 Hey guys, it is Chad here from the Electric Academy Sorry, I'm a couple minutes late I decided to try to add a logo to the screen and then it like covered the whole entire screen So you can see my face which depending on how you feel about me could be a good or a bad thing a couple housekeeping things to get out of the way I sent out an email to you guys letting you know that there was a Facebook live show going on today and With that I also have an e-book that I put out there and people are having a lot of problems the links So if you are having issues with the link when you go there to buy that little e-book I've had like five people tell me that they've had issues with it let me know please because I want you guys to get that and It's really frustrating if you can't So there's that Other things my family comes home tomorrow. So that's good. I've been alone all week I'd like to say that I was lonely, but actually it's quite busy. So it worked out good that they were gone I had a lot of stuff on the go Teach a class for entrepreneurship in trades and this week we talked about marketing and we had a marketing specialist come in It was unbelievable and mind-blowing. So that was a lot of fun If you guys ever need any kind of marketing or if you're looking at get starting up a trades-based business hit me up I can hook you up. I definitely love teaching that part of the course. Well, not that part of the course I love teaching entrepreneurship for trades. So if doesn't matter where you are at Just let me know and I can definitely help you out Today I want to talk about troubleshooting tips now. I had that Facebook pull go out I know some of you guys got on there. I will be following up this I'm definitely going to be doing another Facebook live on grounding and bonding probably next week I think that is really important because it is very often. They're so similar but not So it's definitely worth me having a discussion. So what I'm gonna do is actually put together a little PowerPoint on that Because I think it's really important that you understand the difference between the grounding and bonding I know when I teach code that section 10 for in the like Canadian electrical code can be really trippy to my students So it seems like that and Voltrop really kind of trip people out So I'll be definitely doing something on grounding and bonding and then my man Dan Lack asked for something on Harmonics and got a couple shout-outs with that as well So I'm definitely gonna be doing one on harmonics as well because I find them fascinating And especially with the amount of electronic equipment that we have these days electronics Causes a lot of issues with harmonics and I've seen situations where our plant I was at a plant up north it kept shutting down The computer system kept shutting on the power supply couldn't handle other harmonics in the system So you had to put a filter in so I'll be talking about that also cam if you're watching I I'm definitely working on something on phase converters And if you go back to the elect to the Facebook page there you'll see that cam and I had a discussion about phase converters versus drives and There's a lot of there's similarities and differences and all that fun stuff So I posted an article on that because I was doing a little research for myself So if you want to find out the difference between a roto phase converter Which basically takes single phase and turns it into three phase or a drive which can also do the same thing Why would you need one over the other? There's an article there that goes over that So on to the troubleshooting tips of the day now, there's gonna be obviously I can't I'm not gonna go in a huge troubleshooting Like how to troubleshoot a BFD or how to troubleshoot motor control circuit? This is a broad overview and this is something I teach to my class my students is Kind of the steps that I take and things that you need to think about Especially if you're going from construction into service work. It might not be something that you would be so intuitive I know for some of you guys watching this it's just like it's gonna be so basic for you But for others is gonna be things that you never even thought about so that's just take that into consideration and If you have anything that you want to add to this by all means jump in there into the comments below and just type it up I know most of you probably will not be watching this live But if you are watching it live just hop in there and throw it in there If you're not watching it live just throw it in the comments as well I get those comments get notifications that you've commented I try to reply to all the comments anyways and people read through those So if you have something that you can add to the conversation, please by all means do so That's what I like about these Facebook live shows. It's not just about me. It's about you guys I'm here to just facilitate the conversation is the way I'm feeling and I'm loving it. So anyways, here we go number one When you are troubleshooting the first thing you want to do I've got a list here and I'm gonna change my order here is Number one is gonna be ask lots of questions when you get to the site ask what happened. What's not working What were the circumstances that surrounded it did anything weird happen before or anything weird happen after there's been so many Situations where you find out that things are not do they didn't work because they weren't supposed to work And I've run into this into industrial sites a lot where we talk about sequence control Or you want to find out if a VFD's got some sort of interlock built into it Well, they want the these guys try to jump it out and try to get the VFD to work And they don't realize that there is some sort of soft interlock in the program. So it's not supposed to work So there's that Number two Use your eyes in those and I have this is definitely especially with residential You want to sniff it out because there's lots of issues where you things are starting to burn a bit You know what I'm talking about when the insulation starts to burn It starts to smell or if you go to a commercial or industrial site and the motor starts to cook a bit You know that those windings are gonna start stinking a little bit. So kind of suss it out watch for a kind of burn marks I've gone to one house where there was a burn mark in the wall Right before a switch and then I found out later what had happened and they didn't tell me this until much later That they had taken an air conditioner and they plugged it into a Wall socket that was controlled by switch, you know in the bedrooms because that's what it was But the air conditioner was too cold. So this guy thought he would be a genius went down the home depot and bought himself a dimmer He installed the dimmer where the switch used to be and figured that he could control the Coldness of the air conditioner with the dimmer It ended up frying all the wire in the wall because it just couldn't handle the load It was a wrecked havoc on it and they're along the wall and I kid you not was a line a burn line I went across the wall and up to the switch. So that was awesome But obviously that was an issue So he had it all unplugged and had the dimmer switch there Didn't tell me that they had air conditioner in and I thought it was really strange that he had a dimmer for a Switched receptacle. So then when we dug into it, he finally fessed up. So that was something Number three don't just trust anyone like when you walk in and I've run into this with With everybody with residential commercial and industrial Test out the circuit they get there and it might be one of those intermittent problems like last year if some of you Guys remember I went to a call out where they said that if somebody turned on the lights upstairs That the fan in the downstairs bedroom would suddenly turn on and then if they turned off the light The fan in the bedroom then the lights would flicker on and off and just pulse in the living room Well, I went there. I looked at it I tried to regal do everything else that that whole situation ran through and I could not get those lights The pulse I could not get that fan to turn on or off try to try to try that and then at finally at the end I found out that they were running these air conditioners ran an air conditioner And told me that that only happened when the air condition was running again I went through a luck. They tried it with the air conditioner still didn't work So you got to trust yourself and not necessarily everybody else because it can cause problems You want to go in there also? When I've gone to industrial sites Sometimes the operators aren't so trustworthy Because sometimes they don't want to be working and so they will make up faults or they will cause situations to cause issues So they will run into the situations where they will claim that a machine is not working and I've gotten there and I've Almost torn the whole thing apart to find out that it there's nothing wrong with in the first place So my advice to you is go and test out the circuit first Make sure that you have watched it not work. There's don't just start tearing things apart Juan Hey, it's good to see you buddy Definitely you want to make sure that you see it not working Before you start tearing things apart because you don't want to get yourself into trouble where you're ripping things apart only to find out There was nothing wrong and there's the old joke where did you turn it on and turn it off again? I have run into that so many times with so many issues where suddenly you just give it the old hard reboot And it fires right up. So that's something to consider. Don't trust anyone. Only trust yourself test it out Next up Ask yourself or ask the operator. What is this the piece of device supposed to be doing? And this goes back to what I was talking about before I've run into the situation so often where there's been a drive situation or PLC where there's been a soft interlock in the program And so these people figure that they want to run something and they can't make it run manual because it's being held out by the interlock So you got to find out what it does and what it's supposed to do And so that involves asking lots of questions and talking to the operators and another thing do not be condescending That's a huge issue. Don't talk down to these guys. They are the ones that are operating the machines. They can be your biggest ally Another situation is make sure that the problem is localized within the area now What I mean by that is two years ago. I was doing some work at a guy's house I was rewiring his kitchen for him and He called me up about two weeks later and he said the weirdest thing that half the lights in his house wouldn't turn on or off Hey, Gene, welcome. It's good to see you man Half the lights wouldn't turn on or off and then he said that he could get the stove to work But the oven wasn't heating up properly. I think you guys probably know what was wrong There was a neutral problem But I was like 45 minutes away. It was midnight when he called me So I kind of was thinking about that. That's really weird that his neutral would suddenly go out So what I did was I asked him to go outside and go over to his neighbor Who's his best friend knock on the door and find out if he was having issues and lo and behold what ended up happening is It was a hydro utility issue the utility neutral went out and so everybody's issue went out So I saved myself a long drive So I just to get out there to find out that it wasn't going to be anything I could do anyways and then uh, mario ended up calling me back the next day and said that Hydro had come out they fixed it and was no problem So make sure that the problem is localized Let's see. I've got use your eyes use your nose. Perhaps you see utility issue. Don't trust anyone test it out What's it supposed to do? Here's a good one Read the fine print If you're working on a piece of equipment make sure you can get your hands on the manual It is easier than it has ever been to do that Back in my day when I was out in the oil sands We didn't have smartphones We would go to these plants and you'd have to dig up the manuals because you want to see what the thing's supposed to do And had to troubleshoot it and oftentimes I'll have a troubleshooting section in the manual Nowadays man, you just pull out your smartphone The biggest issue you're going to get is whether you're going to use your data or get on their wi-fi So go to the manual and find out what it's supposed to do Now the thing is don't over complicate things. I worked with one guy who would go and he would Basically tear everything apart Before he even got into it and just like he would assume the worst Oftentimes it could just be a breaker being tripped Even if a breaker doesn't look like it's tripped just reset the breaker makes a difference Those are the sort of things you want to look into I always when I troubleshoot is I always assume the best first and so I attack things like the breakers Or I go into boxes like easy to get to receptacles. I kind of go and figure out where the circuit runs from So I started the break and work my way out Some people like to work at the end of the circuit and work their way back Either or it's kind of an issue Where you just have to pick what works for you Now one thing I do with um Lighting circuits or big long circuits that aren't working that are tripping Is the old divide and conquer method where you split the circuit in half So you know where the circuit is you know what's receptacles or what lights or fans or whatever Depending what you're working on what it's working You cut that circuit in half so you open up one of the fans and you jump out half of them Like you have half of them not connected and another half connected the half that's closest To the breaker you turn it on if it doesn't trip then you know that your problem is upstream So then what I do with that is I'll go to another quarter and I'll work my way up that way Now if it does trip then I know it's downstream And so then I go half of that and work my way half of that that method I got taught that method when I was an apprentice working in a greenhouse Shout out to tim do it. He taught me that method because we were installing a bunch of lights along the pathway And these are like 30 acre greenhouses And we always run into issues with lighting So instead of trying to figure out opening up every single light He's like no man You just have to cut the circuit in half and then work from there if it trips after that Then you know it's downstream if it doesn't trip, you know the problem's upstream It was a good good method Um Yeah, that's basically all I really wanted to talk about as far as the troubleshooting skills go Now again, it's troubleshooting is an art And it is something that you do get better at the more you do it I know you always want to we all want to walk in and look like we're the wire whisper Nobody's saying their gene. I teach by harrowing the box working from load to source There you go say genes working opposite of the way I work I usually go from the source out to load, but I think there is something to be said said in going from the load to the source So definitely um Where was I going with that I can't even remember what I was talking about. No, that was just such a good comment um, yeah, so Does anybody remember what I was talking about because I feel like I was on a good run there But maybe not Trying to think here Oh, yeah, I know what I was talking about whether or not you it takes time And for those of you guys getting started or if you're an apprentice Don't think you're gonna be able to figure it out right away if you go join any of these facebook groups And Juan, you know what i'm talking about there's lots and lots of people That are asking questions and lots of seasoned journey people that are out there asking tons of questions In there we run into things all the time So you're gonna do your best to figure out what's wrong But sometimes you can't and there's no shame in ask. That's the biggest point. Yeah, there it is There's no shame in asking for help Whether it is through a facebook group that your journeyman your boss Anybody you are going to run into situations that you cannot solve. I don't care what how wonderful this person is Or what kind of wonder why or whisper they are Everybody runs into an issue that they're not going to be able to come up against Especially with electrical because electrical is so strange that way it can do some funny funny things They like with harmonics you get issues with led lighting now Everybody's seeing the disco vibe going on right you see that those situations where sometimes if you have Two three-way switches on dimmers, which you can't do on an led or a cfl You start getting that pulsing you get the disco effect going on and i've seen that show up on lots and lots of facebook feeds where um There's lots of high bay led high bay lighting doing that and nobody has been able to figure out I think it's come down to a loose neutral at some point But anyways, there's lots. There's lots of problems, which If you're thinking about it, that's one of the things I love the most about the trade is it's always changing There's always a challenge So part of the fun of it if the troubleshooting is trying to come up against those issues where You just run into issues that you can't come up again that you've never run into before and gene's saying There's no such thing as a dumb question in this profession and I cannot agree more with that The only dumb question I think gene would agree is the one not asked right and I say this to my students all the time too For you guys who are students and in class and gene's is an instructor just like me If we find that if you have a student if you have a question And you feel dumb asking it But you go ahead and you take the step and you ask it anyways You will find that there is other guys out there that are thinking the same thing So just ask the question And same thing as an apprentice if you're out there and you're coming up across something that you're troubleshooting against And you can't figure it out ask the question If you're a journeyman and you have been on the tools for 30 years You own your own company you've been a project manager and you've come up against something that you cannot figure out Ask the question So all the troubleshooting tips are great But the number one thing is ask for help for sure and that's what I love about the way that the world's Work in the States. I know we hear a lot of crap about social media and how it's ruining everything I can see that I can I see the point on that but I also see Facebook groups and all these other like instagram groups and even snapchats and all that people using social media for good And using it as a method to teach One and I were just talking the other day about how there's this group this training group for electricians on facebook And I got on that group and man It was blowing my mind the stuff that people put in there It's it's exciting to be on the part of these things So get yourself out there join some facebook groups. I'm not saying join the electric academy one I mean you're already obviously you do because you're here But there are so many good ones out there industrial electricians break room is a good one electrical trip electrical tips trips Yeah, it's hard for me to say electrical tips tricks and hacks is a good one uh dave valentine and um dan huruck often moderate those ones um You have you have so make fun of saying it, but how many times is it a loose neutral? uh I've probably come across the loose neutral not as often as some guys claim that they have I know some guys claim that they Run into this loose neutral all the time I've only seen it like once or twice to be honest with you I've come across it where like the neutrals become disconnected or the identified conductors become disconnected And you get that funky weird voltage you added another plug downstream of it But um anyways tim greer was asking about how many times have I run into that? So there's that Let's see. Yeah, you do and learn something you ever did. That's another good point use these groups. I know we I can see you get hooked up into that facebook feed right where you just start scrolling scrolling next to you You've wasted an hour going through things Well, me if you're going to be doing that get into those facebook groups I know what I'm talking about just different groups that I belong to industrial electricians break room was one Electrical tip strips and hacks were one um If you guys know of any other electrical There's electricians apprentice help. That's another really good one apprentices ask lots of questions in there And if you're out there and you're watching this and people are asking for help And this is another thing that drives me that's and you guys who are instructors are Actively involved in these groups. No, it drives me. That's when people start ragging and trolling on people Don't do that because it's just it ruins the vibe of the groups and we're all there to learn anyways So let's keep that in mind, right? Let's just keep the good vibes going And keep learning from each other So that's I mean that's the passion of the electric academy and that's why I'm into this And I've been doing this for like three years now is because I teach electrical for those of you who don't know I teach a foundation course so an entry level course and a second year apprenticeship course And I just found that there's so much out there that we can teach and teach it in a way that's exciting So that's kind of what I'm talking about there So that's why I like to do this stuff. So I that's why I'm hopping on to the facebook lives all the time Um A couple more things there is make sure oh, yeah before I go off here Oh, I'm at 20 minutes. That's just flew by Um, if you have not downloaded that pdf I changed the pdf of online resources So if you go to the learn more button on the electric academy The electric academy facebook page there does that learn more button or it talks about this downloadable pdf I've changed and I've updated it because there's a couple that I've added and a couple I took out I want to give a huge shout out right now to john workman at the electricians library He's doing some crazy good stuff. If you're into podcasts, you best be listening to stuff electricians should know He does an awesome job. It's like they're quick five ten minute podcasts, but he covers awesome topics He is also working on an app That should hopefully be out in june called cody and it's just it's one of those bot apps where you can just by bot I mean bot like a little robotic app Where you can ask it questions any question about the n e c code and it will give you an answer And so he's like building the database up. It's been taking him an extra long time But it is so going to be awesome. He's I've seen kind of the prototype version of it working And it's mind-blowing so check that out at electricians library.com or if you go to the electricians library facebook group He's got versions of that as well He his his is also there's a newsletter that he puts out Once I think it's twice a week and it's worth checking out because he offers a lot of good information Just like me. He doesn't like to get all wordy and stuff. He just kind of gives you the quick information Tells you about his podcast and what's coming up Uh, I know I mentioned at the beginning I put out an ebook. Let me just show you guys what i'm talking about here This ebook. Let me just go down here and go to Where's my I can't find it out. There it is preview so What I did that is not what I'm looking for. Let's open that up. Here it is As I wrote up a book on electrical basic electrical basic electricity from the electric academy and it goes through Basically ohm's law watts law meter safety. What is electricity? How is it generated kerchiefs current voltage laws? electrical safety All that fun stuff. So it is Out there for consumption if you guys want it not only have I done that it's about a 40 page ebook Is I also have put together a let's see here Workbook to go along with it some worksheets So where you guys can work on some stuff practice your most of this is dc analysis But if you're working on watts law ome's law that sort of stuff There it's all out there It's 10 bucks if you want a copy of it just hit me up. I'll send you the link to it. I'm having issues with um The link that I've got so I'm just going to try to just call this up again I'm trying to fix that but if you want a copy, let me know and I'll get you going in the right direction on that one All right next week. I'm going to be talking about grounding versus bonding and like I said, I'm going to work on a little power point about that Make sure if you're watching this after that you're adding your ideas of troubleshooting in the comments below. I want to see that going out there and Yeah, thanks gene Gene says you have a passion to teach good information. She had nobody can take this away from me I will be dragged kicking and screaming from my profession of teaching. I Is beyond passionate. It's like my life's goal. I love my family and I love teaching So and anybody who's been a student of mine understands that so anyways, you guys have a great week Let me know if you need anything else. Keep the questions and comments coming in. I check I'm on that facebook group and facebook page all the time. I want to hear your comments I want to hear what you guys want talked about because uh Electrical doesn't electrical theory doesn't need to be hard. It just needs to be broken down into simple steps All right, hopefully you guys have a great weekend. It's a long weekend And you stay safe and you have a fun time with your family and you have great Easter. All right. Have a great Easter everyone And for me to you Love you guys later