Newbie Advice needed

Sorry to jump in late here - getting caught up on the newsgroups.

The ACT repeater is supposed to be the best of the batch. There were reports that the Leviton HCA-02 had some bugs. Maybe they are fixed now. However, the older Leviton 6201 is a good choice, and is frequently available for around $50 on eBay. I used the 6201 myself in our previous house to solve a signal strength problem. I brought it and a spare with us to this house, but haven't needed it because this one was wired to be X-10 friendly. All circuits needing X-10 transmission are on the same phase.

As others have said, avoid the cheap X-10 switches. Also, the low end (6291, 6293) Leviton switches are just re-branded X-10 switches with the same rubbery push-on push-off control under that nice Decora paddle. I went with the Leviton "red line" switches for this house, and haven't had a single failure in almost 2 dozen switches over the last 2 years.

A comment was made about X-10 not having 5 9's reliability. Maybe not, but with over 100 X-10 transmissions a day, including water circulation and sprinkler system, it is extremely rare that we notice any missed transmission. And when that happens, it can generally be traced to human error, not the X-10 controller itself (an Ocelot). Our main X-10 failure mode seems to be the cat walking across the remote. Yes, she changes channels too. ;-)

To obtain high reliability, you will need one of the X-10 signal strength meters. Mine cost about $50, and it works pretty well. Also, be prepared to put X-10 filters behind A/V equipment, computers, etc.

Good luck with your X-10 system!

In many cases the panel may be the more effective location. My main reason is personal preference. I like to install things that influence or control the whole house at the central (not necessarily the geocentral) location. However, if the drier or stove happens to be a significantly easier location and presents no added risk, go for it.

There *might* be an issue with continued exposure to heat and humidity from a drier or stove. Others have said they use these locations and have not mentioned premature failures though. Only time will tell.

Useless tidbit follows: In residential and most commercial applications it's not switched. But code does allow switching the neutral *along with all hots* in certain situations.

Sunset Books has a guide to electrical wiring which the gentleman may find helpful. It's called "Complete Home Wiring" by Scott Atkinson. It discusses electrical wiring in layman's terms. The publisher has numerous books targeted at DIYers doing plumbing, building decks and patios, etc. Amazon should have it.

Yet. There's no telling whether you wired the hot, neutral and ground wires correctly. We don't know if you used a required ground fault interrupter and wired and tested that properly, either. No experienced inspector checked you work. It's not beyond belief to think you may have dangerous current leakage that would only evidence itself if someone brought an extension cord from another circuit inside the house near the pool lights area and electrocuted themselves because you managed to connect the wrong wire and created a path for 240VAC to course through someone's body.

There's lots more we don't know your skills or your worksite. We don't know if you used the proper strain relief or conduit and clamps or the proper grade of wire for exterior use. We don't know if you sealed your wiring up properly to prevent moisture from entering. We don't know if the original wiring you are adding on to is sound. Based on your questions so far, I'd bet money that your work would NOT pass inspection. It's nothing personal, it's just that without proper training, you're just bound to miss something important. And that "something important" could easily turn out to be lethal.

A lot of "homebrewed" electrical fixes work - for a while - even if some of the most basic safety rules are ignored. But eventually, when an unqualified "electrician" makes enough mistakes, one of them is bound to be serious. Electricity can kill in more than one way. It's not to be trifled with. When you are installing couplers and repeaters, you are working with

240VAC and that means there's little margin for error. Do you wear your safety goggles? You would if you had seen hot metal droplets spray from a tool vaporized from accidentally crossing 240VAC wires fused only by the 100 amp master breaker.

There's a tremendous advantage gained by experience which is why electricians have to go through a grueling certification and journeyman process. Most jurisdictions would *never* allow someone of your limited ability (don't take it personally, it's just obvious from what you're asking) to touch anyone else's home wiring. The reason is simple. Hundreds of people are accidentally electrocuted yearly.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 411 people were accidentally electrocuted, 500 were killed, and 5,000 were injured in electrical fires during 2001, the last year for which statistics were available. You're certainly upping the odds that you or your family will be included in those grims stats in the future by doing your own wiring without having it inspected. Even master electricians have their work checked.

It's only the belief that a man's home is his castle that allows people to work with lethal materials with no training or oversight. If you live alone and never have guests, I'm fine with that. But if you have other people in your house, you have a responsibility not to experiment on their lives.

I would NEVER, NEVER, NEVER publicly encourage someone who is not an electrician to go diving into their circuit panel. In this litigious age, it might mean being dragged into a wrongful death suit. Far stranger things have happened in the US court system.

Hire an electrician and watch him work. Have him inspect your previous work on the pool lighting while he's there and ask him lots of questions. It may be the best money you've ever spent.

-- Bobby G.

Geesh!! Give this guy a break! At our counter we get a lot of DIY'ers mixed in with the pros. Generally speaking, the smart DIY'ers who ask the right questions and study what they are doing are fully up to the job. I would say these types are probably going to do a better job than half the pros I see.

I got into this thread late, but I went back and reviewed it. From the responses, I expected he had wanted to do something like run 240V to every doorknob to greet visitors. I think we have a problem of the professionals not wanting any homeowner to ever touch the wires in their house with overblown concerns of safety. Where do you draw the line: Can he replace a lightbulb without your paid help? Can he replace a switch which is all most X10 homeowners want to do?

Let's be helpful to the people who are trying to do it right and not bring our hidden agendas into the discussion.

"Robert Green" wrote:

Point well taken but I don't think most (if any) of us here are actually licensed electricians so there's really no turf to protect. Instead, heavy handed as some of us may have been, the comments were really aimed at keeping him safe when it comes to opening up the service panel. While adding breakers is certainly no big deal, from the tone of his questions it sounded like he needed some coaching on the basics.

So you inspect their work when they are finished and you're fully aware of the quality of the work they did? I assume you're a master electrician so you can evaluate their workmanship and know (telepathically?) how much they know about electricity. People die from futzing with their own wiring. That's why we have lots and lots of laws and regulations about who can do what to electrical systems. It's because so many people have died from electrical accidents and so many people continue to be electrocuted accidentally.

This statement seems to imply that you're actively inspected enough of these jobs to come up with an valid assessment of the work performed. I don't want to impugn your integrity, but I have a hard time accepting that because electrical inspection is a full time job done by highly trained professionals. You'd hardly be in a position to do that for free.

The statement also implies a pretty strong anti-electrician agenda. I've seen plenty of DIY work and it was a miracle no one got killed from it. We have at least one post a month, maybe more, from people asking if they can just use a ground instead a neutral because the switch seems to work OK that way, even though there's no neutral in the box. Jeez!

No, it sounds more like you have an anti-electrician bias. I don't think

*anyone* who has expressed reservations about the OP's skills are electricians. I'm pretty sure we are all DIYer's. I am also sure our motives are not financial. We are all concerned the OP might kill a kid or two at a pool party if he didn't wire the pool lights with a GFCI and proper materials.

We're pretty good here in CHA at figuring out who could be *designing* AC power plants and who should call a licensed pro, just by the kinds of questions they ask. We're not doing it to make the OP feel bad or to steer work to electricians. Some have suggested books, I suggested he hire an electrician and have him inspect the outdoor lights and wire the coupler. Most posters have worded their comments carefully so as to be cautionary and educational, not insulting.

You've made serious mistake, Elliot. *My* paid help? I am not an electrician. Maybe that's why you're getting so roiled. You seem to have an issue with electricians.

Since you're operating under a mistaken assumption, let's review some basics. Surely you can tell the difference between:

A) an act that's clearly meant to be done by end users (plugging and unplugging appliances and replacing light bulbs)

B) wiring a device across the 240VAC mains and not knowing where to install it (and perhaps how to) or whether the subpanels are electrically interconnected?

Choice "B" should (and did) set off warning bells. Lots of people *can* and

*do* wire couplers in correctly. We have people in this group like Dave Houston and Dr. Cheung who could design the power plants that provide AC current as well explain the subtle nuances of split-phase AC circuits and how to calculate power factors. I would not presume to caution these folks, or any number of posters here who have demonstrated, repeatedly, very good familiarity with AC wiring and safe wiring practices. I have some idea from what they have written and other clues what they know about electrical wiring. I don't know *anything* about the OP so I tend to err on the side of caution, which you seem to feel are "overblown safety concerns."

Maybe, and maybe not. How is the switch wired currently? There's no telling that some amateur didn't bungle it before he even got there. I've seen screwup jobs where wires from two different circuit breakers were run together into one box. An electrician or a smart DIYer would know how to check for cross-circuit wiring and have the proper tools to do it.

But throw your average amateur at a 3 or 4 way switch and a good time is guaranteed for everyone. Surprisingly, I agree with you up to a point, Elliot. Working on a 110VAC switch with an insulated toggle is a lot less dangerous than working inside the master breaker panel with the cover off.

A typical breaker box is capable of delivering more than 100 amps of current at 240VAC. You can burn right through steel with far less juice than that. Working at the panel is a way different situation than replacing a wall switch. Switch swapping usually requires just a some screwdriving and wire nut twisting/untwisting. Still, I'm dubious about *some* homeowners even working with wall switches because they don't know enough about wiring to handle anything but the simplest switch swap-out.

Working with switches is something a smart DIYer can handle, and it's not likely they'll kill anyone besides themselves if they screw up. That's just simple Darwinism at work. But that's NOT what this thread is about. It's about 240VAC couplers in multi-panel systems and DIY-installed poolside lighting. Those operations require a just a *bit* (heavy sarcasm here) more knowledge than a simple switch swap. More importantly, they involve much greater risk of electrocution to the installer and to the occupants of the house.

"Our hidden agendas?" It funny you should say that. Why is it when someone accuses someone of *else* having a "hidden agenda" it's usually the accuser that's hiding something? In this case, you apparently took hold of the mistaken idea that I was an electrician trying to force people to hire electricians to "change light bulbs." I advocated no such thing. In reality, I suspect the agenda here is that you sell to the DIY trade (your email addy of snipped-for-privacy@e-supply.com provided that clue). That would give you an agenda of not wanting to see your income cut by people hiring electricians and not buying material from you. But that's just a guess. :-) For all I know the "e" could stand for anything from encyclopedias to ecstasy.

In *this* specific thread, the OP talked about not having electrocuted anyone *yet* with the pool lights he put in. Based on some questions he asked, I think the best "break" I could give him would be to have him consider asking a professional to install the coupler and check his previous work.

Outside electricity is about the most dangerous kind. Kids have been killed from faulty outside lights because water often enters them and causes serious current leaks. Does the OP know how to check for small current leaks that could indicate larger problems? Is he certain that if his kids give a pool party that someone running an extension cord outside to power a boom box or something like it won't bring two legs of a mis-wired circuit together with deadly results?

I don't think I am being too hard on the OP. I'm just trying to make sure that he doesn't kill himself or someone else by messing with things he clearly needs to learn a lot more about. Everyone's got to start somewhere. It's not a crime to be a beginner. But it's dangerous to be overconfident because mis-wired fixtures often work, but they are extremely dangerous.

I was shocked to learn (pardon the pun) how little AC current it takes to kill someone. We always see the prison lights dim during movie electrocutions, but the just the right jolt of even fairly low-current

110VAC going through your heart can stop it and you quite dead.

-- Bobby G.

Guilty, as charged. (I *thought* my hands put on weight recently!) It seems I'm apologizing a lot lately :-( Oh well.

Oh, it can be. And that's the problem, IMNSHO. When inexperienced DIY'ers hit on something out of the ordinary, the risk factors rise dramatically. Lots of old homes have been worked on by lots of DIY' ers of varying skill levels. Now I'm certain that some of those DYI'ers actually do a better and more professional-looking job than some pros, but I'll bet that's the exception and not the rule.

Until you've seen breakers not designed for the box they're in but forced to

*fit* anyway, you can't believe what happens. I've bought "fixer uppers" for most of my housebuying life. I should post some photos of DIY plumbing that went from iron to copper to plastic and back without the proper couplings. Remember that rat's nest (Centralite, IIRC) panel that looked like one of the first handwired mainframe computers?

I've found, in many cases, the DIY'er is not only faced with his current challenge (call the pun police!) but correct mistakes made by unknown predecessors.

Yes, I got the same feeling although you expressed it far more diplomatically than I, Mister FatHands, did! I'm just very wary of assisting people with 110 and 240VAC without finding out what they know about the basics. It's just too easy to give them the answer but not the knowledge, if that makes sense. And though I take hits for it, the underlying rationale is to keep people from getting hurt.

I have witnessed three tragedies in my life where children have died under very preventable circumstances. When a child dies and a parent even

*thinks* they have some blame, they suffer torments I wouldn't wish on my worse enemy. So many kids could be saved each year if people took better pool precautions, if they used kiddie locks on cabinets, self-covering outlets and a host of other simple protective devices and techniques.

When we see people posting each year about putting appliance modules outside to run X-mas lights or modifying antennas on RR-501/TM-571's without realizing the consequences I go a little crazy.

There are some interesting facts here:

Electrical contractors are joining together in an attempt to educate the public about ways to lower the number of deaths each year by electrocution.

Designated ?Electrical Safety Month? by the Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI), May provides a special opportunity to educate the public about the high number of children?s deaths by electrocution.

"Countless children die each year from accidents that could have been prevented,? John Masarick, IEC Codes and Safety Manager, said. ?IEC encourages its contractors and member companies to distribute the safety kit sponsored by the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED) to children everywhere.?

This kit which features Petey the Plug, Edison the Light Bulb, and Flip the Light Switch can be downloaded at:

or by visiting the NAED website The kit contains several activity pages, ranging from word scrambles to coloring pages and can be duplicated for educational purposes.

Electrocution is the fifth leading cause of accidental death in the United States, according to the National Electrical Safety Foundation (NESF). According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), one person is electrocuted in the home every 24 hours.

While I suppose the number of deaths is not "countless" even one death that's preventable it a tragedy.

In the case of the OP, I hope he would come back, tell us exactly how he put those pool lights that "haven't killed anyone *yet*" and enter into some discussion on how to test the circuit to see if the polarization is correct, there's a working GFCI and that there's no leakage to ground. Screwing up the polarity is very simple to do, especially if the DIY'er has read that there's no polarity in AC wiring.

A simple three pin neon tester:

and a non-contact current detector:

and a good multimeter are MUST HAVE tools for anyone working on AC wiring. (FWIW, I have seen both devices for less than half the cost but these were the first sites I found via Google that had good illustrations and descriptions - no affiliation or endorsement)

The results can be devastating when appliances from different circuits are brought together if the polarity is incorrect or the wires are not correctly connected. That's why unpolarized three wire cheater adapters are so dangerous. Too easy to reverse the polarity.

As you say, Bruce, we're (you and I at least) not trying to protect a trade, we're trying to protect someone's life. Again, I apologize if I've come across as MacGruff the safety nut. Humans are like electronics - once the magic smoke comes out, there's not much you can do to get it back in!

-- Bobby G.

Also, if they don't know (or misuse) the basic terminology, there is the likelihood that they are asking the wrong question or misinterpreting your answer.

Same here but it took 24 years to get her out. :^)

You're talking about the same "bat" that sacrificed her time and which you subborned into your "modestly successful central station" to work eighteen hours with no pay and little thanks... The same individual that bore your children and raised them while you were out "smoozing" new clients, "installing" alarms, "managing" your business... This has got to be one of the most disgusting things you've ever written... I'm sure Rhonda thinks she's well rid of you!

Off your meds again Frank?

:-P

What I hate the most is that when you never hear from the OP again, you always have to wonder what happened.

-- Bobby G.

Bzzz... zpp...thffpt... Zapp! New NG name= Smokey.