AC THEORY

[Therealcrt]

Serious question. How often or when really would you ever need to know most things taught in AC theory levels 1 through 4 out in the field? To me it all seems unnecessary

 

[zbang]

What are "levels 1 through 4" anyway?

(It's useful if you're doing controls or A/V, but not if you're doing mostly residential work. IMHO and all that.)

 

[ActionDave]

You can go a whole electrical career and know nothing about electrical theory. It's not something I would be proud of.

 

[retirede]

I have no idea what “Theory levels 1 through 4” are, but the knowledge required will alway depend on the task(s) you are required to carry out. Which get determined by the position you hold.

A residential electrician and an industrial controls technician will need some different skills and knowledge, for example.

 

[Tulsa Electrician]

I would think it depends on the individual. This occupation is what one chooses to make of it.
We're each at our own level. With that being said it's really up to you.

All an installer need to know is I put that there and what ansawers do I need to pass the test.
A electrician will know what they need and why and were to look it up to pass the test.
So it's up to you.
I would say learn all you can and you will think you self in the future.

My opinion is, nowing how things work make doing your job easier and safer. It's a responsibility of an electrician to keep other safe. Nowing how to do that is important.

So choice is yours.
Thank you for asking.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

I am not bragging but I have had a very successful business, mostly residential, and I have never taken a theory course. I am more interested in it now but theory is, IMO, not necessary +95% of the time

 

[Sea Nile]

I think you are right that you can install electrical components and perform a decent amount of troubleshooting without knowing AC theory. But knowing it will make you a better troubleshooter and give you confidence. Plus less likely to put your foot in your mouth.
Plus, if you start to get bored with just doing the basics, knowing theory can give you a boost in branching off into another area of the industry.
And you can tell your guys not to use an extension cord while it is coiled up because of inductive reactance will cause it to heat up.
It all boils down to what you want to do with your life and if you're happy with the status quo.
If it were me, I would learn everything I could about my industry. That way when my body can't do the work anymore, I can use my expertise to continue working using my knowledge instead of my back.

 

[LarryFine]

Back when I was a helper, it was obvious that I knew more about electrical theory than any of the guys I worked with, but I had a lot to learn about the hardware. I think a good mix of both is important.

 

[Little Bill]

I had to take therory and didn't like it at the time. But have found a use for some of it along the way. I think knowing Ohm's Law is about as far as you need to go if you're just going to do basic installs and minor troubleshooting.

 

[Strathead]

Like anything else, what you know and how you apply it are different things. And each person is different. I NEED to know things to mentally survive. I know other people who couldn't stand having all the junk running around my brain in theirs. So it all depends how you choose to approach things. Here is an easy example. Do you need to know Pythagoreans Theory, or Trigonometry to bend conduit. No. And that is especially true with Google today, but can you use it to bend conduit, absolutely.

 

[zbang]

A bit of theory helps move to knowing something works to knowing why it works. Sure, you can look up bending distances and angles in a table, but what do you do when you need something that isn't listed? Or the floating-neutral problem- it's a lot easier to troubleshoot when you can apply Ohm's (and Kirchoff's) law than just by guessing.

"I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you."
- seen on a t-shirt years ago

 

[Joethemechanic]

Pythagoreans Theory, or Trigonometry

Sure helps you understand why it hurts so much when you touch the high leg of a 120,240 delta

 

[Ken_S]

I see the guys without any concept of theory struggling in a commercial and industrial environment, especially when it comes to troubleshooting

 

[rambojoe]

On the flip side, i see guys with masters in theory and engineering struggling to grasp how it gets built. And troubleshooting. Its only fair to say... Does it matter? Just because the op doesnt think so?! What is the true point of asking "does it really matter?"

 

[jaggedben]

In my opinion an electrician should know enough theory to understand why you don't put red and black on the same tandem breaker.

 

[zbang]

Nothing wrong with red and black on the same tandem if they're not sharing the same white/neutral .

There are a lot of basic concepts that explain why things have to be done a certain way, like Ben's example. Or why dirt shouldn't be used as fault current path (or what a fault current path is, anyway). Just knowing some of them might answer maybe 20% of the questions posted on the forums.

 

[jaggedben]

Nothing wrong with red and black on the same tandem if they're not sharing the same white/neutral .

Yeah, well that's what I meant. I've seen whole panels of MWBCs wired up with red and black from the same cable together on a tandem. Like someone thought it was supposed to be that way.

 

[drcampbell]

First half-answer: It's absolutely impossible to predict when & where it will become essential. And when it does become essential, you will never know it became essential if you haven't learned it -- you'll just fail to understand what you're looking at.
Second half-answer: You will absolutely never be disadvantaged by learning it.

I confess, I'm the total opposite. I'm a card-carrying nerd with a penchant for learning anything & everything. But there have been some surprising opportunities when learning something that was apparently unrelated, unnecessary, and/or irrelevant became useful.

An installer might ask why we need to learn about corner-grounded delta; nobody installs that any more.
In three minutes, I diagnosed why a newly-installed VFD was refusing to start, after three people had spent a week looking only at the VFD itself.

Almost everybody asks whether we "need" to learn that much math.
My driving improved significantly after I mastered calculus.
(you'll just have to take my word for it; there's no way to explain what happened unless you understand calculus, at which point I won't need to explain what happened)

What does escape velocity (satellites, orbital mechanics) have to do with paint rollers? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

 

[Therealcrt]

Thank you for all of your guys feedback.

 

[LarryFine]

Years ago, we were called to figure out which conductors in a 4-wire cable went to which ceiling speaker in the den of a home. The cable had one black wire, one red wire, and two white wires. The lady of the house told us that two previous electricians couldn't figure it out.

She went next door for a minute, and we were finished and sitting on her front porch when she came back. She couldn't believe we did it so fast until I showed her the two pairs, identified by twisting each pair together. I simply used a AA battery and listened for the clicks.