20A circuit on 14/2

Red Squirrel

I was thinking that too, there was zero load on the drill as far as making the motor work. Making it drill through something hard is probably where it uses more.

As for the original issue think I'll just play it safe and replace those 20 amp breakers with 15 amp ones. Just need to find a weekend day that it's bright out. DST sucks. I get home and by 5:00 and it's pitch black.

Plumbvoltage

Just delete the part of the quote you don't want. Make sure you leave the little boxes with quote written at the beginning and the end.

jbfan

That has got to be one of the most asinine post you have written.
Deliberately trying to overload a circuit to see if the breaker trips, or the wire gets warm.

Just crazy!

__________________
Yes I am a Pirate, 200 years too late. "Jimmy Buffett"

Red Squirrel

Best to do it on purpose and be around then have it happen by accident and not be around.

But my best bet is just swapping the breaker and have better piece of mind.

spark plug

Thank you. I'll try that. My answer to why I didn't try such a "Simple" procedure is so funny you'll crack up laughing, and some of the audience will think that they reached Comedy Central rather than DIY! (Now the phrase that I made up "Eliminate confusion Through education" surely applies to me!

spark plug

Not to nitpick. But you stated that "It did have an Arc Fault that caused a short" An Arc Fault does not, and need not cause a Short. It is like having a set of matches inside the ceiling or wall that keeps trying to ignite the building material until it "succeeds". Eliminate confusion Through Education ; Don't Drink and Drive, Ever!!!

Yoyizit

You ain't seen nothin' yet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
?

spark plug

Just to mitigate the impact of the comments by JB fan and the poster downstream. I don't know if you are a practicing Electrician. But to an electrician, the worst nightmare is an electrical fire. And no one else like an Electrician realizes how close to disaster one can get when you straddle the line. But no one set out on an "Ad Hominem" attack. I'm sure you approached it from a purely scientific point. Do you know that Nikola Tesla once blew up the power supply of an entire town with one of his experiments. On this website, I don't think anyone can compare to the knowledge of formulae and calculations the way you do. (No matter what)Don't Drink and Drive, Ever!!!

Scuba_Dave

I think I would setup a test 14-2 circuit that was not in the wall if I really wanted to test this

My 1st item would be a 1500watt heater running to use most of the 1800w
Then additional 100w light bulbs that could be plugged into a power strip to raise the wattage

I was never really worried about breakers tripping when they were supposed to
Until my I noticed water dripping out of my mom's panel
Water was coming from inside the feed wire sheathing into the panel
Never been so freekin scared as when I realized that
---standing there barefoot outside my basement bedroom in a puddle

Electrician replaced panel, main feed & all the breakers (maybe meter too)
He said some breakers were so rusted they probably would not have tripped

Yoyizit

I did this. The temp rise from 20A flowing through #14 Romex was hardly detectible with a thermistor embedded under the outer jacket.
A dryer outlet supplied the 20A and it took 15 minutes for the temp. to stabilize.

You can check breaker performance against their trip curves by drawing enough current to trip the CB in 10 secs or 100 secs, depending on your load.
You can also check the 1/2 cycle trip time by vaporizing a small gauge copper wire, but that is not for DIYer's.

Sultini, where ya' been? The place hasn't been the same without you!

BTW, I heard Tesla wrecked a building in Chicago by spinning an eccentric flywheel at the building's resonant freq.

spark plug

When I posted my piece (#39) there was another poster, bet. my post and yours. That's who I meant by "The poster downstream". What happened to that post???! When there's water seeping in in an overhead Service, it's usually the Cap at the Service head. Or the flange at the base of the riser. (The meter box). A Con Ed Service Technician once told me that it used to be a policy at the Co. that whenever they had water seeping in on a new service, they wouldn't get paid for the week. (The crew that worked on that service). p.s.; The above was said ONLY on Underground services where it could be established to be their fault.

spark plug

I took that story and many others from a book called "Man out of Time", the biography of Nikola Tesla. One of the other fascinating stories is the way the Great Thomas Edison took advantage of the newly landed immigrant by asking him to repair the lights on the cruise ship that belonged to Morgan (Edison's financier), promising to to pay him a nice amount. In the end he didn't pay him anything. (No matter what)Don't Drink and Drive, Ever!!!

Red Squirrel

The circuit I was testing is mostly all visible, it does end up going in the wall but if I do my test before the line hits that area then it should only get hot starting from where I test - up to the panel, right?

And that water incident sounds scary. :o I never realized the dangers of water + electricity until I decided to see how many 9 volt batteries it takes for me to get a shock. I can confirm: 13. Just to say I can feel something. But if I lick my fingers, it 10x more painful of a shock.

Yoyizit

Yes. The conductor upstream of the breaker is probably much more Circular Mils than the #14.

For worse case, wrap a few inches of the exposed wire in thick fiberglass insulation and pass your current. After 15 minutes I doubt the wire under the insulation will even feel warm to your touch.
If you have one of those indoor thermometers with an outside sensor you could get an accurate temp reading using that sensor.

Here's another way to do it if you have one of these \/
http://www.elexp.com/solder/D650.jpg
Substitute a shorted length of #14 Romex for the tip of this gun, and adjust the wire length for the current desired. Try a 3' length to start. You'll need an ammeter to check your draw.