FIRE!!! Yikes!!!

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Those plasic power strips really suck, I cant tell you how many have blown out like that on me. In the tank rescape I had two go on me. I think the internal wiring is so thin and cheap that any type of sustained load and they melt down, from thier, well you have the picture. I avoided them on my tanka and put in a series of wall plugs so I dont have to worry about them. I would suggest buy the goods one from a AV/music type of place.

glad your ok...was this the fire under your butt you needed Curt??? rofl


take care


Mike
 
Too much amperage

None of the solutions posted will work. You are drawing too much load on the circut. The heaters is a dead give away. DON'T USE HEATERS ON A POWERSTRIP OR EXTENSION CORD AT ANY TIME OR FOR ANY REASON! EVER! and I mean EVER! When you add the length of the cord your are adding amperage that is not includeed in the wattage rating of the equipment. The padding that is usually recommended is for spikes and surges. It does not include long continuous draws that heaters demand. Throw the extra feet on there and there is a fire waiting to happen. As the circut gets loaded with that new pump or even a pretty little moonlight the circut gets closer and closer to it's weakpoint (the strip or furthest out device) and it edges over it's safety point the connection heats up and melts the end causeing the fire you witnessed. No GFI or any other protection device can prevent this. You just have too much draw. Take some things off, get a lower wattage pump (sorry Acro people less flow= less wattage) Put it on a seperate circut or just use a lower wattage heater. You're not trying to keep a 80 degree tank warm in the dead of winter in Alaska outside. One heater per circut just to be safe.
 
Ok sense I am too dumb to figure out how to move a quote. here goes. thanks to scott user name szidis go to www.musiciansfriend.com in the search part punch in pc-100 A 8 it comes up and it is very cool. Looks like it should do the job. Dan and Scooter, would you guys go and check it out and see what you think. I would like your opinion. Its also under need a larger powerstrip post in general discussion. STEVE
 
Wow, Curt! I'm so glad that you all are OK. It scares me, though, that the fumes from the melted plastice killed tank inhabitants. That doesn't sound good for humans or your furry friends, either.

This thread is great! But with each new addition of info, I don't know what to buy. I currently have the same power strip that I had when I set up my tank 4+ years ago. Though it's only a 29, that doesn't mean it's not a fire hazard. I'll take pix of the area and post them later today. I've looked at the metal power strips like you bought, Curt, and wondered how they would work.

Again, I'm so glad that you were at home and could put the fire out. BTW...what kind of fire extinguisher should I buy? I guess I mean what grade?

Peace,
cath
 
A grade is paper/wood/cloth, B grade is flamable liquid ie gas/oil/grease, C grade is electrical. The dry chemical kind usually says ABC grade extinguisher. Thats what I would get. It is very important to do what Nikki said. If there is a fire any larger than a dinner plate CALL THE FIRE DEPT before you do any thing else. That stuff wants to kill you. Also it is very important that you know where the circuit breaker to your tanks are. Failing that shut all the power off in the house at the main breaker in the circuit box. Now here is my question. If you have a GFI circuit protecter for your tank. And your power strip catches fire, wouldnt the wires inside short to ground and shut off the power. I mean the hot wire, the neutral wire, and the ground are all close together. If it gets hot enough to melt the plastic, wouldn't the insulation melt and short the wires together before it got to bad? I am going today to get one unless I hear a very good reason not to. Steve
 
Good question, Steve. Curt, was your GFCI tripped? I think it would probably depends on the situation. Even if the GFCI trips, the fire would have already started. Electricity is just energy, and if there is a path for the energy to follow (ie short circuit - not a path to ground) then that energy is going to turn into heat, like a toaster. It will catch on fire, and the wires will melt and maybe trip, but the fire would be going already.

Like aquariumdebacle said, you need to take the load rating of the power strip and make sure you are at a minimum of 10-15% below the rated wattage capacity and that percent allows for some cord length. Make sure the power strip is plugged into the outlet and not an extension cord. If you have it in an extension cord you are decreasing the power capacity. Heaters in particular are a variable resistive loads that will put a greater demand on the load requirements of your powerstrip. You need to account for them at their peak and not as an average. Know what the peak loading is for the heater.

(I did have help on this post :) :) )

Electricity is a dangerous thing, but it doesn't act unpredictably. Understand your load requirements, know what you have available, and do maintenance to replace your powerstrips.
 
When my shop gets a fire inspection the only strips I can have pluged in are the ones posted in Eds thread. That is because they are the same if not better than the hard wired wall outlets. They are internaly wired with 12g wire. No cheap power strip is rated for continous equiptment (pumps and heaters) use.

Don
 
I find it hard to believe his heaters were both on at this time of the year but I guess anything is possible, just having them plugged in can't contribute to the load unless they were on, that answer Curt would know. An AFCI would in this case respond quicker. Like Mike & I said, buy cheap strips, get ready for problems. I like those 12g heavy duty power strips but be sure to keep the metal cases away from corrosive salts (Ie, too close to your tank), multiple wall outlets wired with 12g is very solid & easy to install.
 
No, my GFCI didn't trip. When I remodeled the kitchen, I had a whole house GFCI put in.

I doubt either heater was on. My basement temperatures stay very steady until winter.

We had quite a few discussions about this at SEASL's frag swap today. There's a good chance that I had something called an arcing fault.

In addition, we discussed that on el-cheapo powerstrips, there are three common bars that connect each outlet. On the good ones, each individual outlet is individually wired. I can't remember why this made a difference but it apparently does.

As you can see from the pictures, they were right. The cheap one was just 3 little strips connecting all of the outlets. On the new one, they are using actual outlets and connecting them with wire.

The shame of all this is that once I added my new sump/coral farm I was going to be doing a substantial improvement to all of my electrical equipment. It's a shame I didn't get that done sooner.
 
Curtswearing said:
There's a good chance that I had something called an arcing fault.
Click to expand...
Thus The AFCI (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter).
Good job Curt, I think you hit it right on this one. The reason why each individual one is wired separately is to avoid load sharing across multiple devices, which possibly over rate the wiring (depending on what you have plugged in) and heat up to the point of an open circuit, possible Arching, leading to fire. I do agree that having two heaters on one strip may be a tad too much, also depending on your total power consumption. Load sharing is always a good practice, splitting up the power amongst separate circuits on your larger system is almost a mandatory thing. We all live and leard Curt, I'm glad we learned at the price of a few better quality pieaces of equipment instead of your home, or an individual.
 
having two heaters on one strip may be a tad too much
Click to expand...
So how do those of us who use a controller get around this? I have 1200watts of heater going through a medussa controller which is plugged into a surgeprotector which is pulged into a GFI.
 
I hate to say it but at some point your circuit breaker will handle only so much, then the GFCI or the breaker at the main panel will continually trip, it all depends on how much you have on that breaker. Larger systems will eventually require larger electrical needs, from equipment to the main breaker panel, you can't have one without the other.
 
Well here in Phoenix, we have had a few fires from fish tanks in the last couple months.

The worst was a 6500 squarefoot house that burned to the ground because of something on the fish tank. I dont know what it was, but the fire forensic people traced it back to the tank.
This was a couple million dollar house, so I am curious as to what faulty wiring they had. Makes me worry about my wire job =D
 
Dr B said:
, so I am curious as to what faulty wiring they had. Makes me worry about my wire job =D
Click to expand...
I'd be happy to make suggestions to someone if they can provide through information, maybe pictures, I can't make guarantees but I'm confident that my suggestions would be beneficial to say the least. I would rather try to help someone be safer than to read about a major loss, everyone has unique needs for whatever reasons or limitations, I can only do as best as what I receive through questioning or photos, so it is difficult to do online but I'm more than willing to provide free suggestions. If I was to try and wire up a new system completely with no limitations with the available help of so many electrical engineers I don't think it is possible to guarantee any disasters but hopefully provide betters odds of something like this from ever happing, I know it is difficult to understand everything that people post, interpretation & opinions vary by each individual, that is why I have to be cautious of what I write & sometimes limit it to specific points.
 
Great thread Curt and thank you to everyone for their ideas and opinions. There has been a time where I smelled smoke and found blackening on one of my strips. Of course I immediatly took care of it but never truly understood what happened.

I'll be sure to replace every strip around the tank this time around, not to mention to look at ratings and what I put into them.

Thanks again!

Rob
 
Glad I could help. I just went to Home Depot AGAIN and picked up a bunch of Kilz, paint, and painting supplies. I have to seal all of the walls (including the underside of the floor joists with 5 gazillion nails protuding from the upstairs subfloor) to seal in the smoke smell. Then I have to repaint the entire basement. I also lost a lot of livestock which is very sad.

Getting quality equipment and being careful would have paid off for me. The real shame is that I had already purchased a box of high-draw Romex, GFCI outlets, outlet boxes, and another circuit breaker for an upgrade which would likely have occurred within two weeks when my new sump is finally finished.

My temporary bargain powerstrips were no bargain.:(
 
Hey All! A few years ago I too had a fire like that. Thought I'd save a few bucks and bought a used power strip, Never again! I never did find out what started the fire, but luckily I was home and was able to put it out. I need to use an an extinguisher and some of the stuff got into the tank, it was amazing some of the fish lived. More amazingly, the corals survived too. I immediately did a massive water change, (well, called hubby first then changed) and then changed water daily. Seems like I did that for a long time. Scarey! When it started, there was a popping sound then flames taller than the tank and stand (it was behind my 55gallon)! I had bookcases on either side of that tank, full of great reef books, I only lost a few. God was definatley watching out for me that day, cuz I was home from work when I tyipcally would have been working. And I was in the same room as the tank when it started!! And I happened to have an extinguisher in the same room and kept my head on straight enough to use it!
 
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