Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips?

   / Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips? #261  
PitbullMidwest said:
A trick I learned a few years ago helps keep extension cords from getting tangled. Drill a hole near the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket and run the plug and about 2 foot of cord out the hole and coil the rest of the extension cord inside the bucket. Set the bucket next to an outlet, plug it in and feed out as much or little cord as you need. A 5 gallon bucket will hold a lot of joined extension cords. When you're done simply coil the cords back into the bucket. No fuss and no tangles and it's easier to carry one bucket than multiple cords.

Be careful with this one. The coiled wire will act as an inductor and increase its resistance. It can overheat and make your load (if it's motor driven) overheat.
 
   / Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips? #262  
David, It certainly is a good news/bad news story isn't it? The good news is that in the olden days you could work on most everything yourself. The bad news was that it needed to be worked on a lot more than now.

All fluid changes have grown to longer intervals. You don't have to jack up and secure the vehicle with jack stands then crawl under to clean and shoot 20 greasy dirt encrusted zerks. Look at the improvements in tires. When is the last time you had a blowout on a good looking tire? Look at the extended mileages we get on tires compared to the 50's and 60's. Points, plugs and condenser and maybe a set of wires and a distributor cap. When is the last time you had a modern car that needed new plugs in less than 50K miles (and probably more like 100K or more.)

I took a stick in the radiator of my Kubota tractor and sure enough the top tank didn't dent, it cracked AND it is plastic so I put a whole new radiator on because out here in the boonies folks haven't the technology to replace or repair a tractor's plastic tank. I did save the radiator just in case I poke a hole in the middle I have a new middle to put together with the tanks to hopefully make a working radiator.

I have successfully welded some plastics but I didn't want to mess with the tank and I don't know if my methods would be compatible.

Pat
 
   / Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips? #263  
My tractor radiator took a branch from the rear and broke the plastic thing at the bottom that sits in a rubber seat. I repaired it with some epoxy and three years later it's still holding. (repaired it twice more because of more hits.)
 
   / Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips? #264  
BobRip said:
Be careful with this one. The coiled wire will act as an inductor and increase its resistance. It can overheat and make your load (if it's motor driven) overheat.

Actually at 60Hz an air core inductor comprised of the extension cords you stuff into a 5 gallon bucket is not going to be much of an inductor and its X sub L at 60 Hz is not nearly the worry that the plain IR losses will be from the resistance of the cords.

There will be some effect of course, especially if the wire is neatly wound into the bucket like thread on a spool. BUT... if you just jumble it into the pail the random orientation of the EM fields will essentially cancel and the wire resistance will be the major factor reducing voltage to your tool.

Too many extension cords or too long of a cord that has too small of a gauge conductor will certainly cause high draw motors to starve for current and overheat. You can burn the brushes pretty quickly and ruin the motor windings too.

A significant problem with coiling up a lot of extension cords together even if you don't exceed their maximum current capacity is overheating. The cords are made/specked to handle their max current at a given environmental temperature. Coiling them up in a confined space reduces heat loss and temps may build up to the point of melting insulation which is a hazard of shorting out and starting a fire.

Remember, just because EACH cord is rated to power your tool, adding several in series violates the assumptions on which the original rating was based. At full rated current the cord loses a certain number of volts. Two in series looses twich as many, 3 in series 3 ties the loss. This easily drops the delivered voltage under load to less than the tool can safely operate on under load and it will overheat. Over time (sometimes a quite short time) this overheating will "EAT" the motor.

If you have to have LOOOOOONG extension go for a really heavy conductor gauge, at least 10 AWG or heavier. I have even made lashups with cords in parallel to operate high draw stuff like a compressor at a fair distance. I have a 100 ft extension that easily handles 240VAC at 50 amps to power my welder and I installed some 120VAC outlets on it for grinder, drills, and such and of course it is so heavy the tools don't have a problem, just me carrying it.

Just a couple days ago I burried almost 300 ft of 6 ga wire (3 conductor plus ground) to run power to a hay barn. According to the calcs this will handle all I need out there without dropping too much voltage.

I too have used 5 gal buckets for extension cords but within safe limits of cord heating and voltage drop. If it were for lights the lights would just dim a bit and no harm done or for light draws of just a few amps but for an expensive corded Milwaukee power too that is rated to use 12-15 amps, you need to be a tad circumspect as they aren't cheap and will burn up if not "fed" properly.

Pat
 
   / Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips? #265  
BobRip said:
Be careful with this one. The coiled wire will act as an inductor and increase its resistance. It can overheat and make your load (if it's motor driven) overheat.
Inductance in the coiled wire is barely an issue because returning and outgoing sides of the circuit are included equally in the coil and cancels the effect. What you do have tho, is a lot of wire crammed together, with a poor ability to rid itself of heat. When there is significant current demanded [as in a motor] the inherent, true, resistance in the wire causes the heat, then shared among the proximal coils. The increase in wire temp causes their resistance to increase which in turn causes them to heat more and more - a chain reaction sorta. With a motor, or in certain cases, heaters or incandescent loads, the load will demand more current as the voltage lost in the wire resistance shortchanges the load. The wire insulation melts, the motor heats - - both.
 
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   / Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips? #266  
The few tools I have have usually included extension cord sises and lengths that are allowable.:D :D
 
   / Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips? #267  
Olmike said:
I had A radiator shop back in the 80's- 90s's.I couldn't believe all the stuff people would pour in thier radiators. The worst was red pepper,That stuff would smell like bad soup & burn my eyes when heat was put to it.The worst stuff on the outside was JB weld.That stuff is real bad when you burn it off & try to get it clean enough to solder.
Black pepper is quite effective and not so unpleasant.
larry
 
   / Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips? #268  
PitbullMidwest said:
A trick I learned a few years ago helps keep extension cords from getting tangled. Drill a hole near the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket and run the plug and about 2 foot of cord out the hole and coil the rest of the extension cord inside the bucket. Set the bucket next to an outlet, plug it in and feed out as much or little cord as you need. A 5 gallon bucket will hold a lot of joined extension cords. When you're done simply coil the cords back into the bucket. No fuss and no tangles and it's easier to carry one bucket than multiple cords.

I have a self-employed son-in-law who has that same kind of rig, although I think he only has a single 100' cord in the bucket, and in my opinion, too light a cord at that, just from the looks of it. It looks about the same size as a 25' thirteen amp cord that I have. Of course, I also have two 50' extension cords that are much heavier wire, although I've forgotten exactly what they are; 10 gauge or 12 gauge wire. But I'll have to admit the bucket idea sure is convenient since I've worked with my son-in-law and used that cord.
 
   / Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips? #269  
I remembered another radiator repair trick that would probably work in the desert.Heat a stick of hot glue with a lighter & smush it in the hole.I used to fix aluminum core radiators with that stuff.Ithink was a hot glue epoxy.Mike
 
   / Repair/mechanic tricks and or tips? #270  
patrick_g said:
Actually at 60Hz an air core inductor comprised of the extension cords you stuff into a 5 gallon bucket is not going to be much of an inductor and its X sub L at 60 Hz is not nearly the worry that the plain IR losses will be from the resistance of the cords.

There will be some effect of course, especially if the wire is neatly wound into the bucket like thread on a spool. BUT... if you just jumble it into the pail the random orientation of the EM fields will essentially cancel and the wire resistance will be the major factor reducing voltage to your tool.

Too many extension cords or too long of a cord that has too small of a gauge conductor will certainly cause high draw motors to starve for current and overheat. You can burn the brushes pretty quickly and ruin the motor windings too.

A significant problem with coiling up a lot of extension cords together even if you don't exceed their maximum current capacity is overheating. The cords are made/specked to handle their max current at a given environmental temperature. Coiling them up in a confined space reduces heat loss and temps may build up to the point of melting insulation which is a hazard of shorting out and starting a fire.

Remember, just because EACH cord is rated to power your tool, adding several in series violates the assumptions on which the original rating was based. At full rated current the cord loses a certain number of volts. Two in series looses twich as many, 3 in series 3 ties the loss. This easily drops the delivered voltage under load to less than the tool can safely operate on under load and it will overheat. Over time (sometimes a quite short time) this overheating will "EAT" the motor.

If you have to have LOOOOOONG extension go for a really heavy conductor gauge, at least 10 AWG or heavier. I have even made lashups with cords in parallel to operate high draw stuff like a compressor at a fair distance. I have a 100 ft extension that easily handles 240VAC at 50 amps to power my welder and I installed some 120VAC outlets on it for grinder, drills, and such and of course it is so heavy the tools don't have a problem, just me carrying it.

Just a couple days ago I burried almost 300 ft of 6 ga wire (3 conductor plus ground) to run power to a hay barn. According to the calcs this will handle all I need out there without dropping too much voltage.

I too have used 5 gal buckets for extension cords but within safe limits of cord heating and voltage drop. If it were for lights the lights would just dim a bit and no harm done or for light draws of just a few amps but for an expensive corded Milwaukee power too that is rated to use 12-15 amps, you need to be a tad circumspect as they aren't cheap and will burn up if not "fed" properly.

Pat

Pat, I bow to your greater knowledge. On a business trip, the projector would not start up. It was plugged into an extension cord on a reel. I had them unroll the reel and it started fine. I blamed it on induction as the resistance was the same rolled and unrolled. Was I wrong?
 

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