover to me. I mean, if you are just covering electrical safety, then maybe it's doable on a single partial show. I think if there are a couple of partial shows on electricity, then you could cover all of the facets fairly decently.

For example..one show on safety, one on PID's, one on pumps, etc. That way the questions are focused to the topic at hand and questions won't come from all over the place.

I've been shocked by 120 V, 240 V (my body hurt for days after that), and even voltages in the tens of thousands (much lower amperage), so yes, I now know that safety is important. Of course, if I hadn't gotten shocked all of those times, I probably never would have learned what kinds of hazards had been posed. However, if safety were stressed more to people, then perhaps less people would get hurt by it. There's no reason why people should have to get seriously injured (or worse) in order to learn what they are dealing with.

So yes if electricity is addressed on the show, then perhaps an electrical safety segment on one show, then other segments (on other shows) on functionality of other electrical components would be a good idea.


- joe

[Lufah]

I would love to see just a basic highlight of the saftey stuff you need to know. Like what you need to know to wire up a pump. I think pids and dedicated circuits are a little too much for the show. GFCI and maybe simple circuit stuff. I don't really know what I'm talking about, but a simple overview and some saftey stuff would be great. I don't know how many people like me are out there, but we are trouble. We have big panels on the firewall of the engine "DANGER 600 VOLTS". I'm in there all the time. Hasn't killed me yet

Travis