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angryrobots posted:It's not like that in the USA. Occasionally you'll have a spare wire but usually everything that is run has a purpose. Plenty of times I wished I had two extra conductors! You are loving with me, right? There's no way that every wire is on it's own. For example, this terrible picture, where the outer insulation has been murdered, but there are multiple wires in one cable.
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Mar 18, 2019 20:43
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KnifeWrench posted:Okay, so I have 3-4 weird things that my house does that make me worried the wiring is hosed up somehow. I know this isn't a lot to go on, but I'd love an informed opinion on any of these that inspire you: Also, your daughter died at birth and I'm sorry to be the one to tell you that she's a ghost.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:10
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KnifeWrench posted:I once lived in an apartment where not only the outlet right next to the door was connected to the switch, but also the outlet in the corner across the room, in the only reasonable place to put a TV. Same switch! The mind boggles at what the intent was. My house had one three-way setup for a switch in the corner of the living room, except it was somehow also tied into the lights over the kitchen island. Depending on the position of one switch, the other would either turn both lights on and off... or would just alternate between which one was on and which one was off. I eventually removed the other switch.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:22
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IOwnCalculus posted:My house had one three-way setup for a switch in the corner of the living room, except it was somehow also tied into the lights over the kitchen island. Somebody got the traveler and output wires swapped on one switch.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:32
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RabbitWizard posted:You are loving with me, right? There's no way that every wire is on it's own. I know you enjoy being deliberately obtuse, but the poster said "Occasionally you'll have a spare wire but usually everything that is run has a purpose." In your picture, there are six conductors, and every one has a purpose, and no spares were run. Since that's a light switch, there was a much higher likelihood of one spare white wire in there, but there wasn't. This is the case in most US residential homes: NM cable is run with precisely the number of conductors needed for that circuit's needs, with no extra conductors. There won't be any cables with spare conductors in the panel, nor in any boxes.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:40
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GWBBQ posted:You might have hot and neutral swapped somewhere in the house, electrical is grounded to the plumbing, and I'd give you even odds that it's not static, whoever put up the coat rack put a screw into your wiring and that's the point of failure rather than swapped hot/neutral. Can this be diagnosed and fixed DIY? Or is it going to be a whole ordeal with ripping up walls?
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Mar 19, 2019 03:06
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KnifeWrench posted:Can this be diagnosed and fixed DIY? Or is it going to be a whole ordeal with ripping up walls? Swapped hot / neutral is easy to find using a plug in tester on your outlets: https://www.amazon.com/Sperry-Instruments-GFI6302-Receptacle-Professional/dp/B000RUL2UU/ To be more thorough use a multimeter and check outlets & switches to see if you get 120v (or any voltage) between neutral to ground: https://www.amazon.com/Cen-Tech-Digital-Meter-Voltmeter-Multimeter/dp/B001RSREKI/ Also get a non-contact voltage tester and see if anything in your house that shouldn't be electrified (like that coat rack) is: https://www.amazon.com/Sperry-Instruments-VD6505-Non-Contact-Sensitivity/dp/B000GLAC5G/
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Mar 19, 2019 15:31
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The coat rack is freestanding, BTW. It's definitely a static shock. My pants are always generating them.
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Mar 19, 2019 15:52
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If it's freestanding how are you getting shocked by it? The static charge in your body needs a path to ground, are you sure it's not touching anything metal that could be grounding it, like a floor vent, radiator pipe, etc?
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Mar 19, 2019 17:08
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Nevets posted:If it's freestanding how are you getting shocked by it? The static charge in your body needs a path to ground, are you sure it's not touching anything metal that could be grounding it, like a floor vent, radiator pipe, etc? I'll wager it's touching, like, the ground
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Mar 19, 2019 17:09
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Nevets posted:If it's freestanding how are you getting shocked by it? The static charge in your body needs a path to ground, are you sure it's not touching anything metal that could be grounding it, like a floor vent, radiator pipe, etc? Capacitance, especially if the object is large and metal and it's grounded even somewhat better than you and able to dissipate any charge increase.
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Mar 19, 2019 17:28
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Pulled a sconce off a wall and found this lovely bit of work. Appears to be cloth wrapped wire tied into romex. Can I just cap this and put some sort of raised cover box over it? I don’t intend on using it. https://imgur.com/a/GwR5HCA
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Mar 19, 2019 17:55
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That looks a lot like what I had in some of my boxes. In my case under that tape is some gummy material, and soldered wires. It was a pita to deal with but I replaced it with nuts and my house hasn't burned down yet.
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Mar 19, 2019 18:11
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kid sinister posted:Somebody got the traveler and output wires swapped on one switch. That would explain a lot. If I ever cared to I suppose I could wire it back in but at this point I don't see a reason to have that outlet switched by two different switches anyway.
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Mar 19, 2019 18:24
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Nevets posted:Table / floor lamps. I grew up in a brand new house my parents built in the mid 80's with 1 kitchen boob light, 1 dining room chandelier, a couple bathroom vanity lights and 1 completely insufficient walk in closet can light. All the bedrooms, living rooms, etc. had half switched outlets and no builtin lighting. The idea was you flip the light switch by the door as you enter a room and it turns on 1 or two dim lamps so you can see well enough not to stub your toe as you walk toward your goal, and then manually turn on a spot lamp that was bright enough to read / knit / scrimshaw, etc. The old incandescents cost almost a penny / hour to run. If you forgot and left one on all day that's 10 cents you could have spent on suckers from the candy shop! Yup, every room in my house has a switch attached to half an outlet.
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Mar 19, 2019 18:42
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SpartanIvy posted:That looks a lot like what I had in some of my boxes. In my case under that tape is some gummy material, and soldered wires. It was a pita to deal with but I replaced it with nuts and my house hasn't burned down yet. Oh god I hate that gummy poo poo. FYI, don't let it touch a hardwood floor. Removing it is like a scuff mark from Hell. Wipe wipe wipe wipe wipe wipe wipe.... and it stops like 2 feet later.
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Mar 19, 2019 23:05
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Mineral spirits.
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Mar 19, 2019 23:26
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So I'm trying to figure out how to get the bathroom fan working independently of the lights. I assumed correctly, in that power comes in from the bedroom circuit. But hoooooly poo poo I was not prepared for the  Main switchbox for the bathroom (3 way for lights, regular for the fan):  Hall switch, which also has romex for the fan:  Not shown: ground wires looped around some switches and cut. You may be able to see neutrals wire nutted into grounds, and floating grounds. It was easy enough to figure out that the white wire to the fan switch is actually the power feed, and I tried it on every position on the hall switch. All it did was change up the various switch combinations required to make the fan work. This is just stupidly overcomplicated. Why the gently caress would you wire a bathroom circuit so that the lights HAVE to be on for the fan to work? Don't you want the fartsucker to clear the air without 360 watts of lights?! And I'm not even gonna try to figure out WTF is going on with the whites tied into bares. For fucks sake, that extra run of romex is semi-useless; capping it off and tying the fan switch to the actual incoming power would have been easier, and saved a couple of bucks worth of wire per apartment. It looks like they're using 14/2 (possibly 12/2) as the runner without any labeling, but using the black as the actual runner, and the white to power the fan (one is connected to a backstab, the other connected to the screw terminal, for the same 3 way switch in the hallway). If my multimeter wasn't dead, this would be "fixed" the way I like it, the way it SHOULD be, by now. But my dumbass left it on, and I don't have any spare batteries handy. And with the  going on in the boxes, I'm pretty sure I don't want to touch anything that might be connected to ground in this apartment.I'm gonna have to get an outlet tester and figure out what outlets are actually grounded, after seeing that mess (and make sure there's not any other bootleg grounds). Surge protectors rely on having a solid ground, and we have a fuckton of electronics. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 11:43 on Mar 20, 2019 |
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Mar 20, 2019 11:32
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Some better pictures and I think that could be sorted.
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Mar 20, 2019 12:21
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STR posted:So I'm trying to figure out how to get the bathroom fan working independently of the lights. Carefully place everything back into the boxes, replace the switches and faceplates, and promptly list your house. I am sorry to inform you that your wiring was done by a native american burial ground.
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Mar 20, 2019 12:32
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angryrobots posted:Some better pictures and I think that could be sorted.
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Mar 20, 2019 17:53
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angryrobots posted:Some better pictures and I think that could be sorted. Neutrals and grounds are mixed, there's white wires carrying current, and there's tiny ground pigtails on some switches, but snipped off so they LOOK grounded at a quick glance with the cover off, but aren't. And this is just 2 different switchboxes. I'm sure it COULD be sorted, but there's no telling how many other grounds/neutrals are connected, or what the hell is going on in the meter panel.. or worse, the (2x 13 meter per building - 24 unit building, plus 2 house meters) meter panels. Since we rent, I'm not about to attempt making this right (esp since if something does go pear shaped, I'd be the one catching the blame for the building burning down). The surge protector and UPS on my PC thinks everything is hunky dory, but I haven't tried them on other circuits in the apt. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 07:23 on Mar 22, 2019 |
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Mar 22, 2019 07:16
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Is there a beginners guide to 3 and 4 way toggle installation? Because I'm feeling pretty stupid over here.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:09
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Rhyno posted:Is there a beginners guide to 3 and 4 way toggle installation? Because I'm feeling pretty stupid over here. Here's the LMGTFY guide: http://users.wfu.edu/matthews/courses/p230/switches/SwitchesTut.html Be sure to use the correct colored wires, so that the next guy doesn't curse you out after trying to track down which wire is which.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:38
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Rhyno posted:Is there a beginners guide to 3 and 4 way toggle installation? Because I'm feeling pretty stupid over here. https://youtu.be/5K5F0XZQW7Y There's a handful of wiring methods out there for 3 and 4 way switching, not all of which are legal anymore for lights. The code was updated so that all light switch boxes must now have a neutral. Well, some of the 3 way switching methods require using the white wire as a traveler. To make those methods legal, you'll need more wires. You might need to run 2 lengths of NM between boxes, or use 14/2/2 NM if you can find it. As for 4 way, you're basically taking a 3 way switching method, then shoving an extra box in the middle of the travelers. The 4 way switch itself basically lets the traveler signals straight through to the other side, or it swaps from one traveler to the other.
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Mar 22, 2019 20:57
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kid sinister posted:
2017 changed it up. If the entire room is visible from a switch location, you only need a neutral there and not in every associated 3/4 way switch box.
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Mar 23, 2019 00:51
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I have a 50A outside circuit breaker intended for a spa. I want it gone, at a minimum disconnected from the panel and the existing cable run pulled back into the basement. I want to use the current conduit path for a new conduit to handle Ethernet/fiber/coax up to the second floor. What should be my steps for disconnect/removal?    
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Mar 23, 2019 01:06
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I'm a big DIY guy but I would call an electrician for that. You're going to want to pull the meter before messing with a breaker box at the very least. I would anyway.
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Mar 23, 2019 01:09
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devmd01 posted:I have a 50A outside circuit breaker intended for a spa. I want it gone, at a minimum disconnected from the panel and the existing cable run pulled back into the basement. I want to use the current conduit path for a new conduit to handle Ethernet/fiber/coax 1. Shut off breaker supplying the outdoor disconnect. 2. Test voltage at the line lugs of the disconnect to make sure you've shut off the right breaker (never trust). Hot to hot, hots to neutral and ground. 3. This is the part that almost certainly will be an issue. Remove the wire from the panel. The problem is that it looks like your panel is full of wires based on the number of circuits, and unless you're lucky, a tangled mess. It might be hard to get the wire out of your panel without accidentally shorting the bare ground to the main lugs. You can take a look at it, but having your power company pull the meter or calling an electrician just to remove the wire from the panel might be necessary. You could remove the hot wires from the breaker, wirenut or tape them off, cut the wire where convenient and terminate it in a junction box, then wirenut the individual wires just in case it were to be energized again. You're not supposed to have abandoned exposed NM. 4. Do whatever you want with the (rest of the) wire and outdoor disconnect. Blackbeer fucked around with this message at 02:19 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 01:53
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If there is a main breaker on the panel (200A or whatever) that nukes everything you might get lucky on removal if the spa enters from the bottom and the service enters the top. Pair of snippers could make for fewer wires you have to pull out as complete pieces. Either abandon the breaker in place and off (labeled spare) or get a knockout cover. Sure this won't be useful in the future for a car charger?
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Mar 23, 2019 02:41
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If you’re worried about hitting the main lugs or pulling it out through a rat’s nest or whatever, clip it off in the main panel where it enters, then just remove those short bits and pull the rest of the wire out from the downstream end. Tie a line to it before you pull it and use the line to fish your planned comms wires. Don’t run the comms line through the main panel though.
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Mar 23, 2019 02:49
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H110Hawk posted:
Seconding this, a 50A outdoor circuit is a valuable asset even if it's just capped off in a junction box unused for the foreseeable future. Car charger, subpanel, water heater, the potential is endless. If you want to run data, just drill a drat hole in the floor and run data.
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Mar 23, 2019 03:55
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Blackbeer posted:2017 changed it up. If the entire room is visible from a switch location, you only need a neutral there and not in every associated 3/4 way switch box. Interesting. So I have to plan ahead for 3 way switching in L shaped rooms now where you can't see around the outside corner? shame on an IGA posted:Seconding this, a 50A outdoor circuit is a valuable asset even if it's just capped off in a junction box unused for the foreseeable future. Car charger, subpanel, water heater, the potential is endless. If you want to run data, just drill a drat hole in the floor and run data. Seconding plan ahead for a car charger.
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Mar 23, 2019 05:20
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kid sinister posted:Interesting. So I have to plan ahead for 3 way switching in L shaped rooms now where you can't see around the outside corner? If you don't have a switch box in the outside corner with a view of both ends, then yeah, you'd need to have a neutral at each switch box using 4 conductor romex or use the wiring method where power and light are one opposite ends of the 3/4 way chain like you were saying. Not something I run in to often but I'm sure it's common in commercial/warehouse jobs with L shaped hallways (where it's nice to have occupancy sensors) though you might have the conduit/ability to add a neutral exception there. 404 says you must have a view of the entire floor from the switch box with the neutral, so something like a free standing fireplace in the middle of a living room would necessitate a neutral in each box I think.
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Mar 23, 2019 12:15
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Probably a dumb question, but I'm super confused. What, uh, does the neutral in a switch box do? Is this just future proofing for smart switches or something?
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Mar 23, 2019 13:33
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Slugworth posted:Probably a dumb question, but I'm super confused. What, uh, does the neutral in a switch box do? Is this just future proofing for smart switches or something? One of the more engineering focused people could explain it (basically everyone else) but you need it for motion sensors. There are sensors that don't require a neutral by using the ground as one; one of these might not be an issue, but a house with half a dozen might.
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Mar 23, 2019 14:49
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Slugworth posted:Probably a dumb question, but I'm super confused. What, uh, does the neutral in a switch box do? Is this just future proofing for smart switches or something? It's future proofing for energy performance(motion switches, smart switches) as well as cutting down on some jankiness like using "unused" white wires as travelers, or at least making it a lot less attractive/convenient.
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Mar 23, 2019 16:33
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Can anyone school me on FL ballasts? I'm trying to find a replacement that will work in a UV water filter with a T5 bulb. It's this one: https://www.buyultraviolet.com/ultraviolet-lamps-uv-bulbs-gph436t5l-05-1097-r The original ballast is no longer available. The replacement they list doesn't quite look the same. To make thing more complicated, some others I've looked up based on searching for the bulb type and "ballast" seem to be wired differently. Particularly that the current ballast has 4 different wires for the bulb, one going to each pin and on some of the suggested ones I've seen it's only 2 or 3 wires. I just don't know how this bulb is supposed to work and would rather get this done right the first time. Here's the original ballast:  And it is wired up exactly as shown on the sticker. Here's the original manufacturer listing for this NLA part: https://robertsonlighting.com/ss16550ap.html And their suggested replacement: https://robertsonlighting.com/psm2gph18mvdw.html The suggested wiring diagrams are this:  Neither of those are how it's wired now - unless the ballast it came with has both wires separated out internally to 2 (WD-152 wiring). If it's as simple as this why are there even 2 pins on each side of the bulb? It seems like the difference between striking an arc on each side (original ballast and wiring) vs striking across the entire tube. This is all new territory for me - I've never really paid attention to how these things work or how they are designated as I've been able to just find the exact replacement parts when needed. Thanks for any advice. Motronic fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 17:55
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All of the wiring diagrams including your old one have 4 wires going to the bulb, though? 152 is a 1-lamp ballast and 153 is a 2-lamp. Take the blue/blue on the new ballast and attach to the red/blue going to one end of your lamp. Take the red/red on the new ballast and go to yellow/white on the other end. I think what is confusing is that your old ballast was magnetic start and I think polarity was important where on the new electronic start it doesn't matter. angryrobots fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 18:02
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angryrobots posted:All of the wiring diagrams including your old one have 4 wires going to the bulb, though? 152 is a 1-lamp ballast and 153 is a 2-lamp. Those are wiring diagrams for the same ballast - I have no idea what the "WD" designation is for. And yes, this is my basic question - if the old one has 4 wires going to the bulb why does the original manufacturer's suggested replacement as well as googling for "<bulb type> ballast" seem to indicate only 2. Is this something that simply doesn't matter? Should I just YOLO this and hope I don't destroy a $65 bulb? Edit: angryrobots posted:I think what is confusing is that your old ballast was magnetic start and I think polarity was important where on the new electronic start it doesn't matter. THAT is the kind of explanation that makes sense. Awesome, I'm gonna send it. Thank you.
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Mar 23, 2019 18:12
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