so waht ya doin today?

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Electricity kinda frightens me. This is close to my max working range with electrical stuff. I really pushed the limits once and added a few circuit breakers and ran new wire in the garage for my casting bench.
I don’t understand all of it so I tend to avoid it. Now plumbing, that I understand.
 

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
Hate plumbing, always hesitant with electric. Probably why I'm still living and breathing; I'm crazy careful. Did have to wire the shop for 220 single phase to the rotary phase converter and 3 phase out to the lathe and mill.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
I paid to have the 220 run to the garage. They put in a 60 amp sub panel. No way I was messing with that. Running the conduit alone would have been a pain in the butt.
 

smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
I put in the 60 amp subpanel and did all the conduit. That much of it was surprisingly straight forward. Wiring in the phase converter took a bit more thought. You ought to see how fast my electric meter spins when I throw the switch on that subpanel.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
The electric bill is one thing I haven’t noticed being an issue. I don’t run my machines more than 5-10 hours a week and some weeks not at all.
Hate to think of what Ketih’s Electric bill will be
 

Ian

Notorious member
I figured how to do house wiring the hard way. Asked a few electricians how the do certain things, used the pocket reference a lot to figure gauge and so forth. House has 42 circuits running 12-gauge Romex and eight 220 outlets. Every room has a circuit for lights/fans, a separate circuit to run outlets every four feet along the walls, and a third independent 20-amp with 20-amp receptacle for space heaters, window unit, rail gun, whatever. Each appliance has its own breaker. Gun room has three independent 20-amp circuits, two just for the casting pots. Yeah, it's overbuilt and overwired but by golly the lights don't blip when the refrigerator or a space heater kicks on.

I did a job for a friend a while back and we did everything in 14-gauge with 15-amp recepticles. That stuff is like limp spaghetti compared to 12-gauge, I was wondering why I tortured myself with the heavy wire. By the way, Brad, all my stuff is white already! It would take me six months of weekends to change all the receptacles and switches in this rat trap.

Today I officially commenced construction of the shooting shack. I'm not gonna get to do the three projects that were in front of it in the order I prefer so might as well piddle with this one. I hauled a few very large limestone caprock pieces down the hill and got two of them set for foundation stones. Then I winched a 13'x11" phone pole up the steep incline to the shooting shack location and set it as a sill on the stones. After repeating that ordeal again a few times I'll have a foundation to build a Norwegian-style log storehouse with sod roof and be able to shoot 24/7/365 and not have to waste time packing bags and rests back and forth. Might even put a loading bench in there.
 

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
Yall be careful, that electricical stuff is way compulkated..... :p Bill

Yep, it requires some of that edgmucatin. But hey, that smart phone can put ya in touch with the fire dept.

I've had a lot of electrical done here, most of the switches, many of the outlets, had both switches and outlets added. Wasn't any of it I couldn't do myself but for one pesky little thing. That would be arguing with the insurance company if something should go afoul. It's all been done by a licensed electrician. I didn't know it at the time but that electrician turned out to be the same guy that did all the electrical on John's (Winelover) new house build.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
My father taught me to do wiring, and add in my std EE courses which are part of the ME degree program, and
a good bit of practical experience and I am fine with any of it. I entirely wired the cabin in Colorado, including
designing and installing the solar electric system and power inverter.

When Va decided that only licensed electricians could wire a home, even your own home, my father went down
and took the electrician's exam. And was told that he had flunked it. He knew that this was BS, and got ahold of
the top dog in the county licensing department and explained that he had been wiring houses since about 1936, and
had an engineering degree, and had studied the code information needed for the test. And he had friends on the
county commission. And he was NOT going to open a commercial electrician's shop to compete with the existing
electricians in the county. He said that if he failed the test the next time, there would be a lot of noise made, so they
really needed to think about what they were getting themselves in for. He passed no problem the second time.
Small town BS politics and licensing. :rolleyes::mad:
I helped him wire that house and two other buildings, plus my Colorado house,and rewiring a lot of problems in my
wife's parent's 1890s home in Fla, hleped wire my sister's basement in SC. Follow the code, and use good workmanship,
proper wire sizes for loads and such and it isn't too hard. I NEVER touch a potentialy hot wire without checking it with a
meter, either. Not interested in any 'adventures'.

And I have fixed some "damn near burned the place down" problems done by licensed, commercial electricians, too.

Bill
 
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smokeywolf

Well-Known Member
About the only thing I've done in the past 5 years that I had to run wire for was speakers. Used 14 gauge for those. When I ran the wire for the 220 single and three phase for the shop machinery I used 8 gauge. I always go BIG on wire and pay very close attention to amperage handling capacities on switches and breakers.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Nothing every was harmed by TOO BIG a gauge of wire. LOTS of problems the other way.

But if you look up the amp limit for a particular gauge wire, if you aren't running it 10 ft or something, there is
way plenty of built in safety margin, as long as you use the appropriate breaker size for the wire gauge.

Just don't go putting in a 20 amp breaker in the place of a 15 amp breaker "Just to be sure it is big enough" :oops:o_O:embarrassed:
 
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Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
"And I have fixed some "damn near burned the place down" problems done by licensed, commercial electricians, too." Me too. I've learned by the seat of my pants. The one area I get confused is in things like "potential" with a ground here and one way over there. That I don't really get at all. And I dn't see what the difference between a $1500.00 transfer switch for your genset and throwing the main really amounts to. Other than that, I can get by well enough not to burn stuff down.

Yeah, I know I have an infection. Had double pneumonia back in the early 90's and it's been a problem since then. Might hit the Urgent Care place tonight after haying.
 

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
Transfer switch, for gen set, is for automatic operation. Senses power failure, starts up generator. Runs when your away or if you lose power when sleeping. Shuts unit down, when power restored.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
An old college friend asked if I could come and check her wiring in her 5 or 6 year old condo, said using the iron would cause the
bedroom lights to flicker and dim. WAY not normal.
I opened up the main panel in the basement.....Two of the white ground leads were burned brown for 6" and black for about 3" on the ends
near the main neutral lug, with dozens of setscrews. After powering it down, I started checking torques. The two that were scorched were
very loose, getting very hot. I cut off the burned leads and replaced them, and tightened all the connections in the box. At least a third of
them were well below proper tightness, which causes overheating and can cause a fire.

Toasting the insulation to a nice black is getting pretty darned close to a fire. All done by "a pro", or at least somebody getting paid to
do it. Walking away from a main electrical box without properly tightening all the connections is very dangerous.

Take care of that, Bret. As we get older, we break easier and bounce back more slowly.

Bill
 
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Rick

Moderator
Staff member
The auto switch prime function is to prevent any possible feed back into the grid and thus electrocuting line workers. Second function is to power the house automatically when there is a power failure. A good example would be me with $3,000 worth of insulin in the refrigerator, I'm gone for a week, power goes out and I come home to throw $3,000 in the trash can. My switch came with the generator and with the two sale discounts my switch was nearly free. Next point is that most places have building codes requiring the switch so they don't have to replace fried line workers.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Yeah, in the old days, when the power company electric crew "turned off the power" to work on the lines, they knew that they
had a dead system. Nowdays some joker might be running his own genset and could be feeding that back
upstream to zap some line workers, unintentionally, of course.
Whole different world, with lots of private emergency gensets out there, and a real need to make them work properly,
both to turn them on automatically, and keep them off the main lines when on.
 

Intheshop

Banned
Thank goodness for Stihl products.... they get the job done,day in day out no drama.

Been "hedging" with that stupid $$ head that goes on their weed wacker. Keep it dripping wet with mobile one.

Boxwoods look fab.... and the ivy is all trimmed growing up the front of the house. I'm my own worst critic so to get the chores done and then see the results? Holy moly.

What this affords is,time. Time today to..... shoot the ghetto CB Sendero 22-250 getting dialed for a walkabout training/varmint killing OP later today...... and