Your Resident Electrician for all your electrical questions!

[Paul B]

MLaura, your English sounds perfect to me. An 18 watt LED light is actually pretty bright and probably fine for your refugium. I use a light of half of those watts. I would go for it.

As for being barefoot on concrete to trip a GFI, that is one of the questions that will cause endless arguments on this, or any forum. As a lifelong electrician, I actually know the answer, but I am to old to argue, so I will let other people endlessly ponder that.

 

[Paul B]

Would something like this work?
(1) will it drop the voltage too much due to additional length
(2) Since DC, polarity wont be reversed due to new plug

I feel that 20' of that will drop that 4 1/2-12volts much to low for your pump to run effectively. DC drops off quickly with wire length and that wire is little more than phone wire.

Use like a #18 wire for the few feet you need. 20' is to long.

 

[Futuretotm]

I feel that 20' of that will drop that 4 1/2-12volts much to low for your pump to run effectively. DC drops off quickly with wire length and that wire is little more than phone wire.

Use like a #18 wire for the few feet you need. 20' is to long.

Thanks again

 

[alton]

As for being barefoot on concrete to trip a GFI, that is one of the questions that will cause endless arguments on this, or any forum. As a lifelong electrician, I actually know the answer, but I am to old to argue, so I will let other people endlessly ponder that.
[/QUOTE]
Actually Paul it depends on the individuals Horny Layer both on their feet and hands. Take my skin I have calluses on top of calluses on my hands, plus being in South Texas I rarely wear shoes at home. So I have extra insulation because of all that dead skin, much more than someone who doesn't work with their hands and wears shoes 24/7.

The stratum corneum (Latin for 'horny layer') is the outermost layer of the epidermis. There has been a long-standing belief in dermatology that the stratum corneum consisted of dead cells (corneocytes), devoid of biological activity and function.

And Paul as an electrician grounding has been an argument especially with inspectors since I have been in the trade and it will continue until we are dead and gone.

 

[Cacopepo]

That's great that your helping out the reef community, I'm an apprentice myself, 2nd year... and still got a lot to learn... I thought I could tackle a small diy led project but my brains are all over the place

 

[infinite0180]

question for you electricians.

i recently purchased a home that was built in 1992. Electric looks great and theres a few open spots on my Westinghouse type BR panel (Now Eaton). My 220v 30 amp dryer line was added after the fact and the electrician used a Siemens breaker. Everything else In the panel is the type BR breakers besides that two pole. Im planning on picking up a 20 amp single pole from HD to add a line for the new tank. Is it worth the $10 to buy a BR two pole 30 amp to replace that Siemens?

thanks!

 

[Plecosam]

Actually Paul it depends on the individuals Horny Layer both on their feet and hands. Take my skin I have calluses on top of calluses on my hands, plus being in South Texas I rarely wear shoes at home. So I have extra insulation because of all that dead skin, much more than someone who doesn't work with their hands and wears shoes 24/7.

The stratum corneum (Latin for 'horny layer') is the outermost layer of the epidermis. There has been a long-standing belief in dermatology that the stratum corneum consisted of dead cells (corneocytes), devoid of biological activity and function.

And Paul as an electrician grounding has been an argument especially with inspectors since I have been in the trade and it will continue until we are dead and gone.

Well if you are that confident go grab a live active conductor standing barefoot on concrete and see if you trip your gfci and report back.

 

[Futuretotm]

As for being barefoot on concrete to trip a GFI, that is one of the questions that will cause endless arguments on this, or any forum. As a lifelong electrician, I actually know the answer, but I am to old to argue, so I will let other people endlessly ponder that.

Actually Paul it depends on the individuals Horny Layer both on their feet and hands. Take my skin I have calluses on top of calluses on my hands, plus being in South Texas I rarely wear shoes at home. So I have extra insulation because of all that dead skin, much more than someone who doesn't work with their hands and wears shoes 24/7.

The stratum corneum (Latin for 'horny layer') is the outermost layer of the epidermis. There has been a long-standing belief in dermatology that the stratum corneum consisted of dead cells (corneocytes), devoid of biological activity and function.

And Paul as an electrician grounding has been an argument especially with inspectors since I have been in the trade and it will continue until we are dead and gone.
[/QUOTE]

S corneum is a dead layer absolutely
Callused skin is like applying three ply instead of two ply tissue to live wires

 

[alton]

Well if you are that confident go grab a live active conductor standing barefoot on concrete and see if you trip your gfci and report back.

Since you like to question every post of mine if you read other post I have written in my younger days I did that stupid test where I was barefoot on a tile floor with a bucket of water and a power head that had a short plugged into a GFCI receptacle and it did not trip, but I received a bad shock instead. Once I dropped the grounding probe in, the plug tripped immediately. Hence the Horny layer on my skin provided just enough insulation to keep the imbalance under 5ma. Any other questions please pm me. People need to understand GFCI's will not always stop you from getting shocked, they should stop you from getting killed.

 

[Paul B]

Actually Paul it depends on the individuals Horny Layer both on their feet and hands.

That is true, but the amount of "horneyness" in your feet will also be a cause for argument.

As for grabbing a hot wire, as a construction electrician in Manhattan I have gotten my share of shocks and much of my career was before they invented GFIs.

GFIs don't help you while you are working on or installing the wiring in a building because the GFIs and other receptacles are the last thing you install so the hot wiring in the building will shock
"anyone who doesn't know what they are doing".

It is perfectly fine to work on hot wires but we rarely did that while barefoot on wet concrete.

Most of the work we did on existing buildings was working hot as you can't shut off a building to work on it unless it is a house.

 

[siggy]

question for you electricians.

i recently purchased a home that was built in 1992. Electric looks great and theres a few open spots on my Westinghouse type BR panel (Now Eaton). My 220v 30 amp dryer line was added after the fact and the electrician used a Siemens breaker. Everything else In the panel is the type BR breakers besides that two pole. Im planning on picking up a 20 amp single pole from HD to add a line for the new tank. Is it worth the $10 to buy a BR two pole 30 amp to replace that

thanks!

Siemens is good stuff, don't sweat it, there are all the same with a different name.

 

[Brew12]

Would something like this work?
(1) will it drop the voltage too much due to additional length
(2) Since DC, polarity wont be reversed due to new plug

Something like that should work. You won't know for sure if it has the right connector until it comes in. Voltage drop shouldn't be an issue imo. The pump is too small.

 

[Paul B]

I normally work like this, but only if I have an electric eel in the tank to counteract the electricity and make it go backwards.

 

[Plecosam]

Since you like to question every post of mine if you read other post I have written in my younger days I did that stupid test where I was barefoot on a tile floor with a bucket of water and a power head that had a short plugged into a GFCI receptacle and it did not trip, but I received a bad shock instead. Once I dropped the grounding probe in, the plug tripped immediately. Hence the Horny layer on my skin provided just enough insulation to keep the imbalance under 5ma. Any other questions please pm me. People need to understand GFCI's will not always stop you from getting shocked, they should stop you from getting killed.

Cool story, interesting you think your horny skin is a super power but I won't burst your bubble powerman.

 

[alton]

From a classroom electrical book. And Plecoman I have thick skin so your comments really do not bother me.

 

[b4tn]

I have 16 120v hot (black) braided 14AWG wires that will be jumping from 2 standard 4 gang wall junction box’s to a separate junction box that holds relays. I would “like” to put quick disconnects on each of the 16 wires so that if the relay box needs to be removed for maintenance in the future it can without much hassle. What kind of quick disconnect would be recommended?

 

[siggy]

I have 16 120v hot (black) braided 14AWG wires

braided or stranded wire?
Terminal strip, get one that is rated for #12 wires.

 

[b4tn]

braided or stranded wire?
Terminal strip, get one that is rated for #12 wires.

Stranded is what I meant. I did see those but was trying to find something more along the lines of a plug that does not have any exposed metal. For my RC cars I have bullet connectors rated for something like 30 amps. I am just not sure if those would be a safety issue with AC.

 

[alton]

https://www.legrand.us/-/media/brands/passandseymour/resources/brochure/ps-brochure-2016-plugtail.ashx

Not sure if this is what you are looking for?

 

[Butcher333]

I know this guy(LoL) who wanted to install 2 separate circuits for his new tank. He ran 12/3 wire to 2 separate quad outlets but shared neutral and ground between the 2 circuits. “He” while looking into installing GFCI ran across the discovery that he cannot share the neutral on a tandem breaker because it can cause the neutral to be overloaded, or in the event that one of the breaker were turned off the neutral from the other circuit would still carry current. Let’s say That he only has the one slot available. Could this problem be rectified by running an additional wire so the other circuit has its own neutral back to the panel? It’s confusing to me that a neutral can be shared if the circuits are on separate phases because to me this seems to be more likely to overload the neutral. Both circuits can share the same ground correct, so if I just add the separate line for neutral I would be ok? Then add a GFCI to each quad receptacle.
Or would the only way to do this be to install two separate breakers with GFCI/AFCI at the panel.