Sunday, December 20, 2009

Exciting new technology!

Our new Local JATC website has some awesome new tools. One of which is the Forum! This seems like a great place for current apprentices to discuss ideas, concepts and questions about all things electrical! Now it's just time to get the word out.



Thursday, December 17, 2009

Copper or Aluminum Lugs: How Should You Decide?

Copper or Aluminum Lugs: How Should You Decide?

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Today at work the question came up of whether we should use NOALOX on our switch gear connections and on all the terminations we've been working on. None of our wires are aluminum, and thus I claimed it wasn't necessary. However the worry was about the fact that the lugs are aluminum and the conductors are copper. One guy said it's in the code, another guy said it's not. (I love these conversations by the way!) Of course, no one actually had a code book handy, so my foreman said he would check on it. While I was online researching this question online today, I discovered the above article which in my opinion answers the question pretty definitively.

Also I stumbled upon the NFPA website which offers the NEC online for free! All you have to do is register for the website. It's actually not a bad interface. All you can do is turn the pages and use the table of contents as a method for jumping through the code book, which is just enough access for the convenience of getting it online. If you need to copy and paste, then it's not for you. However, if you just need an answer on the fly for when you're on your computer, then it's perfect.