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Papercut posted:I don't do residential so don't know about the Home Depot-level poo poo, but for commercial controls they pretty much all come with both NC and NO contacts/dip switches that let you choose behavior. Thanks, that's what I was hoping. Apparently I'm not the first person to have this question..... from amazon reviews posted:With a lot of reviews posted on the internet, I take them with a grain of salt. The reviews that I've read here describing the incorrect operation of the controller unit are 'spot on'. The unit is just not designed properly IMO, but it can be fixed, although it requires some skill and a few $$. Wow. I'm, uh, not doing all that. Maybe I'll just buy a couple different models from a box store (for easy returns) and see if they work how I want.
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May 14, 2015 04:05
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wow that sure is a lot of words and  ranting about a very simple ECO.
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May 14, 2015 04:10
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angryrobots posted:Question about ceiling fan remotes. Some RF fan remotes have selectable frequency so you could just have the wall switch and the one by the bed on the same frequency so there's a light button to press both places.
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May 14, 2015 05:12
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Leperflesh posted:I need to go look again but I'm like 75% sure this was done already, by a previous owner, perhaps decades ago. Actually, you're supposed to use "every available means" when grounding a service. If the cold water is already there, you use it. You also need a ground rod. If you've got iron gas pipes, you must bond them. If you've got access to structural steel or the rebar in the slab, you must bond that in. More grounding = better! Another cool thing is that when you upgrade your service to the new code, you add in a little jumper bus bar. That bar is the "common system ground point" where all your comms stuff (cable, telephone, etc) must run a ground in addition to any others they need.
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May 14, 2015 05:22
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We have a ground rod just a few inches from the service entrance (underground service). All the comms stuff grounds there. What struck me as odd is our water heater has the world's longest bare ground wire connected to it - probably 12 gauge? Maybe 10? It looks like it runs back to the panel, but I don't have attic access through the entire house, so I really can't tell for sure. I don't even know if that's to code or not; house was built in 1994, water heater replaced around 2005 or 2006.
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May 14, 2015 07:00
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So as a follow-up to last week's posts, I pulled the dining room fixture down: 4 cables total. 3 whites tied together (along with one wire to the fixture, not shown) and marked current-carrying, 3 blacks and 1 white tied together, and the remaining black tied to the other fixture wire. Some teasing out later and this is what I've got:  1 and 2 run to outlets (I know because with the breaker on, all other outlets on the circuit work except these two), 3 is the line coming from the box I fixed last week, and 4 runs to the switch for the fixture. Looks like they ran the white to the switch as hot, black from the switch to the fixture (so also live), and tied the other neutrals together. Unless there's a reason not to, I'm gonna tie the blacks together, mark the white from the switch with black tape and run that to the fixture (ideally it should be red I guess but gently caress it), and tie all the whites together like they were before. Question about the grounds: it's hard to see but the bare coppers are just twisted together, twisted section is about 3 inches long. They look white because (I assume) the box was uncovered when they put up the ceiling texture.The fixture is just grounded to its bracket, which seems to ground through the box just through those 2 little sheet metal screw tabs. Is that all fine, or should I re-do it with a wire nut and run the fixture ground directly to the rest?
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May 19, 2015 21:14
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the way it was made up before was fine, the white wire being used as power just should have been identified. you're doing the same thing, just switching the wires around. when i'm doing lighting in metal boxes i personally do a pigtail from all the grounds, wrap it around a ground screw on the box, loop it onto the light's bracket ground screw and then wirenut it in with the fixture ground itself. that ensures there's a proper ground path for everything.
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May 20, 2015 00:03
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crocodile posted:the way it was made up before was fine, the white wire being used as power just should have been identified. you're doing the same thing, just switching the wires around. when i'm doing lighting in metal boxes i personally do a pigtail from all the grounds, wrap it around a ground screw on the box, loop it onto the light's bracket ground screw and then wirenut it in with the fixture ground itself. that ensures there's a proper ground path for everything. Gotcha. The bundle of whites had black tape around it,but I read no voltage to any of them measuring from ground so I think that was just for holding. I'm also re wiring the bathrooms. With my multimeter I'm reading continuity between the bare and white wires on the cable coming from the breaker, should that be the case? fake edit, just checked the dining room and that junction is the same way. About .6-.8 ohms on both.
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May 20, 2015 00:49
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Enourmo posted:Gotcha. The bundle of whites had black tape around it,but I read no voltage to any of them measuring from ground so I think that was just for holding.
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May 21, 2015 03:42
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Yeah I googled that later.  I appreciate all the help I've been getting, I know automotive wiring pretty well but household is a whole different kettle of fish.
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May 21, 2015 04:22
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E: oh for fucks sake i guess i could have read the last couple of pages.... Quick ceiling fan wiring to two switches question: I have two switches that control the ceiling fan/light from opposite ends of the room. From the ceiling, I have red (traveller), black, white and ground. My remote control unit (controls fan speed and light) for the fan has black, white, and ground. Am i correct that the proper wiring procedure would be: White from ceiling to white from control unit Red plus black from ceiling to black from control unit Ground from ceiling to ground from ground from control unit Would this allow both switches to deliver power to the fan/light? I don't want one switch to control the fan and the other to control the light. This is assuming the three ways were wired correctly Tide fucked around with this message at 00:27 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 00:25
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Tide posted:E: oh for fucks sake i guess i could have read the last couple of pages.... There are a handful of 3 way switch wiring methods. 3 way switching has 2 travelers, not just one. I assume you mean red is the switched hot? Get a circuit tester and verify that. It sounds like for your setup that red would be switched hot and black would be always hot. Also, what would you like the remote to control and the switches to control? You might not have the right remote kit for your situation. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 20:48 on May 27, 2015 |
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May 27, 2015 20:45
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Hi wiring thread! I'm not wiring anything, just have a question, hope that's ok. We just moved into an apartment where the bathroom was fitted with an rccb switch two years ago. One day I touch the (aluminum) cabinet which has two sockets in it, and it feels prickly/ electric. So we call the apartment owner, who works as an electrician. He says it can't be true because of the rccb. Two days later he comes over with some tools, and measures current (or potential?) in various places. He can't measure anything from the cabinet walls (not to ground, phase or person), but phase->ground is somehow missing 100V. Also, the rccb doesn't pop when you let current run into the ground. We measure current / potential from a screw hole in the cabinet to ground, and it displays 100V. He looks into the Rccb and determines that what he calls a NP bridge is missing. He gets kind of angry, takes out a little piece of wire and connects the N and P. Now the Rccb works, the electric feeling is gone and all measurements are as they should be. Questions: - He says this wasn't dangerous. Can this be true? 100V sound like a lot. - How did I feel this, if the cabinet was isolated and no current there? - and finally, how on earth did the NP bridge fix whatever was leaking electricity into the cabinet? Thank you for reading!
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May 31, 2015 05:16
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pidan posted:Hi wiring thread! I'm not wiring anything, just have a question, hope that's ok. Translating from British to American. There was a ground-fault circuit interrupter with no ground-neutral connection. It wasn't dangerous. 100V is voltage, but the current available wasn't (probably) enough to kill you. It's enough to cause tingle but not fibrillation. Connecting the earth-neutral bridge on the breaker let the breaker sense how much leakage current there was. 4-6mA is tingly. 8-10mA is painfully tingly, and can cause problems in people with weak hearts, so that's where GFCIs are set. You were probably seeing 5-10mA @ 100V leakage current through your body. It could cause you problems if you held on, but letting go when it hurt prevented that. Now the residual ground current that was flowing through the cabinet is flowing through a very low-impedance connection to ground, and there's no problem.
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May 31, 2015 05:46
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:8-10mA is painfully tingly, and can cause problems in people with weak hearts, so that's where GFCIs are set. GFCIs trip at 5mA, 6mA at most.
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May 31, 2015 18:42
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Thank you very much for your replies! Now I feel even safer, and I've finally understood what GFCI means. But if there was current on the metal parts of the cabinet, doesn't that mean something is wrong with the wiring inside the cabinet? Btw, the 100V were measured directly from the metal parts (which are hard to reach), I think what I felt is just a bit of current creeping over the isolated surface. You can duplicate the effect by touching an aluminum MacBook when it's connected to a two-prong plug, which is how I reckognized the feeling 
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May 31, 2015 20:47
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That behavior does not indicate issues with the wiring other than the ones identified and fixed. Electrical wiring consists of several conductors in parallel, separated by an insulator. Coincidentally, that's the definition of a capacitor. Now, the electrical insulation is very poor dielectric, so it's a very poor capacitor, but it is a capacitor nonetheless. When there's a high impedance with ground, you can see an induced voltage. Low impedance, and there's just a minute leakage current to ground. Now, normally that shouldn't have enough current capacity to give you the tinglies, so there may be other factors (like degraded insulation), involved, but the RCD should prevent any danger from it.
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Jun 1, 2015 02:50
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What household material can act as decent Given that I've always had terrible Internet speeds (given the distance) and the telco keeps claiming their cabling is good, I started looking at the entry terminal from my telco in the cellar of my apartment block. The tiny distribution panel has some corroded iron contacts, so I bypassed it with a luster terminal to get away from it, it raised my upload from 640kbit to 1mbit. Twisting the last 3 cm of the line up to my apartment, my download went from 9mbit to 11.2mbit. This kind of suggests that there's plenty of noise issues at this panel, which looks like a mess anyway (it's god knows how old and everything's before DSL hit the market). So I'm hoping some makeshift EM shielding may improve things some more. Would aluminum foil do it, or so I need something based on iron? Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Jun 1, 2015 |
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Jun 1, 2015 12:19
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Where do you live and what level of service do you pay for? You are very close to or at the throughput limits for most residential dsl.
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Jun 1, 2015 13:33
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Combat Pretzel posted:What household material can act as decent Any grounded conductor should do - aluminum screen material will work if you want to cover a large area, or metal conduit if you want to cover a specific run. Another thing that might help is just reorienting the line you are concerned with so it's not parallel to anything you might be getting crosstalk from.
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Jun 1, 2015 16:58
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The hackerspace I help run is moving into a new space. Our new space has a set of double doors, (one opens, and the other is normally fixed) and I'd like to add RFID unlocking to the doors. Here's what it looks like now: (where, by "electrical box", I mean "junction box") Here are my thoughts:  Seem reasonable? Do they make conduit that's designed to flex a little bit?
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Jun 1, 2015 19:24
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XmasGiftFromWife posted:Where do you live and what level of service do you pay for? You are very close to or at the throughput limits for most residential dsl. Hubis posted:Any grounded conductor should do - aluminum screen material will work if you want to cover a large area, or metal conduit if you want to cover a specific run. Another thing that might help is just reorienting the line you are concerned with so it's not parallel to anything you might be getting crosstalk from. I mean, it's this terrible contraption.  That said, after taking this picture just now, I see a fatal issue. The purple and teal wires are wound tightly, creating a longer path than the white and blue ones, yet I'm mixing the two. --edit: Come to think of it, everyone has the blue-white pairs, but my blue was never used. Because I never clipped anything on my phone line, and the end of the blue one of my line isn't stripped. Combat Pretzel fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Jun 1, 2015 |
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Jun 1, 2015 19:33
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Safety Dance posted:
What happens when that normally fixed door needs to be opened because someone wants to use the double door to move a big piece of equipment or a table or something? That conduit's going to have to flex at least 90 degrees, which is more than a little bit. (I've never understood the logic behind keeping one door in a set of double doors locked closed, though.)
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Jun 1, 2015 19:39
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Phanatic posted:What happens when that normally fixed door needs to be opened because someone wants to use the double door to move a big piece of equipment or a table or something? That conduit's going to have to flex at least 90 degrees, which is more than a little bit. Sorry, I meant "a little bit of the time", not "a little bit of flexing". Do they make conduit that's designed to flex at least 90 degrees, maybe two or three times a week?
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Jun 1, 2015 19:41
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I think, normally, you don't run the cable so it crosses the hinge axis at a right angle, but is instead tangent to it, so that when the hinge flexes, the cable is twisting rather then bending. Example: the monitor wires in your laptop.
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Jun 1, 2015 19:42
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Safety Dance posted:Do they make conduit that's designed to flex a little bit? Look at any door with a fire alarm interconnected crash bar on it. There is specific armored cable for this purpose. That being said, your proposal is simply not how this is done. It is most frequently done with magnet locks. If the "inside" doesn't require a badge-out you put a motion sensor above the doors that will trip the lock when someone approaches. If this is a signed and required means of egress you may have additional requirements depending on the setup. And if it is a fire door you can not drill into it wherever you want and put just anything on it - it has to be according to the manufacturer's cut sheet. Motronic fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Jun 1, 2015 |
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Jun 1, 2015 19:44
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Safety Dance posted:Do they make conduit that's designed to flex a little bit? https://www.google.ca/search?q=door+cord&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=JANtVcDgKZHaoASstYPIAg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=775 What you're looking for is called a 'door cord' There are also electric transfer hinges to do the same thing but within the frame/door.
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Jun 2, 2015 02:14
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Messadiah posted:https://www.google.ca/search?q=door+cord&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=JANtVcDgKZHaoASstYPIAg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=775 Electric transfer hinges are NOT retrofit items. They're hardly new-construction items, being incredibly fiddly with placement and running cable through doorframes and whatnot. Door cord is the right answer, though. Usually, the conduit comes down from the ceiling to the RFID reader on the wall. The RFID reader talks back to the central computer, gets a "yes" from the authenticator, then sends the unlock command via door cord over to the strike plate. It's marginally easier and "cleaner" to have a solenoid-operated lockset ("Electric lockset") than it is to have a magnetically-releasing strikeplate ("Electric strike plate"). And also what motronic said about if this is one of your Required Exits and fire door stuff etc. Fire doors must be Fail Safe; most electric locks are Fail Secure.
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Jun 2, 2015 07:17
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:And also what motronic said about if this is one of your Required Exits and fire door stuff etc. Fire doors must be Fail Safe; most electric locks are Fail Secure. On this point, assuming a door locks from the outside but is always unlocked from the inside, an electric strikeplate's fail secure mode isn't any less safe than just having a regular strikeplate, is it?
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Jun 2, 2015 14:43
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Generally our rfid locks are a pin thats at the top of the door iirc. You can push on the handle and it will push all the way in put the pin at the top keeps the door from opening And you def need a motion sensor for egress /leaving. Also I'd say the lock needs to be in a default state of open when not powered.. no one wants to die because the rfid system got cooked and now the door is locked. And no one wants to be stuck in a building for a few hours because the powers out and the rfid lock wont disengage.
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Jun 2, 2015 15:39
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Entirely valid concerns about fire doors aside, let me take a second to disambiguate "RFID Dealy" The plan is/was to have a Beaglebone Black living next to the door, running OpenLDAP and some custom scripts. OpenLDAP is a read only replica of our LDAP server. The Beaglebone is connected to an RFID tag reader mounted on the "out" side of the door. When an RFID tag is successfully scanned, the beaglebone triggers 12v to the electric strikeplate for a few seconds, unlocking the door. The whole thing is on a 12v battery to limit the effect of power outages. This is all achievable for less than a hundred bucks "because hackerspace", and it doesn't interfere with the door being opened from the inside normally, or from the outside with a key. Before I attempt this, I'll see if it can be done without compromising the fire integrity of the entryway. People being able to exit if everything fails is also of paramount importance, and I wouldn't do anything to hinder that.
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Jun 2, 2015 15:55
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Combat Pretzel posted:Belgium. I'm around 800m from the DSLAM and by theory and what people on a large Belgian DSL nerd forum say, I should be in the 30/6mbit profile. Up to the premises, the telco claims everything is in order, so the rest is in my block. Since everything's hooked up correctly, at least as far as the technician says, there's nothing they will do. Do you use your phone? If not, get a DSL filter and install it around that mess of a junction. This may isolate it enough to help. If you use your phone you could probably get away with running DSL on one pair, and phone on the other (just use the filter/splitter to separate them) What happens if you bring your modem down there and attach it as directly as possible (bypassing the crusty old wire that goes to your apartment)?
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Jun 4, 2015 00:40
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How much of a terrible bastard am I for using a phase wire as a switched wire? Said wire is part of a XMvK cable, which I can't find with blue, black, and green/yellow. So I used brown, which is the colour of the live wire in a single phase group. My friend says that this is not NEN1010, nor NEN3140 compliant. So technically it isn't up to code. The cable runs from a switch on the wall to a light fixture above. It runs along the surface of the wall, so in my view there is no problem. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can deduce that the brown wire is the switched wire, anyone who doesn't shouldn't be loving around with 240V to begin with. Besides anyone who sees a brown wire will assume that it is live and able to zap them with 240V 16A. Therefore I feel that it is safe to just leave it as is. I've tried to find cable with the correct colours in it and I really can't. The only half solution I can come up with is to use 3 phase cable, and use the black wire in that, but with three phases the brown, grey, and black wires are the phase wires. So I would still be using a phase wire for a switched wire. Should I really go through the hassle of running 5x2.5^2, just so I can have a black wire to switch a lamp with?
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Jun 5, 2015 18:48
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Deedle posted:How much of a terrible bastard am I for using a phase wire as a switched wire? This is clearly the UK, but it's my opinion that if you're not using one of the earth/neutral colors as the switch leg, it'll be fine.
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Jun 5, 2015 18:52
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:This is clearly the UK, but it's my opinion that if you're not using one of the earth/neutral colors as the switch leg, it'll be fine.
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Jun 5, 2015 19:06
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Deedle posted:I couldn't use blue (neutral), or green/yellow (ground). I needed those for their normal purpose. The brown (phase) was the only one available. Just remember: electrons don't care what colour the insulation is: only people who come after you do. If it really is that obvious, then put the covers on and walk away.
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Jun 5, 2015 19:27
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Is taping the wire with the correct colour at the connection points not A Thing in the UK?
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Jun 5, 2015 20:53
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Tim Thomas posted:Is taping the wire with the correct colour at the connection points not A Thing in the UK? I'm leaving it as is, brown is safe enough, whoever comes after me will assume the wire is live, which is what they should assume with a black wire as well. Thanks for the input
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Jun 5, 2015 21:46
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Electric transfer hinges are NOT retrofit items. They're hardly new-construction items, being incredibly fiddly with placement and running cable through doorframes and whatnot. Door cord is the right answer, though. Usually, the conduit comes down from the ceiling to the RFID reader on the wall. The RFID reader talks back to the central computer, gets a "yes" from the authenticator, then sends the unlock command via door cord over to the strike plate. It's marginally easier and "cleaner" to have a solenoid-operated lockset ("Electric lockset") than it is to have a magnetically-releasing strikeplate ("Electric strike plate"). I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but my employer got whacked by the city a few years ago at the location I work at. Previously, the driver entrance had a keypad outside, and you'd have to press a button on the wall to exit (not marked for exit, just a random button near the door), with the latch in the door getting power to unlatch when the button was pressed or when the proper code was entered outside. No motion sensor. That supposedly never met code even when the place was built (in the 1980s), so it was retrofitted with a crash bar with an integrated electric lock. No idea why it didn't get caught earlier, but it is what it is - maybe it got ignored until corporate sold it to the franchise that owns it now? It fails closed, but having a (mechanical) crash bar, you can still GTFO if you need to. It's a little more failure prone than a magnetic lock, since there's moving parts, but I've worked in places that had an electric crash bar that failed, trapping everyone inside until the magnetic lock was turned off. The crash bar there was touch sensitive, and had an override button on it, but the override button was hidden on the bottom. So they just disabled the mag lock for several years... until someone walked in at midnight and beat the poo poo out of the manager while robbing the place.  There's no way to get back inside via the drivers door where I work at now when the power is out, unless you have a key for the crash bar's exterior lock (I don't think even the owner has that key), but the customer entrance has a typical crash bar, and can only be locked from the outside with a key. The back door has no way to get inside from outside, but has a crash bar on it (no alarm). It locks the door on both the left and right sides via pretty beefy pins. No sprinklers, no fire alarm, just an ancient Ademco burglar alarm from late 1980s that we can't even get serviced anymore; yet the oldest apartment complex in the delivery area (about as old as the store itself) has fire sprinklers and an equally ancient fire alarm. 
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Jun 9, 2015 06:31
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I'm hoping one of the great resources in this thread can tell me what I'm looking at here. This looks like it's circa 1950s construction or somewhere around there and is the main building disconnect. It's got a big "Push to trip" button on the outside, the lever handle you see, and then these "Max oil level" time delay things inside. Am I right in thinking this is just a fused disconnect of some sort? There is nothing recognizable to me as a fuse or circuit breaker in here, but the time delay label suggests there is some sort of interrupting ability. The 200A GE things down below are just CTs for the utility meter, for reference.  
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Jun 15, 2015 19:22
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