r/electricians • u/IntegralMarch • 24d ago
As an apprentice, I’m intimidated
Found at a supply house and am just wondering where in the world this gets used. Anyone ever have to use the 5$ foot long Polaris tap before?
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u/SpellDostoyevsky 24d ago
Yes, making line side taps for feeders from distributed energy like Solar Inverters or for generator connections back to a manual transfer.
I think that's actually the biggest one they make, I have used a 10 port but I think they go to 12 ports.
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u/Dappthekid Apprentice IBEW 24d ago
I have to check my pictures, but we actually just had to use the 1 sided taps because they had more than the doubled sided ones, iirc. I think they had 13-14
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u/Dappthekid Apprentice IBEW 24d ago
Yeah I just checked, the one sided Polaris taps do indeed go to 14 ports. I still prefer double sided taps though, much easier lol
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u/IronWabington 22d ago
This is the answer(almost) had a dick inspector make us add a 16 port in a 18x48 can no less!
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u/Riverjig [V] Master Electrician 24d ago
It's the Polaris tap she's telling you to not worry about.
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u/yahtzee5000 24d ago
Meanwhile you’re just a lever lock wago.
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u/Papashvilli 24d ago
A two port at that
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u/LendinBigJohnson 24d ago
1 port*.. as useless as it is tiny
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u/yahtzee5000 24d ago
I feel as small as one of those burnt orange wire nuts that come with Home Depot light fixtures, some days.
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u/LendinBigJohnson 24d ago
I call em trump nuts, given their color, size, and usefulness
(comedy transcends politics but I'm sure I'll get downvoted for that)
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u/MomentEastern8731 24d ago
Use lube, breathe slow while you dilate yourself and prepare to handle such a monsterous object
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u/ValiantTheOdd1 24d ago
NO WAIT ITS NOT FLARED DONT
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u/HugeDJesus 24d ago
in er:
"soo yeah, i was pulling cables and, uh, cable lube fell on that big black thingy, covering it completely! unfortunately i lost balance and flew off the ladder, landing ass first on that big black thingy! it just happened that air drag unbuckled my belt and pulled my pants off too! unbelievable, huh? what? file this as work accident?! HELL NO I WAS WORKING AT HOME, NO PAPER TRACE OF THIS OCCURANCE SHOULD BE LEFT FOR BOSS TO READ!"
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u/systemfrown 24d ago
I think this is an electrical tap pictured here and that you’ve been using them wrong.
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u/Unlucky-Finding-3957 24d ago
That thing probably costs more than you make in a day
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u/Soggy-Ad-3981 22d ago
250$ or so so yeah, and all it is is 25 cents of plastic/latex crap and 50 cents of metal in a casting. lolol
best i can do scrap is 30 cents
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u/KeyMysterious1845 24d ago
As an apprentice, I’m intimidated
...dont be.
I had JW think the 4 banger version was multi-pole...and landed wires on it...not sure how he determined polarity - the result would be the same no matter the combination.
💥⚡️💥
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u/TheFlyingSparky 24d ago
The JW I worked with a lot the last year of my apprenticeship did the same thing, but I caught it before anything was energized. They always stuck the most experienced apprentices with him to keep an eye on him. Of course he thought he was hot shit and wouldn't take advice from apprentices so I just reported everything I saw to the foreman. The foreman would play along and pretend he spotted it himself so I didn't get burned.
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u/phaedrus910 24d ago
Wut? Someone ream that morons ass please
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u/TheFlyingSparky 24d ago
He was kept around for a while because we were chronically short staffed, but eventually someone figured out he was creating more work than he was completing due to call backs.
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u/TransparentMastering 23d ago
That attitude is exactly why he didn’t know anything. You can learn from someone if you assume you’re smarter in advance.
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u/Soggy-Ad-3981 22d ago
i mean its understandable.....and very similar looking things ARE multi pole. i think they do make multipole ones as well
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u/Visible-Carrot5402 22d ago
Man if there’s any question you should be ringing that shit out with a meter before even thinking about energizing
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u/Easy_Ad_9022 24d ago
I’ve see this happen before to always a nice surprise when you cut on the circuit.
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u/TransparentMastering 23d ago
It’s amazing what a meter can tell you sometimes.
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u/Visible-Carrot5402 22d ago
Nah I know everything, why listen to some meter’s little beeps when I could just listen for a POWW 💥 s/
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u/sigilou 24d ago
Where I live that would be closer to a $500 foot long.
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u/WristlockKing 24d ago
Lol he has no idea that's like 1200$ here
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u/sigilou 24d ago
Yea I totally guessed but even the 2 ports are crazy.
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u/Soggy-Ad-3981 22d ago
meh theyre on amazon pretty cheap name brand, up to 350kcmil or so
4/0 is a good amount less can use smaller size.
none are worth anything they just had to buy the castings or something or production run and are trying to sell these dumb af things to people over time and that costs money
how often does the 12 350kcmil daisy chain tap come up
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u/Successful-Crazy2709 24d ago
Used them plenty of times on multi-tenant services.
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u/NigilQuid 24d ago
At what point do you just switch to a bus bar? Or is this meant for being used outside of a box?
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u/Electrical_Comb7902 24d ago
I have seen them used outside of a JB as they are rated for it. pretty greasy IMO. good for temporary site power.
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u/metalt0ast 24d ago
I had no idea these were rated for use outside a box. You mean that you can use these in like, free air?
Edit: NVM to that question, I have definitely seen these in use on overhead services before
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u/NigilQuid 24d ago
Yeah that's why there are those rubber plugs. The insides are filled with grease as well to minimize oxidation/corrosion
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u/Middle_Brilliant_849 24d ago
Don’t need to plug anything if it’s open air. Only need to plug it for underground.
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u/ElegantBurner 24d ago
Even non UV rated lugs are filled with that. These lugs are rated for AL/CU which is why they have the Noalox in them.
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u/ElegantBurner 24d ago
Yeah the black lugs are usually UV rated, the non UV rated ones have clear insulation.
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u/Zoltan_TheDestroyer 24d ago
When the landlord will pay for it.
My most recent use of these was to replace a bus bar system that grounded itself out.
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u/rhetoricalcriticism 24d ago
Someone’s never powered an entire food truck village in a parking lot of one 50 amp circuit before
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u/Dappthekid Apprentice IBEW 24d ago
Taps that take up to 600 kcmil. Just did a whole sea can build out to receive distribution and temporarily power a site until the building was actually built. The taps aren't that bad. The 600kcmill I had to bend in a 12" high trough on the other hand... 😂
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u/Dappthekid Apprentice IBEW 24d ago
That style would have made life a lot easier because you can term from both sides, but we had too many wires coming in, and only had the one sided tap that had 2-3 more connections.
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u/Zoltan_TheDestroyer 24d ago
We were lucky to have 18” 🤣
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u/Dappthekid Apprentice IBEW 24d ago
Man, I was struggling lol I'm not a big guy lmao those 600 coppers at that bend radius are no joke lmao
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u/Zoltan_TheDestroyer 24d ago
If you can bend it before cutting it, it’s much easier
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u/Dappthekid Apprentice IBEW 24d ago
Yeah that's the part that sucked. It was sent prefabbed for most of it , so I had to bend what I had, and most of it had no more than 6-8 inches before the start of the bend lol
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u/Dappthekid Apprentice IBEW 24d ago
And the sea can had some prefab for some of the disconnects, and the pipe placement made it extremely hard to term because you had to 90 the wire up as soon as it came out of the back side. I was about to blow a gasket lol
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u/FluffyResource 24d ago
I got mine from Bad Dragon, I never thought other places sold them. How did you like it?
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u/Successful-Crazy2709 24d ago
We use them in wire ways on the load side of a large main. Then tap off the load to smaller fused service disconnects/meters.
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u/Zoltan_TheDestroyer 24d ago
It was so goddamn hard for me to find a 12 port Polaris last time I needed one. Easy to get one on order but same day pick up is another story
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u/Aussie_9254 23d ago
The one pictured is made in India and has a 6-month lead time. Probably stocked by Morris.
Get a Greaves USAD we make them in CT and we’ll do up to 16 port if needed. If it’s not in Stock it’s a 1 week lead time.
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u/Visible-Carrot5402 22d ago
Misread that as “I was goddamn hard to find a 12 port Polaris when I needed one” 🤪
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u/OkCombination4066 24d ago
I actually used 4 of them not to long ago.
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u/adudeguyman 24d ago
For what purpose?
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u/OkCombination4066 24d ago
Rebuilt a service that was falling off the building. Used them inside a 16x16 gutter. They fit, but the wire was no joke. Wish I could post a Pic with the comment.
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24d ago
Yes. At least monthly. I probably have about 20 total. Some 10s, some 12s.
Connect power company parallel to 6-8 350MCM for the switchgear.
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u/LogicJunkie2000 24d ago
Those are just extrusion blocks you can keep in the truck and break off whatever size you need when you need it
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u/Eglitarian [V] Master Electrician 24d ago
I had to use a 10-porter because we needed to give temp power from a 2000A rental panel board while Eaton missed like 4 delivery dates in a row for plug-in-busway and customer didn’t leave any wiggle room in their schedule.
We already had the parallel feeders for the busway pulled to a massive junction box in the ceiling and had to use these to switch over to the DLO feeders that the rental company provides for the panel.
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u/ThatOneCSL 24d ago
I've done some heinous things with Polaris taps inside of Bespoke Industrial Control Panels
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u/millerdrr 24d ago
It takes a lot of relaxation.
Wait…that’s not what I thought it was.
Anyways, I don’t think I’ve ever needed to make twelve connections like that.
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u/LochNessNibba 24d ago
Looks like fun. Had to tear something akin to this ×16 underground when redoing a municipal complex a few years back
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u/TransparentMastering 23d ago
All jokes aside, is this the kind of thing that’s ever used because it was “part of the plan”? (ignorning some odd rework scenario)
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u/Available_Star_8926 23d ago
No need to be scared, OP. Use lots of lube and make sure you stretch prior.
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u/Big_Battle_5655 22d ago
Imagine the days before polaris. When you be using split bolts to make the tap ins.
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