Electrician

[RedStorm]

So I am turning 18 in September and am getting help from my dad and this company to help train me as an electrician. Now obviously they have some contract shit saying they can hire me out for the first year, as in I cant apply anywhere else (dont know why I would).

Any already electricians here? Any advice?

 

[Baroque]

So I am turning 18 in September and am getting help from my dad and this company to help train me as an electrician. Now obviously they have some contract shit saying they can hire me out for the first year, as in I cant apply anywhere else (dont know why I would).

Any already electricians here? Any advice?

Not an electrician but I took 3 years of electronics and lived with an electrician student for a year or two. #1 practice your math skills, you will need a good bit of algebra and some basic matrix algebra. #2 start studying now, watch youtube videos, read books from the library, etc. #3 get some electronics project kits and build them. They'll come in a bag with all of the components you need, and a circuit design and maybe some crude instructions. Start with something simple just learn to read the circuit designs with all the symbols and get familiar with soldering. work your way up into intermediate and so on. you'll need some tools like a soldering iron, wire strippers, clippers, connectors, wire ties, and it won't hurt to have a bunch of spare electronics parts lying around like resistors and capacitors and extra wire. Practice a lot and learn, you can learn from anyone when you're just starting out

 

[Krow]

I worked for a master electrician that owned his own company for a couple years. I gave up on it because I felt uncomfortable working on scaffolding and around shit that would literally kill me if I fucked up.

Here's the reality, you're going to go in as an apprentice doing bitch work. You're going to pull wire, you're going to carry shit, you might wire up simple things like outlets or maybe a fire alarm or something, or if you're really unlucky... you might get handed a shovel to dig ditches for conduit.

 

[no country for old wainds]

a guy from my grade at school became an electrician and he died because he used a generator indoors and gassed himself. so my advice is, do not do that

 

[Krow]

a guy from my grade at school became an electrician and he died because he used a generator indoors and gassed himself. so my advice is, do not do that

Actually he should do that while leaving this play on loop

 

[RedStorm]

Nice. I know there is a risk yet I am willing to do it. Honestly I dont care.

Also no offense to that guy, using a gas powered anything in a closed space not expecting to die is kind of autistic

 

[no country for old wainds]

ya i thought it sounded pretty retarded. he had the same last name as me and a couple of people told me they were sorry about my brother lol

 

[RedStorm]

I worked for a master electrician that owned his own company for a couple years. I gave up on it because I felt uncomfortable working on scaffolding and around shit that would literally kill me if I fucked up.

Here's the reality, you're going to go in as an apprentice doing bitch work. You're going to pull wire, you're going to carry shit, you might wire up simple things like outlets or maybe a fire alarm or something, or if you're really unlucky... you might get handed a shovel to dig ditches for conduit.

I hear you, but on average how many things can you do in the job that would kill you? a lot?

 

[RedStorm]

Not an electrician but I took 3 years of electronics and lived with an electrician student for a year or two. #1 practice your math skills, you will need a good bit of algebra and some basic matrix algebra. #2 start studying now, watch youtube videos, read books from the library, etc. #3 get some electronics project kits and build them. They'll come in a bag with all of the components you need, and a circuit design and maybe some crude instructions. Start with something simple just learn to read the circuit designs with all the symbols and get familiar with soldering. work your way up into intermediate and so on. you'll need some tools like a soldering iron, wire strippers, clippers, connectors, wire ties, and it won't hurt to have a bunch of spare electronics parts lying around like resistors and capacitors and extra wire. Practice a lot and learn, you can learn from anyone when you're just starting out

Question on the math. Is it simple algebra? Ill be ending senior year with Algebra 3. Also what is "Matrix" algebra?

I will look into those kits.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Baroque]

Question on the math. Is it simple algebra? Ill be ending senior year with Algebra 3. Also what is "Matrix" algebra?

I will look into those kits.

Thanks for the advice.

More like matrix arithmetic really. How to add, subtract multiply matrices. How to find the determinant and inverse of a small matrix. Yeah that should be enough algebra. You need to be able to solve for a variable in a simple equation dealing with resistors and capacitors. This is just all for the classes on electronics though. On the job I have no idea, you probably won't be using much of this unless you get into designing your own circuits. It can't hurt to know how the math of things work before you touch them though.

You should know Ohm's Law and the like certainly. And how to read the markings and color bands on components. Hey this resistor is fried and it was 60 ohms on a 120V circuit. There's still a 20 ohm resistor on it though. If I touch this wire I'm going to take how big of a shock? Pretty useful to know. Know series and parallel formulas. Know what each component does, resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, inductors, transformers,...

 

[Baroque]

The more math you learn/can handle the better. Eventually you could get into electrical engineering and make 2-3x as much money but you need to understand calculus and logic.

 

[RedStorm]

Alright looks like I have some work to do.

Thanks guys

 

[Phylactery]

Matrices are so fucking boring. Thank God I don't have to teach that shit.

Obviously calculus is amazing and you should learn it for fun anyway.

 

[Baroque]

Matrices are so fucking boring. Thank God I don't have to teach that shit.

Obviously calculus is amazing and you should learn it for fun anyway.

You know it's a common thing to do calculus on matrices? Where did you stop? Jacobians, Hessians etc

 

[Phylactery]

You know it's a common thing to do calculus on matrices? Where did you stop? Jacobians, Hessians etc

I know that, but you were referring to matrix arithmetic, which is boring as fuck. I remember doing Jacobians, I then avoided any module in my final year that had any mention of matrices haha.

To be clear, I'm more of an applied mathematician than a pure one. My favourite modules were Partial Differential Equations, Relativity, Complex Variable and Waves. On the pure front I did graph theory and linear algebra, which I detested.

 

[Baroque]

Interesting. Yeah I deal with matrices every day in statistics. It's not a big deal since I write programs to handle them for me. They're pretty important for dealing with high dimensional anything. I guess depending on your applied route the max you'd see is a 4x4 or so. Earlier today I was working on a small data set with a 36x36

 

[The Ozzman]

Matrices are so fucking boring. Thank God I don't have to teach that shit.

Obviously calculus is amazing and you should learn it for fun anyway.

I relearned calculus when I was studying for Actuarial exams and understood it way more than the first time I took it.

 

[Phylactery]

Interesting. Yeah I deal with matrices every day in statistics. It's not a big deal since I write programs to handle them for me. They're pretty important for dealing with high dimensional anything. I guess depending on your applied route the max you'd see is a 4x4 or so. Earlier today I was working on a small data set with a 36x36

Yeah, never dealt with particularly large ones since it would be impractical to do them by hand. I didn't meet them until university, which is weird because the basics of them are very simple. I feel they should be introduced in education earlier.

What's your favourite branch of mathematics?

I relearned calculus when I was studying for Actuarial exams and understood it way more than the first time I took it.

You're an actuary? That's what my mother always wanted me to do with my degree. What were the exams like?

 

[Baroque]

What's your favourite branch of mathematics?

Music theory. No joke

But in the sense you're looking for, maybe statistics. Being able to discover unknown facts about the real word is fascinating. With pure math you never see some things applied in real life, it's imagined. With applied math you build exactly what you want to build. With statistics you can make new scientific discoveries, and there is plenty of room to be creative and develop new analytical techniques.

 

[no country for old wainds]

when i was a kid i was an exceptional mathematician, skipped a grade in school due to my numeracy/literacy and coasted through getting full marks in SATs etc, was part of a gifted child program, had a private tutor on the side teaching me algebra while we were still doing basic shit in junior school, joined an experimental express group for GCSE mathS and got an A 2 years early. then i absolutely slammed into a wall at A level (don't know the american equivalent for this stuff sry). couldn't do it at all. part of it was a lack of interest and a laziness instilled by the aforementioned coasting through school, but it was more than that, almost like the subject changed at that level into something different that my brain wasn't wired for. i recall the problem was with retaining and/or organising certain types of information in order to build on them but idk, it just felt like i was missing something crucial to the processes. anyone know if this is a common thing with mathS when you hit a certain level?

of course, the alternative is that the internet just fucked my brain by then.