My "Sparky" thread

[mule]

Hey everybody I need a place that is sort of low key, off the "main drag" so to speak to start this... I don't mind questions I just need to "build a proper tutorial" The king Deep Water Culture Roseman moved his tutorial, a PITA for sure! To weed out the fluff must have been hell... Hopefully my pain will NOT be like he had at the last site... So is it cool? And I know a lot of you cats are just starting out... The same place I started out HERE! So if your growing with CFL'S,HPS,MH,T-5HO,T-12 pulse start yadayada this will help you understand the spark's that make things grow...


With that said, if any one wish's to disagree with me on anything I say or teach GREAT! Let's do it in PM... AS IN DON'T JACK MY THREAD! Sorry to shout, and it might happen in here from time to time to make a point that might get you KILLED!


My mentor has 4 electrical panels for me to come pick up. You might not understand this now, however it's all three phases of electrical current we can run, and sub panels we can run.

I intend to take them apart, paint them, and show you with color coding how that box works and how to run circuits, breakers, fuses, wire...

A little back ground on me. I worked at a local factory and I started out wrenching on the machines "I love to fix stuff" they needed a sparky I said pick me... Little did I know it meant following around a grumpy ol man doing all the work and he got all the credit... You see the school I was attending is passed on from generation to generation... We had books but he didn't need em... He was and still is a master electrician. I was and still am a loser... Kidding! I did 3/4 of my hours for my journey mans license, they wanted pee after awhile I was subbing at that point, private contractor I said kiss my ass

And now here we are growing the weed we all love...


I have no problem with any one asking questions however be prepared to show me pics of your main and sub panels with the cover off! If you have a meter close to that main box cover it up in those pics they have numbers on them, we don't need that... Or if you just want to stop by and say high I'm cool with that Rome was not built in 2 weeks or something like that...

I think that's it for now. We will start with safety first and simple stuff till I paint up the panels and get the working models going so I can change them around to explain different configurations of circuits, panels, relay's, timer's,breakers,wire, 120 volts 220 volts etc...

I told you guy's for helping me I would stick around to help people grow, pay it forward so to speak, so here I am

 

[mule]

Re: My "Sparky" thread...

I will cut and paste a few things over to kick it off...


OK let's let's start with safety first I'm not putting this info out to "scare" anyone in to not doing it themselves. Common sense and safety go hand in hand...

Always when around main or sub panels like you have there. Work with one hand in your pocket. NEVER put two hands any where near that box! Not to steady a screw driver, not to lean your arm on NEVER not even with the box off!!! The one hand gives the current no path to flow thru if your wearing good rubber soled shoes. Both arm's on the box gives it a path right across your heart think of your veins as wires at that point... And if you do get shocked as "drawn in" not just "bit" by it... Get to a DR NOW! If it takes a path thru your heart it can lose it's ability to absorb o2 from your blood and it... Just get to the dam DR!

Tie your hair back in a ponytail, take off all rings, body jewelery take that crap out anyways... wear good rubber soled shoes not your flip flops...

All wires are hot! even if you just shut the power down, work as though they are live. Try to build "habits" and that one time you did forget to kill the power those habits pay off...

Hot, power, live, wire All the same thing...

In a common household you have 2 phase 220-240 power coming in the house at the main when you take off the door cover You can use 2 hands for that the ONLY TIME. You will see 2 "legs" of power both black big wire one going down the L and R row of breakers. Those two wires and ALL of their junctions are always HOT! Unless you pull the meter head... Don't do that!
OK we had 2 phase 220-240 we put one side on the left, one on right set of breakers and that now makes it single phase 110 to each side. This is the black wire that comes out of the breaker. So hots are black, (and red but were not there yet)

Common, white, neutral, wire All the same thing...
It's the "return leg" so to speak in AC current it should not be "hot" Unless some one wired it wrong then bam trip to the ER treat it as hot!

Green, ground, earth ground All the same...
If it's hot MOVE!

OK one more thing for this post as not to have a wall of text...

Current capacity of copper wire

AWG Gauge #- Max current or amps to heat wire to 194*F
18- 21
16- 22
14- 25
12- 30
10- 40
8- 50
6- 70
4- 90
3- 105


I will post some more later

 

[mule]

Re: My "Sparky" thread...

That's a good point... I'm big on wiring it right! No short cuts!
get it short I slay myself

Papa sometimes I miss wiring stuff, this helps...

Your wiring looks fine man no burning issues

Let's talk about legs... not those ones...

One leg of electric current varies from about 100 volts to 120 volts that is why some people say 110 volts some say 120 volts...

One leg -single phase 120 volts
two legs- 2 phase (What most of you all have coming into you house) 240 volts
three legs- 3 phase (What I have coming in) 480 volts

So if I say 220 instead of 240 or I could say 277... it's all the sort of the same JUST think oh 2 phase not about the hard numbers on voltage...

So the last place we left off was wire gauge size...

The wire carries the load, not the breakers simple right?

So the 14 gauge wire we all have in our houses will only take 25 amps before it heats up enough and trips the breaker or fuse... So when a breaker trips just think to yourself wow the wire in my wall on that circuit is 194*F

That's why it's a really bad idea to up you breaker size in any panel...

Papa you asked before is it OK to take out a 50 amp breaker in your sub panel "my AC only needs 30 amps" I would just leave it be, you might get a bigger AC... The wire looks to be #6 or #8 we wire hot water heaters, stoves,AC with it. That's why in your main panel the circuits look unbalanced... If you did change it you would not get amps added to any thing...

When you open a sub panel you will see 2 legs of 120 volts and one common or white wire you wont miss them they are big, hooked into a couple of blocks we call the blocks a "bus bar"

On a stove,ac,water heater circuit we use a breaker that snaps over BOTH legs of 120 volts. Or over 2 bus bars

On a 120 volt circuit we use a breaker that snaps over one leg of 120 volts. Or 1 bus bar

So the sub panel is just a distribution center for power, be it 120 volts or 240 volts depends on the breaker you use...

When running a sub panel we first think how far from the main? How big is the TOTAL loads going to be on the wire...

We will use my sub panel as a guide since we know the #1 thing you must know before you add on to any sub panel WIRE size It's 75 feet of #3 copper the wire itself not the sheathing or coating is almost a 1/4"

I have a 100 amp breaker in my main that run's my sub panel. In my sub panel I have 190 amps worth of breakers and circuits???

Hey how the hell can I do that? Simple I will show you how... It comes down to knowing your loads on each and every branch circuit coming out in the sub panel... So Papa's total real world TOTAL amp draw on his sub panel can only go to 50 amps based on the breaker and size of wire at the main the sparky put in...

More to come Got to go take care of the girls

 

[mule]

Re: My "Sparky" thread...

Papa changing out that capacitor reminds me how many of these we have in our grow rooms in lights and ac units...

Let's talk about stored energy and safety.
all capacitors have stored energy, they have a positive and negative side just like a battery. The labels or markings may not say + - but the are!

The purpose of a capacitor is to discharge 1000s of amp's of voltage into something like a AC unit motor to get the motor spinning, or a mag light ballast to get that plasma arc going to light the bulb...

With that said, it is the amp's that will kill you not the voltage in electricity. I could touch one leg of 66,000 volt's if it had one amp for a "draw" (better be wearing god like shoes) however a 120 volt circuit pulling the full 30 amp's is scary thing! It has the ability to "draw you in" It makes every muscle in your body freeze you cannot move! The bigger voltage it just bites ya and might toss you off a ladder or across a room...

So never ever touch any bare wire or connection on a capacitor. Some are metal and your holding the ground!

Now some people are thinking ah hell I did that and lived... You got lucky when you unhooked it, you discharged it, or it was truly dead.
It won't draw you in because it discharges in a split second with a ton of amp's...

 

[mule]

Re: My "Sparky" thread...

OK Doc I'm gonna do you one better... I have pics of how I pull a 100 amp 2 phase 220-240 circuit 75 feet across a shop and split it into 120 when we get to the sub panel... I'm uploading pics as we speak... BRB!

This is where my power comes into the main box. Notice it's 3 phase that's 1 "leg" more then most have so don't worry about that. You will have 3 wires coming in... 2 blacks and one white or common wire it will have tape on it to let you know what the color is...

On the right of my wooden pointer you will see the hook ups for the white wire, and on the left we have hook ups for white wires also...

Here is how its done... First I plug in a 100 amp breaker like so into the main box then I pull 75 feet of #3 wire to support the load... See my white wire running up the left hand side it's taped white...

You have just made it live now and there is no way to turn it off, other then pulling the meter, however johnny law or someone will come check that so... We will now work on a live 220-240 kill you type circuit... Kidding, when you install the breaker make sure it's off and it just snaps into place...and when you snap it in then it's live. When you hook up a double breaker it takes 2 legs of 110 and makes them 220-240. I then hook up the three wires one red-one- black and one-white, only the white needs taped as it is understood that the two others are hot....

Now for the sub panel

In coming from my main white wire to my sub panel...

Red or black hook up they are both "hot" so it wont matter...

The other red or black ya it's hot also

But mule you have way to many breakers in that sub panel over 100 amps...

That's right kids, my wire carries the load... However I doubt I will ever use the 10,000 watt's that the wire and the 100 amp breaker at the main will provide...

Next time your at home deport look at a 2 phase breaker and a single phase breaker on the back... single has one contact and a hook, double or 2 phase have 2 contacts and one hook... Hope this helps you, need more guidance give me a shout out...

 

[mule]

Re: My "Sparky" thread...

So far what do you guys think? Once I get my teaching aids painted I will get serious again... 3-4 day's we will get down to business! Anybody learned anything thus far? Anything you think I should include? The mule

 

[Roseman]

Re: My "Sparky" thread...

I've been following along, bro, but electricity to me is like SNAKES to some people.

 

[Munki]

Re: My "Sparky" thread...

I'm interested and subscribed. I'm both intrigued with the how-to but a bit fearful that someone could hurt themselves ...

 

[Roseman]

Re: My "Sparky" thread...

I sure miss ole mule.

 

[Munki]

Re: My "Sparky" thread...

I sure miss ole mule.

Where did he go? Do you expect to see him back? I just had an electrician install a 20A circuit for me today. $128 but was worth the piece of mind not having to work around those live main lines in the circuit box!

 

[Roseman]

Re: My "Sparky" thread...

Where did he go? Do you expect to see him back? I just had an electrician install a 20A circuit for me today. $128 but was worth the piece of mind not having to work around those live main lines in the circuit box!

He got his feelings hurt, left once and came back, got his feelings hurt again, (hes a very sensitive type) and left again, so I doubt that he comes back.

I miss him, he's a great grower, a great Deep Water Culture and a great person.

 

[Munki]

That is too bad. I love learning different things and I liked his writing style.

Well mule if you do come back, there are still friends and fans here at 420magazine!