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kid sinister posted:Those things are quite useful for making tap splices on car wiring, especially the ones filled with dielectric grease for outside the cab. That being said, it's the only thing that I would ever use them for. I'm sorry but if you use those on car wiring you are almost literally my least favorite person in the world. gently caress those things suck on car wiring, especially after a couple years. I have seen them cause more horrible intermittents than drat near anything else and they are one of the top things on my red-flag list when looking at a used car. If I see those and one or two other problems, I'm not buying the drat car.
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Jan 20, 2014 01:11
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Motronic posted:If we're talking about vehicle wiring or anything else in a high vibration environment this is usually a bad idea due to work hardening. We soldered tons on stuff in the military on planes that have a lot more vibration than a car does and didn't have issues. There's nothing wrong with soldering wires and then using some heatshrink when wiring cars.
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Jan 20, 2014 03:46
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kastein posted:I'm sorry but if you use those on car wiring you are almost literally my least favorite person in the world. I think I can live with that. I admit that they aren't an ideal solution. ShadowStalker posted:There's nothing wrong with soldering wires and then using some heatshrink when wiring cars. Using heat shrink on tap splices is hard. For 2 wires it's great, but it can't make a perfect seal around 3 wires coming together. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 08:16
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kid sinister posted:I think I can live with that. I admit that they aren't an ideal solution. Sure you can, Just get the right size and slip over the part that's soldered.. then apply heat.. and boo-ya you have a nice heat shrinked soldered connection. In my opinion those bullet splices or the ones pictured earlier are a quick and easy way to intermittent issues down the road.
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Jan 20, 2014 08:53
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I don't have a grounded connections in my garage. Can I shove something conductive in the dirt and wire it to the outlet?
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Jan 20, 2014 14:27
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I wouldn't. But if you are going too, make drat sure you've got a GFI as the first outlet on the circuit. If you have an older house or a crappy electrical system (which is check and double check for me) then you could introduce a ground loop and without a GFI it could constantly be drawing current from your circuit, but not enough to trip the breaker. If you're really unlucky, aren't wearing shoes, and touch the wrong thing, you could be part of the circuit yourself if you know what im saying. You also need to consider if your systems ground is bonded to neutral, where your other ground(s) is/are if extant, and so forth. I'm an electrical engineer and not an electrician, so someone with some experience could give you a more specific answer, but if you just want to do this for safety reasons, I would simply install a GFI as your first outlet on the circuit. Much cheaper and easier. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Jan 20, 2014 |
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Jan 20, 2014 15:26
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XmasGiftFromWife posted:I don't have a grounded connections in my garage. Can I shove something conductive in the dirt and wire it to the outlet? No.
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Jan 20, 2014 15:44
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ShadowStalker posted:We soldered tons on stuff in the military on planes that have a lot more vibration than a car does and didn't have issues. There's nothing wrong with soldering wires and then using some heatshrink when wiring cars. There is a time an place for solder - aircraft looms that are meticulously loomed, routed, and provided with strain relief being done by someone who has been properly trained to solder and tape are one of those places. An E-2C Hawkeye has little resemblance to a passenger vehicle in this respect, and most people reading this aren't likely to have reviewed and practiced NASA-STD 8739.4 and are going to end up wicking solder under the insulation of all 3 parts of a connection like this at best, and simply painting solder over the outside of it at worst. tater_salad posted:Sure you can, Just get the right size and slip over the part that's soldered.. then apply heat.. and boo-ya you have a nice heat shrinked soldered connection. How are you going to get (tubular shaped) heat shrink over a single wire of, let's say.....the rear tail light harness of a vehicle?
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Jan 20, 2014 16:25
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XmasGiftFromWife posted:I don't have a grounded connections in my garage. Can I shove something conductive in the dirt and wire it to the outlet? No, not unless you have a subpanel in the garage which should have a separate ground and neutral - meaning it should already have it's own grounding rod if it was properly installed. And in this situation, "something conductive" should be a minimum of one 10 foot copper clad grounding rod.
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Jan 20, 2014 16:28
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Motronic posted:There is a time an place for solder - aircraft looms that are meticulously loomed, routed, and provided with strain relief being done by someone who has been properly trained to solder and tape are one of those places. An E-2C Hawkeye has little resemblance to a passenger vehicle in this respect, and most people reading this aren't likely to have reviewed and practiced NASA-STD 8739.4 and are going to end up wicking solder under the insulation of all 3 parts of a connection like this at best, and simply painting solder over the outside of it at worst. I have to agree with this, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who has read that standard. I use it at work, what's your excuse?  I won't solder or heatshrink on a car wiring harness unless it's well strain relieved and the heatshrink is the kind with adhesive/sealant lining. I've seen the results of someone using regular dry heatshrink in an engine compartment and it wasn't pretty, it may look like heatshrink seals nicely to the insulation but all you're doing is creating an awesome capillary for water to wick up into and bring all the salt and random environmental gunk it wants to along with it. The harness basically fell apart at the splices and the conductors were corroded a good 6 inches up inside the insulation - this on a set of splices that were inside a harness above the engine, not even fully exposed to road debris and moisture. There's a great example of this partway down this page: http://www.rbracing-rsr.com/wiring_ecu.html That's the salt deposit left by a candle wick (err, piece of electrical wire, sorry!) with one end dipped in saltwater and the other hanging out of the jar... after only 24 hours. This is how some VWs with faulty coolant level sensors have ended up filling their brake lamp housings and turn signal housings with coolant. Fortunately this isn't really an issue for home wiring, it's more just me sperging out about how lovely splices and lovely splicing practices are the absolute worst thing anyone can do to an electrical system - whether it be in a house, a car, a boat, a plane, whatever.
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Jan 20, 2014 16:55
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kastein posted:I use it at work, what's your excuse? I worked in a computer repair shop (the real kind, where we fixed CRTs, printers, etc and did board level work - not a high speed parts swapper operation that hires high school children) staffed primarily by ex-military guys that were things like AWACS techs. We were also a bunch of geeks - I still remember how stoked we all were when that standard got published in 1998. TL;DR: I'm a huge nerd.
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Jan 20, 2014 17:08
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Papercut posted:No. Well, he could if he used a legal method like a grounding rod if he in turn wired it to the busbar in his panel... Still, the regular method would be to wire it back to his grounding busbar anyway. Both ways require running cable from the boxes in question to the busbar, and just doing that instead of buying a grounding rod would be the cheapest way. XmasGiftFromWife, I wrote a 3 prong upgrade post linked in the OP. You could do a GFCI swap along with applying stickers, or run new cable. Honestly, you should do a GFCI swap anyway since that's what code requires now for garages. Running new cable is up to you. You could run all new romex to the garage (there may be extra work splitting off the garage if it's on a larger circuit in other rooms), or you could just run a grounding wire from the panel busbar to the garage boxes in question.
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Jan 20, 2014 20:26
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Detached garage with a single pair run out is the issue. But reading all links thanks.
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Jan 20, 2014 23:20
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XmasGiftFromWife posted:Detached garage with a single pair run out is the issue. But reading all links thanks. If you intend to do any serious work with electrical equipment or adding decent lighting you may want to bit the bullet and get this all sorted out at once by installing an appropriately sized new run and a subpanel with proper grounding. I did that and while the trench was open ran water and a 4" conduit.....which ended up with cable TV, ethernet, alarm wiring, sprinkler control wiring, etc, etc pulled through it over the years. If you just need a quick solution, you can get a 120v subpanel (you're going to have to order it - you won't find one in a store) or use a small 240v split phase panel and use only the one side (or every other slot, depending on how the bus bar is set up). This would need to be labeled clearly as "120v only" and need to have the neutral separated from the ground with a proper ground near the outbuilding attached.
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Jan 21, 2014 00:02
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XmasGiftFromWife posted:Detached garage with a single pair run out is the issue. But reading all links thanks. Ooooh, detached... How is its existing cable ran, aerial, buried or separate service? Motronic posted:If you intend to do any serious work with electrical equipment or adding decent lighting you may want to bit the bullet and get this all sorted out at once by installing an appropriately sized new run and a subpanel with proper grounding. I did that and while the trench was open ran water and a 4" conduit.....which ended up with cable TV, ethernet, alarm wiring, sprinkler control wiring, etc, etc pulled through it over the years. Technially line and low voltages aren't allowed to share the same conduit... Also, having a subpanel in the garage is only really useful if you're running stuff with big enough draws in there to really require it. I can only think of 2 garage situations like that: 1) If that garage is large enough to also have a workshop with big draw tools like a welder or huge air compressor, or 2) you need some huge ~40A charger for your electric hybrid(s). Actually, #2 might actually be pretty good future-proofing now that I think about it. Tesla does have a lot of clout now and I don't see it stopping soon. Then again, running conduit has always been good for future-proofing by itself. Just like you said: need more/larger cables run to that location? Pull it down the pipe. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Jan 21, 2014 |
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Jan 21, 2014 18:57
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kid sinister posted:Technially line and low voltages aren't allowed to share the same conduit... True enough. My power is actually in a separate conduit and the water is direct burial. Although if I only had the one conduit available I wouldn't sweat it. kid sinister posted:Also, having a subpanel in the garage is only really useful if you're running stuff with big enough draws in there to really require it. I can only think of 2 garage situations like that: 1) If that garage is large enough to also have a workshop with big draw tools like a welder or huge air compressor, or 2) you need some huge ~40A charger for your electric hybrid(s). I guess that's an opinion. But even so much as running some power tools benefits from having separate outlet and lighting circuits. Nothing like stalling your saw and having EVERYTHING go out at night and have to make your way back to the house to reset a breaker (or fumble in the dark for the GFCI at the beginning of the run). I'm well into scenario 1, so I see the benefits even if I weren't running an air compressor, two hot water heaters, a gas furnace and AC, etc, etc, etc.
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Jan 21, 2014 19:39
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kid sinister posted:Ooooh, detached... How is its existing cable ran, aerial, buried or separate service?
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Jan 22, 2014 02:53
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kid sinister posted:Did you still need help? It sounds like you're using a switch box for a receptacle. With conduit fittings poking inside, those things will barely have enough room for a switch. I would recommend trying a deeper box, if the wall and conduits allow it. That way, the fittings would be mounted back far enough to cram an outlet in.
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Jan 24, 2014 17:47
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kid sinister posted:Technially line and low voltages aren't allowed to share the same conduit... Purely for shits and grins: does fiber optic count as low voltage? I guess 0V is about as low as it gets...
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Jan 24, 2014 18:05
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IOwnCalculus posted:Purely for shits and grins: does fiber optic count as low voltage? I guess 0V is about as low as it gets... The rule is meant to protect the person working on the low voltage stuff ("hmm I'll just cut this wire since naturally this is all low voltage in here"), so yeah it still applies to fiber.
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Jan 24, 2014 19:17
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If you can install it yourself, a sub panel plus 2 circuits costs like ~40-50 dollars and is just a good idea in general.
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Jan 24, 2014 19:25
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I picked up three heated rabbit water bottles. They say 'Don't use with an extension cord', like every electrical thing used for heating seems to. Unless I'm missing something, the worry is that extension cords will heat up, melt, and cause a fire due to the amps being drawn. Each of these bottles pulls 120 volts and 20 watts, which is less than .2 amps if I'm reading this correctly. Is it ridiculous to worry about plugging each of these into one three outlet, 14 gauge outdoor cord or am I going to burn my house down?
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Jan 25, 2014 19:46
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A flying piece of posted:I picked up three heated rabbit water bottles. They say 'Don't use with an extension cord', like every electrical thing used for heating seems to. Unless I'm missing something, the worry is that extension cords will heat up, melt, and cause a fire due to the amps being drawn. Each of these bottles pulls 120 volts and 20 watts, which is less than .2 amps if I'm reading this correctly. Is it ridiculous to worry about plugging each of these into one three outlet, 14 gauge outdoor cord or am I going to burn my house down?
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Jan 25, 2014 20:13
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grover posted:Most extension cords people have lying around the house are light-duty and only rated for low current loads; plugging an 1800W heater into one could very easily start a fire. Running a couple 20 watt heaters, however, should be fine. The Extention cord thing reminded me of this.. One time at bandcamp I saved my MIL from burning down her house. Power had gone out and she borrowed a generator from family. Her boyfriend at the time wired up an extension cord to be double ended to feed the power to an outlet in the garage to power the house. when I got there after everything was up and running.. they were using power as if there was no power outage and they werent' feeding through an outlet rated at 15a to power the whole house. I also looked at the extension cord. It was a mega-cheapo special from Harbor Freight or something like that. Before I walked in I tapped the cord with my fingers and it was getting pretty hot. I advised her that if they didn't use the power for esentials only like fridge and boiler pump, and if the extension cord wasn't updated that they'd have no home to worry about powering. Then I advised them that they probably shouldn't' have the generator inside the attached garage, even if the door was open.
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Jan 25, 2014 22:24
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The home's breaker for that circuit would have probably tripped (hopefully) before anything serious happened. The real issue is that if they didn't kill the main breaker, (sounds like they're not the type) then they were backfeeding the grid, and some poor lineman could be hurt or killed through no fault of his own. And if they had managed to bring the grid back up while the generator was running it would have attempted to synchronise the generator to the frequency of the grid. And when the grid synchs to your motor without a synchroniser, it generally just destroys your generator. Cosmik Debris fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Jan 25, 2014 |
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Jan 25, 2014 23:46
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Cosmik Debris posted:The home's breaker for that circuit would have probably tripped (hopefully) before anything serious happened.
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Jan 26, 2014 00:13
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I didn't even mention the whole kill the lineman here, but I did check and throw the main breaker. I didn't trust the extension cord they had to run more than 2 lamps
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Jan 26, 2014 00:35
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And when that lineman gets injured or worse, you will then have an extremely pissed off line crew hunting for running generators, ready to knock down someone's door. That is also hazardous.
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Jan 26, 2014 04:23
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Since power had been out for a week or so in the area. (Wet heavy snow in october with leaves still on trees caused widespread outages usually with multiple lines down in a neighborhood.) The power company went door to door telling people that they were working on restoring power and that they should not try and kill the nice linemen who were restoring power. Sadly a high number of people don't know what they are doing when it comes to running a generator. There were a lot of carbon monoxide cases after that storm because folks were dumb. You can't protect against stupid, because stupid always wins.
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Jan 26, 2014 05:27
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IOwnCalculus posted:Purely for shits and grins: does fiber optic count as low voltage? I guess 0V is about as low as it gets...
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Jan 26, 2014 06:25
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Papercut posted:The rule is meant to protect the person working on the low voltage stuff ("hmm I'll just cut this wire since naturally this is all low voltage in here"), so yeah it still applies to fiber. Running low voltages close in parallel to line voltage is also a bad idea since it can cause interference on the low voltage cables. For low voltage cables like data or audio, that's bad. But yeah, it's mostly safety for the next schmuck working on those cables.
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Jan 26, 2014 08:05
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tater_salad posted:Since power had been out for a week or so in the area. (Wet heavy snow in october with leaves still on trees caused widespread outages usually with multiple lines down in a neighborhood.) The power company went door to door telling people that they were working on restoring power and that they should not try and kill the nice linemen who were restoring power.  Can you tell when Katrina hit, solely by looking at this graph?  Buy a loving CO detector and chain your generator up outside, it's not difficult and could save your life! grover fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 14:58
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Today I discovered that when I turn the ceiling fan off in my living room my TV screen goes blank for about 20 seconds, the audio continues and TV returns to normal. The ceiling fan has a switch right next to the door, so I guess it's got wires running throughout the apartment. Should I be concerned about this? I have not yet noticed any other electrical gremlins in my apartment.
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Jan 26, 2014 21:47
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This happens every time? Are your video cables loose? Are you running a cable/sat box or is this antenna?
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Jan 26, 2014 22:13
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I have a code question. I'm in the very early stages of planning a conversion of a roughed in laundry room in the garage to a finished laundry / 1/2 bath. The washing machine is on its own 20a circuit. Am I interpreting the NEC (210.52[f]) correctly that other outlets can branch off this circuit, so long as the circuit isn't supplying adjacent rooms? There would be however many outlets along a countertop, the washing machine itself, and probably 4 led can lights. If I have to have a whole new circuit added this project might never get off the ground. This is in Washington state if that makes a difference.
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Jan 27, 2014 02:35
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tater_salad posted:This happens every time? 1) Happens everytime I flip the switch off, does not happen when flipping on. 2) Video cables checked and switched just in case. 3) Basic cable, no box, happens regardless of source.
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Jan 27, 2014 03:15
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Crotch Fruit posted:1) Happens everytime I flip the switch off, does not happen when flipping on.
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Jan 27, 2014 14:15
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It's a 15amp breaker, I have my entertainment center one one outlet with a PS3, XBox 360, DVD player, and a TV on one outlet. I put my kill-a-watt meter between the power-strip and the wall and it measured 12V, 60Hz, 3.5amps with TV on, 5amps with everything on, this is the first time I have had all the electronics on at one time. Besides lights, there are no other electronics in on this breaker, but there are a butt-load of lights on this breaker. The living room and two bedroom ceiling fan and lights are on this breaker, the dining room light is on this breaker, the giant fluorescent lights in the kitchen are on this breaker, and the two outside lights are on this breaker. WTF? The kitchen has 6 20amp breakers, surely one of those could have handled the kitchen light and each bedroom has it's own 15amp, they could have handled their own lights. I have no idea how many amps the ceiling fans draw, I could break my neck on a ladder to attempt to see if they are labeled but I really don't want to do that (in part because I don't own a ladder).
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Jan 27, 2014 18:16
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SuicidalSmurf posted:I have a code question. I'm in the very early stages of planning a conversion of a roughed in laundry room in the garage to a finished laundry / 1/2 bath. The washing machine is on its own 20a circuit. Am I interpreting the NEC (210.52[f]) correctly that other outlets can branch off this circuit, so long as the circuit isn't supplying adjacent rooms? There would be however many outlets along a countertop, the washing machine itself, and probably 4 led can lights. If I have to have a whole new circuit added this project might never get off the ground. This is in Washington state if that makes a difference. No, you aren't correct, unfortunately. Read NEC 210.12(C)(2). The 20A laundry circuit is for receptacles only, no lights. And if this room is also a bathroom, then it gets even more strict. NEC 210.12(C)(3) states bathroom circuit requirements. You either: 1. Get to have a single 20A circuit to supply all bathroom receptacles and put any other bathroom stuff (lights, etc) on other circuits, or 2. Have separate 20A circuits for each bathroom that are also allowed to power other stuff in the bathroom BTW, that is assuming that it didn't change in the 2014 book. I only have the 2011 book, which I bet your local authority still requires and hasn't updated to the 2014 book yet. Or they could be totally weird and use their own rules in addition to the code book. YMMV kid sinister fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 21:59
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Crotch Fruit posted:It's a 15amp breaker, I have my entertainment center one one outlet with a PS3, XBox 360, DVD player, and a TV on one outlet. I put my kill-a-watt meter between the power-strip and the wall and it measured 12V, 60Hz, 3.5amps with TV on, 5amps with everything on, this is the first time I have had all the electronics on at one time.
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Jan 29, 2014 14:09
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