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Arsenic Lupin posted:No, the whole problem is that the previous owner removed the doorbell and cut the wire at porch level; I need to run a new wire so I can mount a new doorbell. Can you have someone just triggering the chime at the chime itself until it doesn't chime? There should be 2 screw terminals in it which will be where the button was hooked up.
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Dec 12, 2021 21:50
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A volt meter on the transformer will work. Verify that it's live, and then 0 volts later. Then verify the 120v inside is also dead. Ideally you would then verify that your meter is still working on some other live circuit.
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Dec 12, 2021 21:56
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Motronic posted:What you really want is class D fire retardant, not sand which will pick up water and cause its own issues. If they're lithium ion batteries, you don't want water anywhere near them. Dry sand is a perfectly suitable material to use for smothering an early lithium ion fire.
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Dec 12, 2021 21:59
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SourKraut posted:If they're lithium ion batteries, you don't want water anywhere near them. Dry sand is a perfectly suitable material to use for smothering an early lithium ion fire. Motronic knows what he is talking about when it comes to fires (attachment is actually Motonic I believe) Also dunking lithium battery cars in water tanks i the current best way to deal with them https://www.autoblog.com/2019/03/26/firefighters-dropped-smoldering-bmw-i8-water-tank/ CAT INTERCEPTOR fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Dec 12, 2021 |
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Dec 12, 2021 22:25
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:Also dunking lithium battery cars in water tanks i the current best way to deal with them With new poo poo on the way that also uses water: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/11/new-firefighting-tool-delivers-water-directly-to-blazing-ev-batteries/ Again, "copious amount of water".
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Dec 12, 2021 22:28
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(Copious means lots and lots)
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Dec 12, 2021 22:51
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Arsenic Lupin posted:As was gently suggested upthread, I've realized my electrician's proposal for replacing the doorbell wire was a hint at "I don't think this job is worth my time." (2 men, one day) This seems like a thing I can fix myself, with a tolerance for crawlspaces, spiders in my hair, and drilling poo poo. if your transformer is attached to the panel you can just take the cover off and see what circuit it's on. if you can't or don't want to do that, then maybe it was wired to the doorbell chime first and the doorbell switch is just a switch leg? as in, you have voltage at the chime and touching the two cut wires together would make it go. or simply get a dual range non contact volt detector, i think they're like 25 bucks? it'll go down to the 24v or 12v  i have the laser pointer one and it hasn't failed me. the flashlight ones have all failed me.
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Dec 13, 2021 01:35
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CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:Motronic knows what he is talking about when it comes to fires (attachment is actually Motonic I believe) Motronic posted:With new poo poo on the way that also uses water: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/11/new-firefighting-tool-delivers-water-directly-to-blazing-ev-batteries/ That's an interesting link, thanks! I honestly thought Motronic's comment about a room's worth of water overhead was a joke, but now I see he was being serious. I don't doubt that if you have enough water to fully submerge the Li-ion battery, you'll stop the runaway reaction. But most normal people won't have that, and if they try to use a garden hose, it isn't going to cut it and will actually expedite an explosion.  Fun story time: I helped design a backup SCADA server room at a water treatment plant (I did process/mechanical side), and because of the UPS' in the room, the local fire Marshall would not let us use sprinklers (makes sense, obviously). The existing SCADA server room, with UPS, had a Halon suppression system, but the client didn't want to have a second one for their backup room. Since the plant was switching over to a Kruger ActiFlo treatment system, which utilizes sand for sand ballasted flocculation, we ultimately set the backup room not too far from where the sand eduction system was located. A giant, dry sand silo is present that gets dumped to hydrocyclones for process use, but a wonderful PLC-controlled setup can detour that dry sand toward the area of the backup room where the UPS are stored and effectively prevent any thermal runaway should a fire breakout. And yes, we did real world testing of the application before this was constructed, to verify it would work, including testing at various scales, some of which indicated possibly suitability for residential applications if someone had 5 gallon buckets with sand nearby. Anyway, dry sand is great. I wouldn't apply dry sand to a fire where water has already been used.
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Dec 13, 2021 05:27
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SourKraut posted:A giant, dry sand silo is present that gets dumped to hydrocyclones for process use, but a wonderful PLC-controlled setup can detour that dry sand toward the area of the backup room where the UPS are stored and effectively prevent any thermal runaway should a fire breakout. This is part of my point. As a reminder, the context is resi storage battery suppression. Sand does not stay dry unless you have a a bunch of stuff going on, it's not regular sand, it's presumably being tested regularly and/or used and refreshed with fresh regularly, it's in an appropriate silo to keep it dry between inspection periods and/or replacement. If you're trying to do something for residential, none of that is feasible for many reasons, cost among them. Class D extinguishing material is better, as it's specifically designed for this type of this, doesn't soak up atmospheric humidity, etc. But it's also very expensive. A water tank is not. At least at this point in time. I suspect we'll be seeing specialized class D systems for these types of installs, perhaps even also for auto racing applications.
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Dec 13, 2021 13:53
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Messadiah posted:Can you have someone just triggering the chime at the chime itself until it doesn't chime? There should be 2 screw terminals in it which will be where the button was hooked up. I'm installing a new chime, too! POs ripped out everything except the wiring under the house and the transformer. Extant Artiodactyl posted:if your transformer is attached to the panel you can just take the cover off and see what circuit it's on. Are you assuming the panel would be labeled, showing which circuit the transformer was on? (it isn't.) Otherwise I'm not following you. Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 20:06
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Arsenic Lupin posted:
In some cases the transformer is directly attached to the main panel box so you could just see the wires when the panel cover is off.
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Dec 13, 2021 20:22
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Guy Axlerod posted:In some cases the transformer is directly attached to the main panel box so you could just see the wires when the panel cover is off.  yeah in a case like this you would just follow the black lead from the transformer to see where it goes. in real life, it'll be high enough res that you can actually do this
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Dec 13, 2021 23:04
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Dumb quick question that I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" too -- for an EV Charger (Emporia), you cannot use SO cord to run into a junction box for a hard wired install, right? Must use conduit + THHN? It looks like 3/4" or 1" EMT is the right size to fit into the gland that was previously for the pigtail cord, but it would save me a bit of Googling / digging up the right fittings if I could just run the whip into a junction box.
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Dec 13, 2021 23:10
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movax posted:Dumb quick question that I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" too -- for an EV Charger (Emporia), you cannot use SO cord to run into a junction box for a hard wired install, right? Must use conduit + THHN? sure you can, SO is a hard service cord and thus follows 625.17 (A) (1). im assuming this thing has the "personnel protection device" at the attachment plug so that it can be more than 12 inches lol. in that case the cord can be 6-15 feet. i have the NEC in front of me because i'm studying for more licensing!
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Dec 13, 2021 23:22
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Extant Artiodactyl posted:sure you can, SO is a hard service cord and thus follows 625.17 (A) (1). im assuming this thing has the "personnel protection device" at the attachment plug so that it can be more than 12 inches lol. in that case the cord can be 6-15 feet. Hmm -- OK, I'm going to double-check the markings on the cable to make sure it actually *is* SO/something heavier duty. Does Wago make any good connectors / splices for 6 AWG?
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Dec 14, 2021 00:21
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movax posted:Hmm -- OK, I'm going to double-check the markings on the cable to make sure it actually *is* SO/something heavier duty. Man I wish. I think you're back to wire nuts for the big stuff still. On the bright side the bigger wires are way easier to twist together properly and you're basically never twisting more than 2.
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Dec 14, 2021 00:25
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movax posted:Hmm -- OK, I'm going to double-check the markings on the cable to make sure it actually *is* SO/something heavier duty. For 6AWG look into getting a polaris block to make the splice. It's an insulated terminal connector. I would never use a wire nut for wire that size. Rufio fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Dec 14, 2021 |
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Dec 14, 2021 00:36
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Motronic posted:This is part of my point. As a reminder, the context is resi storage battery suppression. Sand does not stay dry unless you have a a bunch of stuff going on, it's not regular sand, it's presumably being tested regularly and/or used and refreshed with fresh regularly, it's in an appropriate silo to keep it dry between inspection periods and/or replacement. I don't want to continue a derail in this thread so I'll end it here or take it to PMs, but just as an fyi, standard, course-grained sand itself is not a desiccant and will not absorb moisture from the environment if stored "normally", whether "normal" is defined as in a paper bag aka Home Depot/Lowes/HD Supply, whether in a bucket in your house, stored in a hopper/silo, or even dumped off from Cemex and stored on a raised platform off the ground under a canopy/tarp/whatever. (and just for reference, I said "silo" but was tired, it was actually an open-topped hopper, because they use overhead cranes to lift and position supersacks of sand and then open the bag up to dump into the hopper. There's no special air-tight containment otherwise). Standard, good ol' SiO2 sand has very low absorptive capabilities, especially if it has been washed, because the size and shape of the grains do not promote surface adhesion. Now you may be thinking of silica gel which is an engineered product with unnaturally small particle sizes and corresponding greater surface area/porosity, but that's an entirely different material. There are also "sands" that include various fine-grained materials intentionally and/or haven't been washed enough, and that "sand" may have greater absorptive capability, but that's because the fine grained materials are usually clay compounds and are the reason for the greater absorption. Anyway, just wanted to end on that because chemistry/science rocks so it's important to make sure the details are correct!
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Dec 14, 2021 05:45
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I'm going around building up a list of potential projects for when my father-in-law visits next spring, and I've got a question about space around an electrical panel. First of all, here's what I'm dealing with: This is a sub panel in my garage. The garage was built in 2 phases, I'm standing in the part built in the 20s, the white thing is a door that opens into the part built in the 70s. Those studs are approximately 2 foot on center (gotta love old construction!) and so that door is about 21 inches wide. I'd like to replace it with something a bit wider. That would require taking out a stud and framing out a new opening with a header piece (because that wall does bear some structural weight of the vestigial roof). But I want to be sure there are no problems expanding towards the panel. My understanding is that the space for the panel needs to be at least 30" wide, so would I be correct in assuming that as long as door doesn't encroach within 15 inches from the center of the panel, I'm in the clear, electrically?
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Dec 14, 2021 18:35
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FISHMANPET posted:But I want to be sure there are no problems expanding towards the panel. My understanding is that the space for the panel needs to be at least 30" wide, so would I be correct in assuming that as long as door doesn't encroach within 15 inches from the center of the panel, I'm in the clear, electrically? It's is 30", but it doesn't have to be centered on the panel. So, you can have a panel butted close to a wall, as long as the panel door can open at least 90 degrees and you can remove the panel cover. So you should be good.
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Dec 14, 2021 19:03
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I have started to have noticeable electrical issues in my house and have been going around trying to get better idea of how the house was set up (late 70s build). I have found that half of the electrical outlets in each room are on alternate circuits. Is this common? Seems odd to me to have two circuits for two bedrooms and each circuit does half the outlets and lights in each room. Just curious on why the rooms were wired this way if anyone knows.
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Dec 15, 2021 02:44
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Unknownmass posted:I have started to have noticeable electrical issues in my house and have been going around trying to get better idea of how the house was set up (late 70s build). I have found that half of the electrical outlets in each room are on alternate circuits. Is this common? Seems odd to me to have two circuits for two bedrooms and each circuit does half the outlets and lights in each room. Just curious on why the rooms were wired this way if anyone knows. It's very common. It's also common to find overhead lights in one room and outlets in the next on a single breaker. Which you'll find depends on age and local customs. The thinking was that if you lost a breaker you'd still have some amount of light/usability to the room.
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Dec 15, 2021 02:47
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movax posted:Hmm -- OK, I'm going to double-check the markings on the cable to make sure it actually *is* SO/something heavier duty. Oh if you're game to put it in an enclosure with some DIN rail the world is your oyster https://www.wago.com/global/rail-mount-terminal-blocks/2-conductor-supply-terminal-blocks-for-distribution-boxes/p/2016-7601 e: oh poo poo yeah that's exactly what you're trying to do yeah you want industrial rail-mount terminal blocks and about an 8x8 - 12x12 enclosure, run your whip out of a gland and you're gravy. shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 03:22
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Does anybody have a brand for 4 foot T8 LED retrofit bulbs that they like? It'd be great to find something decent with some options on wattage for tuning brightness - I don't have fantasies about compatibility with my existing dimmer panels and this stuff runs at full bright all the time.
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Dec 15, 2021 19:37
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glynnenstein posted:Does anybody have a brand for 4 foot T8 LED retrofit bulbs that they like? It'd be great to find something decent with some options on wattage for tuning brightness - I don't have fantasies about compatibility with my existing dimmer panels and this stuff runs at full bright all the time. GE has great binning for luminosity and color temperature. Sylvania is by far the most consistent in wear between lamps. I don't have any idea about dimmers; all of my stuff is 100% on or 100% off.
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Dec 16, 2021 03:42
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glynnenstein posted:Does anybody have a brand for 4 foot T8 LED retrofit bulbs that they like? It'd be great to find something decent with some options on wattage for tuning brightness - I don't have fantasies about compatibility with my existing dimmer panels and this stuff runs at full bright all the time. I’m a sucker for high CRI, and I wanted no more than 3500 K CCT, so I bought some tubes from Fulight Optoelectronics because they’re one of the very few options for those two criteria, fluorescent lamps not historically being installed anywhere where anyone cares about light quality. The tubes work fine. I have no complaints. They are ballast‐bypass tubes, and if you bypass the ballast, dimming becomes easy. Still, I didn’t pay the premium for that feature, so I can’t tell you how well that brand handles it.
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Dec 16, 2021 04:09
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I'd like to install an exterior 220V/50A outlet for charging an electric car. The electrical panel is just on the other side of the wall from where I want to put the outlet. Is this basically the same as installing a 120V exterior outlet, except with bigger wires and an extra conductor for the extra phase? If so, that would be: - get an exterior-rated box - put it on the outside of the wall - put a matching interior box on the inside of the wall - run conduit from the panel to the box - wire everything up Or is there more involved because it's 220V? Of course I'd need to use appropriately sized conductors -- looks like 4x 6AWG copper wires? The run will be very short, which is good because I can't imagine 6AWG is fun to run through a bunch of bends in the conduit. I'd hire an electrician to actually install the breaker on the panel, in part so they can inspect my work. Ideally they'd show up, look at my work, say "yep, looks good", attach the conductors I ran into the breaker, and leave. That of course requires me to know what I'm doing, which is where y'all come in.
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Dec 18, 2021 22:14
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I'd like to install an exterior 220V/50A outlet for charging an electric car. The electrical panel is just on the other side of the wall from where I want to put the outlet. Is this basically the same as installing a 120V exterior outlet, except with bigger wires and an extra conductor for the extra phase? If so, that would be: That's pretty much it, though you'll want to drill a hole through your wall. Someone better might know, but if you're making it an outdoor plug do you want a 240v GFCI breaker? I used https://www.southwire.com/calculator-vdrop when I put my subpanel in the garage since it was a long run I wanted to validate what gauge I needed. I did 30a because I needed a discrete hvac circuit for the minisplit, I wasn't trying to charge a car. I needed 6ga, and yes, it's a pain to run. And it's expensive right now, too bad you're on the wrong side of the country, I have leftovers from my project, I got a deal on an open box coil at Lowe's.
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Dec 18, 2021 22:23
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Alarbus posted:That's pretty much it, though you'll want to drill a hole through your wall. 6 AWG for a 30 A circuit? Just how far away was the mini split?!?!
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Dec 19, 2021 08:34
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movax posted:6 AWG for a 30 A circuit? Just how far away was the mini split?!?! Entirely opposite end of a colonial and attached garage, so like 85 feet. Actually, I went and looked, it was a 50a circuit, I was thinking that after 20a for the mini split, that left me 30a for something else in the subpanel, which is a bit low for a car but not terrible.
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Dec 19, 2021 14:18
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Alarbus posted:Entirely opposite end of a colonial and attached garage, so like 85 feet. 30A @ 240v (really 24A) is plenty for an EV charger, if you charge overnight. It would meet the needs of 99.9% of people using EVs, but like everything else, apparently the amount of amps you have available for your charger is now a proxy for your penis size. Many charging setups I've seen are clearly 'wink, winking' a load calc or ignoring it all together.
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Dec 19, 2021 14:34
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Why would you not install a circuit of the largest reasonably foreseeable useful capacity? So what if you can get buy with less? That copper is going to be there for decades. Might as well do the job once and for good.
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Dec 19, 2021 15:00
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Platystemon posted:Why would you not install a circuit of the largest reasonably foreseeable useful capacity? Because 1.) expense. Uprating copper may require the use of a different breaker and then outlet because they simply don't have the correct size terminations for the gauge you are running. 2.) effort. Dealing with large gauge wire is a massive pain in the rear end for bending and routing. You are doing yourself no favors to try to fight it into place "just in case". And in this case, the access and run are so easy it would be trivial to upsize at any point in the future where it may become relevant. I'm pissed off every time I have to deal with 12 wire on a lighting circuit these days. I'm ready for an "LED only" 20/22 wire and 5 amp breaker standard.
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Dec 19, 2021 15:22
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B-Nasty posted:30A @ 240v (really 24A) is plenty for an EV charger, if you charge overnight. Unless you're getting the new hummer EV with its 200kWh battery.
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Dec 19, 2021 15:38
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cruft posted:Unless you're getting the new hummer EV with its 200kWh battery. Ultimately, what matters is how many miles you actually drive per day. A 30A circuit should give you around 16-20 miles per hour while charging. Contrast that with the average amount Americans drive, which is usually 25-40 miles per day. Topping up would take only a few hours.
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Dec 19, 2021 16:13
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B-Nasty posted:Ultimately, what matters is how many miles you actually drive per day. Having a 4½ ton vehicle figures into this too. I would expect the Hummer to require about twice the energy to cover the same distance as a Tesla.
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Dec 19, 2021 16:23
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There’s also towing, which the average person might not do a lot of, but if you do it’s going to absolutely devour charge.
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Dec 19, 2021 16:29
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Motronic posted:Because 1.) expense. Uprating copper may require the use of a different breaker and then outlet because they simply don't have the correct size terminations for the gauge you are running. 2.) effort. Dealing with large gauge wire is a massive pain in the rear end for bending and routing. You are doing yourself no favors to try to fight it into place "just in case".
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Dec 19, 2021 17:08
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So this is a dumb question and I am betting the answer is absolutely not but if you were planning a 15 amp circuit and ran outlets with 12g, could you also use 14awg for lighting assuming you were pretty careful in how the lighting split off from the outlets? I am guessing no in the event that you wanted to swap out the 15a circuit breaker for a 20a in the future, then suddenly the lighting wiring would be undersized.
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Dec 19, 2021 18:02
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KKKLIP ART posted:So this is a dumb question and I am betting the answer is absolutely not but if you were planning a 15 amp circuit and ran outlets with 12g, could you also use 14awg for lighting assuming you were pretty careful in how the lighting split off from the outlets? I am guessing no in the event that you wanted to swap out the 15a circuit breaker for a 20a in the future, then suddenly the lighting wiring would be undersized. You can do this, and it is common to bump a gauge if you have a long run while keeping the lower breaker. A note written on the Romex jacket or somewhere in the panel is nice to do so some dork doesn't bump the breaker to 20A later. This is why you can never make assumptions based on the gauge in the panel, always swap same sized breakers.
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Dec 19, 2021 19:03
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