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poverty goat posted:Well, is it bad to be pulling very close to 15A continuously from it if it's not tripping? A few hours a day during the hottest part of the year I have to be careful not to try to do anything else on that breaker because it's very close, but it's never tripped on its own. My napkin math has that peak usage probably a bit above 15A but I haven't measured this. Is this dangerous if it's not tripping? If not I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. What are you doing, what is on the circuit (everything), and what brand + age is your panel? A picture with the door open will suffice. If there is an ac please include make and model or a legible picture of the "plate" (a sticker that says how much power it draws.)
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Sep 9, 2022 15:22
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It's a grow room, w/ 600w of lights, a small window unit and a 50pt dehumidifier (though the full kit is only online and at full power ~half the time, I avoid running lights at all in the summer and do lights off through midday to minimize heat). This shares a breaker w/ the small 20yo heatpump central AC for some dumb reason. If I add all of the rated watts for just the stuff in the grow room and divide by 120 I get about 14.2 amps, minus the central AC which has to push it over. That kit has run for weeks at a time without tripping unless further antagonized. e: ok nevermind I'm actually farther over than I realized. lol. guess I'm running an extension cord. I wasn't using quite the right numbers for the new dehumidifier the lights are on their own 15a breaker, can I drop down a 3 prong outlet from the ceiling fan? Ee: ok nevermind the fan, I found an outlet I can use. Moved 8 amps to another breaker by way of an adequate extension cord. poverty goat fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Sep 9, 2022 |
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Sep 9, 2022 15:26
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poverty goat posted:It's a grow room, w/ 600w of lights, a small window unit and a 50pt dehumidifier (though the full kit is only online and at full power ~half the time, I avoid running lights at all in the summer and do lights off through midday to minimize heat). This shares a breaker w/ the small 20yo heatpump central AC for some dumb reason. If I add all of the rated watts for just the stuff in the grow room and divide by 120 I get about 14.2 amps, minus the central AC which has to push it over. That kit has run for weeks at a time without tripping unless further antagonized. Discussions like this are why grow room fires are extremely common. We will not be helping you further unless you want to do this correctly. Extension cords are not for permanent use. You should also post a picture of your electrical panel with the door open - you may have a hidden fire hazard regardless of whatever stuff you're doing in the grow room.
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Sep 9, 2022 17:27
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H110Hawk posted:Discussions like this are why grow room fires are extremely common. We will not be helping you further unless you want to do this correctly. Extension cords are not for permanent use. You should also post a picture of your electrical panel with the door open - you may have a hidden fire hazard regardless of whatever stuff you're doing in the grow room.
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Sep 9, 2022 17:29
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H110Hawk posted:Discussions like this are why grow room fires are extremely common. We will not be helping you further unless you want to do this correctly. Extension cords are not for permanent use. You should also post a picture of your electrical panel with the door open - you may have a hidden fire hazard regardless of whatever stuff you're doing in the grow room. I appreciate the help and am humbled by the dangerous situation I created unknowingly, ok? I never would have expected that it could be unsafe to run the breaker in a way that wouldn't trip it. I know and agree on the extension cord, but I wanted to get some load off of it asap and unplugging something isn't an option, and it's an appropriate 14ga cord in good condition. Also, to be clear, I'm just spinning up after 5 months off so everything has been running a bit below half power which should be within spec, e: and it has only ever been in the danger zone for a few weeks this past march/april. I need to get this sorted within the next couple of weeks though. The light in the garage sucks and most of the text was unreadable so here are close ups of hopefully whatever you need    Our lucky breaker is Downstairs Bedroom Receptacles poverty goat fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Sep 9, 2022 |
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Sep 9, 2022 18:36
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Anza Borrego posted:My 1942 build/2004 reno home was pre-wired for fire and CO sensors. PO left the old detectors but they were very tired, so I bought new versions at HD and connected them to the existing 3-pin wiring using the adaptors they came packaged with. For a week or so everything was fine, then I started getting false alarms from the combo smoke/CO near the kitchen. My post got lost amidst the dog piling Crusty Minge’s pending solar battery fire, any thoughts?
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Sep 9, 2022 18:54
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Anza Borrego posted:My post got lost amidst the dog piling Crusty Minge’s pending solar battery fire, any thoughts? Are these 120v hardwired detectors? Or part of a low volt system? Have you check the voltage at the pigtails? If this is 120v and detectors are dying/burning up and you bought the exact some ones as replacements it sounds like a bad manufacturing batch. I'd call the company that made them.
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Sep 9, 2022 18:58
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poverty goat posted:I appreciate the help and am humbled by the dangerous situation I created unknowingly, ok? I never would have expected that it could be unsafe to run the breaker in a way that wouldn't trip it. I know and agree on the extension cord, but I wanted to get some load off of it asap and unplugging something isn't an option, and it's an appropriate 14ga cord in good condition. Also, to be clear, I'm just spinning up after 5 months off so everything has been running a bit below half power which should be within spec. I need to get this sorted within the next couple of weeks though.  Basically "grow room" for your award winning tulips and shuffling power and this that and the other thing tend to wind up with a pretty "yolo" mindset. You are right that a breaker should protect you, but it's hard to know without the whole story. You're pumping around a lot of power into a space not designed for it.Good news, your panel doesn't appear at a cursory glance to be a fire hazard. Those breakers are modern enough and more importantly not Federal Pacific Stablok/Zinsco which fail closed among other horrific things. (Breakers "open" to break the circuit and prevent fire.) Basically what you are trying to do is a commercial / industrial (well, worse, agricultural) activity in a residential environment. You're finding out just how much raw power is needed by doing the math on plate ratings, this is correct. Your next step is quite literally to call an electrician and have them run a couple of new circuits for you, or if this room is truly dedicated to the purpose, a sub panel. Pull a permit, the whole bit. You're incredibly lucky to live in modern times where you get to use 600W of LEDs and not 6,000W of halogen lights. Both because of the price of electricity, but also because your cooling for 6kW of power is 10x that of 0.6kW. The smallest AC units still draw and typically demand a dedicated circuit, but as everyone who has ever lived in an apartment knows you just sort of pray. In your case, you need one. Go write down the plate rating of every single thing in the room and split them up by wall outlets, AC unit, and permanent ceiling fixtures. Multiply Breaker * Voltage * 80% and then see how many you need. You can exceed 80% for seconds or minutes but not hours or days. Call up an electrician and ask them to come out and help you out, show them everything, and have that sheet of paper handy. Basically you're likely looking at 2 new circuits - one 15A for your AC unit and one 20A for wall outlets. If they're pulling cable you might as well do two 20A's. Pull a permit, pay the folks, and be done with it. Without interlocking between your devices (which are readily available in commercial panels) you have to just assume everything is on all the time drawing full power. You haven't done anything to obstruct the windows in the room right besides your single window AC unit? There is a second unobstructed operable window there? I would also toss in a beefy fire extinguisher largely because most homes have woefully inadequate fire extinguisher coverage. Make sure you can lift it. If the inspector won't approve your permit plans then you can talk to them about it.
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Sep 9, 2022 19:26
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Hi thread, Extreme newbie here wiring up a timer switch for a bathroom fan in lieu of normal switch. This is Chicago hence the grounded metal box. Do I need to find some extra wire in the box, and take out the other switches temporarily to do so? Looks like in the box, hot is the red wire and orange is neutral. Basically, I was expecting to hook up two wires from the switch to two wires in the box, like the former switch. However, the new switch is giving me three wires to hook up. Black, Red, and White. I think White from new switch should go to Orange in box, Black from new switch to Red in box. What about Red wire from switch? Where the heck do I connect this or do I nut it off?  This is a Leviton timer switch LTB60, https://www.leviton.com/en/docs/Instruction_Sheet.pdf , please let me know if I am missing something obvious or misinterpreting something. Or if I should stop and call a sparky. This is a single pole installation, not 3-way. e: I think I got it a little wrong. The orange wire is probably LOAD and not NEUTRAL. So, am I correct this switch is going to need to use the white neutral wires stuffed behind whereas the old switch did not? Inner Light fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Sep 9, 2022 |
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Sep 9, 2022 20:26
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Here is another pic with the dimmer removed, showing the bundle of white wires and bundle of red wires behind.... still confused though.
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Sep 9, 2022 20:47
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Inner Light posted:Here is another pic with the dimmer removed, showing the bundle of white wires and bundle of red wires behind.... still confused though. I'm not an expert and not providing advice here but is there another bundle of wires tucked in the back? When I did my timer (exact thing you're doing) I believe I added a ground wire from the timer to a bundle of ground wires that was capped in the box. Not the wire that grounds the box itself.
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Sep 9, 2022 21:40
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The two wires that came off of the old switch were indeed line and load. On that timer I believe it matter which is where. And that timer requires a neutral The wire colors in your box mean nothing. You should figure out which of the wires you took of the switch is line and then verify that from that line to the bundle back there you get 120v. My guess based on what I'm seeing would be red is line, orange is load and white is neutral but guesses don't mean anything. Testing with a multimeter does. I do not know if that timer is self grounding or if you will also need to find a proper way to ground it to the box/grounding system. The instructions should tell you.
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Sep 9, 2022 21:43
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I think I figured it out, I just wire nutted the white switch wire to the other 4 white wires with the red wire nut in back. They are for sure neutral though I do not have a multimeter to test, I just know from other wiring I've done here (yes to do it professionally and correctly you should be testing in case of any uncertainty). They are a little tight, it's 4 12-ga (I think) white wires and then the switch wire is 14-ga (I think). But there is no wiggling on the nut, it's very tight. Will get the project finished and hopefully it all works fine! One of the device screws was very stripped, or maybe I stripped it trying to save time undoing it with a screwdriver, so that was fun getting it out and I bought a few screws at Ace. In Chicago the box is grounded, unfortunately I've never seen a device manual that says the mounting screws are OK to use as bonding, so to be technically correct I should be wiring up the ground wire to the box properly. The electrician who built the place seems to have done things improperly and did not use ground screws, and I am pretty sure none of the manuals for those original devices say that can be done (I think that is called self-grounded when the manual says you can use the mounting screws as ground). e: Okay done, it looks like garbage because I can't get them perfectly centered like a pro (used my pliers and hosed with the mounting ribs best I could) and I scuffed the face plate, will replace next time I'm at Lowes Depot. Guess I'm an electrician now! Thanks for the guidance. Fun fact, I now cannot run the fan 24/7 with this model switch. Best I can do is a 24 hour run before it turns off automatically. 
Inner Light fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Sep 9, 2022 |
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Sep 9, 2022 21:47
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My threshold for DIY vs. paying a pro is so low compared to other people lol. My family friend said he refuses to hire anyone to work on his house and just does everything himself (possibly with the exception of nat gas work). I am the total opposite... not gonna tell the thread how long this took me for something that would take a pro like 10 mins at most. Can't hurt to save a few dollars though as long as you're not unsafely over extending your skills. And to re-clarify for VelociBacon since I was unclear, the box has no ground wire for itself or bundle of grounds 
Inner Light fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Sep 9, 2022 |
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Sep 9, 2022 23:34
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I just mashed "send person with truck" on task rabbit to assemble a lovesac couch. Also highly recommend it for Ikea furniture.
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Sep 9, 2022 23:55
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I mean I literally just paid someone to re-caulk my shower. Not that they did a good job, but time is money and I could do a worse job in more time so  Not that I'm an electrician, but I'm capable with basic electrical stuff, and I'm close to hiring out a bunch of electrical stuff because ~permits~ and lmao if I can get 2 receptacles run and 4 lights run in any reasonable timeframe. Got the tools, got the know-how, but gently caress if I have time or energy. edit: not that I won't take on some small projects and waste boatloads of time on them through sheer stubbornness. DaveSauce fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 01:30
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Trying to troubleshoot my garage. I’ve got 2 garage door openers and some GFCI outlets in my garage. A few weeks ago, the garage was open and it was pouring rain outside. I tried to close the garage doors and they didn’t work. I went down to my breaker panel and there’s nothing listed for “garage”. Also-none of the breakers were tripped. I went back to the garage, saw the GFCI outlet (the garage door openers are not plugged into this outlet), pressed reset and bam-everything turned on in the garage and worked fine. Today, wife came in and said the garage door wouldn’t close and it’s not raining at all. We pressed the GFCI in the garage again and it worked fine. So-what should I do to start troubleshooting why this is happening? My layout is from the garage you enter the laundry room, and then the kitchen is right next to the laundry room. However, I’m pretty sure that when the GFCI trips in the garage, the laundry room and kitchen aren’t affected at all (no lights turn off I think…I’d need to verify).
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Sep 10, 2022 02:45
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The outlet that the opener is plugged in to is in line after the GFCI so when the GFCI itself trips, everything on the line after it shuts off also. From what I've read a GFCI needs to be accessible so you can't have one on the ceiling near the opener. Our garage opener is tripped by one of the four GFCIs in the kitchen. If you want to figure out which outlets are connected in that same line, plug in a bunch of lamps and Test the GFCI. Sometimes the circuits can be weird; my partner's room has three small closets in a row, all with lights. The closest closet to the front is shared with mine but if I cut the breaker to my room, the other two closets lose power and mine doesn't. Admiral Joeslop fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 02:51
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GFCI outlets can protect receptacles down stream of them, so it's not weird that the outlets for your openers are protected by a separate GFCI outlet. It's also not weird that other things on that breaker aren't protected by that GFCI outlet. So you're just down to troubleshooting why your GFCI is tripping. Unfortunately I don't have much advice there.
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Sep 10, 2022 02:52
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If it rains a lot or you have high humidity, there could still be water in or around the box that's making it trip. Otherwise it could be faulty equipment, faulty plugs, a loose connection touching where it shouldn't. It could even just be the receptacle itself, especially if it's older.
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Sep 10, 2022 02:57
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Admiral Joeslop posted:If it rains a lot or you have high humidity, there could still be water in or around the box that's making it trip. Otherwise it could be faulty equipment, faulty plugs, a loose connection touching where it shouldn't. It could even just be the receptacle itself, especially if it's older. Definitely doesn’t rain a lot, humidity was low today when it tripped. House built in 1988 but I’m not sure when the outlets were added. The lights in here are funky though. The ceiling fan light in the kitchen will randomly just shut off for 1/2 a second at times. I had an issue earlier because the fan was on a dimmer switch and that was causing issues so I had an electrician replace the dimmer switch with a standard 3-way switch (travelers were black magic to me and I didn’t feel confident doing it myself at the time). However the light still randomly turns off for 1/2 a second. When the electrician was out I had them add an outlet for my coffee bar because whenever my electric kettle was on, the lights would flicker. I suggested having a 20-amp circuit put in to replace the 15-amp and the electrician recommended just adding an outlet. The lights no longer flicker when the kettle is on at least. nwin fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 03:30
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H110Hawk posted:You're incredibly lucky to live in modern times where you get to use 600W of LEDs and not 6,000W of halogen lights. Both because of the price of electricity, but also because your cooling for 6kW of power is 10x that of 0.6kW. The latest white LEDs also put out very little energy as heat compared to HID, and can yield 2-2.5x per watt. It's silly how good they are. I don't think I'd need the window unit at all if the central AC wasn't on its last legs. Humidity is the constant struggle.
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Sep 10, 2022 15:08
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nwin posted:Trying to troubleshoot my garage. Might want to check your exterior outlets/fixtures, too - all of mine are behind a single gfci outlet in the garage(only outlet in garage as-built grrrrr).
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Sep 10, 2022 22:01
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Electrician was on time, competent, and was on the list I got from the local electrical supply shop for solar work. Ground on the house is a 10ga loop that runs under/through the foundation, hopefully to the rebar. Says it's adequate. Ground-neutral bond is in the shed near the source, not in the panel, likely the breaker on the outside of the shed. So removing the current inverter supply from the panel would remove the g-n bond. He likes the inverter and transformer, doesn't like lithium batteries in general, but was glad each battery had its own breaker and they weren't in the house. Emphasized fire procedure is to stand back and watch it burn. 1/0 is fine for the battery cable, 6ga is fine for inverter to transformer to panel. Scheduling him for a day next month to wire up the growatt and transformer, and to wire a backup generator switch. Trying to convince my friend to let him upgrade his measly solar panel array (6 120w ecoworthy panels) to a 2kw~ array for $0.75/watt. He'll even order the array rack and drop it off to save us on his labor (he's older, less physical labor the better). He also talked about taking the 12v stuff (panels, controller, batteries, said to throw away the inverter) as trade credit towards labor. Looking at probably $500~ without the solar panel upgrade, not sure but I'm thinking around $3500-4k with panels. I kinda feel like we hit a small jackpot with this guy. And my B&D wiring book showed up today, so I have something to read before the appointment.
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Sep 10, 2022 22:45
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Sounds like you found "that guy", congratulations! Yeah definitely let him haul off stuff for store credit because otherwise you have to and oh god.
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Sep 10, 2022 23:41
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Yeah, I'm pressing that angle hard with my friend right now. Let him take the poo poo, even if it only covers $100-200 of the bill. Battery disposal here is like $12 apiece. Controller isn't worth poo poo, panels might fetch $50 each on craigslist. He needs a new generator, too. His current Champion brand piece of poo poo won't start below freezing, runs on gasoline, only puts out 120v. He needs something that can put out 240v, run on his propane tank, and can just feed into the Growatt to charge the battery bank, run the house, negating the need for a switch in the first place. If he doesn't do panels with this guy, I'm going to urge him to look into a Generac or Honda before winter and get this guy back to wire it. E: last thing, shadiest bit. The oversized breakers. He said for this panel, smallest main will be probably 100amp. He suggested putting in a 240v 30amp breaker and treating that like the main, since the inverter only puts out 24 amps. Or downsizing the panel, but the 240v breaker would be a lot cheaper. CRUSTY MINGE fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 23:52
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CRUSTY MINGE posted:Battery disposal here is like $12 apiece. Which state are you in that charges you? In California you get money back for giving them battery cores. (You put it down when you buy the battery, it's technically a refund.)
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Sep 11, 2022 01:24
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CRUSTY MINGE posted:He suggested putting in a 240v 30amp breaker Ding ding ding. Just take all the wires out of the main breaker. This isn't even shady. This is where I was trying to lead you earlier.
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Sep 11, 2022 01:31
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nwin posted:Trying to troubleshoot my garage. Some GFCI outlets can just go bad as they get older. You might start by just replacing it.
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Sep 11, 2022 01:53
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H110Hawk posted:Which state are you in that charges you? In California you get money back for giving them battery cores. (You put it down when you buy the battery, it's technically a refund.) Colorado. I think it's the county assessing the fee. You only get core fees returned when you have a receipt, like returning a car battery. The PO pieced this system together with a variety pack of walmart batteries, so it could be 10 receipts she burned after the sale for all we know. They sure aren't with the house paperwork. H110Hawk posted:Ding ding ding. Just take all the wires out of the main breaker. This isn't even shady. This is where I was trying to lead you earlier. Yeah, once he was pointing out how to do it on the panel, it started making a lot more sense. Electrician's an old timer, but he's alive, so he must be doing something right.
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Sep 11, 2022 02:08
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CRUSTY MINGE posted:
Good thing they are LiFePO4 batteries.. One of the safest lithium chemistries. They are inherently stable and unlikely to go into thermal runaway, and if one cell on a pack does, it's unlikely to spread. One of the many reasons they are all but replacing lead acid in solar setups. They also have much higher cycle life compared to other chemistries. And remaining at 100% charge is not damaging. But the downside is they have less energy density than other lithium chemistries. Still far greater density than lead acid though!
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Sep 11, 2022 02:53
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They're not terribly fond of cold, which is the immediate next challenge for the shed once the switch is thrown. But yeah, these aren't 18650s or whatever strapped in series, it's 16 3.2v 100a cells in series. He was sold on EG4 batteries and Growatt when he started watching youtube videos while working out how he wanted to upgrade the old fire hazard. Will Prowse, if there's a scoreboard for solar influencers inspiring overconfidence. Honestly, he needs as low maintenance as you can get. He doesn't know how to service his lead acids, and hasn't looked into it. Convincing him to pay someone will be worth the hassle.
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Sep 11, 2022 03:42
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Was hoping I could get some explanation of something I found when I opened a wall switch. I'm a little baffled. This light switch controls both a bathroom light and a bathroom exhaust fan. First a picture of the box. I have two cables coming into the box. White Cable (I believe its 14/2) White Wire (WW) - wire nutted with other white wire Black Wire (WB) - capped Ground (WG) - connected with the other ground and the box Black Cable (I believe its 14/3) White Wire (BW) - wire nutted with other white wire Black Wire (BB) - connected to switch Red Wire (BR) - connected to switch Ground (BG) - connected with the other ground and the box Switch has the following wires hooked up: BB BR WB is electrical taped over and goes nowhere. WW and BW are wire nutted together WG and BG are screwed to ground of the box Is the white cable effectively just dead and abandoned wire? At no point has the white cable been energized with the switch on or off. Is this the proper way to terminate that cable?
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Sep 11, 2022 15:25
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c355n4 posted:Is the white cable effectively just dead and abandoned wire? At no point has the white cable been energized with the switch on or off. Is this the proper way to terminate that cable? Those are neutrals. Please go read the thread recommended book on electrical for homeowners before touching any more electrical. That is a far too basic a question to be asking for someone with a switch out of a wall.
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Sep 11, 2022 16:14
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Gotcha, might have underestimated the electrical part of the project.
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Sep 11, 2022 16:30
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Motronic posted:Those are neutrals. OP, for what it's worth, every word of Motronic's response is good advice, but if I'm understanding your question correctly, that black wire may be abandoned, but it also may simply have never been used, and they just used that length of Romex to run the neutral (the white wire). Abandoned/unused wire can be capped off and left in place, but it's best practice to also label it in some way to indicate what the deal with it is. Still, go read the book.
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Sep 12, 2022 02:35
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Fine jeez stop badgering me I'll replace the switch cover in the bathroom. Just because the cracked pieces finally started falling off today...
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Sep 12, 2022 18:56
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What's the best tape to use to wind around a @#$@#$@#$ computer power supply that has broken free of its connector again? (No wires exposed yet.) Electrical tape is way too sticky.
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Sep 13, 2022 22:18
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Picture of what you're trying to solve? Heat shrink is probably the answer.
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Sep 14, 2022 01:01
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Arsenic Lupin posted:What's the best tape to use to wind around a @#$@#$@#$ computer power supply that has broken free of its connector again? (No wires exposed yet.) Electrical tape is way too sticky. Desktop computer? Power cords are standard, you can pick one up for $5... any computer person likely has a lifetime supply floating around just in case.
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Sep 14, 2022 02:04
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