Circuit breakers & outlet?

[spider125]

Thank you all for the help! I feel a lot better about doing this now. I'll have to see about the alum sleeve you were talking about. I'll ask the people at home depot about it. Again thanks so much.

 

[lazarus718]

EZ as hell, you do it live with the breaker your putn in turned off, super EZ. you can get double brakers to make one 20a two, or 1 15a to two if you need more space(full panel).

No need to turn off the main breaker.

TURN OFF the f*cking MAIN breaker before even unscrewing the front cover of that panel!!! Better yet, don't touch the thing if you're asking this question and hire an electrician to do it correctly. Why are you worried about having to re-light a pilot? If you take ^^^this guys advice you might not have the ability to even drink your dinner through a straw by the time you're done.

 

[ibTheMan]

cutn the main breaker for addn ah plug= chinken shit, ive ran 220's on live 440's its safe, no need to reset everything, trust me.

ive done more electric then GE, dont listen to chinken shits.
If you take that ^ guys advice, youll chinken out of everything simple in life that "something can happen". and hes probably never done any electric.
i would never try to get anyone hurt.

Edit= if your that worried, get help or pay, but it is ez, after the first time you would never worry again.

 

[hiboy]

cutn the main breaker for addn ah plug= chinken shit, ive ran 220's on live 440's its safe, no need to reset everything, trust me.

ive done more electric then GE, dont listen to chinken shits.
If you take that ^ guys advice, youll chinken out of everything simple in life that "something can happen". and hes probably never done any electric.
i would never try to get anyone hurt.

Edit= if your that worried, get help or pay, but it is ez, after the first time you would never worry again.

Ibtheman, just because you have done it doesnt mean anything. Obviously he hasnt done this before so safety is an issue. Definitely safety first and kill the main

hiboy:evilgrin0040:

 

[Underground]

If you are wiring in a home, all you need is romex or any brand NM-B. You said this is in an unfinished basment correct? If running perpendicular to the joists, you should be drilling holes and not just stapling to the bottom. You won't need mc or conduit in a single family residence. If it will be exposed in your room, 1/2" emt up to the ceiling would not be a bad idea.

My biggest concerns walking a novice through this is the main panel. It's not the buses that are still live, it's the wires that go into the main breaker that are still live. Be very careful of them. Also, if this is a sub panel make sure the ground and neutral get connected to the proper place. A sub panel should have a floating (or isolated) neutral bus. A main panel should have the neutral and ground bonded with either a bonding strap or a green screw.

1. Run wire from receptacle location to panel. (Do not tie into panel until everything else is complete.)
2. Install the receptacle in your room. Whether this is with an old work box in an existing wall that you have to fish, or a new nail on installed on a stud, or a surface mounted box you've run EMT to. ( You can sleeve the romex in EMT for physical protection where needed.
3. Finish installation and support/secure wiring from receptacle location back to panel.

and remember when working on live electricity disconnect in this order, and re-connect in opposite order.

• Hot (ungrounded) switched conductors
• Hot (ungrounded) conductors
• Neutral (grounded) conductors
• Equipment ground (grounding) conductors
• Hot goes to the brass colored screw, white goes to the silver colored screw, and ground goes to the green or (generally) hex screw.

If your panel is neat, than it should be pretty easy. If some hack did your panel, it can be challenging even for a professional.

 

[hiboy]

underground,, you ever hear of this quote?

the neutral is the captain of the boat
first on and last off
kinda helped me remember what to do when i first started electrical

hiboy

 

[Underground]

underground,, you ever hear of this quote?

the neutral is the captain of the boat
first on and last off
kinda helped me remember what to do when i first started electrical

hiboy

No I haven't, and other than the ground it sounds like a great way to remember. I like to have the ground hooked up anytime any other conductors are in play. That way metal objects, ie: entire light fxtures, can not become energized.

PS What hiboy is saying here is much the same as what I said, but is more to remind you that the neutral may be under a load. Which can cause damage if disconnected under a load.
This is even more important on a multi wire circuit. One with two hots and a neutral. You can disconnect the neutral in such a way that the neutral from both loads are connected without being connected to the panel. This creates a series-parallel circuit. If not perfectly balanced (the exact same load on each phase) this can cause your equipment to become damaged because the voltage will vary with the load. In other words, you can end up with a circuit with 200 volts and another with 40 volts.

 

[hiboy]

No I haven't, and other than the ground it sounds like a great way to remember. I like to have the ground hooked up anytime any other conductors are in play. That way metal objects, ie: entire light fxtures, can not become energized.

PS What hiboy is saying here is much the same as what I said, but is more to remind you that the neutral may be under a load. Which can cause damage if disconnected under a load.
This is even more important on a multi wire circuit. One with two hots and a neutral. You can disconnect the neutral in such a way that the neutral from both loads are connected without being connected to the panel. This creates a series-parallel circuit. If not perfectly balanced (the exact same load on each phase) this can cause your equipment to become damaged because the voltage will vary with the load. In other words, you can end up with a circuit with 200 volts and another with 40 volts.

Exactly bro,\
My buddy whos also an electrician opened up a circuit (the hot) and disconnected the neutral, not realizing that it was a 3 wire home run box, and it fried the tv receiver cause the other hot was still hooked up. Ya the captain quote is just an easy way to remember, course if you turn off the main then it really dont matter cause its dead, but i always do it in order to keep up that good habit.

 

[Underground]

Haha yea I did that in a gov't office once and fried a printer. A lot of times you can add a wire without disrupting it, but your new wire becomes the loose wire in the bunch. Sometimes people don't even twist them together. Well that's what had happened here, but the last one that had been added was the feed. So the main neutral loosened out of the bunch and then **BAM** a printer blows up. Well the bam was just for dramatics, it really just smoked a bit and then was done.

 

[weedfarm]

cutn the main breaker for addn ah plug= chinken shit, ive ran 220's on live 440's its safe, no need to reset everything, trust me.

ive done more electric then GE, dont listen to chinken shits.
If you take that ^ guys advice, youll chinken out of everything simple in life that "something can happen". and hes probably never done any electric.
i would never try to get anyone hurt.

Edit= if your that worried, get help or pay, but it is ez, after the first time you would never worry again.

absolutely horrible advise


I too have worked on live panels, nothing more than 240 though. But I am confident in what I am doing and pay attention.


Dude, kill the main, use a flashlight to do the 5 minute wire job in the panel, then turn everything on and reset your clocks. It will be alot better than someone finding you stuck to your panel cooked like a deep fried turkey. why take the risk?


Looks like you got good advise from some of the others. The job is easy, use the right connector at the panel, its a knockout connector which clamps around the romex. Then straight to the outlet box. I have used the blue plastic boxes and you dont need a connector for those.


And turn off the main, better to be a chicken than dead

 

[weedfarm]

My BIL was telling me about this a while back, when using the same neutral for 2+ circuits.

What if you are using a neutral for 3 circuits, disconnect the hot on one circuit, then the neutral? That would still create an unbalanced load would'nt it?

 

[hiboy]

My BIL was telling me about this a while back, when using the same neutral for 2+ circuits.

What if you are using a neutral for 3 circuits, disconnect the hot on one circuit, then the neutral? That would still create an unbalanced load would'nt it?

On single phase which is what everyone has in their household, you cannot use a neutral for more that two circuits and those two circuits have to be on seperate phases, a and b so to speak.

 

[Underground]

My BIL was telling me about this a while back, when using the same neutral for 2+ circuits.

What if you are using a neutral for 3 circuits, disconnect the hot on one circuit, then the neutral? That would still create an unbalanced load would'nt it?

In the case of a three phase network, you would disconnect all the hots first. Never have a hot conductor closed while opening the neutral. A MWC should be treated the same regardless whether it's using 2 or 3 phases of 3 phase or 2 poles of single phase power.

 

[weedfarm]

well when we were having this conversation, we were talking about a commercial application off a 3 phase panel.

So a common neutral should never be used on the same leg or phase. got it


So if in a panel and not sure what is going on, dont disconnect any neutrals..


what is MWC?

 

[Underground]

multi wire circuit, sorry

 

[hiboy]

Ya,, dropping a neutral with the hot connected CAN fry equipment plugged in downstream. It doesnt always, depends on the appliance, etc. I've accidentaly done it before and got lucky. This is good advice for everyone working on there own projects. Turn off the switch, breaker, etc. It can save ya some money in the long run
hiboy

 

[spider125]

Great info you all. Im sure this will help a few people out that might have the same problem!

 

[lazarus718]

Thx for the support on this one guys, sorry my nuts weren't big enough to advise an electrical newbie to take a shower in his main panel and leave the main on....wtf, my sweat is a conductor and I shouldn't have left my wedding ring on?!?!

 

[ninewuzhere]

Panels problems

Hey I havent been on for days so if you still need help with your panel send me a message ill type it all out for you.

 

[Underground]

Thx for the support on this one guys, sorry my nuts weren't big enough to advise an electrical newbie to take a shower in his main panel and leave the main on....wtf, my sweat is a conductor and I shouldn't have left my wedding ring on?!?!

That's a good idea for noobs, hell even the pro's in some messy ass panels. But anybody doing that should always remember the line side of the breaker is still live and a conductor could easily slip in there and POW!!