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Vim Fuego posted:I'm looking for a low voltage digital timer switch. The switch is to control the hydronic towel warmer in the bathroom. The towel warmer has to be on for a while before it warms up. The heat is from hot water, but it takes an electrical signal to run it. The switch circuit is 5v. https://www.amazon.com/5V-36V-Module-Trigger-Switch-Display/dp/B07H7L9W3T Check the power draw specs on your towel heater and put the smallest inline fuse you can get away with on this thing. Sounds like it's just holding a solenoid valve open so shouldn't be more than 4-5 amps. You'll also still need a switch or pushbutton to trigger the off-delay timer. If this solution seems too dodgy for your blood, see if the heater can take 24vDC and that will open you up to a vast universe of industrial controls. 
shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Jul 15, 2021 |
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Jul 15, 2021 02:05
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Thanks for the drawing! It does seem like this will have to be a custom part if I don't want to run 120 to it. I'm kind of amazed that's the case, but it does seem to be the consensus. I ordered the part you recommended off amazon but it'll probably be a few months before I get to doing anything with it. It's not a high priority in the household, haha. When I do get to it I feel like it'll be a great excuse to put together the 3d printer I bought a while back. May end up making a custom case/face plate for it
Vim Fuego fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Jul 15, 2021 |
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Jul 15, 2021 18:40
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We have this: We're upgrading our deck to a screened porch, and with that comes lighting. We wanted a switched outlet as well, so all said and done we are adding 3 switches to the whole setup. Problem is, there's literally nowhere else for them to go. This is the only logical place to put them. What's the cleanest solution? The contractor's electrician says adding another 3-gang box above/below is about the only option. There's a ton of studs in that little section, so side-by-side isn't workable. We COULD make this box bigger, but I don't know how feasible that is. Given that there's going to be 6 switches, I'm not sure much can be done. I asked about 6 gang boxes and they said that that's a super expensive solution. I suggested a 5-gang box with one of the gangs being a double switch, but they were pretty sure that this would exceed wire fill capacity of the box. We might be able to drop it down to 5 switches, because one of them controls an interior fan light and is pretty much never used (it's a remote switch, there's another switch on a different wall). But even if we do that, I'm not sure if a 5-gang box is feasible or still way too much/expensive. Is this just going to be stupid and ugly, and is this typical for additions like this? I suggested a 5 gang box with one of the gangs being a double switch, and they said it'll probably exceed box fill capacity. Follow-up: would it be worth having the box outside in the screened area? I know weatherproof switch boxes are a thing, but I also know they're ugly and aren't exactly desirable. This also makes it awkward because some of your switches are inside and some are outside.
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Jul 15, 2021 21:43
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DaveSauce posted:We have this: 6 gang box looks like it's only $20: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Southwire-Smart-Box-6-Gang-Multi-Mount-Adjustable-Depth-Device-Box-MSBMMT6G/203343456
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Jul 15, 2021 22:12
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Welp Just checked what I think are the studs and we can maybe fit a 4 gang. Magnet picked up something a few inches to the right of the plate, and a receptacle below all but confirms it. Thinking over dinner, we could eliminate the remote switch and change the porch fan to a single switch. Hate to do that for the fan, but any fan we get will likely have a remote (as much as I despise them)... Edit: so are there code reasons we couldn't remove the 3-way switch? Its a door in to the house, but when we moved in the fan didn't even have a light kit so it was useless. I also don't know if you can just cap it off and abandon it or not. DaveSauce fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Jul 16, 2021 |
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Jul 16, 2021 00:16
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Get real weird with it and mount the 6 gang box vertically
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Jul 16, 2021 15:02
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6 independently mounted single gang boxes. No two being aligned to each other.
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Jul 16, 2021 15:06
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Comedy option: a 6-zone lutron grafik eye fits in a 4 gang box.
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Jul 16, 2021 15:09
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I mean is there box fill available for 2-in-1 double switches? Gonna be a cluster gently caress for whomever takes the cover off but hopefully once it's buttoned up that person isn't you.
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Jul 16, 2021 17:02
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A friend of my girlfriend needed an electrician for a property he and his wife are renovating to rent and I recommended the guy that did my wiring. Well I'm hearing from my girlfriend that the electrician, who is an old guy, told them it's the worst house wiring he's ever seen and will have to be completely redone. The big issues seem to be that some PO thought soldering was the proper way to splice wires together and did so everywhere. Additionally, they thought that if you solder wires together they don't need any kind of insulation, so they just stuck the bare soldered cables in wall cavities, and in the instance of the 30 amp AC Compressor wiring, tossed it on the damp ground of the crawl space. The sizzling sound just means it's working!
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Jul 16, 2021 23:13
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I'm honestly kinda impressed. Horrified, but also impressed.
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Jul 16, 2021 23:40
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SpartanIvy posted:The big issues seem to be that some PO thought soldering was the proper way to splice wires together and did so everywhere. This sounds like somebody who half rear end learned how to do things from an electrician old enough to have only installed knob and tube. misunderstood most of it and didn't realize there was a difference with romex.
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Jul 16, 2021 23:51
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I would love to see a western union splice done in romex.
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Jul 16, 2021 23:56
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 uh, got any pictures?
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Jul 17, 2021 00:20
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corgski posted:I would love to see a western union splice done in romex.  Should I have put the heat shrink on first or do you just use liquid electrical tape after soldering?
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Jul 17, 2021 01:11
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Oh wait, never mind. I perfected it on my second try.
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Jul 17, 2021 01:40
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its okay, nobody ever does things right on the first try
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Jul 17, 2021 01:46
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I appreciate you, Motronic.
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Jul 17, 2021 05:13
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Not exactly electrical wiring, but: We just had our house resided and the workers left the ancient phone wiring box off after they finished. When we moved in a year ago there were no phone jacks anywhere in the walls. Some PO had ripped it all out from the interior and the remaining wire was just a small coil hanging near where it enters the house - point being, the house didn’t have and isn’t going to have a landline installed, so I have no functional attachment to the exterior box. My question is: is it safe from a utilities perspective to clip the last of the wiring from the side of the house and chuck it, or is there some termination happening inside the box that means I’ll gently caress up something upstream by removing it?
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Jul 17, 2021 05:17
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csammis posted:Not exactly electrical wiring, but: Clip it, call and tell them to come get their wire off your house because it's dangling. The box is also theirs so don't toss it until you have given them a chance to get it. Tell them the contractor did it. Tell them if they replace it with fiber you will keep it. 
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Jul 17, 2021 05:27
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Cool, thanks for the advice. Every house in my neighborhood has had fiber service for years (Google Fiber in Kansas City) so the copper is pretty much just trash I don’t even know who owns it these days.
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Jul 17, 2021 05:50
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Vim Fuego posted:Is there any switch that has the buttons I want that will work with the circuit that I have? Ideally it'll fit in a single gang box, because that's what's currently in there, although I can swap it if necessary. This is kinda asking for an arduino, tiny LCD, and some buttons. I don't know of an off-the-shelf solution that fits in a single-gang. I've got industrial controls that are 12VDC nominal that claim to run down to 4VDC. Unfortunately, the smallest form factor on the time delay relays in my catalog are 1/4 DIN (92mm x 92mm) by 104mm deep, which is definitely not single-gang box territory, especially since it's supposed to mount to DIN rail or an 11-pin relay socket. They're also like $300 each.
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Jul 17, 2021 06:59
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Hahaha, single gang box isn't a dealbreaker. $300 is for sure. I'm in for 11$ so far for whatever that component that was linked above is
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Jul 17, 2021 07:06
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Motronic posted:Oh wait, never mind. I perfected it on my second try. Now if that isn’t a work of art.
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Jul 17, 2021 09:45
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Motronic posted:Oh wait, never mind. I perfected it on my second try. I was imagining a romex trunk line with the splices twisted on, but this is also beautiful. 10/10 would service this house.
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Jul 17, 2021 15:13
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Vim Fuego posted:Hahaha, single gang box isn't a dealbreaker. $300 is for sure. I'm in for 11$ so far for whatever that component that was linked above is An Arduino is a somewhat small, relatively cheap family of microcontroller boards and a beginner-friendly programming environment that goes with it. You'd want a 5V arduino, a relay module, and a display with buttons. A little bit of soldering and some programming and you've got your own timer module for <$30. An example from a brand I've bought before with good results: A microcontroller with wayyyy tooo much horsepower, but it's cheap. Relay module plugs on top. Display with buttons plugs onto that. Under thirty bucks, and fits in a 4" square box. Print a cover with some nice buttons you like, write some very basic code, make sure it's got 5V for power, and you're set.
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Jul 17, 2021 16:10
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I'm having trouble with the simplest possible circuit: Basically, there's a shed in the backyard of this house that I moved into a year ago that had some lightbulbs in it, and a plug that was on the outside. Since the shed is pretty far from the house, and I've only now just gotten a portable battery, I haven't tried getting the lights to work until now. So basically the wiring is shown in the diagram. The portable battery has a built-in inverter, so I plug in the outlet outside into it, and the plug is on a 12-gauge romex wire that's run under the shed, up along the wall and the ceiling, down to a light switch, where the positive wire is cut and attached to the two terminals, and up along the ceiling to a lightbulb. (There are also two other lightbulbs, but I've disconnected them from the circuit, as I'll talk about below.) However, the lightbulb doesn't turn on, and using a multimeter, I get an AC voltage drop of ~30 V, which I'm assuming should be 120 V. Here are some of the troubleshooting steps I tried: - The battery itself works fine, I plugged in a lamp and it lights up. - The existing plug was pretty old, so I replaced it with a new one. Incidentally, the plug has a green LED that lights up when I plug it in, but I'm assuming that it's just indicating whether there's some voltage, and not the full 120 V. - I snipped off the existing copper off the wire used in the existing plug, and stripped some more to put in the new plug. (Incidentally, there's also a ground wire, but I didn't bother drawing it since the lightbulb terminal doesn't have a ground terminal.) - I did continuity testing, and verified that the positive and negative terminals on the lightbulb are connected to the positive and negative plugs. Speaking of which, the reason why I disconnected the other two lightbulbs was that continuity testing revealed that the positive and negative terminals were connected when they were connected, so there's a short somewhere there (I haven't figured out exactly where, yet.) So my question is, what does a lower-than-expected voltage indicate? Seems like I've eliminated everything but the wire, but that's a bit surprising since the insulation seems in good shape as far as I can tell, and the wires connected to the plug is freshly exposed. However, the shed has been exposed to Texas weather for at least a year and a half, so maybe that's had some effect on the wire. I guess one thing I haven't tried yet is just connecting the two wires in the lightbulb directly, but my feeling is that it's improbable that that's the problem. Thoughts/ideas for anything else I can try?
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Jul 19, 2021 00:54
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floWenoL posted:I'm having trouble with the simplest possible circuit: I had a similar issue with a bathroom outlet where the hot wires insulation had rubbed through and made contact with a ground wire that was connected to other outlets grounds but not to the ground at the panel. So I would check for continuity between the hot/neutral and ground wires and see what that yields.
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Jul 19, 2021 00:59
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floWenoL posted:I'm having trouble with the simplest possible circuit: Have you tested for 120v inside the switch box?
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Jul 19, 2021 01:03
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floWenoL posted:I'm having trouble with the simplest possible circuit: The wires are connected to the proper terminals BUT the wire itself and almost everything about it is hosed up and dangerous. Romex is solid core wire that breaks under repated bending moments such as being plugged and unplugged and that plug pigtail is certainly fractured to poo poo and arcing internally. Don't install plugs on solid core wire like romex. Don't use romex outside. Remove the entire piece of romex from the plug to whatever terminals it's connected to, cut it up, and throw it away. Then find a place inside the shed where you want to put your battery pack when you're using it, secure a junction box there, replace the deleted piece of romex with fresh new wire, and run a pigtail of 12ga SOOW with a plug on the end to plug up your battery inside the shed. Better still would be a small breaker panel with GFCIs but I'm not familiar with code requirements for isolated non-grid systems like that, what I suggested above may not be compliant either. What you have now certainly is unsafe and should not be plugged into anything. shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Jul 19, 2021 |
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Jul 19, 2021 01:06
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That may have sounded harsh but the installation as you describe is outside the domain of "poo poo that can start a fire" and firmly in the kingdom of "poo poo that is going to start a fire
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Jul 19, 2021 01:30
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Hey wiring thread denizens. Motronic has been helping out and calling me dumb when I propose dumb poo poo in the home threads, in your opinion is wiring one of these 3 way switches ok for an amateur to do if I read up on all this beforehand and feel confident enough to attempt it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5cucTA6ioE Related, I am pretty sure my electrical boxes are all grounded since there are no grounding wires in any of them. However I don't own a multimeter. Any way to check if I am OK not to use a ground screw / pigtail on my boxes without one or do I need to buy a multimeter? None of my currently installed light switches use their ground screw (just moved into my place). Sample of one of my boxes in case that helps, this is a fan box not a light switch one: 
Inner Light fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Jul 19, 2021 |
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Jul 19, 2021 02:51
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floWenoL posted:I'm having trouble with the simplest possible circuit: Throw all the existing wiring away, buy something like this if your battery has a 12v output (or figure out what voltage it can put out other then 120v) and just be done with it. Dealing with isolated 120v to power 3 lights is fairly pointless these days (since LED bulbs are converting it back into DC anyway)
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Jul 19, 2021 03:00
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To check a box for grounding, get a multimeter, turn the breaker to that box off and test for continuity between the box and the neutral wire. That looks like you've got conduit, if it's metal conduit and there are no gaps you *should* be fully grounded. Do you live in the Chicago metroplex by chance?
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Jul 19, 2021 03:06
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shame on an IGA posted:To check a box for grounding, get a multimeter, turn the breaker to that box off and test for continuity between the box and the neutral wire. That looks like you've got conduit, if it's metal conduit and there are no gaps you *should* be fully grounded. Do you live in the Chicago metroplex by chance? Yes I do, and from googling it sounds like Chicago is the odd duckling with this stuff. Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter but might have to get one. I assume if the box is grounded, I do not need to connect the ground screw to anything, since the regular mounting screws should provide continuity to the box? That is how everything in my place is wired. VVVV that's right! Pretty dumb but I realized immediately what mistake I made. I thought a house wire was the ground but it was blue.... and blue can't be ground. Inner Light fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Jul 19, 2021 |
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Jul 19, 2021 03:10
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Inner Light posted:Hey wiring thread denizens. Motronic has been helping out and calling me dumb when I propose dumb poo poo in the home threads, in your opinion is wiring one of these 3 way switches ok for an amateur to do if I read up on all this beforehand and feel confident enough to attempt it? Note: Said dumb poo poo involved connecting a random wire to the fixture ground because he thought blue and green went together, and only noticed when he blew the breaker by hitting a "phantom" switch.
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Jul 19, 2021 03:11
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shame on an IGA posted:The wires are connected to the proper terminals BUT [b]the wire itself and almost everything about it is hosed up and dangerous. Wow, now I'm glad I asked here!  I'll definitely be getting rid of all of this now. No joke I'm grateful for the heads up.devicenull posted:Throw all the existing wiring away, buy something like this if your battery has a 12v output (or figure out what voltage it can put out other then 120v) and just be done with it. Dealing with isolated 120v to power 3 lights is fairly pointless these days (since LED bulbs are converting it back into DC anyway) Hunh, good point, this seems like a way better alternative, thanks!
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Jul 19, 2021 05:02
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Inner Light posted:I assume if the box is grounded, I do not need to connect the ground screw to anything, since the regular mounting screws should provide continuity to the box? That is how everything in my place is wired. IF the box is grounded (based on living in chi-town it should be but DO NOT ASSUME, KNOW), you still need to ground the device per manufacturer specifications, when in doubt ground it to the box. . Generally the way to do this is to attach the ground wire from the device to a screw in the box (either provided in box or there's a screw hole for it) NOTE: YOU SPESIFICALLY need to be careful there's a lot of paint in that box, there should be full bare contact to the ground contact point which you're going to need to scrape some paint off to ensure good contact.
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Jul 19, 2021 12:59
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Mimesweeper posted:you're going to need to do a lot of shopping around to find someone who actually cares as much as you do This needs to be the thread title for the Home Ownership thread.
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Jul 19, 2021 15:23
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Anyone know what this wire is or what clues might tell me what it is for? It's in the garage wrapped around a nail in the ceiling joist above the furnace and water heater but not connected to either. Is the only way to tell to open some walls and follow it through the whole house? 
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Jul 20, 2021 03:31
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