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babyeatingpsychopath posted:It depends on the conduit, really. In general, a strap within 3' of a box and every 10' thereafter. Box must be securely fastened to the wall. If I go forward with it, I most likely will only get the 3.3 kW charger, not the optional 6.6 kW. So I would be looking at no more than 16 A draw on a 20 A breaker. I'm hoping to convince the hoa to allow something conduit based so that if I decide I really like the whole thing and eventually get an EV with higher needs, I can more easily upgrade the circuit.
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Mar 4, 2013 08:46
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thelightguy posted:It's a simple rf coil, not a flyback transformer. Indeed it is. I'm just unsure what could cope with the voltages involved. I mean it purposefully creates arcing electricity. Just finding wiring for it was hard enough. All my experience is in digital electronics, so I'm not sure if what I'm looking for is possible or exists even.
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Mar 4, 2013 12:36
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IOwnCalculus posted:In general, what is code like for running conduit / outside outlets? My HOA can be intermittently anal-retentive, but I'm thinking it would be relatively easy to run conduit down to just above ground level, flush up against the outside of the house, and then come back up to a reasonable height and stick the outlet at the front of the driveway where I currently have a broken garage door keypad. Or can I trench it and come up at the driveway? Or am I going to be paying an electrician to crawl around in my attic space and fish cabling over the front bedroom to drop the outlet along the inside wall of the garage, near the garage door? You could always run oversized cable, which would give you an easy upgrade path, should you change your mind in the future and want to use a 6.6kW charger. grover fucked around with this message at 12:42 on Mar 4, 2013 |
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Mar 4, 2013 12:38
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Speaking of running oversized cable, is it possible to use 15A outlets with 10ga wire? It's not the outlets I'm having trouble with, it's the lovely mobile home circuitry that has half the kitchen, the office & the spare bedroom's lights & outlets all sharing one 15A breaker & I'd prefer to replace as little as possible to make it so I can microwave without shutting off the office computer & the lights.
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Mar 4, 2013 16:46
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oldskool posted:Speaking of running oversized cable, is it possible to use 15A outlets with 10ga wire? It's not the outlets I'm having trouble with, it's the lovely mobile home circuitry that has half the kitchen, the office & the spare bedroom's lights & outlets all sharing one 15A breaker & I'd prefer to replace as little as possible to make it so I can microwave without shutting off the office computer & the lights. It should be possible, if you use quality outlets with side wire (preferably side wire with a clamp, so you don't have to loop the wire... I'm partial to the leviton commercial grade ones from home depot as a JAFHO) - but why? Even with 10ga wire, you shouldn't have more than a 15A outlet on a circuit with a 15A breaker iirc, so you aren't really going to solve anything. Splitting the circuits up so you have one per room or at least splitting the circuit in half will help more. I don't believe it'll work with the 49 cent back-wire push-in outlets, but those things are the devil anyways.
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Mar 4, 2013 18:04
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grover posted:Yes, you could do it any of these ways. Since it's outside, you'd need to use wet-rated cabling, but you could mount conduit on your wall or you could trench it. Minimum depth depends on how you're trenching it, but the most common methods require 12-24" depth. It's funny, I never even thought about trenching it until I wrote up that post, and that's probably the most sane way to do it since I think the HOA would probably be annoyed at any not strictly necessary additional conduit on the front of the house, even if it's nearly 100% invisible from the street by running at ground level. oldskool: Are you actually splitting things onto multiple breakers? Upgrading the wire won't help you if you're still running it all back to a 15A breaker.
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Mar 4, 2013 18:11
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oldskool posted:Speaking of running oversized cable, is it possible to use 15A outlets with 10ga wire? It's not the outlets I'm having trouble with, it's the lovely mobile home circuitry that has half the kitchen, the office & the spare bedroom's lights & outlets all sharing one 15A breaker & I'd prefer to replace as little as possible to make it so I can microwave without shutting off the office computer & the lights. IOwnCalculus posted:It's funny, I never even thought about trenching it until I wrote up that post, and that's probably the most sane way to do it since I think the HOA would probably be annoyed at any not strictly necessary additional conduit on the front of the house, even if it's nearly 100% invisible from the street by running at ground level.  Here's the table from IRC with the various methods and depths- it's the same table as the NEC. Which method works best for you will depend on how deep you're willing to dig vs cost/difficulty in running the conduit. EMT is relatively easy to work with any might work well for you, but you could use IMC if you're not keen on digging a deep trench. If you're entirely within conduit, you can use individual THWN or XHHW wires (available in your local big box).
grover fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Mar 4, 2013 |
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Mar 4, 2013 18:31
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My issue is that I can't just run one new circuit; the microwave would need its own circuit, and then I'm running another into the living room for the space heater & one to an as-yet-undetermined location for the air conditioner (haven't picked whether to put it in the office again or put it in the spare bedroom)...and then another for the master bedroom air conditioner as I forgot about it in my initial survey of circuitry, d'oh. So that's four new 15A circuits, crawling through whatever's in the crawlspace (trailer is not on a pad, so it's pretty much mud & various wildlife nests) to run the wires & having to install conduit so the aforementioned wildlife doesn't chew through the wires, catch on fire and burn the place down anyway. My harebrained scheme to avoid this scenario was as follows: 1) Turn off the power to prevent  2) Start unscrewing fixtures to find the end of the two main runs 3) Go fixture-by-fixture back towards the box, replacing the 14ga wire with 10ga as I go. 4) Once I reach the breaker box, replace the 15A breaker with a 30A one. It's probably significantly more work & will take far longer overall, but it doesn't involve relying on several weeks of dry warm/hot weather to dry out the mud pit under my home & I don't have to install new boxes. Also since I'm replacing already-in-place wire, once I disconnect it from both fixtures I can use it to fish the new cable! I'll look at my appliances when I get home & see if going up to 20A would be sufficient to prevent the tripping problem. If not, it's extra circuitry and complete panel realignment for me!
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Mar 4, 2013 20:49
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oldskool posted:3) Go fixture-by-fixture back towards the box, replacing the 14ga wire with 10ga as I go. And yeah, you don't want the microwave, space heater and AC units on the same breaker; they'll each pull damned close to 15A by themselves and will quickly overload it. To do it right, you're going to need to add more circuits. The AC won't ever be on the same time as the space heater (right?) so you can potentially share a circuit there. Still leaves you with 3 dedicated circuits if you want to eliminate overload trips. Can you use tandem breakers to effectively increase the # of breakers in your panel, are they available for your panel?
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Mar 4, 2013 21:09
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I've got tandem breakers installed at the moment, but I might be maxed out. I'll have to check the diagram. Worst-case, I buy a couple UPSes & whenever it gets tripped nobody loses satellite/internet/PC and they have time to find the culprit, scold them, and get to the box to un-trip the breaker.
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Mar 4, 2013 21:36
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oldskool posted:I've got tandem breakers installed at the moment, but I might be maxed out. I'll have to check the diagram.
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Mar 4, 2013 22:03
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This looked like the best place to ask my dumb question. One of my roommates moved in yesterday and plugged in a 10 year old Target lamp which tripped my upstairs bedroom breaker to "arc fault". I reset the breaker, and it seems to be working fine. I bought the house a month ago (first time homeowner), and it was completed in October. Is it possible the POS lamp was the cause? Should it be trashed? How concerned should i be?
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Mar 7, 2013 17:17
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bathhouse posted:This looked like the best place to ask my dumb question. Likely the lamp had a short in it. The arc interrupter did the right thing and tripped. You reset the breaker, Did you test the outlet with something you know works (bonus points if you use an outlet tester)? Cell phone charger, good lamp, sega genesis? You should have very very little concern, unless your stupid roommate has more lamps.
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Mar 7, 2013 17:24
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If the breaker detects both series and parallel arc faults, it may just be a lovely switch in his lamp or the bulb is loose. Without fixing anything on the lamp, plug it in and try turning it on by moving the switch as slowly as possible, if the breaker trips again, there ya go. Then try tightening the bulb. Clearly the breaker works, or works too well (might have been a nuisance trip) so I wouldn't worry much, just make sure you know what's causing it and either fix or trash the lamp if it is indeed the cause.
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Mar 7, 2013 17:26
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Thanks for the replies. I'll go home at lunch and do some testing. Edit: Turns out it was not the lamp. She only plugged in the lamp because her overhead light was not turning on. So I'm not sure what caused the breaker to trip. I guess I'll just have to wait and see if the breaker trips again. bathhouse fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 17:41
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I'm going to repost this here because this might actually be the better topic for it: I'm looking to replace my really hot and annoying flood lights with LED down lights. The problem I am having is there isn't enough depth in my cans for the new lights to fit. It seems like to me that there's an inner canister that could be removed, then I would just have the free handing socket and I could install the light no problem. The problem getting that inner part out is the two metal clips you see at the rim of the light. They seem to have a little rivet that I'm not sure is the key to getting them out of the way or not. So far I have found a tool that I can fit up in there and mess with it, and I just wanted to post to see if anyone was familiar with this model light and had any pointers. Part of me wants to just bend them but I don't want to do anything I can't undo.  
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Mar 10, 2013 03:05
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The Dave posted:The problem I am having is there isn't enough depth in my cans for the new lights to fit. Let me guess: You bought PAR30 Long LED bulbs, but your fixtures take PAR30 Shorts?
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Mar 10, 2013 03:20
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This is what I bought: http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/202240932?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=ecosmart+downlight&storeId=10051&N=5yc1v&R=202240932#.UTv3XVdv4cM
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Mar 10, 2013 04:01
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The depth of the inner can is usually adjustable. Have you done that yet?
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Mar 10, 2013 04:25
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One actually slid up, two don't seem to want to budge the same way though. Maybe I just need to give it the caveman bang one more time.
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Mar 10, 2013 04:28
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I need to buy a panel to replace this old one at my house in SATX. Which one should I buy? I'd like to keep it in the same footprint if at all possible although I do realize that this is an old (1960's?) panel and new ones may be a bit larger. I basically need a single phase 150 amp panel I think. I'm trying to not involve real electricians because they may tell me I need to replace all of my wiring and that's not an option right now. I do plan on rewiring the entire house this fall but for now it isn't going to happen.  I think I'm going to go with this one. http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/100159399?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051&N=5yc1vZbm30&R=100159399#.UTyVbYJAtjt stik fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 13:08
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stik posted:I need to buy a panel to replace this old one at my house in SATX. Which one should I buy? I'd like to keep it in the same footprint if at all possible although I do realize that this is an old (1960's?) panel and new ones may be a bit larger. I basically need a single phase 150 amp panel I think. I'm trying to not involve real electricians because they may tell me I need to replace all of my wiring and that's not an option right now. I do plan on rewiring the entire house this fall but for now it isn't going to happen. Your existing panel is split phase. Your existing wiring should be okay, but your entire house is only on 6 breakers? How big is it? You may have to split up some existing circuits, but with 12-2wG everywhere you definitely won't have to rewire every single box. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 20:01
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kid sinister posted:The depth of the inner can is usually adjustable. Have you done that yet? Going back to this, the two that won't slide at all budged maybe 3/4 an inch but pushing as hard as I can makes the housing start to get hosed up more than anything. Does that mean I just have a no room above it? Or is there any chance the inner can is just stuck? I'm about to punch my ceiling.
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Mar 10, 2013 20:18
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kid sinister posted:Your existing panel is split phase. Your existing wiring should be okay, but your entire house is only on 6 breakers? How big is it? You may have to split up some existing circuits, but with 12-2wG everywhere you definitely won't have to rewire every single box. One of the 50amp breakers goes to another crappy sub-panel inside the house. The other one goes to the HVAC unit I believe. The two 20amp breakers are for the front room and kitchen. The panel inside powers two bedrooms and a bathroom only. It's a pretty small house. Built in the early 40's and it has had a couple of terrible additions over the years.
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Mar 10, 2013 20:31
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stik posted:I'm trying to not involve real electricians because they may tell me I need to replace all of my wiring and that's not an option right now. I do plan on rewiring the entire house this fall but for now it isn't going to happen. Fair warning: if you replace your panel and don't upgrade the house to 100% grounded wiring, 2x20A GFCI circuits in the kitchen, etc., your locality may fail you on inspection and make you do it anyhow. Depends on your locality- I highly recommend you call them and explain the situation and ask what their policy is for this sort of thing. They *might* grant you some leniency as a properly done panel without those upgrades is safer than the old panel without those upgrades, but the last thing you want to happen is a failed inspection and your power gets shut off until you fix it. Upgrade it without inspection, and your insurance company may not pay out if your house burns down. grover fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 22:04
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The Dave posted:Going back to this, the two that won't slide at all budged maybe 3/4 an inch but pushing as hard as I can makes the housing start to get hosed up more than anything. Does that mean I just have a no room above it? Or is there any chance the inner can is just stuck? I'm about to punch my ceiling. It might mean be topping out if there's another room over it, or if it's right against the crotch in the soffit. I'm thinking though that it's more likely you're just over looking the adjustment mechanism in that inner can. Look for a spring mechanism or metal tab in each of those three slots and try pulling them in, or pushing them back with a screw driver. Some are more of a bear than others but I've yet to come across one that works just by pushing on it. SneakyBeef fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 22:56
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grover posted:A real electrician would tell you to upgrade the rest of your house to meet modern code, because that's the law right now- you upgrade your panel, you need to bring everything fed from it up to code, too. I know that they would require me to bring the whole house up to code if they got wind of any work being done on the electrical. That's the main reason I'm doing the work myself. There won't be any inspections if all goes as planned. It's only going to be this way for 6-8 months. I'm going to upgrade the whole house this fall and a real electrician will be involved for that since it's going to require a new meter loop/service. Given the general condition of the house right now I doubt that the insurance company would give me more than their condolences anyway.
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Mar 10, 2013 23:01
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stik posted:I know that they would require me to bring the whole house up to code if they got wind of any work being done on the electrical. That's the main reason I'm doing the work myself. There won't be any inspections if all goes as planned. It's only going to be this way for 6-8 months. I'm going to upgrade the whole house this fall and a real electrician will be involved for that since it's going to require a new meter loop/service. Given the general condition of the house right now I doubt that the insurance company would give me more than their condolences anyway. Foreclosure? Most local governments allow for work done yourself and would inspect it afterward for code compliance. Check first though if they do. You would probably need to get a permit first. As for everyone else, I found this over at Reddit. WTF is going on here? 
kid sinister fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Mar 11, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 23:33
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Either that outlet has a flesh eating disease or it's made out of home-made soap someone got from Etsy.
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Mar 11, 2013 00:46
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grover posted:A real electrician would tell you to upgrade the rest of your house to meet modern code, because that's the law right now- you upgrade your panel, you need to bring everything fed from it up to code, too. Does every type of electrical work have to be inspected? I replaced a beat-up 15 amp outlet with a new one myself a few weeks ago. 
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Mar 11, 2013 01:56
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Account_Username posted:Does every type of electrical work have to be inspected? I replaced a beat-up 15 amp outlet with a new one myself a few weeks ago.
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Mar 11, 2013 02:10
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grover posted:Depends on your area. Most places how allowances for 1:1 replacements of simple things with no modifications, like outlets and light fixtures, but adding a new outlet usually requires a permit. Well I'm just replacing one box with another so I should be good. San Antonio is extremely lax about this kind of thing compared to other parts of the country too luckily.
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Mar 11, 2013 02:40
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Edit: misread.
Ultimate Shrek Fan fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Mar 11, 2013 |
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Mar 11, 2013 02:44
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stik posted:Well I'm just replacing one box with another so I should be good. San Antonio is extremely lax about this kind of thing compared to other parts of the country too luckily.
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Mar 11, 2013 02:45
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stik posted:Well I'm just replacing one box with another so I should be good. San Antonio is extremely lax about this kind of thing compared to other parts of the country too luckily. Yeah, not so much. Any time you have to have the meter pulled to safely do work, there's going to be a permit and inspection. Most places (including Texas) require you to get a permit for your main panel based on the number of devices it feeds, so a six-breaker panel would be cheaper than a 42-breaker panel. Of course, if you read the fine print, you can say "no new devices" and only pay for the panel itself. To be on the safe side, just put your money away until you do the whole house upgrade. Unless something's really, truly broken at this instant. As far as that panel you selected: you will be very sorry you picked the tiniest panel available. I wouldn't recommend anything smaller than a 20-space, even with a subpanel somewhere else in the house. A 20-space isn't too much larger, and is about the same price. If you still want to just spend $150 and not shut the power off to replace your main, then we can't stop you, really, but know it's a bad idea. If you already know the risks and how to mitigate them, then you don't need our help. I replaced my main with the meter plugged in, and it was a bad idea, and I almost set the house on fire. Proper safety gear prevented injuries, but not damage.
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Mar 11, 2013 11:12
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:If you still want to just spend $150 and not shut the power off to replace your main, then we can't stop you, really, but know it's a bad idea. If you already know the risks and how to mitigate them, then you don't need our help. I replaced my main with the meter plugged in, and it was a bad idea, and I almost set the house on fire. Proper safety gear prevented injuries, but not damage. Yeah.......no, don't do this. Unprotected service wires are way too dangerous to deal with. 
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Mar 11, 2013 12:11
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yeah, I have done some dangerous poo poo in my time, including disconnecting a meter drop by cutting the wires at the drip loop to the service entrance weatherhead, live, and there is absolutely no loving way I would replace a panel with a live feed. One wrong move (even slipping and letting go of a stiff springy wire) and your unfused service entrance cable just started arc welding itself to the panel enclosure, no more than an arms length away. No. loving. Way.
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Mar 11, 2013 19:48
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So what happens at the meter when something like that happens? I just mean does it start spinning like mad and then 20 seconds later you have a $10,000 electric bill on your hands, or what?
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Mar 11, 2013 20:06
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Bad Munki posted:So what happens at the meter when something like that happens? I just mean does it start spinning like mad and then 20 seconds later you have a $10,000 electric bill on your hands, or what? Probably similar to this (looks like embedding won't work, so skip to 9m40s): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut5DXxK1dvk&t=9s
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Mar 11, 2013 20:13
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So is it not normal to have an outside breaker then? There is a panel outside mounted on the same post as the kwh meter to cut off power going into the house where I live. It only has a main breaker + some other breaker in it, all breakers for individual circuits are in the panel inside the house. Every house in the neighborhood is like this, so I don't think ours is an outlier. Would it be because we live in a mobile home (trailer)?
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Mar 11, 2013 21:27
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