Things Your Electrician Wishes You Knew | 19mm Momentary Push Button

I’m renovating my basement, and putting in a 240V line to my garage. Just for something to do, as I don’t have an EV.

A big oversight is that outlets are frequently wired backwards with the live and neutral switched. The outlets could be tested first but that kind of defeats the purpose of this thing. Also most houses will have all the outlets in one room be on one branch.

A good quality EVSE can cost between $300 and around $1,200. If you’re choosing a wall-mounted unit, expect to pay another several hundred dollars for installation, depending on local labor rates and permit costs.

We were pretty close to that 40% rule when our controllers started to fail, which is probably why they only started failing after our customers had use the controllers a few times. We were pushing 22 Amps through 40 Amp rated parts. In other words, using a component at half its rating still won’t cover for substandard parts! Our solution was to find a part that was manufactured to spec and also use the component at half its rating and we’ve not had a verified SSR related failure since.

I learned even more respect for shock hazards on the job one day when I was working for a military contractor. I forgot to turn off the 400VDC B+ supply to a radar driver assembly before I put one hand on the metal chassis and grabbed the fins of a lighthouse tube with the other hand. After that I put my head down on the workbench and had me a rest for a few minutes. Even when you know better, one moment of inattention can be the end.

Europe is a real patchwork of degrees of sketchy. German wiring standards are very high indeed, at least in the semi-industrial places (laboratories, hospitals) I worked. The real Schuko plug/socket design is quite nice and safe, and hard to find *not* implemented correctly in Germany. Other countries, not so much. And don’t get me started on English and South African wiring and plugs.

Snap! Didn’t even get the first instrument lit. I began to investigate. Wiring size, check. Dimmer output side breaker, still on. Go further down the line and find that the electrician had indeed taken care of it. He re-did my calculations, which at full nominal load looked like a 15 amp breaker on the input side of the dimmer would work just fine. What they didn’t realize is that when you bring an instrument or instruments (depending on the circuit) to full on, you go beyond even 20 amps for just a moment, then it goes down to about 13 amps.

You’ll notice that I didn’t explain exactly how to correct this. I do this intentionally because I’m not going to do the work. This situation could be easily fixed by replacing the dimmer switch with a simple toggle switch, by installing a dimmer rated for a higher wattage, or by installing bulbs with a lower wattage. Any of those would be fine, but as the home inspector, I don’t design the repairs.

But at the same time, if one wants a high efficiency power supply, then the manufacturer typically have placed in a rectifier that is technically over specified for the job, as these devices are generally not that expensive, and are an easy way to cut down a few watts overall without adding any substantial extra cost.

AC may have “won”, but now we need to upgrade to 400 Hz! (smaller transformers, less eddy losses) B^)

The Sony Alpha A33 accepts both Memory Stick Pro Duo / Pro-HG Duo, and SD / SDHC / SDXC media, and is powered by an InfoLithium battery pack.

I don’t know who all of you people are, but stop being ridiculous. This guy made an ESP8266-based TRIAC switch, and gave the design away for free. He has ample warnings on his web page about this project. I encourage anyone who wants to use this design to research the subject thoroughly to make sure they understand what they’re doing.