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Electrical Wiring
Ask questions here about proper wiring and electrical installation here.
4,935 Questions
What if a 1977 penny is a shiny silver and sticks to a magnet?
All genuine 1977 cents were struck in bronze, which is not magnetic.
If your coin sticks to a magnet it has either been plated with enough nickel or other magnetic metal to stick, or it was struck in a different metal altogether.
If it's a different metal, you either have a fantasy piece someone made privately, or possibly an error that's called an off-metal strike. That error occurs when a blank for a foreign coin accidentally gets mixed in with normal blanks at the Mint. Off-metal strikes can be worth a premium, but you'd need to have your coin inspected by a professional coin dealer or grader in order to tell if you have a true error, a fake, or just an altered coin.
The "TEST" button is there for you to check the GFCI is operating correctly. When you test the GFCI using its Test button it should trip to break the circuit. Then anything connected to that circuit will have no power. It sounds like the light in the other room is wired to the same circuit as the one you are working on, so, if the GFCI is tripped - such as when you press the Test button - no outlet in that circuit will be able to work until you reset the GFCI using its "RESET" button.
If what happens is as was just described then your GFCI is working as it was designed to do. <><><> If you are talking about a GFCI receptacle, and wired the receptacle as it shows you how to on the instruction sheet, then everything down stream from the receptacle is protected, along with the actual receptacle that you just installed. The bottom set of terminals on the receptacle that states the word "load", is where the wires leaving the receptacle box should be connected to. Incoming power to the top terminals of the receptacle outgoing power to the next receptacle to the bottom terminals. This allows the GFCI receptacle to protect every other receptacle that is connected down stream on that circuit. If you check closely to the other receptacles that are connected, you will find that they also will be off when you push the test button. ----- As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed. Before you do any work yourself,
on electrical circuits, equipment or appliances,
always use a test meter to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized. IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.
Why do you get an electric shock if you touch a doorknob after walking across a carpet?
You build up static electricity by walking across the carpet. When you touch metal doorknob, it releases the stored energy.
positive and negative charges. when you drag your feet against carpet you are negatively charged and so the door knob is positively charged so there fore causing an electric shock
Does a 240V 4-wire to 3-wire converter exist or can one be easily made?
Sounds Like You Are Trying To Connect A 4 Wire Dryer Cord To A Three Wire Recptical. Try To Find A 3 Wire Cord, If This Is A Clothes Dryier, & Install It On The Dryier. A Used Appliance Store Will Have One. If This Is Not Your Situation Reask Question. And Forgive Me Also No They Don`t Make This Type Adapter. Or At Least I`ve Never Seen Or Heard About It.
In German plugs what color wire is neutral and what color wire is live?
In Germany or, as a matter of fact, in Europe, the colors for the mains wires are as follows:
Live (L): Brown (and also red on old wiring circuits in UK and Eire) or black, but black is not very common)
Neutral (N): Blue (and also black on old wiring circuits in UK and Eire)
Earth is Yellow and Green striped
Caution: Many cheap power (extension) cables made in China and sold through Dollar stores (or equivalent) do not comply with the minimum safety precautions, namely:
- They don't have an Earth wire connecting the plug and socket (i.e., only 2 wires connecting to live and neutral, although using earthed plugs and sockets)
- You may get a potentially lethal electrical shock if you use one of these cables to connect an appliance with exposed metal connected to the earth terminal.
- The wire diameter is way too small for the rated power and will overheat and may start a fire if used to connect appliances that are power-hungry like heaters, stoves, etc.
If you suspect a cable, have it checked by a qualified electrician / technician -
Don´t take unnecessary chances just by trusting labels from Chinese products!!
As we say in Portugal, Paper accepts anything you want to print there, good or bad, right or wrong.
<><><>
As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed.
Before you do any work yourself,
on electrical circuits, equipment or appliances,
always use a test meter to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized.
IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.
Spiders like nice warm and damp places to make their nests - so a bathroom light fixture is one of their favourite places - and they don't seem to care if one of the places they use to fix one of their webs or a nest is a pair of live and neutral electrical terminals! If the light fixture is of an old type that has exposed terminals then a damp spider's web or nest can easily become a conducting circuit between the live (hot) and the neutral or earth (ground) wires. In older houses where open coal or wood fires are (or were) used, the damp web or nest gets covered in soot from the air. This is even more likely if the bathroom ceiling is just under the loft or attic of the house because, even if the roof is watertight, soot can often drift into the loft through gaps in the roof tiles. (A bit like snow sometimes does.) Then, because soot is carbon, which is a very good conductor, the current may sometimes grow to a point that the web or nest catches fire! If that happens the circuit breaker may or may not trip to shut off the current and the fire often goes out without causing much damage. You might just put the circuit breaker back on and wonder why it went off because no light bulb has died! Then, if the spider is still alive, 'cos it was away hunting at the time - or another spider comes along - the whole process starts over again... Usually these damp webs or nests don't actually catch fire, they just dry out. But whilst they are still damp you can sometimes hear a clicking noise from little sparks that jump from the web to the live supply terminal or, sometimes, to a tiny exposed bit of bare live cable going into the terminal even if that terminal itself is not affected by the web or nest. This can happen particularly if the web or nest starts from a bare length of ground wire, the kind which is quite commonly left uninsulated in old wiring. Eventually, when the nest or web has dried out because the bathroom is no longer so steamy, the clicking stops. Next time someone takes a nice long shower the web or nest gets damp again and the whole cycle repeats! So, to be sure they are clear of spider's webs or nests and will not become fire hazards (now or in the future) the bathroom and kitchen light fittings in any house should be checked every five years so that any such debris can be removed. Experienced electricians know all about this phenomenon, certainly in Europe, where the lights are supplied at 230 Volts and this kind of fault may well be much more common than in 120 Volt areas. So, if this kind of fault has to be fixed, or the breaker for the lights keeps tripping for apparently no reason, any experienced "old timer" electrician will always check the mains supply wiring and terminals in the bathroom and kitchen lights first. IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.
If you do this work yourself, always turn off the powerat the breaker box/fuse panel BEFORE you attempt to do any work AND always use a meter or voltage indicator to insure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized.
In general the answer has to be: "Not if it has been designed and wired to run only on the 50 Hz mains frequency system that is used in Singapore, Europe and elsewhere." The mains frequency in 230 Volt areas is 50 Hz (Cycles per second) compared to 60 Hz in US, Canada and other 120/240 Volt areas. Some 50 Hz appliances may work fine but others with simple motors will run too fast on the higher frequency of 60 Hz.
However the most important difference is how the Neutral wire is connected:
In a 240 Volts 50 Hz appliance has 3 wires altogether, a "Ground" conductor, one single 240 volt "live" or "hot" wire and a Neutral wire connected as a return to the single "hot".
An appliance designed to run on 240 Volt 60 Hz supply has 4 wires altogether: a safety "Ground" conductor and 3 further wires, namely a Neutral wired as a "central" common return conductor and two 120 Volt 60 Hz live "hot legs" which run in opposing phase to one another. When one hot leg is "+" (120 Volts positive) the other leg is "-" (120 Volts negative).
So there is a 240 Volt voltage difference between the "Neutral" and the "Hot" conductor in the 50 Hz system and only a 120 Volt voltage difference between the "Neutral" and the "Hot"conductors in the 60 Hz system. At the point where the "Neutral" gets connected to the "Ground" (not necessarily in the appliance itself but at the main breaker panel) this difference will cause serious problems!
That is why an appliance designed to be connected onto the 50 Hz system cannot be used safely on the 60 Hz system without first having proper technical modification work done. A licensed electrician or electrical engineer would be able to consider whether or not a particular large appliance, that was manufactured to work on 50 Hz-only, could be modified to run safely at the higher 60 Hz frequency. However it won't usually be worth the expense of doing the work because it would be more cost-effective to buy (new or secondhand) an equivalent large appliance designed to work on 60 Hz. Further information which may be useful to mention here but is not part of the answer to this question:Some small 50 Hz appliances, such as electric shavers, etc., have been designed to run safely on different supply voltages and frequencies. If that is so, it would be stated on their rating plates. In many cases, where the power needed is low, such as (say) less than 30 Watts, a cheap and simple "International Travel Socket Adapter" is all that is needed to make such an appliance plug-in and work. Many international airports have shops selling such adapters. <><><>
As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed.
If you do this work yourself, always turn off the power
at the breaker box/fuse panel BEFORE you attempt to do any work AND
always use an electrician's test meter having metal-tipped probes
(not a simple proximity voltage indicator)
to insure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized. : IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.
=== === === === NO!
<><><> (LIFE SAFETY WARNING! [disclaimer]
Electricity is dangerous!
You can be injured or killed!
Improper installations can cause fire, injury and death!
Should you be doing this yourself?)
From NEC Table 220.55
The combination of elements in this unit sound like 14 kW.
The demand for a 12 kW range is 8kW. There is an allowance of 5% for each kW over 12, which makes this a demand load of 8.8 kW. At 240 volts, that is a load of 36.7 amps, which would call for a 40 amp circuit.
The ampacity controls cable size.
Cable type and insulation control ampacity.
As an example, copper # 8 gauge non-metallic sheathed cable would have an ampacity of 40 amps, which would be acceptable. Aluminum cable would have to be a # 6 gauge.
The Authority Having Jurisdiction has final say.
ASK YOUR INSPECTOR!!
<><><> I don't know of any Professional Electrician who would install aluminum wire inside a residence or business. That being said, you are in over your head and should hire a pro to advise and install your ovens and burners. Electricity and it's wiring is dangerous. Home Depot and Lowes associates are not Licensed Electricians! ( If they are, they are not very good.)
<><><>
As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed. Before you do any work yourself,
on electrical circuits, equipment or appliances,
always use a test meter to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized.
IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.
The most likely cause for a loadcenter [circuit breaker box] to hum loudly when a high capacity load is connected is that there is a loose connection.
This could be a loose fitting breaker, bad internal contact in a breaker or a loose terminal screw.
High loads and loose connections mean resistance and voltage drop. This equals heat.
Your service entrance panel is at risk.
CALL AN ELECTRICIAN.
NOW! <><><> It can also mean that the breaker is just at the tripping point, and is the magnetic kind. The circuit may be too small for the load. It could also be that the load, plus the other loads are just under the trip point on the main breaker.
<><><> As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed. Before you do any work yourself,
on electrical circuits, equipment or appliances,
always use a test meter to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.
== == By asking this question you are probably not quite ready to take on this particular task. The correct answer to your question will depend on the exact locations of the desired GFCI-protected socket outlets. <><><> There is not, per se, a standard for location of ground fault interrupt receptacles around sinks.
There are rules requiring the placement of receptacles
These can be found in the NEC in Article 210.52
NEC 210.52(D) mandates a MINIMUM of one receptacle outlet in a bathroom in a "dwelling unit" and states that it shall be within three feet of the outside edge of EACH basin, and in a wall adjacent to the basin or countertop, with exception.
The balance of Article 210.52 gives requirements for placement of other receptacles throughout the "dwelling unit"
There are rules requiring that these receptacles be GFCI protected
These can be found in the NEC in Article 210.8
NEC 210.8(A)(1) mandates that the required bathroom receptacle in a "dwelling unit" shall be GFI protected
The balance of 210.8 addresses other GFI protection requirements.
Kitchen placement is also in these Articles. <><><>
Electricity 101, Logically, anywhere you think you need one, and anywhere within 6 feet of the rim of the outside edge of the sink. <><><>
As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed.
Before you do any work yourself,
on electrical circuits, equipment or appliances,
always use a test meter to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized.
IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS. == ==
The difference is the difference in the size of service entrance conductor and maximum ampacity of the service equipment [panel].
The panel will be labeled and the main breaker, if there is one, will say 100 on the operating handle.
It is unlikely you will find a sixty amp service unless it has fuses [probably with pull-outs] and cloth service cable [it will be very old]. Many of these old fuse services may be 100 amps.
<><><>
As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed.
Before you do any work yourself,
on electrical circuits, equipment or appliances,
always use a test meter to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized.
IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.
Would electricity work for rocket propulsion?
There are several types of electric propulsion. None of these are useful for primary propulsion (getting off the ground and into orbit) because you can't deliver electric power at the enormous rate required. For orbital maneuvering, however, they can be very mass efficient. The sexiest is the ion thruster. It uses xenon gas, which is accelerated by electric grids. This was developed for stationkeeping of geostationary comsats, but also has seen use in deep space probes, see http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/tech/sep.html. The ion engine has a characteristic velocity of about 35 km/s, about ten times what you can get from typical thrusters. There are also resistojets, which heat the propellant with electricity, and plasma arc thrusters, which vaporize a block of teflon with a big spark.
OK, it sounds like you can't figure out if your dryer is faulty or if there is no power to the unit. The very first thing to do is go to your household electricity main breaker panel and check if the supply of electricity to the dryer circuit has been cut off because a fuse has blown or any breakers have tripped. The old dryer may have blown the fuses or tripped the breakers when it went wrong.
If you find that you have a blown fuse, then replace it with one of the exact same currrent rating (amps). If you have breakers, look for either the old-style ones - they have a tie-bar connecting the handles of two side-by-side breakers together - or the new kind that have a single handle on a pair of breakers. They should also have a label or markings saying their ampacity rating, either 20, 25 or 30 amps. Turn them off and back on. Old breakers can look like they've been reset when they're actually still tripped.
Then go back to the new dryer and see if it now works.
If it still won't work then there are two possible reasons that will have to be considered:
- the new dryer needs more power than the old one and that is why the fuses blew or the breakers tripped.
If that is the reason, they will just keep on cutting off the supply until you have them upgraded to give enough power to your new dryer.
Only a licensed electrician should do that kind of work for a 240 Volt circuit.
- if you definitely know that the new dryer is not more powerful than the old one, you will have to consider checking the outlet to be sure that it is receiving power. If you know how to use a voltmeter or another kind of power testing device or indicator safely then you could do that.
If using a meter or power test device is beyond your skill-level, then you must ask someone who knows more about electricity to do this for you, to save you the expense of calling an electrician and not needing his services other than to tell you that your dryer is faulty, or calling an appliance repairman only to have him tell you that there is no power to your dryer.
<><><>
As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed.
Before you do any work yourself,
on electrical circuits, equipment or appliances,
always use a test meter to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized.
IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.
Answer for UK, Europe and countries running a 50 Hz supply service.
A four-prong socket on the generator implies that it's a 3-phase generator.
The welder appears to be single-phase load working at 240 v 50 A but provided the generator is rated at 415 v 36 kVA that means it can supply 240 v 50 A on each phase, between line and neutral.
Given the voltage and power of the generator an electrician should be employed to identify the socket correctly, do the wiring and ensure earthing is correctly completed. Without this the system is dangerous, someone could get electrocuted.
<><><>
Wow! This is interesting!
Even though non-grounding, non-polarized outlets may still be for sale in some hardware stores, nowadays every newly-installed outlet should have a ground.
A lot of homeowners may want to save money but, if the wires are larger than 18 gauge, leave them alone and call a professional to save families and homes from electrocutions and fires.
<><><>
As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed.
Before you do any work yourself,
on electrical circuits, equipment or appliances,
always use a test meter to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized.
IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.
How to test for short in wiring?
If the questioned circuit keeps blowing fuses--replace fuse with a test light--light will illuminate as long as there is current flow to ground (Short) when short is found and removed (bad wire etc,) light will go out
Why does cotton make more static electricity?
Because Cotton is low on the list of electrons. If you rub 2 materials together, the lowest one on the list will take the electrons away from the other and it will result in a negative effect.
Answer for trained people:
There is one mistake that a knowledgeable person can make, and wonder why it doesn't work. This happens in some breaker boxes if you place a skinny 240 volt breaker filling an odd location (counting down vertically) and the next even position below that. When this happens, both hot lines are on the same leg. So, instead of 240 volts across the motor, you have no voltage across the winding, but the motor winding is entirely at 120 volts with respect to ground. The upper position of the breaker location must be an even position, and the lower position the next odd position. Most breaker boxes alternate bus legs in horizontal strips, not vertical rows. The first two horizontal rows are on leg 1 (L!), the next two horizontal rows are on leg 2 (L2), the next two rows are leg 1, etc. This requires placing a double pole breaker where it spans both legs L1 and L2.
The following condition will occur if you have duplex breakers installed in your panel. This error happens most often when the number of breaker positions already used in the box is a multiple of 4, and you try to use the next available space on one side. The next two spaces on one side both have the same leg, so you can't put a 240 volt breaker there. But some of the boxes let you install it there anyway (mine has plastic bosses that prevent this).
You can use a voltmeter to check for this. If you measure 120 volts from each hot prong to ground, but no voltage between the hot prongs, this has happened. A neon voltage tester will show no voltage between the hot prongs, even though it shows voltage from hot to ground.
The cure is to move the breaker down one breaker space in the breaker box. You can put another 120 volt breaker in the empty space where the knockout was removed (since cover is required, and the knockout can't be put back), and reserve it for a future 120 volt circuit. (Since my box has wide knockouts, I had to install two dummy 120 volt breakers, one above the 240 volt breaker, and one below it. But they quickly found uses in extra 120 volt circuits.) NEVER use two single pole breakers for a 240 volt circuit, unless the handles are common tied together with a special device made for that purpose.
How do you convert a 120V receptacle to a 240V receptacle for an air conditioner that uses 240V?
A "110" volt outlet cannot be converted to a "230" volt outlet. A 230 volt outlet requires a new wire run to the outlet rated for the appliance you plan on plugging into it. Example an airconditioner that requires a 220 volt 20 amp circuit would have to have a 12/3 w/ground wire run to handle the load. The three wire are usually black,red,white. Black is for 1 120 volt line, red is for another 120 volt line and white is for neutral. On a standard 120 volt outlet there are 2 colored wires (black and whtie) and a bare ground. It's not an easy solution, but it is the only proper solution.
Which prongs are hot ground and neutral in a 4-prong 240V plug?
the round prong is the ground, the side prongs are hot and the top prong is neutral. The "Hot" Terminal screws are Brass colored. The "neutral" is silver and the "Ground" is green. Please be careful!!
What can cause a circuit breaker to suddenly start tripping?
If the breaker trips when nothing is turned on it could be a mouse problem. If it only trips when certain lights or appliances are turned on one of them is probably the reason.If it trips when nothing is being turned on or off something is getting hot. You should then have qualified electrician look at it. Hope this is usefull.
Can two 12-3 Romex cables be used to wire an electrical range which normally use a 8-3 Romex?
<><><>
You can, if you want to burn the house down 30 minutes after the range kicks on.
<><><>
As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed.
Before you do any work yourself,
on electrical circuits, equipment or appliances,
always use a test meter to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized.
IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB
SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY
REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.
What causes the lights in a 4 year old home to dim and brighten for no apparent reason?
It sounds like a loose connection. If it is all lights then look in main panel. If just some lights look at the switch first for loose connections. There is a good chance that the neutral from the service entrance cable to the panel is loose. BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN WORKING IN THE PANEL. Even when the main breaker is off, there is still some power in the panel. If in doubt, hire a licensed electrician.
You will need an electrician.
No. That dryer draws a maximum of 7200 Watts. The regular 120V outlets around your home can supply 1800W. So any type of converter will not work.
If you have an electric range, the outlet for that is the only outlet in the apartment big enough for this. You can make an adapter if you really want to go down that road. How to do that has been answered a number of times on this site. Keep in mind this will involve pulling the oven out every Tim you want to do a load. If it is gas you are out of luck.
Really you have two good options:1) Have the correct outlet installed. You shouldn't do this yourself for liability reasons (Burning down apartment complexes tends to be pricy.) Your landlord may install one for you if you are nice, and, more than likely, will let you have one installed if you pay for it.
2) Sell your old dryer and buy one that matches the hookups. You'll have to see which is fiscally wise.
