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Bioshuffle posted:If this is a contest, I installed a 3 way switch and realized I mixed up the traveler wire and common because the screws are located in different spots on my new switch. I should try reading things sometimes. Insteon is home automation stuff - however the switches also act like normal switches, so your porch light is probably connected to that red wire. If there's no other Insteon devices in your house, you can just replace that with a regular switch if you'd like. An easy test here is to turn the porch light on, then pull that little button on the bottom of the switch out - it should come out like a quarter inch or so, and the light on the switch itself will go off. If your porch light goes off, that means it's hardwired directly to that switch, and you can replace it with a standard one.
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Oct 7, 2020 18:59
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DrBouvenstein posted:I'm running into problems with a new motion sensor flood light I installed for my garage. You realize just about every outdoor motion sensing light has a light sensor in them to keep them from coming on during the day, right? It's bypassed if you put it in test, but outside of test mode it shouldn't come on at all during the day.
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Oct 8, 2020 19:30
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STR posted:You realize just about every outdoor motion sensing light has a light sensor in them to keep them from coming on during the day, right? It's bypassed if you put it in test, but outside of test mode it shouldn't come on at all during the day. I have this installed above my garage with 2 outdoor LED bulbs in it. It works great. I think it has clicked on during the day once or twice. I think I have it on high sensitivity, and 120s timeout if I recall correctly. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Utilitech-110-Degree-White-Halogen-Motion-Activated-Flood-Light-with-Timer/1001220202 It's probably these bulbs: https://www.lowes.com/pd/GE-Basic-90-Watt-EQ-LED-Par38-Daylight-Flood-Light-Bulb-6-Pack/1000606211
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Oct 8, 2020 21:44
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Alright this poo poo is driving me nuts and I am at the end of my ability to troubleshoot. Have 2 PC's (one with a 850W gold rated PSU, the other with a 650W gold rated PSU) on a Siemens single pole 20A AFCI combination type breaker. There are, as best I can tell, 3 receptacles and nothing else on this breaker. One of the receptacles was added after we moved in by an electrician. One receptacle has nothing plugged in. One receptacle has 12 plug surge protector behind which is the 850W PC, three monitors, a set of speakers, an alexa, and a lamp with a 9.5W bulb in it. The second outlet has a small netgear splitter plugged into it. The third receptacle (this was the one that was added) has an 8 plug surge protector with the 650W PC, two monitors, an amp driving two speaker, a printer, and a lamp with a 9.5W bulb. In the year we have lived here, this breaker has never tripped until about a week ago. My wife's PC, the 650W one, had its relatively new mainboard die and we replaced it with a newer, nicer one. After completing this, she retidied the cords and for maybe a day we didn't have any problems. Then, we started getting trips on the circuit when we were both gaming on our PC's - generally not immediately but 15-20 minutes into a high load scenario. After these trips, if we reset the breaker and quickly tried to get back in game, we would often get another trip within 5 minutes. We have also had trips when I wasn't home and my computer was at idle and she powered hers or awoke it from sleep (this has happened twice). We have gotten one trip with her computer at idle while powering my computer on. I have struggled to recreate a consistent scenario that causes it to trip. It has never tripped with both PC's on at idle or sleep for any period of time Troubleshooting so far: I have directly measured the current draw on the hot line into the breaker with a clamp ammeter. At both PC's peak draw (GPU and CPU benchmarks running for >10 minutes, fans at max speed) with the other things that are normally on on the circuit on, I got a peak draw of 8.5 amps. I left the PC's like this for awhile and never got a trip. Booting each PC individually, they briefly go to about 6 amps from a completely cold start (power cord unplugged from the PSU for 20 minutes). Until today, I had never seen the breaker trip with the panel cover off, and given that I was having trips under sustained load and then a quick trip after a reset if I went back at it immediately I wondered if the breaker was overheating. However, today I got a trip while one PC was sitting at idle when the second PC was booted while the panel cover was off with my ammeter hanging. It briefly spiked but never got into the double digits. I have already replaced the breaker with a brand new one, doesn't seem to make a difference. I have run an extension cord to a receptacle on a different circuit for one of the PC's and didn't get any trips with like a day of heavy use. I don't know what else to do at this point other than just get an electrician to change one of the receptacles over to a different circuit. There's nothing on this circuit that should be drawing 20A, even with the brief startup spike from the PC's going from cold start to on. The arc light is not lit on the AFCI after it trips.
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Oct 8, 2020 23:40
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Light or not I think some effect of the PSUs running hot is tripping the arc detection.
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Oct 9, 2020 01:35
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This sounds like the sort of thing an electrician warned me about when I asked about having AFCI breakers installed in my old house (I'm scared of arcs via old cloth wiring and potentially bad hack jobs). He said electronics trip them "all the time" and didn't think they were worth the hassle/cost.
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Oct 9, 2020 01:45
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1. Good troubleshooting. 2. Given the seeming randomness, I don't think I'd chalk this up to an arc-fault in the wiring supplying the outlets (or overcurrent), but rather something in the hardware you're plugging in. Something is mimicking an arc-fault when it starts up or gets hot. I think step one would be checking the connections in each associated outlet box. Kill power, pull the three outlets out, and make sure wirenut/outlet connections feel good (tight, no loose wires). If everything looks good, I'd probably chalk it up to a psu/motherboard issue and change the breaker to a non-AF. This is not code compliant and AF saves lives, but the balance of usability to fire safety would probably make me do this in my home. If the problem is overcurrent, a regular breaker will still trip. Best option would be replacing PSUs or leaving equipment out until you figure out what is causing the problem, but I'm not sure that's realistic given that this circuit is only 3 outlets. admiraldennis posted:This sounds like the sort of thing an electrician warned me about when I asked about having AFCI breakers installed in my old house (I'm scared of arcs via old cloth wiring and potentially bad hack jobs). He said electronics trip them "all the time" and didn't think they were worth the hassle/cost. This is a good reason to have AF breakers. If the wiring causes an AF trip, you've got bigger problems than nuisance trips. edit: the only time I've ever had an AF breaker "nuisance trip" it was due to a vacuum cleaner that I assume had some problem with it. The fear/reality of nuisance tripping is a lot lower now than 20-30 years ago with GFCIs. Blackbeer fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Oct 9, 2020 |
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Oct 9, 2020 02:11
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Blackbeer posted:This is a good reason to have AF breakers. If the wiring causes an AF trip, you've got bigger problems than nuisance trips. Yeah. I wasn't sure how much I believed him about AFCIs "tripping all the time for no reason" but I dropped the thread out of inertia. Probably time to pick it back up again. Most of the wiring coming out of my breaker is modern-looking plastic. But a few (big, important) circuits are old cloth wiring, including the entire 3rd floor where my office and bedroom are. There's a lot of hot/neutral swaps (I've fixed some of them) and a number of "3 prong outlet with open ground" which gives me little confidence in the quality of the work. Really, I just want all of this old wiring ripped out and replaced, preferably without taking down all the walls (certainly not a DIY job for me). Could take a while to figure that out, though  edit: the electrician did replace some incorrectly-sized 20A breakers with 15As though... 
admiraldennis fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Oct 9, 2020 |
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Oct 9, 2020 02:40
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shame on an IGA posted:Light or not I think some effect of the PSUs running hot is tripping the arc detection. Yeah, I think I'd be concerned that the mainboard dying was actually a consequence of the power supply going. How new/high quality is it? If it's generic, or old enough that it's out of the warranty period I'd consider replacing that.
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Oct 9, 2020 03:20
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Grimson posted:Yeah, I think I'd be concerned that the mainboard dying was actually a consequence of the power supply going. How new/high quality is it? If it's generic, or old enough that it's out of the warranty period I'd consider replacing that. Yeah I'm coming around to that concern. Its a pretty drat nice PSU though, and only a year old. EVGA Supernova 650 P2 80+ platinum. I guess you're right though - I don't see a lot of other correlation. That breaker worked fine for a year and then the motherboard kicks the bucket and the breaker starts tripping all the time after I replace it. I guess there's probably not a way to easily test that?
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Oct 9, 2020 03:41
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tehllama posted:Yeah I'm coming around to that concern. Its a pretty drat nice PSU though, and only a year old. EVGA Supernova 650 P2 80+ platinum. I guess you're right though - I don't see a lot of other correlation. That breaker worked fine for a year and then the motherboard kicks the bucket and the breaker starts tripping all the time after I replace it. I guess there's probably not a way to easily test that? Easy way to test? Run an extension cord across your house to an outlet on another circuit.
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Oct 9, 2020 03:46
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I did that with one PC. If they are on separate circuits it doesn’t cause any issues. I guess I should wire both PC’s into the dining room and see if I get the same issue l.
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Oct 9, 2020 08:06
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Can somehow help me understand what is going on with the wiring to these outlets in my garage? There are several outlets each connected to a switch. Currently, the outlets get power and the switch works but only the top plug works in each pair. Here is what it looks like:  Ignore the orange wire. The wire on the right comes from the fuse box. The white wire from there goes to the plug. The ground wire from there connects to the ground wire from the left and also goes to the plug. The black wire going to the plug comes from the switch wire on the left. The black wire coming from the fuse box is twist nut connected to the white wire coming from the switch?? Is that right? Why does only half the outlet work? It’s not just this one, there are 5-6 of these and only the top plug works on each one. Here is the switch wiring: 
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Oct 9, 2020 18:16
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Elysium posted:Can somehow help me understand what is going on with the wiring to these outlets in my garage? There are several outlets each connected to a switch. Currently, the outlets get power and the switch works but only the top plug works in each pair. See the missing connecting tab between the screws in your first picture? That's what connects the two receptacles to the hot side. Replace the receptacle with one that doesn't have the tab snapped off, and both plugs will work (from the switch). https://inspectapedia.com/electric/Electrical_Outlet_Split_Connections.php If you want one side to be permanently powered, and the other tied to the switch, then you need to just add a jumper from the incoming hot to the screw with no wire under it. sharkytm fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Oct 9, 2020 |
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Oct 9, 2020 18:18
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Ok cool, so nothing is actually wired “wrong”, it’s just that half the plug is literally not connected. Why does the one wire connect white and black? Is that just a switch thing?
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Oct 9, 2020 18:36
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sharkytm posted:See the missing connecting tab between the screws in your first picture? That's what connects the two receptacles to the hot side. Replace the receptacle with one that doesn't have the tab snapped off, and both plugs will work (from the switch). And if you want them both switched, own the parts but not the outlet, you could pigtail the switched black to both terminals. I like that it was setup to never work.
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Oct 9, 2020 18:36
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Elysium posted:Ok cool, so nothing is actually wired “wrong”, it’s just that half the plug is literally not connected. Why does the one wire connect white and black? Is that just a switch thing? Yeah, it's what's called a "switch leg" it sends power to the switch and back, not cool anymore, but perfectly acceptable when that outlet was installed, although even then they should have "re-identified" the white as a "hot connector" you can wrap some red or black tape around it to avoid confusing people in the future. Totally bizarre they'd remove the tab on the outlet, but not wire it.
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Oct 9, 2020 22:23
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Wait a sec, I know you said "ignore the orange wire" but why is there an orange wire (cable) coming out of your junction box?
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Oct 9, 2020 22:24
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Motronic posted:Insulation looks a bit under the screws, but your bend radius on the copper is decent. It's in the correct direction around the screws. I'm not really sure what's happening with groundapalooza. I'll touch up the insulation bit. Groundapalooza is because I'm using these Ideal connectors and they only go up to 4 wires, so I have 2 incoming wires, 2 switches, and the box so I had to use 2. Yeah, that made no sense. It's not phase to phase, it's ... something else. Half of the outlets in the house are down to about 90V and the metal cladding on the two upstairs circuits zaps me if I touch both at once. There's 100V from ground to ground between the two circuits. So much stuff is screwed up that we talked it over and since my brother and I were planning to wait a couple of years then sell the house, we decided that we're going to do it sooner rather than later instead of dumping 75k into a teardown that we're lucky to get 350k for.
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Oct 10, 2020 15:07
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Elviscat posted:Wait a sec, I know you said "ignore the orange wire" but why is there an orange wire (cable) coming out of your junction box? Looks like an extension cord to me
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Oct 10, 2020 15:07
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GWBBQ posted:Yeah, that made no sense. It's not phase to phase, it's ... something else. Half of the outlets in the house are down to about 90V and the metal cladding on the two upstairs circuits zaps me if I touch both at once. There's 100V from ground to ground between the two circuits. So much stuff is screwed up that we talked it over and since my brother and I were planning to wait a couple of years then sell the house, we decided that we're going to do it sooner rather than later instead of dumping 75k into a teardown that we're lucky to get 350k for. Have an electrician go into the panel and unfuck the neutrals and grounds. It'll be a lot less than $75k (or a fire claim). May need the power company to come out too, you may have a loose neutral on their side. This is a serious loving fire (and life) risk.
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Oct 10, 2020 16:32
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GWBBQ posted:I'll touch up the insulation bit. Groundapalooza is because I'm using these Ideal connectors and they only go up to 4 wires, so I have 2 incoming wires, 2 switches, and the box so I had to use 2. Please call an electrician. Like STR said, you have improperly mixed neutrals and grounds and an open neutral somewhere, at least.
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Oct 10, 2020 17:26
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angryrobots posted:Please call an electrician. Like STR said, you have improperly mixed neutrals and grounds and an open neutral somewhere, at least. Yeah, this goes beyond the internet's ability to troubleshoot and repair I think. devicenull posted:Looks like an extension cord to me It looks like one to me too, I was wondering why it appears to go through a junction box.
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Oct 11, 2020 02:32
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Just a reminder to everyone, DIY secret santa registrations are open! Everyone is welcome to participate, and we're especially looking for ausgoons. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3941260
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Oct 11, 2020 06:21
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While replacing all the outlets in my home, I've noticed there are some wires that have had the insulation peeled off and the bare wire exposed. Do I need to take electrical tape and cover that up? They aren't in danger of coming into contact with any other wires, but I wasn't sure if I should cover up the bare wire all the same.
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Oct 13, 2020 02:57
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Bioshuffle posted:While replacing all the outlets in my home, I've noticed there are some wires that have had the insulation peeled off and the bare wire exposed. Do I need to take electrical tape and cover that up? They aren't in danger of coming into contact with any other wires, but I wasn't sure if I should cover up the bare wire all the same. Yes. Or re-run the wire, if possible. Photos would be helpful. Missing insulation is a bad thing. : Edit: \/\/  I never thought of that.
sharkytm fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Oct 13, 2020 |
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Oct 13, 2020 03:07
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Bioshuffle posted:While replacing all the outlets in my home, I've noticed there are some wires that have had the insulation peeled off and the bare wire exposed. Do I need to take electrical tape and cover that up? They aren't in danger of coming into contact with any other wires, but I wasn't sure if I should cover up the bare wire all the same. Wait a second. Are you talking about the ground wires? Because those can be bare.
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Oct 13, 2020 03:28
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I'm not talking about ground wires. I'll see if I can get pictures later today.
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Oct 13, 2020 13:52
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 I haven't had a chance to make it back to that outlet yet, but I came across this when I was replacing the switches for the light and fan in the bathroom. It looks like there's one wire that's connected to both switches. Is this safe? I thought it was a jump cable, but when I removed th e bottom screw expecting 2 wires, there's just one wire that's been stripped for the connection. Is this safe? I hate the fact that my whole house has these stupid 12 gauge wires which has made the whole thing a pain in the rear end. There's no ground wire, but I read that it's fine since it's just a dumb switch, right? Edit:  The red line is all one wire. Bioshuffle fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Oct 15, 2020 |
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Oct 15, 2020 18:46
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I don't know if it's code legal (or used to be) but I've seen that more than a couple times myself. I imagine it's 'probably not going to start a fire' but I've always replaced them with pigtails myself whenever I found one. I wrap the backside of my outlets in electrical tape too so maybe I'm paranoid, but the peace of mine from having tight connections on all the terminals is worth a $0.40 WAGO to me.
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Oct 15, 2020 19:14
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Nevets posted:I don't know if it's code legal (or used to be) but I've seen that more than a couple times myself. I imagine it's 'probably not going to start a fire' but I've always replaced them with pigtails myself whenever I found one. I wrap the backside of my outlets in electrical tape too so maybe I'm paranoid, but the peace of mine from having tight connections on all the terminals is worth a $0.40 WAGO to me. It's code legal, old school electrician and absolutely better than adding pigtails/wagos/marettes (all of which can be done safely, but they are additional joins where this is not). The only time this is worse is when you're the re-work guy going in there years later and need to separate switches for some reason.
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Oct 15, 2020 19:33
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Bioshuffle posted:
The wire looped around the screw is a bad practice, but not inherently dangerous. The switches not being grounded IS dangerous, it is not fine because it's a regular switch, it has exposed metal parts that could become energized and shock someone, it looks like the ground wires are all twisted together in that box, so you should be able to use those to ground the switches.
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Oct 15, 2020 19:52
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Elviscat posted:The switches not being grounded IS dangerous, it is not fine because it's a regular switch, it has exposed metal parts that could become energized and shock someone, it looks like the ground wires are all twisted together in that box, so you should be able to use those to ground the switches. Can you elaborate on this? I've read the same as Bioshuffle. My local Home Depot only seems to sell switches with no ground screw, for your run of the mill 15amp toggle switch. What's the fix here? tie a ground wire into the body of the switch?
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Oct 15, 2020 20:10
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Really? I can't remember seeing anything without a ground when I was buying switches a couple years ago. I didn't think they even made un-groundable ones anymore.
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Oct 15, 2020 20:14
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I was shocked myself. Hehehehe.
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Oct 15, 2020 20:16
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Jenkl posted:Can you elaborate on this? I've read the same as Bioshuffle. My local Home Depot only seems to sell switches with no ground screw, for your run of the mill 15amp toggle switch. What's the fix here? tie a ground wire into the body of the switch? The switch Bioshuffle posted has a green ground screw on the top left. I have 15a and 20a Leviton decora rocker switches throughout my house, several of which I just bought from HD, and they all have grounds. Are you buying a different brand?
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Oct 15, 2020 20:23
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Nope Leviton. I had a few (with grounds), but needed a couple more and the individual ones they were selling had no ground. The boxed ones did seem to have the screw, but like I said I needed literally 2. To be clear, I've gotten switches from other HDs nearby with them, this was just what they had last time I was in. It did seem odd.
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Oct 15, 2020 20:43
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Maybe they're sold specifically as retrofit for knob and tube? I've never seen a switch with no ground connections at any hardware store, and I've bought literally thousands. Maybe a dinner with a weird all plastic body? Installing anything with exposed metal without a ground connection is contrary to the NEC, local jurisdictions may make exceptions for "grandfathering" older wiring systems without a grounding conductor.
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Oct 15, 2020 23:40
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I refuse to believe that, in 2020, there is a light switch has no place to ground it. If there is a single shred of metal that isn't part of the hot/neutral circuit, it has a ground. Full stop. If somehow it is actually missing the ground screw, return it and get one with an obvious ground screw. My money is on factory defect where they forgot to install the ground screw. There's probably a threaded hole for the ground somewhere, just no screw.
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Oct 16, 2020 00:15
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Jenkl posted:Nope Leviton. I had a few (with grounds), but needed a couple more and the individual ones they were selling had no ground. The boxed ones did seem to have the screw, but like I said I needed literally 2. Just get some #10-32 screws to put in the screw holes. Someone robbed them out of the switches then put the switches back in the boxes. DaveSauce posted:I refuse to believe that, in 2020, there is a light switch has no place to ground it. If there is a single shred of metal that isn't part of the hot/neutral circuit, it has a ground. Full stop. This. (redacted)
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Oct 16, 2020 00:38
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