My power bar melt

[DSlater]

Originally Posted by Wildechild_01

Yup repeated cycling will wear out the mechanisms resulting in tripping early... frustrating, but safe.

The safety issues come from age related issues with the metal components like good old corrosion. Additionally the changing flow of power over the years heats and cools the metals and they can start to fuse together over time. And if your lucky enough to have a Federal Pacific/Pioneer stab lock panel breakers probably didn't trip when they were supposed to from day one so now in extreme cases the internals could be full on welded together Surprisingly reliable check, turn your breakers off then back on, if the handles don't move smoothly and easily there is probably some internal corrosion going on and may be time to replace.

Side note... If you have a Federal Pacific, Federal Pioneer, Sylvania, or CEB panel, call an electrician and get it out of your house they all have known issues with their breakers not tripping when they are supposed to.

okay I'm going to try to stop preaching electrical safety now haha.

I tend to agree with the Federal panels. If not ripped out, breakers should be checked once in a while. They don't call them weld-locks for nothing.

For GFCI protection on a tank, I don't understand why someone wouldn't. It only takes 10 milliamps to kill you. Typically, our dry skin has enough resistance that 120V will not conduct 10 milliamps. Higher voltages, 240 to 600 can and will hold you so you can't let go. The Saltwater in our tanks, being so conductive, will lessen the resistance of our skin and make the 120v in our homes so much more dangerous.

Cheaply made power bars (most are cheap) do not have to follow the same electrical codes as an electrician. They have to follow a manufactures code for CSA/ULC and get away with smaller wires due to less distance run. That being said, when they burn up it's due resistance in the connection. Dirty/corroded plugs create resistance and heat, it would only take 2ohms resistance to create a little 50w heater in that plug. As the heats builds so does the resistance and the problem gets worse. Also, now there is a voltage loss at the receptacle. No normal breaker or GFI will catch this in time. I went and checked all my plugs when I read this thread.

If you don't like power bars, I just made my own with one GFCI receptacle protecting a few commercial grade receptacles. Higher grade receptacles have larger contacts inside and hold tighter.