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movax posted:I think it turned out to be this thread that I heard about this from, so reporting back... pretty good piece of kit! Strongly recommend if you're curious about where your electrons are going. That's the exact way you deal with "I don't want a non-matching gfci in my precious bathroom!" Do a combo and call it done forever.
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Mar 22, 2021 21:03
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This isn't a home wiring/residential voltage question, but I figure y'all know the math and it's been a decade since I needed to recall my high school electronics course. Can someone confirm that I'm right: I'm considering modifying a pump for my computer to run off a single 4-pin PWM connector rather than splitting the pump between the PWM for control and a 4-pin Molex for power. The pump is a 12V pump with a specified power consumption of 18W. If I remember my math right, that rates the pump at 1.5A (the spec sheet doesn't list this, so I'm making the conversion W/V = A). The 4-pin PWM connector on the controller this pump will be connected to is rated for 12V / 2A. There should be no reason I can't rewire this pump to run off a single 4-pin PWM connector correct?
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Mar 23, 2021 14:20
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Warmachine posted:There should be no reason I can't rewire this pump to run off a single 4-pin PWM connector correct? If your pump is rated 1.5A max and the connector is 2A max, you should be fine. Transients and stuff through inductive loads may cause problems, but you'll know when the connector melts.
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Mar 23, 2021 17:17
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:If your pump is rated 1.5A max and the connector is 2A max, you should be fine. Well that can't be worse than the most recent industry fuckup where someone drilled a metal screw through the 12V plane on a PCB causing a short that started fires. And then tried to downplay the problem until hardware journalists beat their asses and got the CPSC involved. I reached out about getting the wire I need for this. I'll post again if/when I melt my controller board.
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Mar 23, 2021 18:14
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I'm building a portable 12v battery pack using a deep cycle battery for camping, mostly to run a CPAP machine. I'm basically copying something like https://www.boldnorthoutdoors.com/product-page/100-Series but using an AGM instead of a lithium and appropriately sized box. While researching I'm fairly certain I came across someone else making something similar and talking about charging it with the implication that however they wired it up they were able to charge through their connectors. Does that sounds reasonable? My plan while not in use was to have this hooked up to a trickle charger and it looks like you can get adapters for them that go into a cigarette port which is also how the CPAP machine is powered when using DC (though I think I saw it also comes with an alligator clip connectors) and is kind of central to the question I'm asking. tl;dr can I charge the 12v battery using the same port that I use to power the cpap machine from said battery?
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Mar 25, 2021 18:53
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Yes, you can.
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Mar 25, 2021 23:28
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Elviscat posted:Yes, you can. Is there anything I could inadvertently do wrong that wouldn't become evident when using the battery but could when charging it? As long as the wiring to use the battery is done correctly then I shouldn't have any issues with the charging?
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Mar 26, 2021 00:30
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Teabag Dome Scandal posted:Is there anything I could inadvertently do wrong that wouldn't become evident when using the battery but could when charging it? As long as the wiring to use the battery is done correctly then I shouldn't have any issues with the charging? Not really. Just make sure that your charger has an AGM mode. And I'd install one of these panel mount connectors for the charger rather than backfeeding through the cigarette lighter port. Most trickle chargers come with this style connector. https://smile.amazon.com/Electop-Weatherproof-Universal-Flush-Mountable-Connector/dp/B07V6NJ37P
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Mar 26, 2021 01:14
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Make sure you have a fuse as close as possible to the battery, something slightly above the rating of your cpap. If you go with those battery tender adapters you can adapt them for the 12v outlet for your cpap too. Lots of them come with a pre installed fuse as well. Most battery tenders nowadays monitor the battery and stop charging if there's an issue. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01E04YWNC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_3KT2E7RZMQNP29YJ383E
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Mar 26, 2021 04:15
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Teabag Dome Scandal posted:Is there anything I could inadvertently do wrong that wouldn't become evident when using the battery but could when charging it? As long as the wiring to use the battery is done correctly then I shouldn't have any issues with the charging? Depending on the current capacity of your charger and the depth of discharge of your battery, you could very easily pop fuses during charging that would never pop in normal use with the CPAP. An AGM's max charge rate is based on its AH rating, for some reason known as c. AGM charges at .2c in general. This means a 100AH battery's max charge rate, given no other information, is 20A. If your charger tries to put more current into your battery than your fuse is rated for, then the fuse obviously blows. If you fuse your CPAP outlet at just above what the CPAP is rated for, then it will take you just as long to charge the battery as it does to discharge. This may be OK for your purposes; 8 hours of discharge followed by at least 8 hours of charge would be very gentle on an AGM. How big of an AGM are you looking at? If you can find the datasheet for your battery series, there's all kinds of rates and whatnot. Try to aim for the 10- or 20-hour rate when you're discharging and charging to make the AGM last as long as possible.
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Mar 26, 2021 05:06
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Elviscat posted:Make sure you have a fuse as close as possible to the battery, something slightly above the rating of your cpap. I don't think I've seen a cigarette lighter plug without a glass fuse in the hot pin in decades, so that should be kept in mind. But absolutely this....fuse both + and - at the battery. There's a lot of fault current in something that size.
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Mar 26, 2021 13:46
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Motronic posted:I don't think I've seen a cigarette lighter plug without a glass fuse in the hot pin in decades. You don't buy many car equipments from wish.com, do you? I got a "flashlight radio cellphone charger" that had a 6" cord that plugged into the cigarette lighter, with USB-microB on the other end.. Inside were four resistors, presumably to drop the voltage from 12V to 5V for the device. Can't imagine what would happen if you plugged a phone or something into something like that.
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Mar 26, 2021 13:49
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:You don't buy many car equipments from wish.com, do you? lol, my bad. (that's horrifying)
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Mar 26, 2021 13:51
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Motronic posted:lol, my bad. (that's horrifying) It's wish, that goes without saying
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Mar 26, 2021 13:57
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Do they still have those lithium ion packs that put 120vac on the USB output while they're charging
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Mar 26, 2021 14:49
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n0tqu1tesane posted:Not really. Just make sure that your charger has an AGM mode. I was planning on getting something like a battery tender or i think Noco seems to be the other big brand and they both seem like they support AGM. Any particular reason you'd do it that way with an SAE connector? babyeatingpsychopath posted:Depending on the current capacity of your charger and the depth of discharge of your battery, you could very easily pop fuses during charging that would never pop in normal use with the CPAP. I'm looking at U1 sized AGM batteries and they seem to be around 35Ah which should be enough. I'm not looking at a quick charge on it. I think Costco has a battery tender that charges at 4 or 5A and we don't camp that much that I need to charge it much faster. The CPAP with all the extras turned off does about 1-2A if I recall correctly.
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Mar 26, 2021 16:18
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Teabag Dome Scandal posted:I was planning on getting something like a battery tender or i think Noco seems to be the other big brand and they both seem like they support AGM. Convenience mostly, every trickle charger/battery tender I've purchased uses that connector, then has a ring terminal and clamp cable set included. That way you don't have to have any other cable or adapter to plug the tender straight into the box.  Looks like the Noco uses a different connector though.
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Mar 26, 2021 16:56
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That's definitely the same connector on my Deltran brand chargers. They work great.
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Mar 26, 2021 18:36
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n0tqu1tesane posted:Convenience mostly, every trickle charger/battery tender I've purchased uses that connector, then has a ring terminal and clamp cable set included. That way you don't have to have any other cable or adapter to plug the tender straight into the box. Convenience was kind of why I was thinking of charging through the lighter plug since I need one to power the CPAP anyway.
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Mar 26, 2021 20:01
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My wife and I are digging and framing a gravel pad for a new storage shed in our back yard. We haven't decided whether we want to run electricity to it - the hookup on the house end would be a bit of a project itself because right now there's nothing electrified on that corner of the house - but we're undecided enough that we want to at least put a conduit under the pad frame in the event that we ever want to continue burying conduit and pull a wire all the way to the house. Since the framing is still being built up up and the gravel hasn't been poured we figure now's the time. I found some resources online that say burying at a 6" depth is fine as long as the conduit is galvanized steel. Does that sound right? Our soil is mostly clay and rocks...digging down further than that is doable but holy hell it would not be fun.
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Mar 26, 2021 21:28
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csammis posted:My wife and I are digging and framing a gravel pad for a new storage shed in our back yard. We haven't decided whether we want to run electricity to it - the hookup on the house end would be a bit of a project itself because right now there's nothing electrified on that corner of the house - but we're undecided enough that we want to at least put a conduit under the pad frame in the event that we ever want to continue burying conduit and pull a wire all the way to the house. Since the framing is still being built up up and the gravel hasn't been poured we figure now's the time. You've got it right (per the table of 300.5). 6" for galvinized, 18" for PVC, 24" for direct-bury cable. If you're just running a GFI protected 120V (20a or less) run or two, 12" is the deepest you have to go for any method. Blackbeer fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Mar 26, 2021 |
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Mar 26, 2021 22:58
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I'm going to buy a cheap voltage tester to make sure I don't fry myself when hooking up my new cook top. Lowe's has one that measures 120 or 240, while the one at Home Depot measures 110 or 220. Are these functionally the same?
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Mar 27, 2021 12:52
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hooah posted:I'm going to buy a cheap voltage tester to make sure I don't fry myself when hooking up my new cook top. Lowe's has one that measures 120 or 240, while the one at Home Depot measures 110 or 220. Are these functionally the same? Yes. Your voltage will be between those 2 numbers, depending on where you live. The utility doesn't really control voltage tightly, they control the frequency. Get a non contact voltage detector too.
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Mar 27, 2021 14:39
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sharkytm posted:Yes. Your voltage will be between those 2 numbers, depending on where you live. The utility doesn't really control voltage tightly, they control the frequency. We definitely maintain voltage regulation at the distribution and local level, even using it to affect load control and manage our peaks  . Frequency is set by generation/transmission grid operators by the magic they work to keep everything balanced and is completely out of our control.Seconding the non contact tester, frankly for the untrained just needing to know "off or on" I'd say it's preferable. Related, Fluke just recalled a bunch of meters due to danger of explosion. We found a couple of them in our inventory at work. https://www.fluke.com/en-us/support/safety-notices/37xfc-902fc-recall
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Mar 27, 2021 15:46
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110 vs 120 is just a nomenclature thing, 120/240 being nominal, and 110/220 being minimum expected at the end point with voltage drop.
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Mar 27, 2021 16:38
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Ok, thanks for the answers. Turns out I can't install the drat thing today anyway because I have to order a sold-separately granite countertop installation kit ($120 for a few brackets and a tube of caulk). The saga continues...
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Mar 27, 2021 17:37
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angryrobots posted:We definitely maintain voltage regulation at the distribution and local level, even using it to affect load control and manage our peaks Sorry, I meant that they adjust it over time, it's not uncontrolled... Poor phrasing on my part. Like you say, you change the voltage to change loads and balance the grid. I've seen mine vary by ~+/-5V on the order of a few hours. My solar monitor tracks it all for me.
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Mar 28, 2021 01:29
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angryrobots posted:We definitely maintain voltage regulation at the distribution and local level, even using it to affect load control and manage our peaks Uh that's a pretty alarming defect to get through QC. Is Fluke actually a lovely company?
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Mar 29, 2021 06:58
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BonerGhost posted:Uh that's a pretty alarming defect to get through QC. Is Fluke actually a lovely company? Just a fluke occurence
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Mar 29, 2021 07:04
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Fluke got bought by a giant conglomerate in the late 90's, and a lot of their cheaper meters are made offshore now. That being said, it's a voluntary recall, and Fluke's reputation for safety is pretty good, and their meters are generally designed with all the proper voltage separations and good quality silica filled fuses you'd expect from a quality electrical testing manufacturer. Also Amprobe and Klein and Ideal and a bunch of others make comparable meters in the home gamer space. At work I use nothing but Fluke 87s and 287s, and an assortment of weird older models for specific tasks, at home I have an Ideal that's nicely built, because my old cheapy multi-purpose Fluke died from moisture intrusion years ago.
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Mar 29, 2021 07:18
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BonerGhost posted:Uh that's a pretty alarming defect to get through QC. Is Fluke actually a lovely company? It only covers meters shipped in a 10-month period, and from the sound of it, they got a bad batch of MOVs, Fuses, or PTCs, or they weren't installed correctly (or at all). The different start dates but same end dates of production tell you that it must have been a batch issue, and they know it was fixed by the end date in all cases. Chances are, there are only a couple of bad meters in the bunch, but they're covering their assess and recalling them all. IIRC, these are made in a third party factory and branded by a couple makers. There was a similar recall back of Klein, Extech, and Fluke a few years ago. It's bad, but not unheard of. I've got... 4? Or 5 Fluke handheld meters (87v, 87iii's, and a 1507) , plus 2 bench top (a 45 and an 8842). I'd trust them over anything in a similar price range, and even their low end stuff is much safer than other cheap meters. I shiver when I see glass fuses in meters with a CATII 600V rating. sharkytm fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Mar 29, 2021 |
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Mar 29, 2021 13:12
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Also note they're fixing it free of charge no questions asked, including prepaid shipping both directions. And err on the side of repair if your serial number is illegible. Shady companies play games with this sort of thing and try to make you pay one direction of shipping, produce a receipt, have a legible serial number, etc.
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Mar 29, 2021 18:57
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I got two little junction boxes to move my Emporias (energy monitors) into because I don't like how they're shoved inside my panels right now (and one of them doesn't really have room for it). The little AC wiring to the Emporias, I will put in conduit -- what's the easiest / most flexible to use? The... uh, "flexy" metal stuff (FMC?) seems appropriate to use, cheap and simple and I just land it on the boxes into a... nipple? The sensors on the other hand, have right-angle 2.5 mm (think headphone jack, but smaller) connectors on them... and I do not want to cut and recrimp / re-assemble. I'll have 18 of these to get down to that box. It's all low-voltage, so AFAIK, I don't actually have to conduit-ize them, but I also don't want it to look like rear end and have an open knock out from my circuit panel. Is there some kind of Tech-Flex like expando-braid or expandable conduit that would let me shove these through? NMT / smurf tube? I feel like a noob because I can visualize exactly all these parts in my head, I just don't know what the gently caress they're actually called.
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Mar 30, 2021 19:19
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movax posted:The sensors on the other hand, have right-angle 2.5 mm (think headphone jack, but smaller) connectors on them.. If you get large enough conduit then you can probably fish them through one at a time at an angle. Slap some 1" on there or something and I bet they slide right through. I wouldn't use anything crappy hooking into a main panel, that smurf tube would give me pause if I saw that going into any kind of mains-voltage panel. If it's going right next to your panel can you not just use EMT? It's in theory a straight shot, the easiest thing to do with EMT.
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Mar 30, 2021 19:34
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H110Hawk posted:If you get large enough conduit then you can probably fish them through one at a time at an angle. Slap some 1" on there or something and I bet they slide right through. I wouldn't use anything crappy hooking into a main panel, that smurf tube would give me pause if I saw that going into any kind of mains-voltage panel. If it's going right next to your panel can you not just use EMT? It's in theory a straight shot, the easiest thing to do with EMT. I feel like the first few will make it through, but on the last one, the conduit will be filled with 14-15 other wires... maybe I'll just do 3 conduits up to the panel, 1 for AC, and 2 for all the LV sensors. It will look absolutely ridiculous (what the gently caress is in that TINY box that 3 conduits are going too!?!) I was thinking the FMC would be tolerant if I can't quite line up the knockouts on the panel / my box vs having to do fitting / joints on EMT.
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Mar 30, 2021 20:07
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movax posted:I feel like the first few will make it through, but on the last one, the conduit will be filled with 14-15 other wires... maybe I'll just do 3 conduits up to the panel, 1 for AC, and 2 for all the LV sensors. It will look absolutely ridiculous (what the gently caress is in that TINY box that 3 conduits are going too!?!) Hook up the conduit then drill the holes.
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Mar 30, 2021 20:10
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Flexible metal conduit is fine for that application, the "smurf tube" you"re thinking if is FNMC, Flexible Nonmetallic Conduit.
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Mar 30, 2021 21:37
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Elviscat posted:110 vs 120 is just a nomenclature thing, 120/240 being nominal, and 110/220 being minimum expected at the end point with voltage drop. Back in the old days, it was 117 volts. Elviscat posted:Flexible metal conduit is fine for that application, the "smurf tube" you"re thinking if is FNMC, Flexible Nonmetallic Conduit. I thought it was ENT, Electrical Nonmetallic Tubing?
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Mar 30, 2021 21:50
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Oh yeah, forgot that one jumps the naming convention of FMC, LTFMC, and LTFNMC. Either way it shouldn't be used for mains voltage anything ever.
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Mar 30, 2021 23:22
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Me this morning with a house running on a 60 amp fuse box and old subpanel breaker wired in parallel with it. Me tonight with a 200 amp breaker panel (and less money) https://i.imgur.com/fydlW1R.mp4   I still have to upgrade all my wiring to you know...actually be able to use this stuff, but it's a great start! The one complaint I have so far is I popped the breaker panel off for the above picture, and I can't seem to get it screwed back on right. The left side of breakers is too far left for it to sit flush against them, as you can see in the picture below. Oddly enough, the right side of the breakers fit perfectly in the pop-outs. Should I just take an angle grinder to the plate and knock an 1/8" off the side of the cutouts, or is this a serious issue of some sort I should ask the electrician about. Before I popped it out to inspect it, the breakers were somehow inside the cutouts, but I have tried warping and manhandling the plate and breakers a decent amount (after I cut the main power off) and I cannot get them to fit. 
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Mar 31, 2021 01:42
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