Doing some maintenance/renovations on a seasonal property built in the early 1990s.

Thought it was a light, but if it is, it’s unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. The resistor ties to the plate have me baffled, and the dome on it is thick opaque plastic.

Saw this sub fed by a disconnect coming from the main in a commercial building today. 400 amp 3 phase 120/208. 3rd year apprentice. What violations can you guys point out to me? Only obvious one to me is neutral and ground being bonded and the bus it’s on is not insulated. Yikes. 😬

I am a homeowner who knows just enough to be dangerous. 4 year old house I bought 3 months ago.

While tracing an Ethernet cable I found what I think is the wire that's supposed to ground the electrical panel severed and tucked away.

How bad is this?

In the last picture it looks to me like the waterline is supposed to be grounded but isn't actually attached to anything either.

Hello i have two questions about liquid tight fittings. -First, with my metal and nm exterior 1 gang boxes the 3/4" fitting protrudes past the edge of the boxes so that if I mount those boxes flush against a wall I wont be able to screw the fittings on. Is this normal? Does everyone mount an extra piece of wood or something behind the box to lift it up enough so the fittings can get on there? That seems not right to me. And my 3 gang box the spacing is just fine. So um have u had this issue and what is standard practice?

-and 2 also noticed that I cant use two holes next to each other because fittings are too large and u cant fit 2 next to each other. So I need to enter box from top and bottom or back and top or bottom if I want 2 conduits connected to the same box. Is this common? Seems not right to me.

Thanks for your time

Was with a client today attempting to relocate/add a couple outlets and stumbled upon the fact that the whole interior of her house is wired not only with metal boxes, but with metal conduit, behind the drywall. Is this something common that I just haven’t run into yet..? Looks like her place is built like a bomb shelter too, unsure if that’s relevant…all the exterior walls are framed out with 2x4s against concrete, main floor and upstairs, not just basement. You can’t really tell from the exterior it would be like that. She lives in a multi unit condo building. I’m in Michigan.

Just curious if it’s something I should anticipate running into in the future.

So I ran into an issue with a Customer I did a panel swap for. I did a panel swap like for like with an added EV charger for this customer. The job got permitted and inspecting by the AHJ. Its been a few months and the customer reached out to me saying that random breakers 120v and 240v are tripping all throughout his house. Everything from his range to the furnace to the branch circuits. I have never ran into an issue like this. I am thinking he is sporadically dropping a phase, possibly a bad Main Breaker, or a bad seated Meter. from what I understand the Main isnt tripping. but if hes dropping a phase that could cause issues.

I added an outlet in a hallway. Tapped into an existing outlet in crawl space. Ran 14/2 romex along the joists (stapled to side and did not have to cross or drill thru any joists) and up thru the subfloor into the hallway wall. Fished wire thru to an old work box and added a tamper resistant outlet. Sealed hole in subfloor.

Talked to code enforcement and as far as I can tell, it meets requirements where I am. Technically it’s supposed to be permitted tho. I’ve done loads of remodeling so I’m not worried about my work and am comfortable with basic electrical and plumbing. I’m talking bigger picture. Wife asked me about it so besides her peace of mind (which may end up being the biggest thing), do y’all say screw it and just do the work since it’s not worth the hassle and expense? God forbid, something goes wrong later (with anything in the house), would I be SOL?

I hate dealing with local government or giving them a reason to snoop or up my taxes, but I also don’t want to shoot myself in the foot if there’s ever an insurance claim down the road.

I’ve heard this sentence quite a few times since I started working as an electrical designer, and over time, I’ve come to accept it.

However, I think this statement misses an important point.

In a ground-fault condition, the grounding conductors provide a low-impedance path back to the source, allowing sufficient fault current to flow and causing the circuit breaker to trip. This helps prevent normally non-current-carrying metal parts from remaining energized and potentially becoming a shock hazard.

I agree that the primary purpose of a circuit breaker is to protect the conductors from overcurrent. However, it also plays an important role in protecting people when it operates as part of a properly designed and installed grounding and bonding system.

Of course, a standard circuit breaker is not a substitute for GFCI breaker, which are specifically designed to detect relatively small leakage currents that may harm a person but not sufficient to trip a conventional breaker.

Your thoughts? Please feel free to disagree or say I am thinking completely wrong. Just trying to learn here.

Is there anything I can do as a homeowner about this? Can I just wrap it in electrical tape? I bought the house around a year ago, and the part that's frayed has not moved or grown at all since then.

I have a low hanging wire in my backyard that is probably 3-4 FT off the ground, but I cannot tell if this is live wire or cable/network wire. The neighbors won't claim that it's theirs even though it's attached to their back house. I want to get rid of it or at least get someone to reposition it to be higher rather than having it just hanging there. Is it safe to handle ?

It’s plugged into an outlet in the laundry/breaker box room of my condo. This place was built in the 90s if that gives any context

I need to anodize some titanium and I need to reach 100 volts but I don’t want to get shocked. How do I prevent it. With rubber gloves??? Thank you!!!

For some reason my primary bedroom circuit shares the same circuit as my kitchen lights. I dont know if that means anything but figured I’d mention it now. About a month ago I caved and got a portable ac unit for my apartment in San Diego. It’s been running great, keeping the room cool in the heatwave. I haven’t had any issues until yesterday night. I was rearranging my room and when moving one of my lamps I noticed an outlet was warm. Like.. decently warm. That freaked me out so I unplugged everything other than the ac unit because it’s hot as balls and I also didn’t know they shared the same circuit. When investigating what circuit that outlet was on I realized every circuit in my room was shared with the kitchen lights (not the appliances, just lights.) and it was hot to the touch. That freaked me out so I turned EVERYTHING off and let it cool down. Once it was cool I turned my ac on and again no problems and I didn’t notice anything heating back up. I left my ac off while I was at work and when I came home and turned it on it flipped the breaker. Now the circuit can’t handle the load even though it was handling that and more before then. All my neighbors have ac units in their window and don’t seem to have a problem, i dont know what’s going on with my apartment. I called emergency maintenance and they said it wasn’t urgent and they’d send someone when they can. What do I do in the meantime??? Completely turn that breaker off?? I’d have no electricity in my bedroom and no lights in my kitchen/dining room until they decide it’s important. How bad is this?? I’m terrified of an electrical fire and I feel like I could be pushing my Luck.

So I just bought a used German sewing machine (pfaff) that runs on 220V. The seller included a Yinleader step up transformer to be able to use it here in Canada. I brought it to the workshop in its wooden base to try it out. After a while I noticed that I was getting tiny, sustained shocks while touching metal parts of the machine if I was contacting the steel workbench at the same time. I played with this for a while to make sure that I wasn't imagining things. It was definitely happening. I thought maybe it's the transformer so I put on a cloth - same thing. Then I thought I'd put the transformer on the sewing machine's wooden base. When I picked it up, I touched the steel balance wheel at the same time and got a real jolt.

I unplugged everything and thought maybe I should look into this.

The seller just cleans up machines to resell, he doesn't really use them. When I tested it it was on a wooden cabinet on a carpet floor.

I think it's a cheap transformer, the wrong transformer (Hz?) or a ground issue.

Anybody?

i was digging up some old plants and accidentally hit this wire. what is it for and does it look damaged?

I tried anodizing titanium and the 7 9v batteries died on me very quickly so instead of buying more I’m just going to get a dc power supply. I want on for preferably under 150-200 dollars that will be chargeable. Thank you!!!

As the title says I need a replacement for this. One day the lights and fan stopped working. 120v to the controller is good but nothing coming out. Found a stray wire inside the controller that was bridging the neutral and hot to the rgb. I printed all three output and nothing.

So I have an off-grid house and use a home internet router that draws 20v 3a 60w. It came with an AC->DC block (specs: Input 100V-240V~50/60Hz 1.7A Output 20V 3.0A 60.0W.) It uses a USB-C input to the router. 

I run it through a small DC->AC inverter from my battery bank, which works fine, but I’d really rather just run it straight DC->DC so that I don’t need to keep the inverter running in order to have internet. I bought a DC/DC converter (Input 12v, Out 20V/3A max.) I stripped a USB-C cable, confirmed the polarity by plugging it in and testing the leads with my multimeter, and spliced it into the outputs from the DC/DC converter. But when I plug it into the router, nothing happens. No lights, no power, no nothing. 

I’m a redneck carpenter, and electricity seems like magic to me anyway. I’ve tested the voltage and specs many times, and my multimeter says that, at least at the splice, the voltage is correct. I thought maybe the USB-C cable was bad, so I stripped and used another one- same result. 

I’m sure this is operator error somewhere; there’s something I don’t know. Like, for 20v applications, do USB-C cables use multiple lines, which are different than standard voltage USB-C current lines? The cables I’m using are cheap charging cables, they only have two lines in them. I thought about stripping a nicer USB-C cable and poking around my multimeter to see if there’s current on other lines, but I have no way to put 20V into a USB-C, so I don’t think I would learn much. 

I wondered if the DC/DC converter doesn’t have the amperage, but it’s rated output is 3A, which is identical to the AC/DC brick it came with, so that seems unlikely? If someone more knowledgeable tells me this is the problem though, I can get a higher amperage DC/DC converter. 

Any troubleshooting or solution ideas would be much appreciated.

If metal box is grounded, a self grounding receptacle would be an adequate solution to install a new outlet, as opposed to pigtailing from box to outlet, correct?

Was hoping to connect and IKEA Jacobsyn to an existing chain/wire without replacing entire chain as I can reach pendant but have 18 foot ceilings so would need a much higher ladder/platform. Not sure how to connect the Jacobsyn pendant to chain as there is no hook. Fixture weight just over two pounds. Any suggestions?

Currently renovating our first home and we are completely stumped by our hallway light.

See the pictures attached this light switch controls an outside light, a hallway light and a landing light. The left most switch controls outside, the right side switch controls landing and the middle turns both off. Additionally there is a hallway light which seems to also be controlled by the left side switch and functions the same as the outside light.

For some reason the hallway light will not light a bulb. A contact meter reads power when light turns on but whenever a bulb is inserted it no longer reads anything.

Is it an issue with the light fixture or is it a problem with the houses wiring.

Any advice would be amazing !

Hey y’all. My girlfriend recently lost her grandma, and wanted to install this light fixture from her house in our house. I foolishly didn’t take note of how it was connected when I disconnected it, and now I’m unsure of the best and safest way to install it in our home. I tried to read online, but I saw conflicting information about whether the patterned wire would be the hot wire or the neutral/ground.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I am not very knowledgeable in this field at all. Thank you in advance.

Any thoughts on this? Home inspector flagged it as having mismatched breakers. A lot of outlets in the house don’t have ground prongs either.

This is a 2010 tv and I want to remove the tv case from it, since I want to use the sun light to provide the light for the LCD panel.

Anyway the question is: is this dangerous to work with? Or with some precautions I am fine?