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Rufio posted:Put a back on the cabinet and forget that hole was ever there I had thought that was assumed but I should have said it. The cabinets would cover the holes. The walls are textured and painted. My plan was to get a small drywall panel and just cut some plugs out of it to fill them in myself. We have to get some more stuff today anyways.
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Apr 7, 2024 16:10
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Just put drywall over it using drywall clips to hold it in place and tape the edges (or whatever level of finish you feel like applying). I feel like there is always room in a relationship for the occasional "I know it's silly, but it will bother me forever if i don't do it this way."
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Apr 7, 2024 17:01
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Yo all, not sure if this is the correct thread for this but I'm not finding a specific "lighting" thread and this is a bit more specific than the general DIY sticky. If I've misfired, let me know. So, brief setup: I am going to redo the lighting in a house I have recently purchased, and I would like to replace the fixtures with some LED flush-mounts (or something of the sort). I want to be able to control the warmth of the light so that, for example, from 8pm-midnight, it is a warmer ~2500K, but from noon-4pm, it is at a more natural 5000K. Or whatever have you. The home has a LOT of natural light, so this would be a pretty huge upgrade to the overall ambiance of the house - not to mention the obvious stuff with making a healthy sleep/activity cycle an easier task and all that. Here's the kicker: I specifically want to AVOID using smart functionality controlled by apps if possible. I have personally worked on a few of those codebases, and bluntly they are all horrifying. Remote controls are acceptable if they allow me to set the timer and store the remote. The ideal would be some sort of simple mechanical timer - the same type we have all been using for 30 years to turn lights on and off. I am more than happy to DIY something up if that's what it takes. I'm plenty handy with pliers and a screwdriver. The closest thing I have found to acceptable in terms of modularity and functionality is Lowe's Project Source lights. They are strong, simple, no nonsense. The issue I have is that the warmth selector is a hard switch. It is soldered onto the circuit board and provides no real way to work a timer into it. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Apr 7, 2024 |
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Apr 7, 2024 19:57
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Coolguye posted:Here's the kicker: I specifically want to AVOID using smart functionality controlled by apps if possible. I have personally worked on a few of those codebases, and bluntly they are all horrifying. Remote controls are acceptable if they allow me to set the timer and store the remote. The ideal would be some sort of simple mechanical timer - the same type we have all been using for 30 years to turn lights on and off. I don't blame you at all. As I've heard it put, there are two kinds of tech people, the "every device in my house is smart and I can change the color of my lighting from my phone" kind, and the ones that have a shotgun in the corner in case the LaserJet 4 makes a funny noise. As an embedded systems engineer I am 100% in the latter category. I don't need my Wi-Fi/Bluetooth RGB LED light bulbs leaking my goddamn Wi-Fi credentials or turning into ewaste the second the vendor decides to save 50 bucks a year by shutting those cloud services down.
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Apr 7, 2024 20:02
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yeah it's not just that, i'm also considering house resale. i intend to live in this house for a while yet, but i do not intend to die there so i can reasonably expect i'm gonna sell it eventually. the concept of trying to turn over loving app access to the buyer so they can mess with the lights just fills me with utter revulsion.
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Apr 7, 2024 20:06
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Coolguye posted:yeah it's not just that, i'm also considering house resale. i intend to live in this house for a while yet, but i do not intend to die there so i can reasonably expect i'm gonna sell it eventually. the concept of trying to turn over loving app access to the buyer so they can mess with the lights just fills me with utter revulsion. The buyers aren't going to care in the useful life of the devices regardless. They can factory reset it just like you could. Coolguye posted:I am going to redo the lighting in a house I have recently purchased, and I would like to replace the fixtures with some LED flush-mounts (or something of the sort). I want to be able to control the warmth of the light so that, for example, from 8pm-midnight, it is a warmer ~2500K, but from noon-4pm, it is at a more natural 5000K. You could probably crack it open and solder leads onto the switch contacts. From there you can use whatever you want. You should meter it out though because that's only OK if it's on the low voltage / DC side of the equation. If it's somehow on the mains side then that's a non-starter. Coolguye posted:
Go on... There is a middle ground though, home assistant and zwave stuff can be automated without internet access / on an isolated vlan.
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Apr 7, 2024 21:15
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Coolguye posted:Here's the kicker: I specifically want to AVOID using smart functionality controlled by apps if possible. So as a network engineer by training, this is me. I have rules for my "smart" devices: they do not touch the internet (everything on a seperate VLAN and wifi network), lights must be able to be manually controlled (read: real switches on the wall still), loss of the controller must result in nothing other than loss of automation/timers/data logging/alerting. I'm using Home Assistant for this. I do have one nic in a limited access vlan so it can get to the internet through pinholes to get things like the weather to disply on my kindle fire tablets that dispplay HA "panels" (which absolutely do not touch the internet). If something like that would work out for you Home Assistant could be a good controller and you can shop for zwave, zigbee, etc to control directly or do some sort of DIY ESP32 contoller being run by HA.
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Apr 7, 2024 21:26
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Kasan posted:No continuity at the panel, outlet, pigtail, or even the poles on the stove according to my continuity tester on my multimeter. Disconnect everything and start from scratch, starting at the panel. Test for voltage every step of the way.
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Apr 8, 2024 00:06
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H110Hawk posted:You could probably crack it open and solder leads onto the switch contacts. From there you can use whatever you want. You should meter it out though because that's only OK if it's on the low voltage / DC side of the equation. If it's somehow on the mains side then that's a non-starter. assuming this is low voltage enough to accomplish something like that, do you have a specific source for parts or whatever that i might be able to look into? i'm not opposed to just DIYing this poo poo but i'm out of my depth when it comes to getting the correct parts to slap together. H110Hawk posted:Go on... the fundamental fact is that there's absolute shitloads of sensitive and personally identifiable information being trucked around by these smart devices and none of it is treated as such. like you may have seen the reports a couple years ago now about how Amazon Alexa happily records every time it THINKS it MIGHT have heard its name? every single thing it records gets beamed back to the mothership, and none of it is encrypted at all. it's the same deal with your wifi lights, your wifi dishwasher, your wifi buttplug, etc. companies tend to collect data about what they think they MIGHT need in the future, rather than what they know for a fact they need right now, just so they can avoid asking for more permissions from app stores or scaring people with a privacy policy update. encryption is a needless cost center so nobody bothers doing it. even logging in is considered little different than logging into SA. suspicious logins from nowhereistan? who cares! 2FA? what's that?! then obviously the devices themselves are more than delighted to promiscuously leak whatever wifi/etc creds they've been given. both ends of the devices are about as effectively secured as a pierced condom. whether or not this is something a person cares about depends on the person. legitimately, you would have to be awfully unlucky or awfully targeted to have a data provider breach compromise your routine and specifics into the hands of someone who had the motive and means to do something with it. meanwhile, you're enjoying the slick automated glory of your jetsons house on every day that DOES NOT happen. but like a few other posters are kind of alluding to, the big problem with security and footprint isn't the adversary you can imagine, it's the adversary who didn't even know they were an adversary until some critical piece fell into place. not even they knew what their plans were until the opportunity arose, so how could you possibly anticipate and counter them? just for me personally, i value the certainty of Cannot. Motronic posted:So as a network engineer by training, this is me. I have rules for my "smart" devices: they do not touch the internet (everything on a seperate VLAN and wifi network), lights must be able to be manually controlled (read: real switches on the wall still), loss of the controller must result in nothing other than loss of automation/timers/data logging/alerting. I'm using Home Assistant for this. I do have one nic in a limited access vlan so it can get to the internet through pinholes to get things like the weather to disply on my kindle fire tablets that dispplay HA "panels" (which absolutely do not touch the internet). *: just so people do not fear i am going to go Full Groverhaus on this, i have an unfinished basement and my fiberoptic internet comes in there. i'm just going to plug in their router, run the uplink to your standard network switch, and then staple network cable to the joists until i get to each room of the house. at that point i drill through the floor just enough to slap an RJ-45 outlet down into the actual floor to service the room. sure it won't be in the wall like a "normal" outlet but also i can do all this myself, safely, and if someone wants to unscrew and slap down a pirate treasure chest there or something, that's both easy to do and their business. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Apr 8, 2024 |
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Apr 8, 2024 01:02
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Coolguye posted:i'm a little too dumb to know what you mean by mains side Mains is the AC side of the circuit. Everything before the transformer where it hooks into the house wiring. Everything after(edit: the rectifier. not the transformer. A rectifier is where the AC becomes DC) that is DC and usually pretty easy to tinker with as long as you don't have to worry about IC chips. Changing a switch to a mechanical dimmer (and timer probably) is pretty easy since you'd essentially be changing the switch to a potentiometer. You would control everything with something as simple as an arduino.
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Apr 8, 2024 01:28
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Kasan posted:Mains is the AC side of the circuit. Everything before the transformer where it hooks into the house wiring. Everything after(edit: the rectifier. not the transformer. A rectifier is where the AC becomes DC) that is DC and usually pretty easy to tinker with as long as you don't have to worry about IC chips. Changing a switch to a mechanical dimmer (and timer probably) is pretty easy since you'd essentially be changing the switch to a potentiometer. You would control everything with something as simple as an arduino. how would i go about determining this? again, apologies but i am v dumb when it comes to these topics. this feels like something i should know about my own house, though.
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Apr 8, 2024 02:13
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Coolguye posted:how would i go about determining this? again, apologies but i am v dumb when it comes to these topics. this feels like something i should know about my own house, though. I think he's just confusing you with talking about "mains". Basically every device you plug into the wall (with the exception of larger appliances) actually utilized DC voltage. So, every device has a rectifier changing the 120 volt AC into a much lower voltage DC current. That's either going to be a wall wart/wall plug or a small rectifier in the device itself. They're just saying that you could probably DIY a switch using a microcontroller like an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi Pico, so long as you only have to control the relatively tiny voltages and currents running through the DC side of the circuit. BUT, you have to determine where that hard switch that controls the type of light being emitted by the diode is in the circuit. That means cracking one open to see where the hard switch is in relation to where the rectifier is. If it is controlled from the AC side, you can't (easily) use a DIY microcontroller. If that hard switch is on the DC side, you can probably wire a controller into the circuit to act as another wireless switch. But those microcontrollers can't handle AC voltages. I'm 95% sure the hard switch is on the DC side of the circuit. But you'll have to poke around to find out. Here's a sample project for an Arduino microcontroller to include the hardware and programming setup: https://itsourcecode.com/free-projects/arduino-projects/arduino-remote-control-light-switch-code-and-wiring-diagram/ AlternateNu fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Apr 8, 2024 |
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Apr 8, 2024 02:47
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very neat! i'm definitely comfortable enough to rig up an arduino for something like that. the lowes light i disassembled to get a look at its guts had basically no real wires on it, so my presumption would be that these are pretty low-load wires i'm working with. that said, i am not sure what voltages i would be working with to mess with the WARMTH of these lights versus the basic bright/dimness, which is a separate matter. i'm genuinely not certain how one is set vs another. there's no inherent dimmer switches in this house, but since the house itself was built in 2009 as some old woman's forever-home i strongly suspect the electrical systems can support me swapping out the basic toggle switches with something like this noise. when i investigated this with the rather dumb lowes LED light i bought to play with, the dimmer functionality was just that, i could get a lot less luminosity out of it but i couldn't mess with the color.
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Apr 8, 2024 04:36
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Coolguye posted:i am not sure what voltages i would be working with I would stop right here and not do this as your first project. Everything you've said is that you need to do something "out of the box" first because identifying and messing with something that isn't intended to be messed with, where if you mis-identify something it's 120VAC and swearing or fire.
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Apr 8, 2024 05:13
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suits me. at the end of the day if this is truly intractable i can still buy some dumb lowe's lights, set them individually at 2500k for my bedroom and 5000k for my office and living room, wipe my hands and call it a day. that is ALWAYS an option here. i'd really rather not do that since i think setting the warmth on a timer would genuinely be a healthier environment. doubly so since the house really does have a shitton of windows and tons of natural light. but i'm not married to the idea. i guess i'll wait to hear what motronic's solution would be with a roll-your-own smart solution and Home Assistant. i'm a computer toucher by training so that's potentially way more up my alley.
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Apr 8, 2024 05:37
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Coolguye posted:i guess i'll wait to hear what motronic's solution would be with a roll-your-own smart solution and Home Assistant. i'm a computer toucher by training so that's potentially way more up my alley. Basically I would start looking at what devices HA supports and go from there. Fire it up on whatever you have laying around. It's very much "so you're a computer toucher and want something more than a printer and a gun." I did that and managed to break my HA install in under an hour. I deleted the VM and went back to my printer+gun setup.
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Apr 8, 2024 06:34
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Coolguye posted:Yo all, not sure if this is the correct thread for this but I'm not finding a specific "lighting" thread and this is a bit more specific than the general DIY sticky. If I've misfired, let me know. I've got those and still haven't installed them and the only reason I haven't installed them is that I'm dragging my feet on gutting that hard switch to solder parallel controls onto all of them. If you're serious about heavy DIY it's quite possible to tap those switch contacts to a single controller that can modify them on a program, if you really want something independent of cloud architecture a Siemens Logo would give you some timers and 4 relay outputs, should be quite adequate at the ~100 USD price point
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Apr 8, 2024 07:16
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shame on an IGA posted:If you're serious about heavy DIY it's quite possible to tap those switch contacts to a single controller that can modify them on a program, if you really want something independent of cloud architecture a Siemens Logo would give you some timers and 4 relay outputs, should be quite adequate at the ~100 USD price point can i bother you to link one of these products because googling "siemens logo" doesn't return a purchaseable product for what i feel are pretty understandable reasons per hawk's suggestion i'm prly gonna shy away from something that requires me to know a lot about nature of the electrical currents i am working with, but if this is something i'm able to set and forget then i'm perfectly happy to pay a bit extra per light. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Apr 8, 2024 |
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Apr 8, 2024 07:24
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Shifty Pony posted:Just put drywall over it using drywall clips to hold it in place and tape the edges (or whatever level of finish you feel like applying). We had some drywall mud leftover so we went for a butterfly patches and they worked out really well. I think it'll be our preferred method for patching holes larger than, say, four square inches from now on.
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Apr 8, 2024 07:39
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Admiralty Flag posted:I have three questions. I had the same thing, and I ended up running two 3/4" pieces of FMC from the breaker panel to a pair of flush mounted two gang boxes, then screwing on a box extension to allow for surface mounting regular metallic conduit. You're going to gently caress up the drywall regardless of what you try, so you might as well include enough conduit capacity to set up your 'forever' garage. 3/4" flex is enough to run a 50-75 amp quick charger (depending on the temp rating of the lugs, 6 AWG will go 55/65/75 amps for 60/75/90c wire and fit nicely in a 3/4" conduit), with the other able to run 2-3 circuits of 20 amp, depending on conduit fill and how you break out the runs. Surface mounted metallic conduit is also super nice if you ever change your mind, or end up with a newer/better/different thing to plug in, or just need more to home-run a single set of conductors for your new car charger or whatever. Put another run of conduit 6" above it, run it back and call it a day.
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Apr 8, 2024 09:56
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Kasan posted:https://imgur.com/a/gnIoly0 In 3 wire 240v appliances that is a ground, not a neutral. By design they can trickle to earth to power the clock with 120v. Make sure the neutral/ground strap is in place and properly seated and test. It might be hiding behind the wire in the picture. Modern 240v are 4 wire and have a proper neutral.
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Apr 8, 2024 14:56
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Coolguye posted:suits me. at the end of the day if this is truly intractable i can still buy some dumb lowe's lights, set them individually at 2500k for my bedroom and 5000k for my office and living room, wipe my hands and call it a day. that is ALWAYS an option here. Phillips ' "ultra definition" line of LED bulbs has a warm dimming effect where the color temperature gets redder as the bulb gets dimmed. You could exploit this by using a dimmer to effectively change the color temperature of the bulb, which would be much easier to do than modifying the bulbs themselves. For example you could set up HomeAssistant on something isolated from the WAN and using non-WiFi smart dimmer. Yes, the light output would be a bit lower when you are running it in the warmer setting, but that might play into your goal of creating a lighting system that tries to mimic the morning/day/twilight rhythm. If the quantity of light that you're getting at the warm setting is too low you could set up lamps that kick on during that time to fill things out. I would suggest picking up one of the bulbs and playing around with it, i've seen them at several grocery stores.
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Apr 8, 2024 15:11
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Harry_Potato posted:In 3 wire 240v appliances that is a ground, not a neutral. By design they can trickle to earth to power the clock with 120v. Make sure the neutral/ground strap is in place and properly seated and test. It might be hiding behind the wire in the picture. Modern 240v are 4 wire and have a proper neutral. No. 3-wire 240V appliances use a NEMA 10 receptacle, which is hot-hot-neutral. The neutral is bonded to the frame.
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Apr 8, 2024 15:20
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Coolguye posted:suits me. at the end of the day if this is truly intractable i can still buy some dumb lowe's lights, set them individually at 2500k for my bedroom and 5000k for my office and living room, wipe my hands and call it a day. that is ALWAYS an option here. On the complete insanity end of the spectrum if you're going to be running low voltage to a bunch of switchable fixtures you could use DMX controlled CCT ones and then a dmx to Ethernet bridge to manage the color temperatures, letting you do smooth fades and default brightnesses at each time of the day
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Apr 8, 2024 15:33
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Qwijib0 posted:On the complete insanity end of the spectrum if you're going to be running low voltage to a bunch of switchable fixtures you could use DMX controlled CCT ones and then a dmx to Ethernet bridge to manage the color temperatures, letting you do smooth fades and default brightnesses at each time of the day The main thing I got out of this was that X was gon give it to me
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Apr 8, 2024 15:45
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Blackbeer posted:No. 3-wire 240V appliances use a NEMA 10 receptacle, which is hot-hot-neutral. The neutral is bonded to the frame. Coffee first then post. Got it. Sorry for the miss. Make sure the jumper is intact was the thought I was having.
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Apr 8, 2024 17:16
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Qwijib0 posted:On the complete insanity end of the spectrum if you're going to be running low voltage to a bunch of switchable fixtures you could use DMX controlled CCT ones and then a dmx to Ethernet bridge to manage the color temperatures, letting you do smooth fades and default brightnesses at each time of the day Please do not advocate self-harm on the forums.
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Apr 8, 2024 20:09
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I’d just go with ESPHome based custom firmware flashed to commodity lights. They won’t call home at all. You don’t even have to use HA if you just want to use the web API from a cron job.
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Apr 9, 2024 07:15
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yippee cahier posted:I’d just go with ESPHome based custom firmware flashed to commodity lights. They won’t call home at all. You don’t even have to use HA if you just want to use the web API from a cron job. 10 minutes reading the documentation makes it look like this is the real dove path here. if i'm reading this right, this basically is some web thing i would set up over a local network, probably some private/separate wifi thing, and i'd more or less address them as 192.168.1.x/light1. i'd have some shitbox or even a pi somewhere that acted as C&C to automatically run the commands to configure the lights at certain times of the day? that would be kind of ideal because in the short term i could simply install the lights to some basic standard position and set them to look for a wireless network i'd set up later, so i can finish configurations or what have you at my leisure. this is still my first foray into something like this, though, do you have a suggestion for a specific light that you know would work for this approach? as a corollary, how are you identifying that it is workable so I can pick up searching for lights myself?
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Apr 9, 2024 20:14
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Coolguye posted:*: just so people do not fear i am going to go Full Groverhaus on this, i have an unfinished basement and my fiberoptic internet comes in there. i'm just going to plug in their router, run the uplink to your standard network switch, and then staple network cable to the joists until i get to each room of the house. at that point i drill through the floor just enough to slap an RJ-45 outlet down into the actual floor to service the room. sure it won't be in the wall like a "normal" outlet but also i can do all this myself, safely, and if someone wants to unscrew and slap down a pirate treasure chest there or something, that's both easy to do and their business. Doing the networking properly via the wall is trivial. Step 0: Figure out where your studs are with a studfinder, finding one with your hole saw makes for sad times. Step 1: Get an oscilating multitool and whatever flavor of box template you find online. You can eyeball it with a old work box and masking tape. Cut out a box hole in your sheetrock at the appropriate height. 'Appropriate' meaning match the outlets in the room. Put an old work low voltage box in, they're dayglo orange and have no back. Step 2: Sill plate hole cuting, get a flexible drill bit (greenlee makes them, you can buy them at lowes), a 1/2" hole is plenty. Step 3: Fish the cables up. Step 4: Get keystone jacks, and punch down the network cables. Use a keystone cover plate to load them up. Step 5: Never worry about it again. Step bonus: You can get keystones for Coax, fiber, ethernet, phone, HDMI, etc. And since you already cut a hole, you can fish whatever you want to it. I did this in my house with approximately zero experience and a few youtube videos literally 10 years ago, and it was stupid easy once you wrapped your head around 'how not to put hole over stud, how to fish wire'.
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Apr 12, 2024 03:16
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Coolguye posted:this is still my first foray into something like this, though, do you have a suggestion for a specific light that you know would work for this approach? as a corollary, how are you identifying that it is workable so I can pick up searching for lights myself? I’m using Caseta dimmers without temperature control for my lights, so nothing I can directly recommend. I’m sure there’s a home automation thread or esphome reddit sub where they can give a heads up about sales on easy to flash lights. After doing a bit of googling, it does look like it’s a bit annoying to try to locate compatible ones and flash them (if you’re not into electronics), so hopefully I didn’t get your hopes up for nothing. If you’re ok with zigbee, Ikea bulbs are standard and can be used without their hub.
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Apr 12, 2024 06:39
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yippee cahier posted:I’m using Caseta dimmers without temperature control for my lights, so nothing I can directly recommend. I’m sure there’s a home automation thread or esphome reddit sub where they can give a heads up about sales on easy to flash lights. After doing a bit of googling, it does look like it’s a bit annoying to try to locate compatible ones and flash them (if you’re not into electronics), so hopefully I didn’t get your hopes up for nothing. If you’re ok with zigbee, Ikea bulbs are standard and can be used without their hub. Man I wish Caseta did temperature control, or at least the Maestros... closest I have gotten is pairing WarmDim Juno fixtures with a Caseta and using Home Assistant triggered automations to limit / set color temp (so I don't nuke my eyes with bright white light at mindight). Would be nice if the hardware switches / keys had the ability to cap the maximum brightness / temp based on time -- the Casetas with the 'favorite' button in the middle sort of work for that purpose.
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Apr 12, 2024 14:44
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I want to wire up a hanging lamp to the ceiling socket and it's turned out to be a lot more complicated than the live/neutral wire combo I'm used to. It looks like someone ran the power to two rooms through this socket and chopped all the wires in half - so messing with it means wall sockets stop working. Would really appreciate some advice on how to approach this, think I opened a can of worms. Old apartment building in Northern Europe, 230v. This is the ceiling socket: 8 wires total. The 3 wires with red tape were bundled together, and the cables are black. The 3 wires with yellow tape were also bundled together and the cables are green, underneath a thick layer of paint and crap. The top left wire is sheathed in brown fabric, and the top right wire is also green. These colors don't match up to code, although perhaps they did back in the 70's. All wall sockets in that room and the adjoining one lose power when the cables are disconnected, as in the picture. Connecting all the red labelled wires together and separately, all the yellow labelled wires together, restores power. Goals: Don't start a fire Be able to turn on the lamp from the wall switch. Keep the wall sockets working. E: I tried a bunch of different wire combinations at first, to get the hanging lamp powered. Nothing worked, I discovered that wall sockets were also losing power, and then decided that this needed a more systematic approach Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Apr 12, 2024 |
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Apr 12, 2024 17:57
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Gonna guess that's a switch loop. Do you have a multimeter?
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Apr 12, 2024 18:19
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No multimeter unfortunately. Just looked up switch loops. If I understand correctly, that consists of running a hot wire to the light fixture and then back to the light switch? And they can get more elaborate than that if more light fixtures or switches are in play? That could explain a lot.
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Apr 12, 2024 18:50
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Fruits of the sea posted:No multimeter unfortunately. The power for lighting should be coming from your breaker or fuse directly to the switch device. The switch leg comes from the switch device to the lights in that room. ideally, you would have a meter or non contact voltage tester to identify which wires are coming from your panel since doubling the voltage can damage your equipment. devices like a circuit tracer can you see the path the wires are taking as well.
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Apr 12, 2024 19:01
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Fruits of the sea posted:No multimeter unfortunately. Yep. if your wiring is like mine, in a 50s house, then the ceiling box was used as the junction to power the whole room, so you've got one pair that are the incoming power, a pair that go to the outlets, a pair that go on to other rooms, and then the switch loop, a pair of wires one of which will connect to the hot bundle in the ceiling, go down to the switch, and then the other half of that pair is connected to the hot side of the light fixture. The neutral from the fixture would just be bundled in with all the other neutrals in the box. A multi meter will be useful for sorting it all out. Do you have a "before" picture?
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Apr 12, 2024 19:18
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Jabronie posted:The power for lighting should be coming from your breaker or fuse directly to the switch device. The switch leg comes from the switch device to the lights in that room. Qwijib0 posted:Yep. if your wiring is like mine, in a 50s house, then the ceiling box was used as the junction to power the whole room, so you've got one pair that are the incoming power, a pair that go to the outlets, a pair that go on to other rooms, and then the switch loop, a pair of wires one of which will connect to the hot bundle in the ceiling, go down to the switch, and then the other half of that pair is connected to the hot side of the light fixture. The neutral from the fixture would just be bundled in with all the other neutrals in the box. A multi meter will be useful for sorting it all out. Thanks! and thanks to Motronic as well.  This is a picture of the wiring reassembled into what I am 75% sure was the original configuration. All wall plugs working as they did before. Very much regretting my initial assumption that it was just a bunch of L and N wires plus ground. Does risk of damage to equipment mean I should hold off on experimenting further without some sort of device to check what has power? Is there a chance that I have already damaged something? Is there a resource y'all would recommend for a newcomer to learn how switch loops work? I've found a mix of technical explanations and AI-written articles (which should be loving illegal when dealing with wiring, jesus christ). Conisdering getting an electrician in to look at it. We can't really afford it after a hefty bill for the last visit to install some new plugs and circuit for a washing machine, and I don't mind buying a cheapish multimeter. OTOH further damage or fire risk are a more important consideration if this is beyond layman's capabilities Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Apr 12, 2024 |
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Apr 12, 2024 19:38
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Fruits of the sea posted:Thanks! and thanks to Motronic as well. This is a basic switch loop:  Here's something like what I think is going on in your box:  Where do the two unconnected wires go, are they a pair that leave the box in the same sheathing? You'll need the multimeter to determine which pair is supplying the power.
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Apr 12, 2024 19:56
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Ahh yeah, that lines up with what I was thinking. So 3 separate loops would equate to 6 wires, then the other 2 are ground and neutral? No box or sheathing, the wires were just freeballing out of the ceiling with some crusty old connectors that I have replaced, as seen in the last picture Borrowing a multimeter tomorrow evening! Fruits of the sea fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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Apr 13, 2024 19:17
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