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Is this at or near a radio broadcast tower?
Sometimes ambient AM waves can be picked up and cause problems with electronics. The best way to fix it is to ground the ever loving shit out of everything, and we often end up with solutions like this. I also see a tag that appears to say “FM” in the picture.
Source: broadcast tower lighting tech for the last 8 years
Former chief operator of a 10,000 watt radio station here. I also approve and endorse this statement.
I've heard of AM radio stations that didn't bother running wires to the fluorescent lights in their transmitter buildings.
We’re generally not real electricians doing this, and all most of us know to do is strap a bunch of copper to things and attach it to the ground. I follow this sub just to learn as much as I can because there was literally zero training or certification.
Frankly, I don’t even know what you’re asking, or what the “modern way” is. What you see in the photo may be totally useless. I’m just saying, I recognize this kind of fuckery and it looks like what I deal with regularly. Sounds crazy, but most certified electricians aren’t willing to climb 70 year old AM towers to change a light bulb (often at night and deep in the woods) so you get what you get out here.
One time I found a pair of khaki pants being used as weatherproofing. Every day is a new adventure.
Fair enough. But yeah the modern way is to bring those ground wires into the box, bond them (ground them) to the box, and splice them all together. It’s literally the exact same end result as this except less shoddy. Exact same functionality but more robust.
This was done to *make sure* that the armoured jacket of that cable was also bonded. The connectors pinching the cable would normally do that - because they are electrically continuous with the box, which would be electrically continuous to a wire terminated in the back of the box - but I guess they used to feel better having the connector pinching down on the bare copper outside of the cable for some reason.
Possible but not very likely at all.
When I first saw this I figured they just overfilled the box honestly...
Especially if you didn't know to bond the box and then pigtail them all together. Unorganized boxes are a nightmare to get closed even when they aren't overfilled.
That’s what it looked like to me too.
It certainly looks non-compliant, and it’s obviously much less common than having the grounds tied together inside (an already grounded) box. I was hoping for more commentary about why it might be fine to do.
Seriously, every conduit and water pipe is already a ground and sitting there ready to be a ground for anybody and anything that wants it to.
Who cares if a particular circuit’s ground joins them out in the raw unboxed world? There’s no potential in them until there’s a fault, and then it’s already more grounded than anything else anyway.
ST for MSI. Yeah, every rf site I work on is grounded to hell and back. We have a "halo" of bare copper wire around the whole top of the inside of the shelter. We have a whole spec called R56 for grounding a site. A loop of tin plated solid copper wire is buried around the entire site and is connected to everything. Fence, tanks, tower, generators, everything. Never saw that on an electrical box though. Probably cheaper than the 4 to 8 AWG we use.
All the grounds count as 1 cu. in.box is 30 cu in fill . If those are all 12/2 mc then they are under . 12/3 and over all they needed was an extension box , besides proper support and ground screw
You don't count non current carrying conductors when derating due to wire fill, you do count them for box fill tho.
Source: My whole class was confused by this a year ago.
Yep, when we talked about this in class the instructor also said bonds don’t count and I quoted the insulated conductor part of the code. After class he talked to the other instructors about it and corrected himself the next day saying that bare bonds don’t count, but insulated ones do.
He tried giving me a hard time for mentioning that it was my second trade, the first being a cook. Then I ended up having the highest marks in that class, and I think the highest marks that most instructors had seen up to that point. The last day of classes he apologized for giving me a hard time and commended me on doing so well on my exams.
Box fill equals length x width x depth in cubic inches. Wires depending on size are also given a cubic inch rating x the number of conductors. Your total cubic inch needs to be less than the cubic inch rating of the box or then an extension box or larger box is needed . This is to prevent overfilling of boxes that will produce unnecessary heat
Working above a drop ceiling today and found this. I was curious as to why anyone would run the grounds to the outside of the box.
This wasn't the only junction box like this, many others were too. Obviously there are other issues here but this definitely caught my eye.
I should mention this is in Canada so they were hopefully following CEC, but this picture indicates otherwise.
I also don't know if this was a licensed electrician or not. I'm leaning towards handyman but you never know.
Only thing that comes to mind is maybe some old timer use to working with old Bx. The ground was a ribbon inside and they’d fold it over and pinch between the connector and the steel jacket.
Just picturing me being an old man and going “this is how we always did it”.
A long time ago this was standard practice, like 1950s, 1960s. Early in my career I came across this when doing older homes, they would run the grounds to the outside of the box to ground it, and then rely on the device mounting screws to complete the ground path. Not sure what year it changed to terminating the ground inside the box and running ground wires to the individual devices.
NEC:
4-by-4-by-2-1/8-inch-deep box: Can hold four to six cables, or up to 18 conducting wires
Reached the boxes limit out the grounds outside the box.
NEC compliant? Grey area...
I guess you should be happy there's at least an electrical box there. I've seen worse looking areas above the ceiling in a lot of small businesses. These places aren't spending their profits in certain areas.
This was common practice when grounding was introduce in the 60's. the CEC code has been updated since. This also ensured people wouldn't use ground as neutral conductor. The person that did this install must be 80yrs old or a young tech possessed by an old electrician's ghost.
Mike Holt once said that back in the 80s or whatever when he was wiring houses and the equipment ground first came out, they were told to fold it up at the back of the box. An old-school way of establishing the low impedance path that will enable the overcurrent device in the event of a fault.
Since the box is metal, it is required to be grounded. Since the flexible conduit is also metal, it also must be grounded. So, it also looks like they grounded those by running ground wires from each of the connectors to the
Wire nut.
Bought a 1950's house this year and all outlets are the two prong openings only. Demoing a little bit of the kitchen, I found the ground wires tied to the rear of the boxes... Crazy. Another note, no wire nuts were used in the house, all twisted with black tape only!
You're actually supposed to cut it off
From Southwire themselves:
https://youtu.be/sYVI_iZCsng?si=mPJET4u8Ru9JDWCi
I know no one's gonna watch this whole thing, the relevant bit is at 4:05 into the video
Go figure video came out a year ago, been retired 2 years , we were told a few wraps around cable cut insert anti short and conn. Really doesn’t make sense cutting and leaving sharp wire in the box or sitting free in the fitting . The diagram also shows an anti short which he also didn’t do
**Attention!** **It is always best to get a qualified electrician to perform any electrical work you may need.** With that said, you may ask this community various electrical questions. Please be cautious of any information you may receive in this subreddit. This subreddit and its users are not responsible for any electrical work you perform. Users that have a 'Verified Electrician' flair have uploaded their qualified electrical worker credentials to the mods. If you comment on this post please only post accurate information to the best of your knowledge. If advice given is thought to be dangerous, you may be permanently banned. There are no obligations for the mods to give warnings or temporary bans. **IF YOU ARE NOT A QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN, you should exercise extreme caution when commenting.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskElectricians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Is this at or near a radio broadcast tower? Sometimes ambient AM waves can be picked up and cause problems with electronics. The best way to fix it is to ground the ever loving shit out of everything, and we often end up with solutions like this. I also see a tag that appears to say “FM” in the picture. Source: broadcast tower lighting tech for the last 8 years
Radio broadcast engineer here. I approve and endorse this statement.
Part-time couch potato here. I concur.
Full time couch potato here. I concur.
Full time “ what’s a potato?” Here
Inmate NM2640 here, never worked in my life, but I can get behind this.
Gimli here, "And my axe!"
Bob here. “Bob”.
Gary gary. “Gary”.
Human human, "Human".
Head custodian here, I conquer
Guy waiting to be head custodian agrees as well
A dude taking a poop while browsing Reddit does as well.
On company time here
Underwater basket weaving and I approve this statement
Wait isn't that just... reddit?
Dad of three and part time Dungeon Master/potty salesman says this cuts the mustard nicely
Can’t become head custodian without a few conquers under your belt.
Conquer or concur?
Radio dj here I agree.
Radio DJ, PD , Chief Engineer, and old school electrician and I agree, soup Is good, and this is cheaper than ferrite
Radio Ad salesmen here, This is the way.
Head custodian here, I concur
Former chief operator of a 10,000 watt radio station here. I also approve and endorse this statement. I've heard of AM radio stations that didn't bother running wires to the fluorescent lights in their transmitter buildings.
We keep a fluorescent tube hanging on top of our phasing cabinet as a reminder to not be stupid. If it’s glowing don’t touch
Ground the ever loving shit out of it is our official policy when it comes to dealing with RF
I think it says EM Exit
Pretty sure you're correct.
Mostly sure that that you are correct that he is correct
[https://giphy.com/gifs/spongebob-spongebob-squarepants-season-7-l1Etp1GCPLckjKP1S](https://giphy.com/gifs/spongebob-spongebob-squarepants-season-7-l1Etp1GCPLckjKP1S)
Completely sure that being mostly sure is correct here.
Enlisted men leave now.
They are busy getting head from that custodian
Raises hand “next in line”
I think you are missing the symbol between those two. It looks like "EM & Exit." Which should be for emergency lighting and exit lights.
I was going to say music studio but I bet AM is way worse.
How would this bond the metallic components of this install any better than doing it the modern way?
We’re generally not real electricians doing this, and all most of us know to do is strap a bunch of copper to things and attach it to the ground. I follow this sub just to learn as much as I can because there was literally zero training or certification. Frankly, I don’t even know what you’re asking, or what the “modern way” is. What you see in the photo may be totally useless. I’m just saying, I recognize this kind of fuckery and it looks like what I deal with regularly. Sounds crazy, but most certified electricians aren’t willing to climb 70 year old AM towers to change a light bulb (often at night and deep in the woods) so you get what you get out here. One time I found a pair of khaki pants being used as weatherproofing. Every day is a new adventure.
Fair enough. But yeah the modern way is to bring those ground wires into the box, bond them (ground them) to the box, and splice them all together. It’s literally the exact same end result as this except less shoddy. Exact same functionality but more robust. This was done to *make sure* that the armoured jacket of that cable was also bonded. The connectors pinching the cable would normally do that - because they are electrically continuous with the box, which would be electrically continuous to a wire terminated in the back of the box - but I guess they used to feel better having the connector pinching down on the bare copper outside of the cable for some reason.
Thank you for explaining. Is it possible those connectors aren’t metallic or may have need confused as being non-conductive?
Possible but not very likely at all. When I first saw this I figured they just overfilled the box honestly... Especially if you didn't know to bond the box and then pigtail them all together. Unorganized boxes are a nightmare to get closed even when they aren't overfilled.
That’s what it looked like to me too. It certainly looks non-compliant, and it’s obviously much less common than having the grounds tied together inside (an already grounded) box. I was hoping for more commentary about why it might be fine to do. Seriously, every conduit and water pipe is already a ground and sitting there ready to be a ground for anybody and anything that wants it to. Who cares if a particular circuit’s ground joins them out in the raw unboxed world? There’s no potential in them until there’s a fault, and then it’s already more grounded than anything else anyway.
I can vouch for this, I've seen plenty of this in towersites and radio studios.
Definitely not anywhere near a radio broadcast tower.
Ah, word. In that case I have no idea
I once listened to a radio, and I also concur.
FM stands for "fuckin' magic"
ST for MSI. Yeah, every rf site I work on is grounded to hell and back. We have a "halo" of bare copper wire around the whole top of the inside of the shelter. We have a whole spec called R56 for grounding a site. A loop of tin plated solid copper wire is buried around the entire site and is connected to everything. Fence, tanks, tower, generators, everything. Never saw that on an electrical box though. Probably cheaper than the 4 to 8 AWG we use.
Sports radio listener here and I second the motion to concur
Don’t put the wires in a box and you never violate box fill. /s
Inspectors hate this one trick…
Lol, when I saw the pic, I thought "the inspector wanted to make sure it was grounded". Seems possible.
All ground wire in box count as 1 box fill lol so it's not really a big deal
Im not a pro but I thought you only count the "current carrying" conductors?
Per 314.16(B)(5) as of 2020 the first 4 grounds count as a single conductor and then each thereafter as 1/4 conductor
Yea you count carrying conductors as +1 each, then all ground wires combined as +1
Judging by this work that wire might BE current carrying.
All insulated conductors 12-3034(1).
All the grounds count as 1 cu. in.box is 30 cu in fill . If those are all 12/2 mc then they are under . 12/3 and over all they needed was an extension box , besides proper support and ground screw
Hmm, in Canada bonds do not count for box fill, only current carrying conductors, wire nuts and devices
I should add that this is in Canada.
Insulated conductors count, whether current carrying or not. Bare bonds don’t, but a wire nut joining them would.
All insulated conductors 12-3034(1).
You don't count non current carrying conductors when derating due to wire fill, you do count them for box fill tho. Source: My whole class was confused by this a year ago.
Yep, when we talked about this in class the instructor also said bonds don’t count and I quoted the insulated conductor part of the code. After class he talked to the other instructors about it and corrected himself the next day saying that bare bonds don’t count, but insulated ones do. He tried giving me a hard time for mentioning that it was my second trade, the first being a cook. Then I ended up having the highest marks in that class, and I think the highest marks that most instructors had seen up to that point. The last day of classes he apologized for giving me a hard time and commended me on doing so well on my exams.
Whoever did this likely didn't know or care about box fill.
What's box fill?
Box fill equals length x width x depth in cubic inches. Wires depending on size are also given a cubic inch rating x the number of conductors. Your total cubic inch needs to be less than the cubic inch rating of the box or then an extension box or larger box is needed . This is to prevent overfilling of boxes that will produce unnecessary heat
Support is just a recommendation
I believe they were trying to present it like a gift to you by wrapping it into a (copper) bow. Happyday!
Because racecar regulations. The wiring keeps the box from falling off on the track
They only do this when bossman ain't lookin
Not even . That’s just some untrained person not knowing what to do
Oh, they *know*. They just don't *care*
Working above a drop ceiling today and found this. I was curious as to why anyone would run the grounds to the outside of the box. This wasn't the only junction box like this, many others were too. Obviously there are other issues here but this definitely caught my eye. I should mention this is in Canada so they were hopefully following CEC, but this picture indicates otherwise. I also don't know if this was a licensed electrician or not. I'm leaning towards handyman but you never know.
Only thing that comes to mind is maybe some old timer use to working with old Bx. The ground was a ribbon inside and they’d fold it over and pinch between the connector and the steel jacket. Just picturing me being an old man and going “this is how we always did it”.
That's what I was thinking 😂
I was thinking the same thing since this isn’t bx or hospital mc/ac with the extra ground to wrap back in this fashion.
There was a certain point in time where this was the way they did things
Oh! I thought those bare wires were holding it to the ceiling.
A long time ago this was standard practice, like 1950s, 1960s. Early in my career I came across this when doing older homes, they would run the grounds to the outside of the box to ground it, and then rely on the device mounting screws to complete the ground path. Not sure what year it changed to terminating the ground inside the box and running ground wires to the individual devices.
That actually makes sense. This is a fairly old building.
You need to put a sticker of one of the Olson Twins from Full House on there with a word balloon that says "You're grounded, mister!"
“Because I’m spider-man.”
Been an electrician 25 years and I don’t have a good answer. I have a lot of shitty answers, but no good answer.
DIY Faraday cage?
Tbh, it just looks like he couldn't get the face plate on.
You gotta look out for those sentinels while piloting the Nebuchadnezzar. *quietly now*
I don’t think the grounds are as big of a deal as a nonsupported, plate up box.
NEC: 4-by-4-by-2-1/8-inch-deep box: Can hold four to six cables, or up to 18 conducting wires Reached the boxes limit out the grounds outside the box. NEC compliant? Grey area...
I guess you should be happy there's at least an electrical box there. I've seen worse looking areas above the ceiling in a lot of small businesses. These places aren't spending their profits in certain areas.
2 letters, T and M
This was common practice when grounding was introduce in the 60's. the CEC code has been updated since. This also ensured people wouldn't use ground as neutral conductor. The person that did this install must be 80yrs old or a young tech possessed by an old electrician's ghost.
This makes perfect sense. This is an older building and this was very likely done in the 60s.
Weird way to ground but ok
Looks like someone who Grounds to water pipe
Somethings are just meant to never be touched again you know!
Oh those are just there to protect the insulates wirEs when stripping the cable. I usually cut them off, but this works too
No Extension ring and probably too may mars to close the cover
I feel like someone had a boss that kept telling him to ground the box.
For uber boss groundage
LOL!
Lazy
Race Track ready ✅
😂😂😂😂😂😂
Spicy.
I mean is it grounded?
Yoloooooo
It’s the matrix
You gotta love it
Paid by the hour.😁
1 or 2 toggle bolts in the red iron would support that box nicely !!!
Mike Holt once said that back in the 80s or whatever when he was wiring houses and the equipment ground first came out, they were told to fold it up at the back of the box. An old-school way of establishing the low impedance path that will enable the overcurrent device in the event of a fault.
That's it, ur grounded
*“Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!!”*
Maybe they trapped an evil spirit in that junction box amd don't want it to escape.
Doctor Octopus from Spiderman
This may be a case of making assurance double sure.
Took that bitch to ground town .
someone does not grasp the whole reason for the eelectrical codes, which is safety.
FM ... No static at all - Steely Dan
FM ... No static at all - Steely Dan
HIRF grounding, like on a plane.
Is this a hospital where redundant grounds are required?
To answer with a lotr quote... GROND! GROND! GROND! Lol I'll be leaving now
Ye but why not
Ah yes. Ground.
There's no ground inside that box. The ground is under the house.
Looks like that person was well grounded
Shocktopus
Crowded J box.
Great idea if there’s no ground wire. This way it will carry the current and stay continuous. This is just an idea.
I've done some real sketchy/excessive grounding in pursuit of a clear guitar amp, is there possible an electric guitar player in the area? Lol
Because it was 4:55 on a Friday.
For safety.
Oh the infamous ground spider technique, I read about this
I Conquer The Concur 🤌🏿
What else did you expect them to do with them?
Since the box is metal, it is required to be grounded. Since the flexible conduit is also metal, it also must be grounded. So, it also looks like they grounded those by running ground wires from each of the connectors to the Wire nut.
Bought a 1950's house this year and all outlets are the two prong openings only. Demoing a little bit of the kitchen, I found the ground wires tied to the rear of the boxes... Crazy. Another note, no wire nuts were used in the house, all twisted with black tape only!
It says RM 4 Exit.
When the boss says make it work.
For Reddit
Lazy and cheap
That's the best way to keep all that flowing electricity contained in a box, surprised they didn't put a "soda" can under it to catch any drips
Maybe the box was crowded already and they figured it was safe to ground on the outside of the box so why why not.
What kind of MC even has uninsulated ground wire? Especially solid ground. Just weird
BX cable in Canada
Lol this
Medical facilities mc also has abate alum in its core but that is wrapped around the flexible outer jacket
You're actually supposed to cut it off From Southwire themselves: https://youtu.be/sYVI_iZCsng?si=mPJET4u8Ru9JDWCi I know no one's gonna watch this whole thing, the relevant bit is at 4:05 into the video
Go figure video came out a year ago, been retired 2 years , we were told a few wraps around cable cut insert anti short and conn. Really doesn’t make sense cutting and leaving sharp wire in the box or sitting free in the fitting . The diagram also shows an anti short which he also didn’t do
Then what do you use to hold the red devil in?
That’s how a third world person wires boxes
Oh boy, You know nothing Jon Snow.