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HycoCam posted:Preparation is always key to doing good clean work: Holy lol, now that one's getting linked to the boss.
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Aug 12, 2017 02:54
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Quick wiring question. I'm adding a 20A circuit to an existing breaker box with a subpanel. There's an existing 10-2 wiring run (for a totally non-up-to-code generator backfeed from the PO) that I'm using. This run ends in one breaker box, and I'm going to extend it into another breaker box, which is 2' away. I'm fine with all that, there's an existing conduit that connects the two, but I'm not sure how to handle the ground, since the wire enters one box, but is being passed to the other to get hot/neutral/ground. Should I add a separate ground wire to the wire nut that binds the existing 10AWG ground to the new 12AWG ground, and put that in the ground bus in Breaker box #1, then terminate that 12AWG wire in the ground bus in Breaker box #2, or does it just need to be grounded in box #2, where it'll be actually receiving power from a breaker? sharkytm fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 04:56
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Is this a 240v circuit or 120v, on the 10-2? In short, beyond the first panel your equipment ground and neutral must remain separate. I'm not sure if that's what you're asking, and the text description is a little fuzzy trying to picture. Crappy mspaint diagram it? angryrobots fucked around with this message at 05:48 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 05:44
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120VAC, sorry. 10-2 going into box 1, 12-2 between boxes, 12-2 into box 2 into a single pole 20A breaker.
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Aug 12, 2017 05:45
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sharkytm posted:120VAC, sorry. 10-2 going into box 1, 12-2 between boxes, 12-2 into box 2 into a single pole 20A breaker. If there's a ground bond between the two boxes already, then land the ground in the same box the wire terminates. Box 1 effectively just becomes a junction box for this circuit. If there's not a ground bond between the boxes, add one. Make sure box #1 does not have the neutral-ground bonding screw installed. Neutral-ground bond must happen at precisely one place in your service. This is what I think you mean:
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Aug 12, 2017 14:27
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:If there's a ground bond between the two boxes already, then land the ground in the same box the wire terminates. Box 1 effectively just becomes a junction box for this circuit. If there's not a ground bond between the boxes, add one. Make sure box #1 does not have the neutral-ground bonding screw installed. Neutral-ground bond must happen at precisely one place in your service. Indeed. Both boxes are grounded and have neutrals run. Box 1 is a garage subpanel, which has a large feeder from the main house panel. Box 2 is an apartment subpanel, and it's fed with 6-3, so it has legit ground and neutral buses. When we started working on this, every circuit came into Box 1, was neutraled and grounded there, and then went on to Box 2 with another piece of Romex, neutraled and grounded in BOTH boxes. Needless to say, the bus bar terminals in Box #1 were double and triple-stacked. I hired an electrician to add a 12x12 Jbox above Box 1, pull all the apartment feed wires up into it (they come from above, so it worked out very well), and add a big 4" sweep into Box #2. All the apartment circuit feeds got joined to new wiring fed through the sweep into Box #2, where they get neutraled and grounded, and connect to the breakers. This circuit is different because it comes into Box #1, and I didn't know if it needed to be grounded in both spots. I assume it's not a violation to have it grounded in both, correct? I've got it grounded in both spots now, and if it's not a problem, I'll just leave it. It is only connected to neutral in Box #2.  Neutral->Ground bond is in the main box, so no worries on that front.
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Aug 12, 2017 15:12
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sharkytm posted:I assume it's not a violation to have it grounded in both, correct? I've got it grounded in both spots now, and if it's not a problem, I'll just leave it. It is only connected to neutral in Box #2. It doesn't appear to be a violation, but it'd be good practice to have the whole run grounded at exactly one point.
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Aug 12, 2017 15:28
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:It doesn't appear to be a violation, but it'd be good practice to have the whole run grounded at exactly one point. Easy enough to fix. Thanks! I'm just waiting on my 14-3 UF-B to be delivered so I can install the mini split heat pump. The MFR provided some hilariously bad non-UL rated wire, so that's getting changed out. The permitted install of my heat pumps used UF-B, so I'm matching their work.
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Aug 12, 2017 15:42
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This is hosed up and I've never seen anything like it. I'm in a hotel, and the bedside lamp has two LED bulbs in it, each bulb individually controlled by a switch on the lamp. Socket A, Socket B, Bulb A, Bulb B. Turn all the lights off to go to sleep, and there's a feeble glow from Bulb B, even with the switch off. Turn the switch on, it goes to full illumination. Switch off, yep, there's still a feeble glow, dimmer than a typical night light. Remove the bulb from the socket. It keeps glowing. It dims *very slowly* until the light goes out, but the thing stays lit for at least a couple of minutes, without power. Those must be some pretty big capacitors in the bulb base. Anyway, whatever, I go to sleep. Next day, there's the same behavior. I get back to the room, the maids have done their thing, the lights are all off except for the dim glow of that bulb. To see what will happen, I put Bulb B into Socket A and vice versa. Flip the switches, full illumination. Switch the bulbs back to their original sockets, now Bulb B doesn't work at all regardless of switch position. It's not Switch B that's bad, because Bulb A works perfectly in it. I could see Bulb B being defective and refusing to illuminate properly, but how the hell's Bulb B lighting up dimly when switch B is off in the first place?
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Aug 12, 2017 23:06
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LED bulbs do all sorts of weird poo poo, especially with the hacked up wiring common in hotels. Induced current can be enough to make them glow even with the switch off. Do any of the switches have indicators? I've got dimmers that have an LED indicator that lights when they're off, and we have to keep 1 incandescent bulb on each dimmer or else the LED bulbs all glow faintly with the switch off.
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Aug 13, 2017 01:55
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A switch with an indicator that lights up when it's off needs a path from hot to neutral, and since most switches are SPST that path is through the load. For an incandescent it won't be nearly enough current to heat up, but for an LED bulb it might be enough to switch on just barely?
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Aug 13, 2017 05:08
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I was playing with an arduino once and somehow wound up with an LED with one lead plugged into the ground plane on the breadboard and the other lead hanging in the air, and it lit up every time I touched it with my finger. IDK where the current flow across my body was coming from but I really hate the wiring in this house now.
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Aug 13, 2017 17:18
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I know nothing about wiring, so bear with me while I explain the scenario. On my breaker panel, I have a breaker for the garage. It's a 20 amp single pole with a GFCI thingie. It's got the black wire and white wire/ pig tail. It also takes care of the wiring for a flood light mounted above the garage door. This flood light is the only thing drawing power from this circuit aside from a regular florescent ceiling light. None of the outlets in the garage are in use. I had to replace the flood light. I follow the directions to the letter. It worked, but despite using a poo poo ton of silicon on all the seams, water got in there and shorted it, also tripping the GFCI. I replaced the circuit breaker just in case and removed the light. The breaker still won't turn on. It immediately flips to the test position. I turn it off, on, and it just trips. I'm not really sure what's causing it at this point. The stuff I did with the light is the only change to anything but it shouldn't be a factor now. Any ideas on where to start? Is the something I should be checking for on the receptacle the light was in? I put caps on the exposed wiring in there so they don't touch anything. Edit: I went and tried to reset the breaker one more time, and it stayed on. It's got to be something in the receptacle the flood light was in, right? I don't have enough daylight now to look, but when I do check, what am I looking for in there? Jose Oquendo fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Aug 14, 2017 |
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Aug 13, 2017 23:41
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If the GFCI triggers as soon as you turn the breaker on, then you have a short to neutral somewhere in your wiring (that is, something connected to the hot/black wire is connected to the neutral/white wire). The floodlight fixture is the most obvious place to look, but it could be a bad wiring job anywhere on the circuit, potentially. Breakers don't need to be replaced just because they tripped, by the way. They aren't fuses.
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Aug 14, 2017 00:19
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:then you have a short to neutral somewhere in your wiring (that is, something connected to the hot/black wire is connected to the neutral/white wire). Forgive me for sounding like a moron, but can you clarify this more? What am I looking for? A black wire making contact with a white wire? A black wire connected to where a white one should go?
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Aug 14, 2017 00:34
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Just gonna throw out the obvious possibility here: do you have an extension cord plugged into an exterior outlet on that circuit, that is sitting in a puddle of water after a heavy rain? Your work on the light may just be coincidental timing if you forgot something plugged in outside. Be sure to consider any exterior outlets, not just what's in the garage, as they may well be on the same breaker.
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Aug 14, 2017 00:43
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Jose Oquendo posted:Forgive me for sounding like a moron, but can you clarify this more? What am I looking for? A black wire making contact with a white wire? A black wire connected to where a white one should go? ...gah, sorry, my former post should have read "short to ground", not "short to neutral". If you get a short to neutral (which, yes, is caused by the black ("hot") wire contacting the white ("neutral") wire, possibly with some intermediary conductive but low-resistance materials), then you have a near-zero-resistance circuit which allows far too much current to flow, causing the circuit breaker to exceed its amperage rating, causing it to trip and turn off entirely. But if you're seeing the GFCI trip instead then that's a short to ground, which is similar but involves the hot wire being connected to a grounded component, like a receptacle box or grounding wire. Grounding wires typically either have a green jacket or are bare copper. My advice would be to turn the circuit off, then open up the floodlight and re-do the wiring, taking extra care to make sure you do it cleanly and nothing's touching anything it shouldn't. No exposed copper/aluminum outside of the wire nuts, that kind of thing. Odds are you just hosed up the installation job a bit. And hey, since you have a GFCI-protected circuit, it told you you hosed up by flipping, instead of by giving you a potentially-lethal shock!
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Aug 14, 2017 00:57
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Rescue Toaster posted:A switch with an indicator that lights up when it's off needs a path from hot to neutral, and since most switches are SPST that path is through the load. For an incandescent it won't be nearly enough current to heat up, but for an LED bulb it might be enough to switch on just barely? This is exactly it. A regular light bulb is just a resistor, it takes a good amount of current for it to noticeably illuminate. What light switches with indicator lights or microprocessors inside do it trickle a small amount of current through the light load to power themselves. This can be problematic with LED bulbs, which are more like diode bridges with large capacitors inside to provide DC voltage to and internal LED array. LEDs take much less current to illuminate than a filament light bulb, which leads to weird issues like you are seeing.
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Aug 14, 2017 02:23
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TacoHavoc posted:LEDs take much less current to illuminate than a filament light bulb, which leads to weird issues like you are seeing. Except that the switches don't have indicators. And that switching the bulbs between the two sockets didn't lead to the behavior following the bulb. The bulb displaying the weird behavior is now just dead, doesn't light up under any circumstances. So it was clearly defective in some way, but it's an odd af defect.
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Aug 14, 2017 02:28
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Phanatic posted:Except that the switches don't have indicators. And that switching the bulbs between the two sockets didn't lead to the behavior following the bulb. most likely it's the current draw from the surveillance cameras and eavesdropping devices that are sneaking power through the lamp cord
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Aug 14, 2017 02:59
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Jose Oquendo posted:I know nothing about wiring, so bear with me while I explain the scenario. Turn off the power, get a flashlight and take down the flood light. Peek inside and carefully check over the black and white wires. Make sure that they aren't nicked and touching each other or the ground. If it's a steel box, make sure it's grounded and that those wires aren't touching it either. Same goes for the flood light itself if it's metal. And you hooked up the GFCI breaker correctly, with its curly pigtail going to the busbar, and the hot and neutral wires for this circuit going into it in their correct spots?
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Aug 14, 2017 17:49
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Wanted to add an outlet to the garage. Previously just had the one in the back. Holy cow pulling THHN through EMT sucks. I thought it wouldn't be too bad since it's only a couple bends, but I was barely able to get it done without kinking the wires big time, and that's also with the covers popped off two of the 90 degree fittings I used. Definitely going to get fish tape for next time. But now I can keep the bike on a tender without running extension cords, so yay I guess.  
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Aug 20, 2017 05:33
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I would like to add a can light above our shower. There's a light switch that turns on the fart sucker and I'd like to tie it in to that one. I understand basics but can someone explain to me like a five year old what type of wire I need to purchase. (Romex?)
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Aug 20, 2017 17:00
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Rubiks Pubes posted:I would like to add a can light above our shower. There's a light switch that turns on the fart sucker and I'd like to tie it in to that one. I understand basics but can someone explain to me like a five year old what type of wire I need to purchase. (Romex?) You need to get a can light that is listed for "wet locations". "Damp locations" is not sufficient. You then buy 12/2 NM cable. You may need to get one or two cable clamps; the new light should have one, but may not, and the old fan may have one, but probably doesn't. Get 1/2 NM-rated clamps. Cut in the hole where the light should go. You then run your cable from your fan-hole to your light-hole. With the breaker off, open up the fan box, knock out one of the 1/2" KOs, install the cable clamp, pull 12" of wire through the hole, tighten the clamp. Cut the outer jacket off the cable to within 1/2" of the cable clamp. Match color to color from the fan. Black wire on fan to black wire in cable, etc. Don't worry about any other color of wire: match what's on the fan motor itself to the cable. The bare wire goes under the wire nut with the other bare wires, or with the green wire. Install the can light. Open the can light box, and do the same thing you did with the fan wires (knockout, clamp, etc.). note: you can probably use 14/2 NM cable, but if you get 12/2 it will absolutely be sufficient, and will require zero checking of anything else in the bathroom to make sure it's going to work. You can probably also do this with just the fan switch turned off, but better safe than
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Aug 20, 2017 18:15
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opengl128 posted:Wanted to add an outlet to the garage. Previously just had the one in the back. I bet. Those 90s are for inside corners. They have a very tight radius inside. They are meant to be used as pull points. With pull points, you pull the cable through to that point, then pull out enough slack for the next section length. Repeat for each pull point along that run. You would have had an easier time with plain 90s curved elbows like you used in the corner. Also... Let's just say it is a good thing that you didn't use flex. You may have killed someone if just EMT gave you this much trouble. babyeatingpsychopath posted:You need to get a can light that is listed for "wet locations". Also, do a good job cutting the hole and make sure that the light flange seals well to the ceiling. Plumbing code is big about keeping shower spray inside the shower and not making a moldy mess, even if that hole is on the ceiling. kid sinister fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 19:58
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For future reference, there is such a thing as lubricant for doing cable pulls. And yes, fish tape helps, as does having one person feed the cable in while the other person pulls.
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Aug 20, 2017 20:29
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When I did something similar for my garage lights, I pulled the wire through first and then reassembled the conduit.
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Aug 20, 2017 20:44
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:You need to get a can light that is listed for "wet locations". "Damp locations" is not sufficient. You then buy 12/2 NM cable. You may need to get one or two cable clamps; the new light should have one, but may not, and the old fan may have one, but probably doesn't. Get 1/2 NM-rated clamps. Will NMB cable work? Looks like a lot of what I am seeing online is NMB
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Aug 20, 2017 22:04
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opengl128 posted:Holy cow pulling THHN through EMT sucks. Others have said it, but, like, no it doesn't, unless you're doing something wrong. A couple thoughts: did you de-burr the ends of the pipes after you cut them? If not, that's a huge amount of resistance and the inside of your pipe is probably full of shaved off insulation. Hope nothing cut too deep! Also, why use fittings on those 90s at all, you obviously have a pipe bender, nice smooth bends would have been perfect there. And lastly, as another said, having someone feed the wire in makes a big difference, although if the other stuff was done properly, I wouldn't expect any trouble just pushing the wire through from one end in your particular case. Also, a shop vac and some nylon cord makes the initial fish a breeze on long, twisty runs.
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Aug 20, 2017 22:11
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Rubiks Pubes posted:Will NMB cable work? Looks like a lot of what I am seeing online is NMB Yeah. all NM made now is NM-B. Same stuff. Bad Munki posted:Others have said it, but, like, no it doesn't, unless you're doing something wrong. Good call on the de-burr, but it looks like that's a factory 90 in the corner there. I don't think a bender was involved. If there was a bender involved, then there was no purpose in those pulling ells. 3x 12AWG solid through 3 90s? By hand, alone.
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Aug 21, 2017 00:18
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I missed that it was solid, which raises the question, why? For real, I mean, is there an actual reason to pull solid through there instead of stranded? e: I mean, here's one I helped a friend with recently, ran 6x12awg stranded, it's probably...oh, 25' total? I forget if that one involved sucking a cord through first though. But yeah, if the conduit's smooth and has bends instead of fittings, stuff goes easy peasy.  (Don't mind the loose romex and such, that's from the previous goofball, who's work we're replacing. I should post some pictures of his fine work, like where he cut those heavy wires to the heater too short to reach the ground so he just ran a piece of heavy copper from the ground bus to the top of the panel and then wrapped the grounds to the heater around that a half a dozen times.) ee: For real though, why would you run solid through rigid conduit like that, aside from "it's all I had on hand and Lowe's is soooooo far away?" I'm just a weekend warrior here. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 00:29
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Bad Munki posted:ee: For real though, why would you run solid through rigid conduit like that, aside from "it's all I had on hand and Lowe's is soooooo far away?" I'm just a weekend warrior here. Mostly so that one person, alone, can push wire through conduit without any silly mucking about with fish tapes, pull strings, or the like. In a standard business office, most runs are shorter than 40' and have fewer than 270° of bend, so one step pushing is great. Pushing stranded sucks. Pulling stranded is OK, but you have to be more careful about your pulling head and technique and spool setup. Solid is also easier and faster to terminate on devices.
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Aug 21, 2017 01:14
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Mostly so that one person, alone, can push wire through conduit without any silly mucking about with fish tapes, pull strings, or the like. In a standard business office, most runs are shorter than 40' and have fewer than 270° of bend, so one step pushing is great. Okay, so there's not, like, a requirement for it in some cases, it's just a case-specific convenience thing? I will at least say, though: babyeatingpsychopath posted:Solid is also easier and faster to terminate on devices. this x1000, geez. Although the outlets/switches we installed at friend's house in that pic above, they were slightly higher grade and had nice little clamps instead of just plain screw terminals, man that makes a world of difference.
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Aug 21, 2017 01:23
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It's funny, my area (Chicago/Suburbs) is all emt and solid wire. Not sure if the solid is code or what, but the first time I saw stranded (outside of the factory pigtails on light fixtures) was a few months ago. I actually assumed stranded was cheaper/worse because I'd only seen it on fixtures, but apparently it's more expensive and better at conducting?? And yeah, solid is waaaaaaaaaaay easier to terminate. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to screw down the stranded, had to google it. Slugworth fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 02:00
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Yeah. all NM made now is NM-B. Same stuff. Does this have to be run through conduit? It is going though my attic for what it's worth. Un floored section
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Aug 21, 2017 02:37
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Rubiks Pubes posted:Does this have to be run through conduit? It is going though my attic for what it's worth. Un floored section Nope. If it's crossing over the top of a joist and within 6' of the entrance hole to the attic, it has to be protected by guard strips at least as high as the cable. If it is parallel to a joist/rafter, then staple it to the side, in the middle of the joist. Staple within 12" of every box and at least every 4' thereafter.
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Aug 21, 2017 02:59
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I've bought my first home - a semi-detached 1940's house in the south of the UK. It's had some modernisation - a new kitchen, sliding patio doors, a powered garage and garden office with their own fuse-boxes. While the fuse box for the house is quite modern, I'm a little concerned at a few things: - the plug socket outlets around the house are very sparsely appointed (3 in the master bedroom and livingroom, 2 in the spare bedroom and kitchen, and one in the breakfast room and smallest bedroom). - the phone socket is in the far flung front corner of the house - the loft conversion (albeit too small to be a room) is wired with plastic trunking down the middle of the spare bedroom's wall - and the vendor advised to 'not plug too much in there incase it trips the breaker' - the hallway light is wired to the FLOOR of the hallway and then snakes up a balustrade post to a lampshade With this in mind, I'm thinking of getting someone in to do a full re-wire: - three double sockets in every room, four in the master/livingroom - fixing the hallway light routing - connecting the loft power to the main fusebox instead of as a spur off a radial I'm also thinking that doing a little future proofing might be worth it while all the floors are up: - moving the telephone point to the under-stairs cupboard - routing pairs of CAT6 ethernet to the four corners of the house (double sockets) into the under-stairs cupboard - installing conduit where possible in the corners of the livingroom (for future speaker/tv hook-ups, unknown cabling standards) I'd appreciate any thoughts around this - I've been quoted about £3000ish for the whole lot, sans 'making good' though I'm quite aware that they'll need to come by to see it for a proper quote. In my mind's eye the kitchen and breakfast room are fine and it's just the 'living areas' which need work. Many people have suggested whole walls would need to be skimmed to make good after the plaster channels are cut, and therefore a total redecoration? Any particular suggestions on routing/cabling/standards to look into? My house is full brick with plaster coated walls. There's a small crawlspace under the house, not big enough to sit in though!
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Aug 21, 2017 07:57
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Southern Heel posted:I've bought my first home - a semi-detached 1940's house in the south of the UK. It's had some modernisation - a new kitchen, sliding patio doors, a powered garage and garden office with their own fuse-boxes. While the fuse box for the house is quite modern, I'm a little concerned at a few things: 1940s UK house? Was your place wired after/during the war with ring mains or before? Patches in plaster walls can be hard to get to match since plater walls aren't very flat like plasterboard is. Future proofing is a good idea if you have the money and is nice to have in general. So is Cat6 if your house is all masonry and you can't get a WiFi signal even a room away. Don't forget to put in an outlet where all those conduit runs meet up. Also, is your crawlspace too small for a goon to fit in, or someone that isn't 400 pounds?
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Aug 21, 2017 18:08
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Southern Heel posted:Many people have suggested whole walls would need to be skimmed to make good after the plaster channels are cut, and therefore a total redecoration? This is entirely on the skill and care of the contractor patching your walls. The good people we hired you can't even tell there were holes, the cheap people you can see exactly where they patched. You can even seen little cutouts where the expensive people patched partially into where the cheap people patched. If I didn't know better I would think the cheap people cut an awkwardly shaped hole. (Two different major patch jobs.) It cost around double to have the good people do their work, but it still wasn't that expensive. ($400 vs $800 or something.)
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Aug 21, 2017 18:51
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We have plaster walls, and we just did our best to clean up any major irregularities, then hung wallpaper with a plain pattern to hide the imperfections. Works nicely. Something like this one (but in whatever color):  (And since then, I would rather hang paper than paint any day of the week. So much nicer.)
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Aug 21, 2017 21:08
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