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Comedy option: put the LEDs on a photocell aimed at the light bulb and wire it to the normally open contacts. Though, it might never turn off depending on sensetivity...
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Jan 24, 2018 17:08
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Bad Munki posted:Put the overhead fixtures on a motion sensor switch. It's a drop in replacement for the existing switch, will take five minutes to install, and the garage door opening (or anyone moving around out there) will trigger it.  Welp, now I know what I'm doing with a Home Depot gift card.
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Jan 24, 2018 20:33
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Well for the both of you, then, I recommend this one, I've used it in a couple places now: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Lutron-Maestro-5-amp-Double-Pole-3-way-White-Motion-Indoor-Occupancy-Vacancy-Sensor/3531524 Works with your LED lights and whatnot, and has a nice little feature where if there's sufficient ambient light, it won't turn on. That sensitivity is customizable, though: if you turn it on/off within 3 seconds of triggering its motion sense, it'll "learn" your preference for what light level it should come on at. A+ I think it's that one, anyhow, I can get a product number if someone really wants, but that should get you close to optimal for your particular situation.
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Jan 24, 2018 20:37
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Tomarse posted:Does this indicate that there is likely a fault on the main earth connection for my house? or could it be something on one circuit causing this? Looks like i'm right. Looked at my consumer unit today and found 2 large earth cables leaving it. One goes outside and I tried to follow it but I lost it in behind some roof felting (my house has a single storey extension on one side). I dug out the back garden of this house and laid a patio around 7-8 years ago and I'm sure there was an earth rod for the house (with earth cable connected) which I uncovered and then buried under some gravel. The other earth cable stays inside the house and i followed it and found that it runs to where the main water feed pipe comes into the property - and it was disconnected and hanging loose probably because I had the water meter changed a few years ago and they had to replace a length of pipe and fit an additional stop tap at the same time since the original one was seized up. If I wedge the loose internal earth cable so that it is touching the water supply pipes i can change my loop impedance fail from being a red 'serious fault - do not use' light to being an amber 'warning' light. I'll clamp the internal earth onto the water supply pipe properly this weekend and also dig up the external earth rod and see if it is actually connected to the consumer unit. From my memory of where the rod was located and where the wires appear to run I suspect that it goes through where the PO did a concrete pour to raise the floor level by 6 inches in the extension and judging by the general quality of work there it will be cut or broken...
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Jan 25, 2018 00:46
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Tomarse posted:Looks like i'm right. Looked at my consumer unit today and found 2 large earth cables leaving it. I'm pretty sure that should have been in soil.. not gravel. I don't think rocks are very conductive.
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Jan 25, 2018 01:53
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Bad Munki posted:Well for the both of you, then, I recommend this one, I've used it in a couple places now: Follow up question. Looks like most of the Lutron occupancy sensor switches are marketed as no neutral required, but ground IS required. They seem to use the ground to complete the circuit. I opened up the wall plate where I want to install one, and it's not grounded (50's house/garage). However, there is a neutral in that box. Can I use that instead to power the switch? The switch has 2 blacks/hots for the light, a bare wire, and a green wire. Some Amazon reviewers said in this situation you ignore the bare wire and connect the green wire to your neutrals. Thoughts?
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Jan 25, 2018 02:03
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devicenull posted:I'm pretty sure that should have been in soil.. not gravel. I don't think rocks are very conductive. I only uncovered the top 2 inches of it underneath the weeds and reburied this under gravel at the edge of the patio leaving the rest of the post alone and well embedded in the soil/clay below. It had an attached wire which headed towards the house but i didn't trace it. Looks like I should have done as it didn't head to anywhere near where I lost the wire I traced going the other way!
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Jan 25, 2018 02:32
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Tomarse posted:I had to replace some mains socket fronts the other day and couldn't find my plug in socket tester afterwards, so I bought myself a new one. I've spent an hour trying to make sense of UK earthing standards, and frankly it boggles the mind. Apparently your Earthing method is TT as defined in BS7671, and you need to properly install a driven Earth electrode to a depth such as to "have low enough impedance to operate protection if a safe voltage (usually taken as 50 V) between the installation and remote earth is exceeded..." This method is hilariously illegal in the United States, but we of course don't have Residual Current Devices to provide Automatic Disconnection of Supply. 
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Jan 25, 2018 03:22
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angryrobots posted:I've spent an hour trying to make sense of UK earthing standards, and frankly it boggles the mind. UK wiring in general is screwy. Look up ring mains. I thought our AFCIs and GFCIs performed the same job as Residual Current Devices?
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Jan 25, 2018 03:32
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They probably do, I'm just tripping over their acronyms and insistence on defining everything obscurely. I thought US grounding was unnecessarily difficult to understand, now I see it's not so bad after all. This is a standard electric utility meter in the UK, that you would find on the side of a house:  And that's a new installation. An old one can look like this: 
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Jan 25, 2018 03:53
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angryrobots posted:They probably do, I'm just tripping over their acronyms and insistence on defining everything obscurely. I thought US grounding was unnecessarily difficult to understand, now I see it's not so bad after all. The new one looks very nice and orderly. The old one looks like your average phone demarc on any multi-unit building here over 30 years old.
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Jan 25, 2018 05:56
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angryrobots posted:They probably do, I'm just tripping over their acronyms and insistence on defining everything obscurely. I thought US grounding was unnecessarily difficult to understand, now I see it's not so bad after all. That old install is a dual tariff meter. the timer switch at the bottom controls the changeover times. For reference this is mine:  Its in the corner of the kitchen and I am currently part way through trying to box it in (and improve the kitchen). Meters are usually inside the house in an inconvenient location unless you have a house under 20 years old. That lovely huge analog meter in my house was fitted about 5 years ago to replace an even older dual tariff one because electricity suppliers don't believe in moving to digital meters when they have lots of stock of analog ones. It has 2 earth cables leaving the consumer unit. This is where one of them finished up at the incoming water supply. the other goes outside:  Yep, UK electrical is a bit wierd and arcane and full of over complicated acronyms.
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Jan 25, 2018 14:41
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Tomarse posted:That lovely huge analog meter in my house was fitted about 5 years ago to replace an even older dual tariff one because electricity suppliers don't believe in moving to digital meters when they have lots of stock of analog ones.  people suing their power companies for installing cellular networked digital meters because brain damage due to radio waves
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Jan 25, 2018 15:07
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opengl128 posted:Follow up question. Looks like most of the Lutron occupancy sensor switches are marketed as no neutral required, but ground IS required. They seem to use the ground to complete the circuit. Strangely, the dimmable version needs no neutral or ground, with the added bonus of no click when it turns on. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Lutron-Maestro-150-watt-Double-Pole-3-way-4-way-White-Motion-Indoor-Occupancy-Sensor/4462381
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Jan 25, 2018 15:46
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Qwijib0 posted:Strangely, the dimmable version needs no neutral or ground, with the added bonus of no click when it turns on. "No Neutral Needed" dimmers never fully turn off -- instead of having separate "Line-switch-load-Neutral" and "Line-control-Neutral" circuits they are set up in a single "Line-control-dimmer-load-(implied neutral)" loop. When they are "off" they simply turn the dimmer down so low as to not cause the load to illuminate. This wotks fine for incandescents, but can be a problem for even dimmable LED bulbs since they light up at much lower levels. You have to make sure whatever LEDs you have are compatible with that particular dimmer, and that you have enough load in the controlled circuit that they won't flicker even when off (the specs will usually explain this). As I understand it, some no-neutral dimmers will come with a dummy load you can add if using it with small LED loads.
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Jan 25, 2018 16:21
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Hubis posted:"No Neutral Needed" dimmers never fully turn off -- instead of having separate "Line-switch-load-Neutral" and "Line-control-Neutral" circuits they are set up in a single "Line-control-dimmer-load-(implied neutral)" loop. When they are "off" they simply turn the dimmer down so low as to not cause the load to illuminate. This wotks fine for incandescents, but can be a problem for even dimmable LED bulbs since they light up at much lower levels. You have to make sure whatever LEDs you have are compatible with that particular dimmer, and that you have enough load in the controlled circuit that they won't flicker even when off (the specs will usually explain this). As I understand it, some no-neutral dimmers will come with a dummy load you can add if using it with small LED loads. makes sense, I have mine controlling 8 of the philips warm glow variable color temp bulbs without issue--- since their whole feature set is predicated on being attached to a dimmer it's likely they're designed to handle that.
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Jan 25, 2018 16:33
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minivanmegafun posted:Fun US fact: there’s a not insignificant number of My power company seems to not fight that... when I called up to get the meter replaced (because I wanted one of the networked ones, though I didn't tell them that), they explicitly asked if I'd be ok with a smart meter. Presumably they would have installed an old analog one if I said no.
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Jan 26, 2018 01:31
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Can you take a better picture showing all the wire routing between the utility fuse box, meter, and consumer unit?
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Jan 26, 2018 01:45
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devicenull posted:My power company seems to not fight that... when I called up to get the meter replaced (because I wanted one of the networked ones, though I didn't tell them that), they explicitly asked if I'd be ok with a smart meter. Presumably they would have installed an old analog one if I said no. Maybe they would've installed a smart meter, then stuck an analog decal on top of it.
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Jan 26, 2018 02:34
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devicenull posted:My power company seems to not fight that... when I called up to get the meter replaced (because I wanted one of the networked ones, though I didn't tell them that), they explicitly asked if I'd be ok with a smart meter. Presumably they would have installed an old analog one if I said no. I didn't get a choice... note on the front door stating they'd be replacing my meter with a smart meter in the next couple of days. No way to opt out given. Woke up to my alarm clock flashing 12:00 the next I'm fine with the smart meter - it means I can log in to a state-run website and pull usage, including a real-time reading. I'm on a weird rear end electric plan where I get a huge discount if I use 1000-1499 kwh, but my rate triples if I go over 1500; I can easily keep an eye on usage and tailor my HVAC and laundry usage accordingly. Only annoying part is if I'm getting close to one end or the other, I have to call Oncor every month to find out what day my meter will be read on, as it's not always the same day or date. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Jan 26, 2018 |
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Jan 26, 2018 15:37
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angryrobots posted:Can you take a better picture showing all the wire routing between the utility fuse box, meter, and consumer unit? Mine is exactly like that new install photo that you posted except that there is no earth from my incoming utility fuse, just 2 earths leaving my consumer unit I have: incoming armoured cable -> utility fuse -> separate L + N -> meter -> separate L + N - > consumer unit (with one main big RCD and 6 circuits with seperate RCD's)
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Jan 26, 2018 15:48
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Tomarse posted:Mine is exactly like that new install photo that you posted except that there is no earth from my incoming utility fuse, just 2 earths leaving my consumer unit Ok yeah you have the TT earthing method. So what I would recommend, aside from re-attaching those earthing bonds to your water line and earthing electrode, is to get someone qualified who understands UK earthing methods to look at it. In the United States, your Earth and neutral would be bonded inside the consumer unit (here it's called a main panel). If this were the case, your loop impedance test would pass. Based on UK diagrams that I can find, I'm not sure that you guys do it this way, and you may need to move to TT-S or TT-C-S (adding an earthing wire as appropriate) to have a good, low impedance connection for fault clearing.
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Jan 26, 2018 16:57
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I live in a state that has banned smart meters. (Indiana) Strangely though other utilities such as gas and water have been using RF meters for years.
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Jan 26, 2018 19:39
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angryrobots posted:Ok yeah you have the TT earthing method. I looked at where I thought the outdoor earth rod was and also checked through some old photos tonight (I am glad i was clever enough to take some!). Unfortunately it appears that the rod is the earth for the supply line side of the electrics and it is now located underneath my patio, likely covered by the concrete that is shoring up a surface drain channel that runs along the back of the house, and the main drain for the gutter that is right next to it My house is on the end of a row and the supply line creeps along the back walls of 7 other houses (via sealed junction boxes to get to their meters) before getting to mine where within a sealed junction box it splits into my house, a smaller wire to the earth rod and a feed for a street lamp. There appears to be no presentation of any earth on my main fuse, though since it is there on the outside of the house I can probably pay them large amounts of money to change the fuse unit for a TN-C-S type. I chased the mystery earth from my consumer unit and lost it in a wall suspiciously close to where I know a gas line runs. I suspect it is attached to my gas line near the meter.... Approximately 3 years ago my gas supply line was completely dug out and replaced with plastic to the meter so that earth connection likely does gently caress all. Over the last 10 years most of my plumbing has been changed to pex too. I shall go and try my tester next door and see if it gives the same result as their house should be exactly the same as mine and then shall probably contact an electrician and see if I need to worry about this. I have cleaned up the connection to the water pipe and it is now good enough to light up amber on the tester and more importantly it now passes the RCD test on the test unit, so it might be that this is sufficient for an old property but I suspect that since I want to rent it out later that it probably isnt.
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Jan 29, 2018 01:39
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Tomarse posted:Approximately 3 years ago my gas supply line was completely dug out and replaced with plastic to the meter so that earth connection likely does gently caress all. Over the last 10 years most of my plumbing has been changed to pex too. The terminology they chose to use in both the US and UK regarding "earthing" or "grounding" is really unfortunate, because it fosters confusion in both countries. Understand this - you don't want potential fault current on the earthing circuit to have to pass through to the water or gas lines in it's path back to its source. Those bonds don't exist for that reason; rather they are to bond the gas meter/plumbing back to earth in case they become energized from outside means, so the protective device can operate as quickly as possible. The Earthing wires that terminate in your consumer unit need to bond with the neutral at some point. On some diagrams of consumer units, I see them connected inside, it's called a "MEN Link". Your issue may be as simple as verifying or repairing this link! If your tester is showing "yellow" the fault path impedance must be poor, and IMO there's no good reason for that, regardless of the house age.
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Jan 29, 2018 02:06
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Jesus gently caress.
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Jan 31, 2018 16:50
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Phanatic posted:Jesus gently caress. ...and? That is called a "prototype board" for a reason. Plus it's low voltage.
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Jan 31, 2018 17:02
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kid sinister posted:...and? That is called a "prototype board" for a reason. Plus it's low voltage. It’s some of the worst soldering I’ve ever seen. It looks more like crimped tinfoil than proper solder joins. A one-armed monkey with FAS can solder better than that. Yeah, it’s a prototype board, but it’s still supposed to work.
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Jan 31, 2018 17:18
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Playing with graphite rods and huge amps.
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Feb 1, 2018 04:08
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Phanatic posted:It’s some of the worst soldering I’ve ever seen. It looks more like crimped tinfoil than proper solder joins. A one-armed monkey with FAS can solder better than that. surely the relevant question here is whether the above board is actually in use in a prototype item or if it is part of a production item.
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Feb 2, 2018 15:15
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quick question: I was next door looking at my neighbors replacing his mold infested bathroom, and I see his breaker box. There are ganged 20 amp breakers that are running to separate circuits. IE not being used as two legs on a 220 volt appliance, just going to outlets & dishwasher say. Is this legit? I thought you only ganged up the handles when one appliance was using both legs.
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Feb 3, 2018 02:25
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some_admin posted:quick question: I was next door looking at my neighbors replacing his mold infested bathroom, and I see his breaker box. There are ganged 20 amp breakers that are running to separate circuits. IE not being used as two legs on a 220 volt appliance, just going to outlets & dishwasher say. Is this legit? I thought you only ganged up the handles when one appliance was using both legs. Shared neutrals probably. Kitchen outlets are the most common as you could have two circuits (run w/ one 12/3) on an outlet or or two outlets in a two-gang box. They have to have a common trip on both (different) phases. Blackbeer fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Feb 3, 2018 |
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Feb 3, 2018 03:36
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some_admin posted:quick question: I was next door looking at my neighbors replacing his mold infested bathroom, and I see his breaker box. There are ganged 20 amp breakers that are running to separate circuits. IE not being used as two legs on a 220 volt appliance, just going to outlets & dishwasher say. Is this legit? I thought you only ganged up the handles when one appliance was using both legs. that's required by code for shared neutrals now, used to be you could have single breakers on different phases sharing a neutral, now you either run separate neutrals for each circuit or use a ganged breaker. it's totally fine.
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Feb 3, 2018 07:10
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Thanks! I didn't get it when I looked at it. Shared neutrals!
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Feb 3, 2018 18:34
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I think I've read that NEC suggests (doesn't even require) a max voltage drop of 5% under load at the end of a circuit. In my house I've got a 12 gauge run to the garage with one outdoor outlet along the way, and 20 amp breaker. When I pull ~12 amps on it, it drops by about 3.6-3.8 volts. At least 1 volt of this is from the panel/service drop because I see a 1v drop right on the outlet attached to the breaker panel. So 2.6 or so is just barely higher than the 62 feet of 12 gauge circuit would indicate, making me believe there are no bad connections or anything. I guess that's only dissipating something like 30 watts over the length, so half a watt per foot. And the wire appears to be NM-B so should be 90C rated. It's running in an exterior wall at a few points so doubtless it's surrounded by insulation. Any thoughts or concerns on this? It will be pulling 11-12 amps for 10+ hours at a time, doing L1 charging of an EV.
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Feb 5, 2018 03:01
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I want to add an outlet in my utility room. The breaker box is there, and I have purchased all the supplies (box, Romex, breaker, etc) and I just wanted to clarify a couple questions to make sure I am doing everything correctly. 1- is it permissible to have two Romex cables pass through the same knock out in the breaker panel? 2- on the two busses in the panel, they seem to be a mix match of neutral and ground. Is this correct? 3- is it permissible to have two wires going to the same screw on the bus bar?
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Feb 5, 2018 03:25
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Rubiks Pubes posted:I want to add an outlet in my utility room. The breaker box is there, and I have purchased all the supplies (box, Romex, breaker, etc) and I just wanted to clarify a couple questions to make sure I am doing everything correctly. 1 - probably. Long answer: only if the cable clamp is listed for it; many are. When in doubt, use two KOs. 2 - probably. Long answer: in the first means of disconnect, neutral and ground are bonded together. This is typically in your panelboard, so those two busses are electrically and codewise equivalent at that location. 3 - probably not. Long answer: only if the screws are listed for it; most are not. If there's any doubt at all, use two screws. Rescue Toaster posted:Any thoughts or concerns on this? It will be pulling 11-12 amps for 10+ hours at a time, doing L1 charging of an EV. No concerns. If you were running a motor, then that 5% is bad for the motor core windings. Since it's a charger, there's just a rectifier in there and it doesn't care about the voltage drop at all.
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Feb 5, 2018 04:08
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:1 - probably. Long answer: only if the cable clamp is listed for it; many are. When in doubt, use two KOs. Thank you. That helps.
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Feb 5, 2018 04:11
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Anyone aware of a recessed outlet & hdmi box that would meet Chicago area code (ie: compatible with a metal junction box)? I'm not finding anything on Google, but it must exist.
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Feb 5, 2018 04:31
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Like this?
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Feb 5, 2018 13:30
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