Re: Carbon dioxide bike tyre inflation (was Re: That was dumb..)

Jasper Janssen <jasper.janssen@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:23:57 GMT, mroberds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Jasper Janssen <jasper@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Then there's the spring push-in style for solid wire only. This is
good for saving time at initial installation and ensuring recurring
training for the fire department later.

Haven't had that happen. Yet. Most of the switches I've bought over
the past decade or two were push-in and sockets wer eabout 50/50
between push-in and simple scre terminal.

When a friend was in college, he was renting a house with some other
people. On one wall, plugging or unplugging an appliance from a certain
outlet would usually cause the next outlet down to lose power as well.
We turned off the breaker and took it apart to find a *very* loose
push-in connection on that outlet; moving the wires to the screw
terminals on the side fixed it completely.

When I moved into this house about 8.5 years ago, I noticed that some
of the outlets were a little worn out in that they didn't grip plugs
firmly. What motivated me to do something about it was when I needed
to unplug the electric washer right after it had finished a load and
the plug was quite warm to the touch. While working my way through the
house, I found a couple of sockets where the wire could be pulled out by
a strong tug. These had burn marks on the copper wire where it had been
arcing between the wire and the contact spring in the outlet.

And of course, these days connecting one wire to the next is often
done with push-in thingies with 2/3/4/5/8 sockets.

These are sold at the hardware stores here, and apparently have all the
relevant regulatory approvals. I've never used one, though, mostly
because they scare me - see above.

.nl is fairly unique even in Europe in that we have standardised to an
amzing degree -- we use 2.5 mm^2 brown/blue/green-yellow and 1.5 mm^2
black wires, and nothing else, in standard house wiring.
Live/Neutral/Ground and Switched, respectively.

You mentioned earlier that indoors, everything is in conduit, so that
makes it easier to run just the wires you need. In the US, Romex
(black/white/bare, live/neutral/ground) doesn't have to be in conduit,
so it gets used for switch loops as well, which means you end up with a
hot wire that's white. Officially, you are supposed to paint this wire
black, or put some black electrical tape around it. I don't think I've
ever seen this done by a professional electrician doing residential
wiring, though.

One consistency I have noted: Houses and cars are different in the
same way in left- and right-pondia. Here, in your house, black is
hot and white is netural. In your car, red is hot and black is
ground. In Yurp, in your house, brown is hot and blue is neutral,
and in your car, red is hot and brown is ground.

Hm. Can't say I've noticed cars using anything but red/black.
Certainly at the battery, at least.

This may vary by country, or possibly the battery is a special case.
Old VWs have a black *positive* wire, and a woven metal strap for the
negative side, at the battery, but all of the smaller ground wires to
the lights, instruments, etc, are brown. I helped put an engine from a
late-model Opel in a different car, and the harness that came with that
engine had red and brown at the battery.

You only have to comply with what was current at the time you built
the installation, except that everything has to comply to the, 1967
I think it was, revision.

I think it's similar here. If you're replacing a defective breaker or
adding a new circuit to the breaker panel, you don't have to replace the
whole panel if it's not up to current code. The stuff you wire on the
new circuit has to be up to current code (like, if it's an outlet in the
bathroom, it has to be GFCI protected), but you don't have to re-do the
whole house.

[powerco transformer feeds] a 230V 3-phase groundcable (spliced into
the streetcable in front of your door) goes into your house. Then
there's a 3-phase powerco main fuse at the base of the meter cupboard,
usually with just 1 of the fuse sockets populated,

Interesting. Do they ever come around and move that fuse around to
balance the phases, like if a new house gets built on the street or
something? Will they install the other two fuses (and a three-phase
meter, etc) if you want three-phase in your house, without also charging
you a zillion dollars for that?

Ah, I see where the difference comes from. You've got a main *breaker*
at the start of your own gear, we've got the powerco fuses just a
little bit earlier, but a main *switch* at the start of our own gear.

Right, but the meter is still only protected by the fuse on the
*primary* of the transformer.

16 kV distribution---fuse---16000:240 transformer---meter---main breaker

The fuse is up on the pole (overhead distribution) or in the box with
the transformer (underground distribution) and is changed with a very
long fiberglass stick if it blows.

We do need to ground the internal water pipes, we're just not allowed
to bridge to the outside water pipes (water meters are nonconductive),
especially not using it as a source (if you will) of ground.

At least in the 2002 code (the latest version referenced in the book I
have), you could use the outside water pipes as a ground, but not the
only ground. You have to install a bonding jumper around the water
meter, and around any other non-conducting part of the plumbing.

The actual fusebox these days is often a 330x220 box containing 2
DIN-size rails for 12 units of 18 mm wide each.

Our breaker panels are standardized by the miracle of capitalism; that
is to say that there are N different and almost-incompatible standards.
Wise persons install General Electric, Square D, or maybe Cutler-Hammer
breaker panels, because there is some level of assurance that you will
still be able to buy breakers for them next year and 30 years from now.
Ask anybody with a Federal Pacific Electric or Zinsco breaker panel how
much *fun* it is to add a circuit (if, as in the case of the FPE, their
house hasn't burned down first).

I've seen a breaker panel (of one brand or another) being manufactured
on 'How It's Made', it appeared to have the general layout of one big
ass master breaker at the top (rather than the bottom, which would
seem to be the obvious place for it, but whatever),

As has been noted, a lot of breaker panels end up in basements, so the
heavy main wires come from the top, making it easier to have the main up
there. I think you can install them either way around, though. The
main breaker has to be marked; most newer panels I've seen have MAIN
printed both normally and upside down. Sometimes the panel comes with a
sticker that you stick on the right way around after installation.

then the two phases going to two busbars,

This is always a great source of flames in other newsfroups, but it
probably isn't 100% correct to call 240 V center-tapped "two phase".
Real two-phase is two phases 90 degrees apart.
uggc://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Gjb-cunfr_ryrpgevp_cbjre

It seemed fairly easy to expand, that one, but extremely dangerous to
do so without switching off the master breaker.

It is easy to expand, until you fill up the panel. Normally the 120 V
single-circuit breakers are about 1" (25 mm) wide and the 240 V single-
circuit breakers are about 2" (50 mm) wide. To get a little more
capacity, you can get a 1" wide double-circuit breaker: two handles,
two screw terminals for the load, but it may not be allowable to fill up
the whole panel with those.

If you do fill up the whole panel, you can either move some circuits to
another panel (powered from a beefy breaker in the main panel), or rip
out the whole thing and install a bigger panel.

[In case of fire] I'll gladly deal with a pissed-off powerco if it
means I can hand the meter to the first-responding engine so they
can get started sooner.

My house was on fire doesn't constitute the sort of emergency where
the powerco allows you to do it?

I'm not sure what the official rules are, but my understanding is that
they really don't like for mortals to do it. Some of it may be that
it's dangerous: when you pull the meter, you could be interrupting up
to 200 A at 240 V, which is bound to cause a bit of a spark. Some of
it may be that pulling the meter allows you to install wire or bits of
copper where the meter was, thereby getting power for free.

Matt Roberds

.

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