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shame on an IGA posted:Have you tested it with a Philips Hue bulb yet I have a Hue up now; I bought it without measuring the globe opening and it won't fit (it's floodlight shaped, but it was all I could find that was enclosure-rated). I'm trying to look this up myself but I'm getting nowhere - is there a replacement for just the globe that is open or at least vented? I cannot be the only person doing this. This must be a solved problem. Right? Edit to note that right now I have just a bare bulb and I don't hate it, but I'd like something to diffuse the light and that doesn't blind me when I look up. So, I'm not looking for function over fancy. Some table and floor lamps have a shade that just has a wheel-and-spoke arrangement on one end, and the hub ring of the shade goes around the bulb socket and just hangs a bit over the bulb. Is there any reason not to do that? Second edit: Is something like this a fire or other hazard of some kind? https://www.amazon.com/EZ-Shade-Light-Cover-Exposed/dp/B09PGL8NRW/ 
Hungry Squirrel fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Mar 3, 2024 |
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Those are legit. I use USB-rechargeable AAA batteries, but if you want to put a cord in there, something like that works fine. Good to know. I don’t have a soldering kid and considering those are only a few dollars, seems to be the way to go. Thank you!
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Mar 3, 2024 18:58
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Hungry Squirrel posted:I have a Hue up now; I bought it without measuring the globe opening and it won't fit I dunno if the other hue lights are enclosure rated but they do sell a c19 ("candelabra") bulb which is half to a third the size of the standard 800 lumen thing. We have several in a lamp and others in a ceiling fan Option is is install a smart light switch
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Mar 7, 2024 07:31
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8am yesterday: Whoopsy doodle, warehouse apparently picked a Gen2 controller instead of the Gen3 it said everywhere. No one noticed until (I presume) they went to fire it up with Enphase on the phone. Electrician calmly and politely and definitely without any swearing worked it out with the warehouse and tada:  Seeing them side by side no wonder no one noticed until they saw it in the software. At 1:00pm I swung by and:   I'm insufferably excited about this. They broke for lunch literal minutes before, because the meter ticked over from 2 to 3kwh exported, which is 20 minutes of generation. I went and turned on the heat pump + pool pump in celebration. Inspection is Monday for all 4 open permits (HVAC, Electrical MPU, Electrical Battery, Solar Generation) and they're also going to integrate the batteries then. It's all wired up but they're off pending registration. After that they submit for my PTO. Fingers crossed. And they are in communication with the field office re: exporting, once the application is accepted pending inspection they don't care if you run it for "testing" while pending the PTO, they just won't pay for the power. My meter is on "the list" now. It's tempting to go buy a 7.82kw level2 car charger for $300 and just let people charge their EVs while the sun is shining until then. gently caress em. H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Mar 9, 2024 |
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Mar 9, 2024 16:25
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we might be looking for new three-phase contractors at work after our new 300HP air compressor was hooked up with two phases in one conduit and one + neutral in another.  
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Mar 9, 2024 21:38
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shame on an IGA posted:we might be looking for new three-phase contractors at work after our new 300HP air compressor was hooked up with two phases in one conduit and one + neutral in another. That is super fun.  Why is it wrong? Are they... inducing loads in each other? Or is it simply wrong conduit / conductor sizing? quote:https://telemet.com/convert/index.php?js=tablas&table=12&l=en
H110Hawk fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Mar 9, 2024 |
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Mar 9, 2024 21:45
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the choice of conductor size is borderline (they used 350 kcmil on a 400A circuit) but the bigger issue there is that they've turned all that RMC into an induction furnace. the right way to do a parallel run like that would be two complete sets of four smaller conductors carrying all phases in each tube. It doesn't even make sense from a cost-cutting standpoint because they had to fab two conduits, I don't understand the thinking here at all
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Mar 9, 2024 21:54
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H110Hawk posted:That is super fun. Yup. NEC posted:300.3 (B) Conductors of the Same Circuit. All conductors of the same circuit and, where used, the grounded conductor and all equipment grounding conductors and bonding conductors shall be contained within the same raceway, auxiliary gutter, cable tray, cablebus assembly, trench, cable, or cord, unless otherwise permitted.... Having two phases in one pipe and one phase in the other meant that the pipes themselves had significant induced current, especially at the ends.
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Mar 10, 2024 00:35
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H110Hawk posted:8am yesterday: all the time i had the warehouse pick gen 1 for gen 2 (or powerwall 2 for powerwall+), but honestly mounting the thing is too far along in the process to not put some blame on the electricians. they had to ignore tons of papers taped on to it talking about incompatibility and the the fact that there aren't hardwire comm ports anywhere in the gen 2. it's something you should pick up on as you're planning the runs but all's well that ends well. it's up now. they just have a pre-drilled gen 2 controller
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Mar 10, 2024 02:38
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That's on enphase IMO - they put loving cling wrap stickers on your batteries, they can't do one on the front of the controller saying "this is a gen3 controller"? devicenull fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Mar 10, 2024 |
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Mar 10, 2024 02:57
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Extant Artiodactyl posted:all the time i had the warehouse pick gen 1 for gen 2 (or powerwall 2 for powerwall+), but honestly mounting the thing is too far along in the process to not put some blame on the electricians. they had to ignore tons of papers taped on to it talking about incompatibility and the the fact that there aren't hardwire comm ports anywhere in the gen 2. it's something you should pick up on as you're planning the runs but all's well that ends well. it's up now. they just have a pre-drilled gen 2 controller This seems like something I would do on my zillionth install. Why would you be reading all those papers? They definitely share some of the blame - they should have inspected their pallet before signing the BOL at delivery - but looking at those two units which I've probably installed 50+ of in the past year? Those papers are all getting torn off and tossed.  When you expect something to be correct it's pretty powerful. Maybe they've otherwise been lucky with their distributor picking the correct units? (lol)Plus: devicenull posted:That's on enphase IMO - they put loving cling wrap stickers on your batteries, they can't do one on the front of the controller saying "this is a gen3 controller"? Put a big dumb logo somewhere. There's tons of space. babyeatingpsychopath posted:Yup.  That was my guess, but... Whew boy. At least you can wirelessly charge your car near it.
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Mar 10, 2024 03:15
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My new house's internet hookup is in the basement. Turns out that having your wifi access point in the basement gives you inconsistent signal quality in the parts of the house where you actually live! So I want to run an ethernet cable to a particular point upstairs so that I can hardwire my desktop computer. Here's the house layout. Please forgive the low resolution; it was made with an online tool that demands you pay money if you want to export at not-poo poo resolutions.  The basement goes underneath the entire house except for the patio area. It's subdivided into two main rooms: a fully-finished theatre/bar/man cave type of thing, and a utility room (which contains the internet hookup), with the utility room occupying the entire right-hand edge. The red line shows roughly the run I'm thinking of, from the internet hookup to my office space in the living room. The joists run "vertically", so I can't use the between-floors space unless I'm willing to drill through every joist in the way. About all I can think of is to go through the ceiling of the utility room in the bottom-left corner (along the bottom edge of the living room), then run it along the bottom wall of the living room, in exposed conduit, to the corner where my computer is. Anything else I can think of would involve removing and repairing a ton of drywall. So far as I can tell, there's no existing network or cable runs in the house. I did find these things in several rooms, which I've no idea what they are:  but even if they are somehow network-related, there's not one anywhere close to where I need it. Thoughts/advice are appreciated!
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Mar 11, 2024 14:16
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Those are old phone land line hookups. At best they used Cat3. You're better off running a new line.
kid sinister fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Mar 11, 2024 |
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Mar 11, 2024 14:34
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:My new house's internet hookup is in the basement. Turns out that having your wifi access point in the basement gives you inconsistent signal quality in the parts of the house where you actually live! So I want to run an ethernet cable to a particular point upstairs so that I can hardwire my desktop computer. Did the house have cable tv? I've had good luck with using coax with network adaptors.
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Mar 11, 2024 16:29
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Bone Crimes posted:Did the house have cable tv? I've had good luck with using coax with network adaptors. Can confirm MoCA is the poo poo. Don't bother with powerline, it's unreliable especially in an older house.
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Mar 11, 2024 16:40
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Bone Crimes posted:Did the house have cable tv? I've had good luck with using coax with network adaptors. I have not found any coax ports, no. kid sinister posted:Those are old phone land line hookups. At best they used Cat3. You're better off running a new line. Gotcha, thanks!
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Mar 11, 2024 17:21
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:networking I had to run ethernet from one room to another in my old house with a room in between the start and end point. It was a pretty easy task to just pop off the trim and run ethernet behind it, if you can't access walls from above or below. Here's the tool I used, didn't even damage the drywall or trim as long as PO didn't do anything crazy like screw in the trim. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Danco-10-75-in-Metal-Moulding-Pry-Bar/5000174395 If this sounds helpful, there's tons of videos online about running wiring behind baseboards. E: oh yea, you would need a trim nailer to put the trim back on. extravadanza fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Mar 11, 2024 |
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Mar 11, 2024 18:18
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Oh, using the baseboard trim as "conduit" is an idea I hadn't considered! There is a vent in the way, unfortunately. I suppose that I could build more trim around the vent, and route ethernet around it, to keep everything looking nice...that gets to be a lot of work, though.
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Mar 11, 2024 18:28
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Yea, there's plenty of ways to run wires - just a question of which one is easiest and will look good enough. Not sure what you mean by vent in the way, though. The cord can run along the 2x4s right below where the drywall ends. No modification of the 2x4s in the wall needed. Maybe I'm not picturing it correctly.
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Mar 11, 2024 18:47
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Just be careful where you put the nails when reattaching the trim, you don't want to turn your Ethernet into WiFi by making it leak.
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Mar 11, 2024 19:08
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extravadanza posted:Yea, there's plenty of ways to run wires - just a question of which one is easiest and will look good enough. OK, this is a photo of the front of the house (a.k.a. the bottom edge of the floorplan image I posted earlier):  The front door is just off-camera to the left, and my office space is in the upper-right corner, with a bedroom on the other side of that wall. There's a vent in the wall, below the window, interrupting the baseboard trim. I assume it also interrupts the sole plate. Another possibility has occurred to me: open up the wall between the office and bedroom, go straight down from there. That'd leave a hole in the basement ceiling, and I could run flat conduit along the basement ceiling to the utility room. I don't mind so much having visible conduit in the basement. That plan would mean only having to patch one bit of drywall.
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Mar 11, 2024 19:34
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I would simply remove the vent cover, notch the corners and file them smooth and run the ethernet across the floor through the vent (similar to how it is running behind the baseboard). You might not even need to notch the vent cover, in any case the notch would not be visible.
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Mar 11, 2024 19:50
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Are you thinking about bringing it up straight through the floor or do you want the penetration from the basement to the main living space to be concealed in the wall? How would you feel about the network jack coming up here: Because what you could do is just use some self adhesive cable concealing conduit/raceway along the ceiling edge of the man-cave thing and then go straight up into the joist bay of that bedroom wall closest to the outer wall of the building. The inside wall won't be insulated so it would be pretty trivial to drop in an old work box. With a flexible drill extension, a usb endoscope, and a willingness to swear at a fish tape/pole for a while you could pull it off with only the opening for the new box and a cable-sized hole on the ceiling drywall of the basement (which could possibly be concealed underneath the self adhesive conduit). You would make it orders of magnitude easier for yourself if you're willing to cut a junction box sized hole in the basement ceiling, which you would use to drill up into the joist bay and then place a low-voltage old work box and a brush plate to allow the cable to go through.
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Mar 11, 2024 20:06
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Yeah, doing a raceway along the basement ceiling seems like my best bet at this point, in terms of being minimally invasive. Sure, it's more visible than hiding things in the baseboard trim, but I don't think I care about a raceway along the basement ceiling...that place is already full of miscellaneous bumps and alcoves and so on. When you mention making it orders of magnitude easier by adding a box opening in the basement ceiling, what's the reasoning there? About all I can think of is that it's a larger target to hit when trying to send the fish tape through from one end to the other. Which is valid, I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything else.
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Mar 11, 2024 21:19
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Is the desktop the only thing you care about getting internet to? Before running wires (unless you truly need the benefit of a cable), I would look at mesh wifi systems. Then you could get better wifi coverage throughout your house, not just a single drop to your desktop. Don't get me wrong, cables are superior, but if you are balking at the work, a good mesh system would probably work well and give you better performance throughout the house. edit: I know, heresy for the wiring thread to push back on cabling.
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Mar 11, 2024 21:24
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ROJO posted:Is the desktop the only thing you care about getting internet to? Before running wires (unless you truly need the benefit of a cable), I would look at mesh wifi systems. Then you could get better wifi coverage throughout your house, not just a single drop to your desktop. I'll freely admit that a nontrivial portion of the motivation here is a basically-irrational desire to have the best network connection possible. Gotta get my ping down for all those competitive videogames I don't play! But also, this is a natural location for a wifi node. I don't see why I couldn't have both that and a hardwired connection for my PC, off of the same wall plate.
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Mar 11, 2024 22:03
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I'll freely admit that a nontrivial portion of the motivation here is a basically-irrational desire to have the best network connection possible. Gotta get my ping down for all those competitive videogames I don't play! I presume the requirement for raceway is for looks? Because just running the cable tucked into the corner of the ceiling and using a cable color that's reasonably close to the paint color is fine. There's no code requirements for ethernet because it's low-voltage. So there's nothing REQUIRING conduit/raceway/literally anything at all.
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Mar 12, 2024 00:11
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:I presume the requirement for raceway is for looks? Because just running the cable tucked into the corner of the ceiling and using a cable color that's reasonably close to the paint color is fine. There's no code requirements for ethernet because it's low-voltage. So there's nothing REQUIRING conduit/raceway/literally anything at all. Yeah, it's just aesthetic and minimizing the chance that something snags it. Which isn't terribly likely down in the basement, but if I've learned one thing in all my time doing DIY, it's that ropes and wires are magnetically attracted to anything that might possibly hook them.
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Mar 12, 2024 00:26
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So I asked my electrician for two quotes to install a transfer switch for my small generator, one that would let us run 4 circuits, and other that would let us run just one circuit (furnace). Instead of giving a quote for a 4 circuit transfer switch, they gave us an estimate for installing a shutoff breaker at the top of the panel (we don't currently have a main shutoff) and an interlock ($1,200). Then, the second quote was for a single transfer switch, but they didn't want to put it near the panel, but down next to the furnace in the crawl space, which would not be at all convenient for us ($600). Are they just quoting what they're used to installing, and the products I listed (or something like them) not something most electricians would touch? I'm going to get a quote from someone else, but thought i'd see what the thread thought. Edit: it seems like it’s pretty uncommon not to have a main breaker or shutoff. I think they must want to either install a main, or install a transfer switch in between the existing furnace circuit? frogbs fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Mar 12, 2024 |
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Mar 12, 2024 05:08
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Oh, using the baseboard trim as "conduit" is an idea I hadn't considered! There is a vent in the way, unfortunately. I suppose that I could build more trim around the vent, and route ethernet around it, to keep everything looking nice...that gets to be a lot of work, though. I would probably just run wiring along the exterior of the wall and make it look as neat and tidy as possible. I kinda like the exposied cable look myself, it's what old houses here look like a lot of the time.
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Mar 12, 2024 06:25
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frogbs posted:So I asked my electrician for two quotes to install a transfer switch for my small generator, one that would let us run 4 circuits, and other that would let us run just one circuit (furnace). Those interlocks are like no more than 200 bucks online for most panels (though there are like 96 million styles of panels and therefore interlock kits and it's annoying to find the right one if you haven't done it before.) I've seen them as cheap as 15 on aliexpress for more common panels. The nice thing about them is they technically back up your whole house, you just can't draw more than the generator can supply.
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Mar 12, 2024 07:14
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kastein posted:Those interlocks are like no more than 200 bucks online for most panels (though there are like 96 million styles of panels and therefore interlock kits and it's annoying to find the right one if you haven't done it before.) I've seen them as cheap as 15 on aliexpress for more common panels. I guess I have a ‘split bus’ panel, which isn’t common and they don’t make interlocks for. Not sure how they were going to make it work, but maybe that’s why the quote was so high?
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Mar 12, 2024 07:32
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Yeah, doing a raceway along the basement ceiling seems like my best bet at this point, in terms of being minimally invasive. Sure, it's more visible than hiding things in the baseboard trim, but I don't think I care about a raceway along the basement ceiling...that place is already full of miscellaneous bumps and alcoves and so on. It would allow you to drill from below, simply push like 10ft of cable up, then go upstairs to reach into the joist cavity and grab it. So no flexible drill extension, no fish tape, and no endoscope. You could also run the raceway along the bottom of the basement wall and go straight up where you need to, but I think that would be more visible because it would break up the wall midway.
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Mar 12, 2024 11:18
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Shifty Pony posted:It would allow you to drill from below, simply push like 10ft of cable up, then go upstairs to reach into the joist cavity and grab it. So no flexible drill extension, no fish tape, and no endoscope. Ahh, I see. So the process you imagine would look something like this, correct? 1. Open a work box-sized hole in the wall between living room and bedroom, on the main level 2. Drill a pilot hole down through the sole plate, subfloor, and basement drywall (to guide where the work is to be done in the basement) 3. From the basement, open a work box-sized hole in the ceiling, where the pilot hole is 4. Enlarge the pilot hole from below, to the point where I can push cable through 5. Push cable through 6. Install raceways and plates
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Mar 12, 2024 13:08
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Judging from the picture you showed of the inside of the house and the existence of that style of telephone jack I am almost certain that you will find that you have plank subfloor made of parallel boards spaced from each other by 1/4-1/2". That makes it easy to spot where the bottom plate of the wall runs from below. See if you can find a spot where you can see the subfloor either from below in an unfinished spot of the basement or from above in a place where flooring wasn't laid underneath (check the bottom of a bathroom cabinet, mine aren't secured and will just pop up). If you do have plank subfloor you can skip the pilot hole entirely since you can see the position of the wall from below. I was thinking more: 1. Carefully measure to determine where the wall is on the basement ceiling, within an inch or so. 2. Measure again from a different reference point, remember that the wall will be about 4 inches thick. 3. If those measurements agree mark out where the boxes will go, making sure they are squared up to the nearest surfaces. Put the long side of the basement ceiling box parallel with the wall and center it where you think the center of the wall is. Light pencil marks work just fine. 4. Tape a thin garbage bag around the openings so that it hangs below and will catch any drywall dust, leaving one portion of the edge untaped so that you can reach in - this is optional, but I highly recommend it because drywall dust gets loving everywhere 5. Get your tools ready and get your flashlight/headlamp on. 6.Turn off the main disconnect to the house.. A basement ceiling is a prime location for wiring to be run and you have no idea what is going where because it's all closed up. 7. Cut your holes, staying directly on or slightly inside your lines. Check to make sure there weren't any cables behind where you were cutting. 8. Turn the main disconnect back on. 9. Look up from the basement and see where the wall runs. Drill a hole upward through the center. 10. Tape a high-quality piece of string to the tip of the cable, put the brush plate and basement ceiling box onto cable (in that order!), and feed about 10-15 feet of cable/string up from the basement. If you have a helper they can just grab it with it comes past the cut out wall plate and you don't need to feed as much. 11. Feed the cable end through the upstairs wall box. Unhook the string and secure it to the wall boxes in case you ever need to pull another cable through. Install both of the wall boxes and go ahead and do the raceway. Come back and terminate the cable to a keystone jack and install the face plates off to finish it off.
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Mar 12, 2024 14:34
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Shifty Pony posted:Judging from the picture you showed of the inside of the house and the existence of that style of telephone jack I am almost certain that you will find that you have plank subfloor made of parallel boards spaced from each other by 1/4-1/2". That makes it easy to spot where the bottom plate of the wall runs from below. See if you can find a spot where you can see the subfloor either from below in an unfinished spot of the basement or from above in a place where flooring wasn't laid underneath (check the bottom of a bathroom cabinet, mine aren't secured and will just pop up). I can do you one better on IDing the subfloor: I walked into the utility room and looked up  That said, even with this type of subfloor, I still feel like going down from the top makes more sense? Instead of trying to get as close as possible to a target position by measuring from landmarks, you can just open up the wall on the main level, drill down through the sole plate, subfloor, and basement ceiling, and now you know exactly where everything is. The downside is that you'll have uncaptured drywall dust, which is irritating, but odds are the basement will need to be vacuumed when I'm done anyway. Good call on the other advice though, especially turning off the main panel! Thank you for spelling it out in such detail.
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Mar 12, 2024 22:39
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 I just went and killed the breaker to the utility meter in total darkness and the lights stayed on! I went and charged up my laptop, connected to the Envoy wifi, found out my spectrum modem is fried out, and fired up the heater! I was cozy and warm and basically giddy with excitement being isolated from the grid. I didn't leave it like that since I can't actually track the charge yet and don't know how much they have on them so I normalized before I left. Sadly the default webserver on the envoy system is actually baseline secure? So strange. Sadly it doesn't show any metrics without a login. Clever though, they allow signed tokens to get you in.
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Mar 13, 2024 04:57
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H110Hawk posted:
Hold on, since when do Enphase inverters work without a grid? I thought they all needed to be grid-tied (as in, be receiving 240 from the grid) to actually function which was why they were basically worthless. Or is that just the microinverters and you have an actual inverter?
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Mar 13, 2024 06:43
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SyNack Sassimov posted:Hold on, since when do Enphase inverters work without a grid? I thought they all needed to be grid-tied (as in, be receiving 240 from the grid) to actually function which was why they were basically worthless. Or is that just the microinverters and you have an actual inverter? The feature you need is a "Neutral Forming Transformer." I have microinverters, but it was pitch black out. This was the batteries firing up.
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Mar 13, 2024 13:37
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never saw it in action but enphase does have a way to do "sunlight backup" in iq8 systems without batteries to power circuits through a relay that kicks on and off with available power. i think it was limited to 1/10th or 1/6th of the system's continuous current. something like that. you basically have to have all of the battery equipment to do this so its a really strange use case
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Mar 13, 2024 13:43
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