Hey DeathRay, thanks for the response, that does help a lot. So, in this case, all of the power flowing through the "common" lines goes back through the plug in to the earth? So, then is there ever any danger if the "hot" line is not connected? Meaning, if I have the "common" line hooked up by itself is there any danger of electricity flowing? Or if I touch the common by itself, is there danger there? Or is that only a conduit to send energy that has already been sent through the "loads" in the circuit?

In other words:

Common by itself ='s safe?

Common hooked up after hot ='s not safe?

And what would happen if there was a hot wire connected to a load but there was no common hooked up? Would there be a flow of electricity there? Or would there be nothing to further "draw" the electricity through the hot wires.

Thanks again for any information/hints you can provide. It is much appreciated.(i know this post started to sound like a 5 year old who had too much coffee..)

-J

Uh oh, I fear I have strained DeathRay's capacity for dealing with newbie questions past the breaking point.

Anybody else feel like chipping in? I'm not trying to be a moron

thanks!

-J

I read this and wasn't sure how to answer it and meant to come back to it later, then forgot. Thanks for reminding me.

First; the easy one. If you have no common hooked up then there would be no flow of electricity.

To the other question about the common being safe; I am reticent to say that it is perfectly safe. I would say that it is much safer, but I have talked to one electrician who said that it is possible though unlikely to get a shock. I don't know if he was full of it but I suppose that it may be possible if there was something running on your electrical panel and someone did something as stupid as touching the neutral while standing in a puddle of water in their bare feet. In a situation such as this where the person might be just as good a path to ground as the neutral bar, I think that it may be possible to get a shock.

I have worked on live circuits before and if you know what you are doing you can do it but one misstep and you are dead. DO NOT TRY THIS BECAUSE IT IS STUPID. I was taught by a maintenance man who was very hardcore and he used to do stuff like this just to freak people out. I remember that he would take great joy in looking for gas leaks with his Bic lighter. Again, DO NOT TRY THIS, but if you know what you are doing you can do it and live. If you are well insulated you can grab onto a live line and not get shocked just like a bird sitting on a power line; accidently touch a pipe or something while doing this and say goodbye.

I only included this to help illustrate the nature of electricity and because it is entertaining. But again; DO NOT TRY THIS, I will not be responsible for someone killing themselves.

Hey Deathray, thanks so much. Maybe I wasn't clear in my last post, I will try an image so you don't have to wade through my newbie speak

Are you saying that even though electricity is flowing through the common, in most cases, if i were to touch it(check the image), it still would want to go back into the plug and into the earth or whatever rather than through me?

Click to view attachment

I guess I'm still fuzzy on what makes electricity want to go certain places. Like how, in this diagram, even though all of the commons are hooked up, that that is ok. Is it the potential of what the house wiring is hooked up to that makes it want to go back through the plug??

In my wiring book, it explains the neutral wire this way:

"Electrical current flows back through neutral wires. The current in neutral wires is not pressurized and is said to be at zero voltage"

What does that actually mean?? Zero voltage??

I have looked up electricity stuff all over the internet, and unfortunately this wiring book doesn't really help. I think it's time for a trip to the bookstore

thanks again for all your help Deathray,

-J

Oh, and thanks for the tip on checking for gas leaks I suppose blowing up a house is one way to solve the problem..

Well you are getting into the obscure now and any further delving into this subject would only serve to confuse you and me. It's kind of like calculus; if you spend too much time trying to understand the formulas you'll never get anywhere(at least for me). Just use the formulas and you will be OK.

You have taught me something here, zero voltage/zero pressure at the neutral means no danger. It sounds like current doesn't actually flow through the neutral it just gives the current a "view" of the potential difference.

Anyways, this is how I read it but I'm on shaky ground here. It is sufficient to know that you tie the neutrals together to complete the circuit. Overthinking it wont change that.

You may not want to quote me on that zero voltage thing. I still can't figure out how that's true. If electricity is flowing through that wire, how can it not be dangerous?

I think my lack of clarity is just irritating both of us(you trying to help me and me just not being able to distinctly state my question).

I will do some reading and stop pestering you. I will let you know if I find any more useful pieces of information(electricity actually comes from elves, lcd monitors are made out of people, etc..)


thanks for your help Deathray.

-J

neutrals don't belong on switches

true... unless they are illuminated switches, in which case they need the neutral for the light within the switch.

I know X10 control has been explored, but have a look at these rempte controls. I think that the 4 channel is press on, but the 12 channel will toggle. The 10 amp relays can easly handle the 400w bulb.

edit: I looked a little deeper and here is a latching 4 channel.

oK, BIG question. What I'm using is the LL ballast- bulb- wire kit. 2 evercool fans (already wired and running going to be plugged in seperatly) and the benq 557s v2. Now I'm not running a fan thermo because I want to be able to control them seperatly. Now the questions. I'm not sure what people mean in the digrams that shows an LCD power supply. Is it just not a female end of the cord that plugs into the lcd? And I know this is huge but does anyone have any diagrams that could point me in the right direction using items of the like? Thanks all for any help you can give...

Some monitors have an external power supply while others do not. Either way, hooking up the power is the same... You hook up the origional monitor power cord up either by cutting off the plug and wiring directly to it or wire an outlet into your box and just plug it in.

If you are using the Lumenlab wiring kit (you said you bought one) you will need to use an additional seperate switch to be able to control the fans and ballast independantly without a thermostat.

]




[attachmentid=8642

Which would be the easiest for a newbie?I talked to a guy at HD and he said I could run an 14 guage 15 amp extension cord to the box, cut off the female end and wire it to a double outlet in the box then just plug in the lcd and ballast. Do you think that would be the easiest way for me to go?

Personally I think that the easiest way is to take that extention cord/extra switch money and buy an attic fan thermostat and follow the wiring diagram and the diagram with the mod for the Lumenlab wiring kit.

Yes you would solder at those points.

Does anyone have a wiring diagram using the LL wiring kit, EBallast and evercool fans but not using a fan thermostat? I want to control the fans on a seperate switch. Not sure how to use the wiring kit fromLL and not use a thermostat. Also I notice that the cord for the wiring kit is only 18 guage but that we should use 14 or 12 guage, does this cause any problems? Thanks all...

Could we use this?


Click to view attachment

Sorry its so hard to see. Its a 3 wire AC Chassis Receptacle 15A/250VAC UL/CSA
you can see a better picture of it here http://www.mode-elec.com/products/page_24.pdf (top right corn of page)

I'm not going to be using a fan thermostat so I don't need all the connections. It only has 3 connections in the back.

Hi duck.
You can remove the thermostat from the diagram above and still have everything work. However you will also want to add another switch on the black line coming out of the LL switch (in the diagram it's labeled "To Ballast"). This will cause it to operate just like the diagram in the LL guide. The first switch (the LL supplied one) will turn on the fan, while the new switch will fire the lamp. This is an interlock setup, meaning that if the fan switch is not on, the lamp switch will not work. It will also allow you to leave the fans on after you turn off the lamp. This is how I currently operate my projector. After turning off the lamp, I leave the fan on for about 10-15 minutes for a cool-down then turn it off as well. I do plan to add a thermostat so I don't need to do this manually.

Yes this is what a lot of people are using. You really don't need to though as you already have the power entry with switch from LL. See my reply above.

-gs

Thanks GadgetSmith, That will help quite a bit. I'm still struglling with the wiring, I just don't want to blow anything apart.

This is the diagram for my PJ. I am using 3 powersupplys, two inside the box, and the LCD monitor outside.

(two powerinlets).

This is a diagram for the fans and lamp.

I dig the font in your diagram. It's like the font used in the old Williams® (circa 1980) video games like Defender and Robotron. Still some of the best games ever made.

I would like to add at this time more comments about dangerous voltage on the neutral line. The neutral can carry voltage if there is something else on the circuit that is running.

My post reguarding this in the "another safety/warning story" thread goes into more detail about it here.

The rest of the thread is a good/valuable read also.

This is probably a dumb question but I can't tell on my LL e-ballast which is the hot and which is the neutral going to the bulb. Does it matter? I'm trying to use DR's diagram.

I posted this in my Plog and in the Colling the Box thread, But I thought I would post it here too, as I thought it would relevant for those who are setting something up similar to mine in that they will be using a single 12V supply to run the fans and LCD:

Had an interesting conundrum regarding my wiring. I plan to use 2 Evercool PCAC's for the system's cooling, and I found a 5A 12V AC/DC PSU, for laptops. I was trying to figure out how to wiring everything to one switch and have a temp controlled cooling circuit stay alive after shutoff. Every wiring diagram I found ar saw, used a DPST switch but was designed with 2 seperate power supplies for the 12V components, 1 for the LCD, and the other for the fan(s). I didn't have a lot of space to play around with. So I thought the single 12V supply would do. Long story short, the DPST switch was not going to work. Either I would not be able to isolate the LCD from the fan(s) or I would not be able to maintain power to the fan(s) without also powering the LCD. I came up with 2 solutions:

1) Get a seperate thermostat that would kill the power to the LCD, I couldn't figure the right temp that would let me do that right, or

2) use a 3PST (3 Pole Single Throw) switch and wire the thermostat and fans to the third pole, thereby isolating the fans from the LCD.

The only con I see is that there will be live power in the box after the switch is thrown to off, however I think that is the way all the wiring diagrams with a temp controlled fan circuit are setup.

Here's my diagram--reverse the 2 "out" leads on the left strip (OOPS!):
Steamer's Wiring

I gotta say, that is one AWESOME schematic, very very easy to follow, much appreciated man!

Has anybody seen one of the Coralvue Electronic ballasts? I have one that is supposed to be 220, but the plug is just like a regular 110v plug. Is this right, or did I get the wrong cord for it? Is there any way to tell what I have?

Anyways, if it is a 220, it poses some wiring problems. Here is the wiring diagram that I came up with:




If it is a 110, it makes it a lot easier:



Do these look right?

Hi, I've been reading the boards for a while (and I'm on mIRC as baronbrady). I have a coil and cap ballast, and I'm trying to understand how to wire it. Do I need to take special precautions when joining the LCD monitor to the circuit? I saw some sort of diode in one of the diagrams in this thread. Also, I was trying to see what the wires were for on my ballast.. I didn't get any kind of diagram from the seller. I know the ballast has a cap and ignitor attached to it, and has two commons and a 120V wire coming off of it. How do I use all of these?
Thanks in advance!

If you just conect the fans without a switch it would be running as long as there is power, is this a good solution?

yeah as long as you can keep th fans running after the lamp is witched off until cooldown. Seems very logical. cheers