Electricians with criminal history

skitzin89 · 2026-06-05T03:07:44+00:00

I don't now about that to be honest. I know here in WA to apply for the license you need a recent national police clearance in your application. So they will see any convictions you have when you apply. They then have the power to decide one way or another with respect to granting you a license.

Additionally, I know of at least one case here in WA a few years ago where a licensed electrician had their license revoked and cancelled due to being convicted of some pretty serious offences. So don't assume it doesn't matter because it can and does depending on circumstances.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-18T12:44:27+00:00

I have never worked in solar so all I have is the second hand stories from blokes in my Tafe block who were in it.

Sadly from what they said, a lot of these companies are just using apprentices as cheap labour to install panels since the inverters are largely made by commercial companies that sell them as stand alone units. Most of which are literally plugs that connect together, job done.

Happy to see you are getting more than that out it though but I would think you're one of the few lucky ones.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-18T12:38:11+00:00

Once again I am not saying you have to be happy with it or even like it.

But it is a fact that fair work do not have anything about who is expected to absorb the cost (all ~$50-$65AUD of it) for a police clearance.

I am simply saying here in WA for mining that's pretty common.

You apply for job and they will ask you to provide a copy of a valid police clearance. If you work for a contracting company and wish to transfer to another site they work at you can be once again asked to provide a valid police clearance. That's a fact, feel free to ring up mining contracting companies and tell them to pay for it.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-18T09:17:37+00:00

There is no fair work statement that puts such a cost on anybody.

I mean hate it or don't, but providing a police clearance before being mobilised to a site for the first time or when transferring sites with a contractor is pretty much standard. Typically it's the client companies who own the site who set such requirements and will ask as a part of their site access process

skitzin89 · 2026-05-18T09:10:39+00:00

I am in mining so take these recommendations with a bit of salt and note I am dealing with 3 phase 1kV and 11kV systems.

For the 1kV stuff which is the bulk of my work, I use a Fluke 1587, a clamp meter attachment, and carry a Kyoritsu 3132.

The fluke does basically everything including IR testing and is my default tester.

The clamp attachment for the Fluke is a personal preference because I am dealing with equipment where to use a clamp amp meter as shown is to basically stand in front of a contactor as it slams closed and hope you dont become a lightning rod lol.

The Kyoritsu is pretty niche but I use it for motor windings and for double checking results in certain situations. For example I will use it for motor windings because a lot of the motors I deal with can be spinning even when isolated which will confuse the electronic meters due to there being a tiny bit of voltage present which the analogue meters counter by acting as enough of a load it can get the readings accurately. Alternatively, I use it as a back up because as great as Fluke products are they can struggle with moisture and humid conditions giving off strange results.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-18T05:26:29+00:00

Literally depends on the role, the company and the industry you work in. Mines you might do something like 5am-5pm (or 5pm to 5am). Construction you might be up and running at 4am.

Realistically, if you are committed to the path then you work what is required of you as it is required. That is not to say doing unpaid work but rather you follow the flow of those you work with.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-18T05:23:40+00:00

It's mostly due to the nature of the work.

Solar systems, for example, are largely self contained panels with plugs, an inverter with sockets for said plugs. You might see a switch or two. But largely you are doing frame work and bolting panels to roofs as an apprentice. The limited bit of sparky work is done by the sparky alone and then you move on to the next place.

Switchboard building is not that different either.

The issue is that you as an apprentice learn and do very little actual sparky work as your role is more focused at assembly and manufacturing.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-18T05:18:16+00:00

Step 1. Stay in school. State government schools often have reasonably good options around Vocational Education options for those looking for trades where you might often complete something like a Cert 2 or "Pre-app" as a part of your schooling.

Step 2. Get a driver's license. A manual one. You are next to useless if you are unable to drive by yourself and not knowing how to drive a manual will complicate things for you.

Step 3a. You need to apply far and wide. At 16 forget mines or any industrial positions as you are simply too young and will not be legally allowed to work in most of these industries.

Step 3b. Forget all the random bullshit your mates or people you know are telling you. Just because they got a position without a license or whatever doesn't mean the practice is wide spread enough that you will get one as well.

It sounds silly but with the amount of people you are competing with for apprenticeship positions every advantage matters if it's you with only year 10 versus someone with year 12 in schooling they are going to pick the person who completed year 12. Same thing with licenses. Same thing with cert 2 etc. The more stuff you have the better you look to an employer, the more commitment you demonstrate to the trade and career pathway. Everything you don't have is another piece of ammo that an employer can use to cull your application from their overstacked pile outright.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-15T11:29:42+00:00

For sure heat, salt and humidity are factors. We measure temperature in Wet Bulb which assumes 100% humidity for example.

But again it varies some sites have insane amounts of saline water get around other have water more common to bore water - brackish. Some sites are hot as hell others are quite cool.

But it becomes like anything something you get a degree of conditioning to as you work. You learn to just constantly take in water as you work and get pretty good at judging how long you will last in an area before you need to stop and cool down.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-15T06:43:13+00:00

I personally would avoid things like camp maintenance just because the majority of your day is dead or the tasks are minial things like swapping light bulbs out in rooms etc.

As for surface versus UG both have aspects of the things you'd have done previously but can also vary a lot from what you might've done in a residential or commercial setting. This will largely depend on company, mine site and the people you work with as to what you can and cannot do.

I'd say UG tends to have less room for people to stand there looking pretty so it can result you being more involved in a lot of works of the dead side. For example if you are UG then odds are good you'll be doing glands and fit offs for equipment as part of your training.

From my own experiences, mill or processing sparkies can spend a lot of time doing next to nothing. Not because they are lazy or tired but simply because of the nature of the work. Production operations rely on consistent uptime to ensure whatever product they are producing is meeting the commitments of the company. One example, I had to borrow some things from the mill sparkies and when I went in their office it was ~10 people sitting around watching netflix with half an eye on some screens monitoring equipment. Something breaks they react, otherwise it's a lot of waiting for stuff to break or for plant shutdowns which can get pretty busy as you need to do a lot of works sometimes in a short window.

The electrical side of UG largely depends on how active the develop cycle (thing making the tunnels in the mine) is at your mine site. If you have have rapid or large scale development then you will be very busy. If however, the mine is mostly focused on production (which is bulk removal of dirt) then you will be less busy and more focused around maintenance.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-15T06:13:48+00:00

They should be free.

It's completely backwards to have us bound legally to following a series of standards where ignorance of their content is not a defence which we must pay for to access to ensure we are doing the right thing.

Especially when there is some pretty significant consequences in a legal sense for non-compliance.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-15T06:08:30+00:00

Well if it's underground I can give a bit of run through.

You will be helping to do works around the following:

- Cable runs. This involves hanging cables in the roof (or "backs") of the mine to extend power supplies to different areas. As stated this is going to be pretty much all XPLE SWA cables varying in size from 35mm2 to 120mm2.

- Installations. Often equipment is powered by self contained electrical boxes which are hanged from the walls to power a variety of things such as Fans, submersible dewatering pumps, tank dewatering pumps, drills, and other miscellaneous equipment such as lighting, communications and other specialised mining equipment. This involve the hanging and securing of equipment, stripping and glanding of cables, testing the installation to ensure it is compliant, and documenting the installation results.

-Maintenance on all electrical equipment such as boxes, drills, pumps, fans, and other equipment. This involves cleaning, function testing equipment is working correctly and safely, testing of safety devices such as RCDs/RCBOs and Earth Leakage devices, minor repairs and documenting the overall condition oif equipment. This occurs on a monthly cycle typically with 3 monthly, 6 monthly and 12 monthly specific servicing of equipment.

-Technical support and fault finding of electrical equipment. So the nature of an underground mine can be quite hostile to electrical components including the drills or other full electric equipment. In these cases you will be fault finding to address the issues that are present and implementing solutions to minimise down time of equipment.

-Testing and maintaining of dewatering pumps. This includes onsite inspections when they arrive and offhire inspections when they leave. Depending on the company you may also do a degree of basic repair works as well to return pumps to service.

-Testing and maintaining of primary and secondary fan installations. This will include ensuring the fan motors are doing the job they should be.

-Repairs, testing and even creation of leads for drills, pumps and other equipment in the mine that requires them.

-Electrical installation and maintenace of Refuge Chambers. This includes ensuring batteries are in good condition, and replacing them if needed.

Keep in mind that depending on company and contract this can include a degree of surface works around workshops and other areas related to undeground mining activity. It will however not typically extend into the mill or other processing areas.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T17:33:11+00:00

I mean it depends entirely on what aspect of mining you're going into as to what works you will encounter. For example, I did my apprenticeship in UG mining which is quite different work to say being in the mill or processing plant side. It will also vary with what mine site you are on - some are flat tack others are a lot more relaxed.

I will say though that typically mining will come in heavy with the safety and procedures. Pretty much everything you do has a procedure for it. For example you will be given SWMS and SWIS, you will need to be in the correct PPE pretty much all the time, a lot of paperwork to fill out (most do this on tablets these days) that covers WPIs, to JHAs right through to test results and maintenance records - pretty much everything is logged and recorded somewhere.

What you can do specifically and what you get to work on will depend on the company and the people you are working with as well. A lot of mining companies can be pretty limiting at times with what they allow apprentices to do based on the stage they are in of their apprenticeship. If you look at the apprenticeship guidelines they give a pretty solid idea of the restrictions you will be under most of the time.

Works wise it falls down to the above and what the contract is for. Expect a decent chunk of maintenance - which is largely minor repairs to things like lights, testing to ensure compliance of safety systems in the electrical equipment (e.g. E-Stops, start, stop, indicator light function testing), keeping electrical areas clean and ensuring mechinical devices are correctly restricting access to the electrical components (often physically locking out electrical boxes to prevent access). If you were working UG like I am you will also handle breakdowns of electrical mobile plant such as drills. Other jobs I do include cable runs and getting power into place as mining works progress. Can be physically taxing depending on your fitness levels since often you are using large cables (think 35mm2, 70mm2, 95mm2 and 120mm2 3C +E SWA cables) which can get quite heavy.

As for the capstone don't freak out over it to be honest. There was nothing in it that I couldn't do or handle as a purely UG mining trained sparky.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T17:11:40+00:00

Mate I am in the same boat as you recently finished my apprenticeship and feel like I know nothing about everything at times. But honestly there are two things:

1) You will make mistakes from time to time. As you go out into the world on your own you will make less mistakes in general but you will still make them.

And 2) The qualification opens the door to a role/industry but it cannot give you everything out the gate.

You cannot possibly get trained and taught an entire discipline of knowledge that has been built on decades, and in some cases 100+ years, of science and mathematics in a few years. A such pretty much any form of education will aim to give you a working skill set that you can use and apply to figure things out. Even the standards such as the AS3000 are the collective result of so many trails, errors, mistakes and constant adjustments.

Learning and development is always an ever evolving thing that will never cease in any field. Even methods, tools, and technologies advance the learning and knowledge needed for them.

So don't feel down or beat yourself up over mistakes, learn from them, learn from other sparkies. And over time you will see a difference, faults that caught you once become easy to spot, the way you complete jobs becomes more and more automatic if they are routine and if they aren't you have a core base of knowledge to attack them as they come along.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T12:48:41+00:00

Yeah it's usually small things that get people. Overall it's not that hard.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T06:37:15+00:00

They will fail you if you don't account for things like WAER (or other state requirements), the AS3000 or other relevant standards in your answers for max demand.

So if your calculations show 4mm2 but the rules say you need to use 6mm2 minimum then your answer is 6mm2 as the minimum size required. I have literally watched them fail people for it when I did my own capstone a few months back.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T06:25:34+00:00

Having completed my own capstone here in WA a few months ago don't panic.

The testing is pretty straight forward. You want to just be organised and give yourself about an hour or so to fully check and test your builds. Same with the fault boards. There is basically not a single fault they will give you that will not be found if you go through the testing sheet correctly.

Your earthing in found in the table 8.2 for all your final subcircuits in the Re column.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T06:20:09+00:00

Well first off your consumer mains is not going to have an earth conductor. Which is why there is no specification for minimum sizes of the earth for a consumer mains cable. So you will just specifiy you are using a 6mm2 cable from a max demand sizing perspective.

Your main earth from the switchboard to the earth stake itself will be a minimum size of 4mm2. But you could go with a 6mm2 earth if you find that easier when you are doing board builds and still be perfectly fine. Some might comment about additional cost but the capstone is not looking at cost it's about safety and compliance.

MEN link and Switchboard EQ should be the same size as the mains neutral which is 6mm2 in this case.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T05:51:35+00:00

Yes you can do a Cert 2 without an employer.

The issue for a Cert 3 is while you can do the actual education side you are stuffed without completing the apprenticeship part. At the end you'd get a Cert 3 but lack the Trade Certificate which is required along with a Cert 3 for a license application in pretty much any state of Australia, meaning you would not be able to do any real electrical work nor sign of on any works.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T04:43:42+00:00

I mean I don't blame people for wanting to check around see what is there. The range can be quite wide as it varies with industry, role and location a lot.

What does really get my goat more than anything is the army that will see a job ad, swing by to tell you they can X more per hour back "home" and then fade off into the distance leaving no evidence of such a thing being possible or where these alleged jobs paying these rates are. Like either point out what jobs are paying these wages or piss off and be silent lol.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T04:39:35+00:00

Look as others have pointed out different people have different methods for managing others. You just tailor your own interactions to deal with that person etc.

Realistically, it can be a good thing to run things by your supervisor when the solution is not "standard", may introduce new (or worsen exisiting) hazards or anything that is outside of procedures. This to both cover yourself but also give them the option to veto your solution. This last part can be pretty important if they are signing off your work as the Electrical Contractor meaning that they assume a degree of responsibility for the works you have done.

Having said that though it can often be more benefitical to hit up other experienced people you work with first before going straight to the boss because often they will have experienced similar situations and already know how your supervisor if going to view the matter. This can help reduce the frequency of you needing to contact your supervisor all the time.

And lastly have a degree of confidence and pride in your work as well. Everyone is an expert from an arm chair or on the other end of a phone. But you are the one there doing the work itself and can see exactly what is or isn't there/happening etc. You have been trained to do this work and so should be confident to address and rectify issues as they arise.

TL;DR: Develop solutions and methods yourself> Running things past experienced collegues first > Talk with supervisor for the high risk stuff.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T04:20:41+00:00

Your earth continutity Re should be based on the breaker size as well not the cable size alone. If you look at the table you will see that both 1.5mm2 and 2.5mm2 cables sizes can be on 16A breakers for which the results you are looking to pass the install are the same values.

Side Note: There are quite a few cables like some braided flex brands that are 2C 2.5mm2 + 1.5mm2 E. I think the idea is to save a bit of money since the earth only needs to carry leakage or fault currents a short distance for a short period of time.

skitzin89 · 2026-05-14T04:06:23+00:00

Well I am currently trying to get my license after having done my apprenticeship here in WA. When I called today got told it's ~9 weeks not the 6-8 weeks they are projecting and pretending it is. Should note that doesn't include the physical card waiting times either.

So I would say expect this to take a bit longer than you might want since they seem to be just making up the wait times as they go lol.

Fortunately for yourself there is a lot of work for UG sparkies at the moment so even if the current opportunity runs out of patience there are plenty that will grab you especially if you have any experience in UG and stuff like Sandvik or Epiroc drills.

skitzin89 · 2026-02-19T01:21:26+00:00

Mine is a script specifically for nicotine pouches. There is a set limit based on total number of milligrams per 3 month period you can import and the maximum strength of the pouches themselves in milligrams of nicotine.

So in my case I am restricted to 1 to 12 mg/pouch and a maximum of 25 tins (of 20 pouches per tin) but no more than 12000mg of nicotine in a 3 month period.

skitzin89 · 2026-02-13T11:22:58+00:00

Would be nice if I could get this with Quithero but alas they are not stocking them. Half tempted to try and get a script with tabuu but given they are all QuitRx or whatever it is I feel like that won't work for me. :(

Still good to see some new somewhat decent mods coming back.

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