This is the prelude to a future project, wherein I stick an ancient Atom motherboard into an unpronounceable QILIPSU outdoor enclosure. (The enclosure seems to be pretty good, though!)

You can access the computer here for fun and no practical reason whatsoever: http://outdoor.s.co.tt

OK, So I’m Being a Bit Facetious

Obviously I and most everyone else knows that the vast majority of American household stuff is powered at 120V. Almost all receptacles and (nearly) all lights in a home are indeed supplied at 120V.

But! It’s not as simple as that. So maybe the video title is a tiny bit of clickbait, but it’s also more or less true. Most Americans do indeed have 240V supplied to their home, and that is the line-to-line voltage. The transformer is rated for 240 Volts with a center tap that happens to be referenced to ground/earth, and it just so happens that the potential difference between the center tap (ground) and either of the two lines is 120V RMS.

Full(er) Transcript

What follows is the original script I wrote for the video. Everything you heard in the video is in the script, but I cut some of the more tangential stuff.

So if you’re interested in every last bit of what I could have said, read on…

Hi everybody, I’m Scott and in this video I want to talk about a slight misconception regarding electrical service in the U.S.

I watch a lot of YouTube videos about vintage and modern tech, by people both here in the U.S. and abroad. When talking about powering those devices, the consensus seems to be that in the States we have a 120V electrical system, with 220 to 240 Volts in Europe and 100 Volts in Japan, just to name a few.

So it might surprise you know that standard household electrical service here in the U.S. is 240 Volts, not 120.

Or, rather, not just 120.

(And in actuality it’s more like somewhere between 220 and 250 Volts, and 110 and 125 Volts respectively.)

Though I’m sure many people here already know this, I figured this subject might be of particular interest to people in other parts of the world.

So, let me show you my electrical service.

In my area we obviously have overhead power lines, which I’d say represents the majority of local delivery systems here in America. Many neighborhoods do have underground wiring though, but you’ll usually find those in warmer climates such as in Florida or California.

Underground wiring doesn’t play nicely with the freeze/thaw cycles seen here in New York where temperatures can go anywhere from -10 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit (-23 to 43 degrees centigrade).

Yes, there are buried power lines in my area too, but they’re definitely not typical, and generally speaking maintaining them is far more expensive than overhead distribution (and far more disruptive as it would require digging up a street rather than simply bringing a bucket truck.)

Here’s what you’re looking at: At the top is the primary distribution circuit, and those can operate at a wide variety of voltages. I can’t measure mine for obvious reasons, but anywhere from 2KV to 14KV is probable.

As you can see, there’s only one wire supplying us with power. The system voltage is referenced to ground, so the actual Earth is effectively the return conductor on the circuit. That’s a pretty common arrangement the world over.

The primary line connects to this pole mounted transformer, which steps the voltage down to something that’s usable in the home: Namely 240 Volts.

This transformer is shared by various houses in the neighborhood, with the 240V secondary run along here, to the right of the transformer. It’s then tapped anywhere a house needs service.

My house appears to tap power directly adjacent to the transformer, but this cable actually originates a few houses down that way.

My service drop runs from that tap point over my yard and into a weatherhead, then down this conduit to our meter.

The wiring continues on from the meter to what’s commonly called the service panel, breaker box, or circuit breaker panel.

I feel like the breaker panel should be a topic for its own video, and though there are a wide variety of brands and models of panels in the U.S., this is undoubtedly the most common in general appearance, at least for post-1960-ish homes that have a 200 Amp service (which is the common amperage for service to most detached homes).

For this video, the important thing to note is this switch at the top. That’s the main breaker that can cut power to all other circuits in the panel.

And with the cover off, you can see the two connections running into that breaker. Those are the wires coming from the meter outside.

If you didn’t believe me when I said that most homes in the U.S. are fed at 240 Volts (or thereabouts), here’s the proof.

OK, at this point I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the elephant in the room: Messing around in your service panel is dangerous. Especially if the panel is powered. And most especially if you’re shoving metal electrodes into the main terminal lugs, because those are powered directly from the street and have no meaningful overcurrent protection.

In other words, if my test lamps here were faulty or if I simply slipped and managed to create continuity between the two service lugs (or between one of them and ground), I could be electrocuted or start a very problematic house fire. Or both!

So what I’m saying is don’t try this at home, even though I’m being completely hypocritical because I’m quite literally trying this at home. Just be aware that it can kill you and your whole family.

Anywho, getting back to the topic at hand: 240 Volts.

OK, I’m being a bit sneaky by repeatedly mentioning that 240V is our standard household voltage. While that is indeed the voltage being supplied by the transformer, the vast majority of electrical outlets in an American home supply power at 120 Volts, as is well known.

So, what’s going on? Well, I purposely forgot to mention the neutral wire.

Because of the way the transformer behind my house is oriented, you can’t see the connection points for the low voltage side. But this is pretty much the same type of unit, and you’ll see that there are three secondary connections. Those are generally referred to as L1, N, and L2, for Line 1, Neutral, and Line 2.

L1 and L2 are both live (also called “hot”) conductors, while N is a grounded conductor. (Note that it’s not the grounding conductor, which in the house is always separate from the neutral – except in the service panel. Again, I’ll need to do a whole video on the panel at some point.)

L1 and L2 are out of phase with each other by 180 degrees, meaning their waveforms look like this.

The RMS (root-mean-square) difference – the way A/C voltage is typically measured – between these two waveforms is 240 Volts.

However, the difference between L1 and N is 120V RMS, as is the difference between L2 and N.

Let’s take a look at this much smaller AC transformer that’s rated for a 120V primary and a 12V secondary. In other words it’s a step-down transformer for operating 12V equipment such as relays or lights.

On the primary side it has two connections: One for live and one for neutral. This is just like the transformer behind my house, where the live conductor was operating at multiple kilovolts, and the neutral was quite literally the ground beneath it.

On the output side there are three connections, just like it’s bigger brother. We could call them L1, N, and L2.

So, let me connect this to a supply voltage and do some probing.

Again, like a scaled down version of its bigger brother, the two outer terminals measure 12V relative to each other.

If I measure from either of the outer lugs to the center lug, it’s 6V!

The oscilloscope also shows that, just like the 240 volts coming into my house, there are two sine waves that are 180 degrees out of phase with each other when measuring 12 volts on the outer two connections.

From either of those connections to the center tap there’s only a single sine wave.

And also like the primary side of the transformer outside, this transformer only has a single phase at 120V relative to neutral/ground.

As much as I’d love to take that transformer apart, I kinda need it, so let me just show you a diagram of what’s going on here:

A transformer like this consists of two coils of wire wound around a common core. A difference in voltage between one side of the transformer and the other is created by varying the number of times the wire is physically wound around the core on both sides.

The ratio of turns on one side versus the other is the same as the ratio of the voltage on one side versus the other.

So If both sides have exactly the same number of turns, the input and output voltage will be exactly the same. If one side has twice as many turns as the other, that side will have twice the voltage as the other side.

This transformer, to step down 120V to 12V, would have 10 times as many turns on the 120V side as the 12V side. Just for the sake of example, let’s say there are 1000 turns on the 120V side and 100 on the 12V side. What if we took a wire and soldered it right here, and then measured the voltage between these two points?

Well, in the space between those two connections there are 50 turns. The ratio is then 50 to 1000, and so the voltage here will be 20 times lower than the voltage here. Hence when I supply the transformer with 120V, you can see 6V!

And this is inherently bidirectional in principle: I could feed 12V into this transformer here and measure 120V here.

In other words, a simple transformer like this can be used to either step-up or step-down voltage. In fact, it’s the same for the transformer on the pole.

I should also note that in the real world transformers are not nearly as simple as I’m making them sound, but the general idea is correct.

And that’s how residential electrical supply in the US works.

It’s called a split phase system, because the single phase coming from the distribution grid is effectively split into two by the center tapped transformer.

The upshot of all this is that I have both 120V and 240V outlets in my house, as with most houses.

240V is widely used, but mainly for large permanently installed equipment like hot water heaters, air conditioners, clothes dryers, stoves, ovens, hot tubs, electric car charging and even whole-house heating. Basically in any situation where a lot of power is required.

However, you can call an electrician and have them wire a 240V outlet anywhere you might need it.

The only sticking point is that if you’re looking to run, for example, vintage European 240V computers, they may or may not be compatible with our 60 Hertz system. That being said, for equipment that solely uses DC voltage internally, the capacitors on the low voltage side would probably have an easier job of maintaining charge at the higher frequency. I think it’s potentially more problematic the other way around, using equipment rated for 60Hz on 50Hz systems.

But don’t take my word for it, double check that for your particular device before applying power.

As a side note, it’s pretty common (though far from universal) for US households to have a natural gas connection. I have one, and so therefore my water heater, clothes dryer, stove, oven, and so-called boiler are all gas-fed. That leaves a nearly ridiculous amount of amperage available for things like computers and electric cars.

So I hope you found that interesting. Split phase power has its advantages and disadvantages, and of course there’s a lot more to it than what I’ve outlined in this video. But the main advantage for me personally is that I can operate random 240V electronics at home, as well as all the usual American 120V stuff. In fact, most of the UPSes and servers here in my basement are running at 240V!

I’m getting off on a tangent here, but you may have noticed that this is decidedly NOT a smart meter, and though it’s a pretty old-school design these are still quite common here in the States. It does actually require a person to come and read it manually.

Where I live, we’re billed monthly, but the meter is only read every other month. The power company estimates usage for billing in the intermediate month, though I could manually report my meter reading if I was a stickler for paying the exact amount.

My power company (as many do) offers something called balanced billing, where they charge a fixed amount every month based upon your previous year’s usage patterns. That can be very helpful if, for example, you have a gas heating system and therefore use very little electricity in the winter, but have the air conditioning is running all summer. It wouldn’t be uncommon to have a bill four or five times the cost in the summer versus the winter, so that can help quite a lot when it comes to cash flow.

Well, that’s it for now. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe and do the liking thing and all the regular YouTube outro stuff. You can also examine my website at s.co.tt, which is totally a real URL.

I tried whenever possible to make it clear that I was talking about the most common way in which power is delivered to an American home. There are exceptions, of course.

For example, if you live in an apartment in the US your building may be fed by three-phase power, which is quite standard for commercial and industrial properties. In that case you, as the tenant, will most likely only have access to 120V circuits and there probably won’t be any 240V circuits available anyway.

Even if your building is fed by split-phase power, your landlord might have no need to supply your apartment with any 240V circuits.

Power delivery in rural areas can be a little weird, so for all I know there might be single phase 120V systems out there.

And finally some older homes may still have single-phase 120V distribution panels (which are probably fuse boxes), even in neighborhoods where split-phase power is otherwise in place.

Also this video is intended as a general interest thing, and so don’t take my word as absolute gospel on any of these issues. I don’t have the capacity to bestow any magical powers of electrical licensing on any of you.

A company called Divine LEDs (now called Vont) got in touch with me out of the blue to ask if I’d be interested in doing a review of their Solar Motion Sensor Light. I said “sure”, but with the caveat that my review would be honest, good or bad.

As it happens, I like this little light. It seems to be well designed, and does what it promises: Light up dimly when it gets dark, and then brightly when it detects motion. It has what looks like a LiPo cell inside that’s charged by the solar panel.

Of course, only time will tell if the light is any good. I’ll save my final judgement until after it survives (or not) a New York summer and winter.

For those of you that are curious, here’s a couple of close-ups of the circuit board:

Side note: I say in the video that Vont is located in New York. On Vont’s website they list a 718 number, which is Queens / Brooklyn. However, the Divine LEDs Google+ page shows their location as Las Vegas, and the Divine LEDs website shows Hong Kong.

Back in August I reviewed the Netgear 6100D from Sprint and followed up with a post detailing some advanced configuration options.

The Video

I also installed a flat panel 4G antenna from 4G Antenna Shop. I made a video detailing the unboxing and installation (which I just got around to editing together):

It’s my first video of this sort, so if you have any feedback please let me know in the YouTube comments or by email!

4G Antenna Shop

I didn’t get into it in the video, but overall I’d recommend 4G Antenna Shop. The cable and antenna I got were both of very high quality and definitely worth the price.

Their customer service was great; I had a couple of questions about my order, and one of their guys (Robert) got back to me within 15 minutes and was extremely helpful. They shipped really quickly, too.

I did have two minor issues, both of which I talk about in the video:

During checkout they give you the option of selecting your device so that they can provide the correct adapters to go from the cable (if you order it through them) to the device. At the time I’d ordered, they had an option for “Netgear Sprint Spark LTE”, which I thought was the Netgear 6100D. There was no separate option for the 6100D, but it turned out that they were referencing a different product, and so I received the wrong adapters. (They’ve since added the 6100D as an option.)

I chalked this up to being mostly my fault, as I didn’t know that there was another Netgear LTE device out there for Sprint Spark.

My other issue was with the packing job. Again, it’s a minor complaint because nothing was damaged, but the box arrived pretty beaten up with holes in the top from the antenna mount having poked through. There was no packing material to keep the box rigid, and the antenna and cable were just sorta rattling around inside.

Bear with Me…

Oh, and sorry if I rambled on a bit in the video. If you couldn’t tell from a lot of my other posts on here, I have an aversion to brevity. :)

I’m hoping to get some more how-to and instructional videos out there in 2015, so please subscribe to my YouTube channel!

(Hey, I’m allowed to shill for myself, right?)

In the first phase, I ran a new dedicated circuit from the subpanel in my garage to the opposite wall to connect a 120V charging station.  In this phase, I removed the existing receptacle, rewired for 240V, installed the Voltec Level 2 charging station, and wired the kWh meter inline.

It’s not my intent to write a full set of instructions for installation here.  The purpose of this post is to illustrate some of the installation steps with real-world pictures, which are somewhat hard to come by online (the pictures are rather small, but you can click on any of them for a larger version).

As with all electrical installations, follow all manufacturer directions, specifications, and applicable local/national codes when installing your equipment.

The first step was ordering the Voltec Charge Station from SPX.  Information can be found here:

https://www.homecharging.spx.com/volt/Display.aspx?id=7&menu=14

The charging station is listed at $499 on the site.  For some reason, my invoice showed the price as $490 (obviously not a problem).  Shipping was free, and with tax my total was $532.26.

Ordering from SPX was easy;  Their sales rep was very helpful, and because I’d previously applied for their “free” charging station they already had my info on file.  I had placed my order in the afternoon on 5/31, and had delivery the morning of 6/6, putting it under a quite respectable 4 business days (hooray for UPS).

The contents of the Voltec Charge Station package: Instructions, warranty information, and the charging station itself.

The charging station comes fully assembled, and the instructions are very straight-forward.  One caveat with the warranty:  If you do a self-installation, the warranty period is one year, versus three years when you have the unit professionally installed.  In my opinion, self-install is still the way to go, because a professional installation can easily cost more than buying a second charger should the first one fail.

To start the installation, you will need a Torx driver.  I had bought a set a few months ago (which I needed just to replace the air filter in Amanda’s old Saab — a rant for another day), which attach to a standard 3/8″ drive head.  That makes taking out the six screws a breeze:

Opening the back with a Torx driver. It's just a coincidence that my Ridgid driver matches the charge station, I swear.

I put the unit face down on cardboard to avoid scratching it.  Next step is separating the two halves, minding the ribbon cable that connects them.

The cover removed from the charging station

The connector on the ribbon cable simply pulls out of its mate on the circuit board.  Don’t worry about how the pins line up — it’s keyed to only reattach one way.

The circuity in the charging station is surprisingly simple.   The Volt has the bulk of the charging logic on-board.  If I’m not mistaken, the charging station just has some thermal and ground-fault protection, and logic to analyze the building wiring so that it knows it’s safe to pass the power on to the car.

A close-up of the charging station's PCB and wiring connections.

I couldn’t resist taking apart the charging station first, but had to get back to the business of prepping the wiring for 240 Volts.

This started with removing the 120V receptacle.  I was careful to cut the hole for the receptacle where I thought the wiring connector for the Voltec would land, and also so that the charging station would cover it completely.  (That turned out pretty well, which was partially dumb luck on my part).

The existing receptacle unit and box came out easily.

I disconnected the receptacle unit and left as much wire as possible in tact.  I also stripped the sheath off the armored cable by a bit more — you’ll see later that I just barely had enough wiring left inside the unit to make up the connections.

Next step was changing the temporary 120V connections in the breaker panel over to 240V.

The Voltec circuit is attached to the breaker in the upper-left.

This was probably the least complicated step of the installation and involved moving the red wire in the upper-left from its very temporary connection at the neutral buss over to the second pole of the breaker.

The next step was wiring the meter.  I thought the meter was a must-have, because it will allow me to get very accurate numbers as far as KWh/mile, and therefore $/mile.  There are a lot of numbers floating around online, but this will let me make calculations based upon my Volt (well, Amanda’s Volt), with my electric rates.

Installing a meter is neither expensive nor difficult.  I got the head on eBay (used/reconditioned) for $36 all-in, and the socket from Home Depot for $25.  And it’s just a few extra electrical connections:

Meter wiring with #6 pigtails.

Connecting the meter socket’s terminals were not as straightforward as I’d hoped, but not all that complicated once you realize what’s going on in that picture.

The label on the pan specifies that the terminal lugs for the line/load (“hot”) connections can accept a minimum of #8 AWG wiring, with a maximum of #2/0.  Since the circuit is only 20A and therefore wired with #12 AWG, a problem arises.

Label showing details of the meter pan. As with all pictures in this post, click to enlarge.

Fortunately the solution was simple:  I pigtailed some #6 wire onto the #12, then made the connections.  I used #6 both because I had it laying around, and because I had wire nuts that permitted the connection of #12 and #6 wire.

The “neutral” terminals (which I’m using to bond the box to ground as there is no neutral conductor in this installation) can accept my #12 wire.

With those connections made, the meter head plugged in, and the cover in place, I fired it up for a test (I capped the wires hanging out of the wall first).

Zero kWh!

That lead to some good feedback for the eBay seller.  Of course, I have no idea of the degree of accuracy of this meter.  I’m willing to assume that it’s accurate enough for my purposes.

Now back to the Voltec Charge Station.  That’s probably why you’re reading this post to begin with, but this part of the installation can’t be easier.  You just need two screws to attach this thing to the wall (I’d recommend hitting a stud if you have a framed garage — the unit is light, but the charging cable is quite heavy and I wouldn’t trust drywall anchors to hold it).  Then it’s 3 screw terminals for the wiring and you’re done!  Well, almost done.  As you’ll see, attaching the cover can be a problem if you’re not prepared.

Charging station mounted and wired.

I used ceramic-coated 3″ deck screws and a couple of washers for mounting.  They’re a little beefier than drywall screws (plus I had them laying around).  I don’t think a thick lag screw is really necessary for the weight of the unit/cable.

Three electrical connections is all it takes:

Close-up of the wiring connections.

I didn’t trim the leads for the supply wires at all.  The length just happened to work out very well, which saved me some extra time re-running the cable up to the meter.  (It’s hard to tell in the picture, but there’s about a half-inch clearance between the PCB and the supply wires, and they’re laid in there quite comfortably).

The final step is applying the cover, and turning on the power.  Applying the cover was one of those things that annoys me about engineers.  The screws attach from the back, and are flared out at maybe 30 degrees from the wall.

It was really just dumb luck that I had this drive head sitting around in my garage.

This makes reattaching the cover a minor pain in the neck.  If you don’t have a little Torx driver (or driver head), go out and get one before starting this project.  I forgot what size I needed, but get a set of them.  Torx screws seem to always pop up when you least expect/want them to.

Why the engineers that designed this thing couldn’t use hex-head screws is beyond me.  Pretty much everyone has Allen keys around from old Ikea projects or whatnot, and they’re ideal for this sort of tight space.

It wasn’t all bad, though.  I was able to get the screws seated just by hand tightening.

And here’s the result:

The finished installation!

The installation as described above took just a little over an hour.  Of course, I did the bulk of the prep work in Phase I, and that project took more than a few hours.

If you have any questions or want any additional details, please post in the comments below.

Postscript

I wanted to comment on the build quality of the Voltec Charge Station.  I was neither impressed nor disappointed with the unit itself.

As I wrote earlier, the charging station is not heavy at all.  I can’t say that it feels flimsy, but the edges around the cover are rather thin plastic, and it’s almost hard to believe that it’s a weather-tight enclosure suitable for outdoor use.  Let’s just say that it definitely has the feel of a residential appliance.

The charge cord is quite heavy. The ship weight of the charging station is 18 lbs., and the cord could easily account for 12 lbs. of that weight.  I only bring that up because I’ve seen lighter cords attached to heavier-built units that eventually worked their way loose from their mounting points.

But wait, the charge cord also isn’t heavy enough! The conductors in the charge cord that carry the full charge current, approximately 15A, are 14 gauge.   While I’m sure that’s technically sufficient to satisfy any safety requirements, the cord still becomes quite warm while the Volt is connected and charging.  12 gauge wire would have been a better choice (IMHO), but of course would have made the cord heavier still.

Finally, I don’t like the fact that the cord is coiled.  I vaguely remember from childhood something called a “corded phone” (well, we called it a “phone”).   The sound clarity was great, but do you remember what eventually happened to all of those curly cords?  Have you ever had to untangle one?  Sure you have.  And it sucks.

Despite all of these complaints, the Voltec Charge Station is your best bet for the money.  I don’t see a need for a heavier-duty unit in my garage, and though $500 isn’t cheap, I could buy 4 of these things for what a low-end commercial grade charging station might cost.   The heat emitted by the cable is a concern, but it’s due to the #14 wire and not a defective unit.  I will be keeping a close eye on it, however.

The coiled cord?  Replacing that might be a project for another day.  Maybe in a year when the warranty is up anyhow, I’ll see if I can find a suitable replacement with #12 conductors.

Of course, the whole point point behind a PHEV is the actual plugging in.  The Volt comes with a 120V charger that plugs into your average 15A receptacle, and can fully charge the car in about 10 hours.

Chevrolet’s charging station partner, SPX, sells a variety of Level 2 charging stations compatible with the Volt (and most plug-in electric vehicles, including the Nissan Leaf).  The Level 2 charging stations use 240V, and can charge the Volt in about 4 hours.  We’re going to be getting the least expensive charger, the Voltec, for installation in our garage.  That’s going to be “Phase II” of this project.

Phase I consists of getting wiring in place that will eventually be used by the Level 2 charger, temporarily configured for Level 1 (120V) charging using a standard receptacle.

I’m fortunate to have an electrical sub-panel in my garage, so wiring the new charging station is going to be relatively easy.  The twist is that I put an electric meter in-line so that I can monitor Sparky’s energy usage.

Here’s a pictorial overview of the project:

My sub-panel was almost full, and I had to move a breaker down to the bottom-right to make room for a double pole breaker.  The feeder is protected by a 50A breaker on the main panel — the 100A main breaker pictured is just used as a disconnect.

I ran some EMT from the panel up into the garage attic.  The charging station is going to be positioned on the opposite wall, and I wanted to run the wiring hidden on that side of the garage.

In the garage attic, the EMT terminates at a junction box so I can transition to MC for an easier run across the attic and down the garage wall.  I needed about a 5″ offset because the finished wall in the garage is proud of the wall pictured (which is actually the side of my house).

THWN waiting to be connected to the MC wiring.  All wires are #12.

The main reason I didn’t use EMT in the attic is because there are a lot of turns in tight places.  This cable is fed from the upper-right of this picture after it passes overhead between the roof rafters.  It’s fed through the top plate of the wall below in the lower-left.  The next picture shows where it terminates.

Cable from the attic, along with a jumper that will go between the meter and the charging station.

Here’s the meter pan and the box for a temporary 120V receptacle.  (More on that to come).  The wires are coming out of the bottom of the box because I left some extra slack in the wall for the eventual mounting of the Level 2 charging station (which doesn’t require a box).

VERY IMPORTANT: In the next few pictures there are things shown that you should not imitate.  They show temporary wiring that will only be serviced by me, and it will be gone within the week.

New circuit wired to a new double-pole breaker.  Note that I have used a red wire as a neutral.  That is an incorrect practice according to the NEC, and general logic.  In about a week, this circuit will be converted to 240V by moving the red wire to the other pole of the breaker in the upper-left.

This is the junction box in the garage attic.  I’ve re-labeled the white conductor in the MC red, which is incorrect when it’s used as a grounded conductor (neutral).  It is acceptable practice for the future use as a 240V circuit.

The meter I purchased requires a 240V circuit, so for now the meter socket connections are bypassed, and there is plenty of extra slack left on the wires.  Again, what’s pictured is not the correct practice for wiring a 120V circuit, as the white neutral wire has been re-labeled red, indicating it is “hot”.  Also, without the meter in place this box can’t be adequately covered, which is also incorrect.  The neutral terminals have here been used both to connect the two grounding wires, and to bond the box to the grounding wire from the panel.  I believe this is acceptable practice, and though the terminals look large, the plate on the meter pan does permit a minimum of #14 wire under those terminals.

The receptacle unit is wired and ready to go into the box.  Note that this is not a “back stab” connection.  The wires are attached by compression terminals.  It’s also a duplex receptacle, which should not be used on a dedicated circuit, but again, this is temporary.

The meter socket and Level 1 charger.  I forgot the exact meaning of the lights on the charger, but I do know that the top two lights would indicate a wiring fault if they were anything but both green.  So it appears I have success!  One last note on safety:  The meter socket looks incredibly dangerous in this picture, as the contacts are, shall we say, overly accessible.  I just want to point out again that those contacts are not connected to the circuit.  This box is still unsafe because it’s improperly covered without the meter in place, but there are no exposed live conductors.  Again, this is very temporary.

Here’s Sparky, enjoying her first meal in the garage.

Stay tuned for Phase II of the project, when all will be made right with the electrical wiring, and our new 240V Level 2 charging station will be installed!

Update (2011-06-07): The new Voltec Charge Station is installed!  Check out the new post:

Installing Our New 240V/Level 2 Voltec Charge Station (Phase II)

“An automatic garage door opener makes you feel like you’re working in a futuristic wonderworld”.  – Frank Ormand, Pretzel Magnate

With the purchase of Amanda’s new Volt, I had to get the garage ready for a permanent resident.  She had kept her old Saab in the driveway, so I pretty much had the run of the place until now.  Protection from the elements aside, the garage is just a logical place to stick an electric car whilst it’s charging.

And my father raised me on automatic garage door openers, so I figured installing one would be the right thing to do.

Here’s a before picture of the garage:

Nothing to laugh at, I suppose.  But the stupid door would just sit there unless you went up to it and moved it around manually.  Clearly an unacceptable situation.

But wait.  Did you see the problem in that picture?  I sure didn’t.  Not even after looking at the situation real closely, like in this picture:

As anyone would, I went to my local Home Depot, and purchased their top-of-the-line Chamberlain Whisper-Drive Whateverthehell for $250.  Like an ass, it was after I got home that I started to check clearances around the door.

Do you see that 2×4 running horizontally above the door?  In the picture, you can see that it’s shaved down on one corner.  The joist across from it is likewise shaved down, only on the corner facing the door, so you can’t see it.

Why were they shaved down?  Because that’s the only way the motherfreaking door will actually clear them.  The top of the door travels up in between those joists as it rises, by about 3 inches.

Meaning I couldn’t mount the damn guide track for the opener underneath those beams.

Fortunately after some head scratching — “Should I lower the track and get a low-clearance kit?  Get rid of the overhead storage completely?  Return the opener and let Amanda open her own damn door?” — I came up with a solution:

Use a Sawzall (yes, I have an actual Milwaukee) to cut the ever-living crap out of those joists. It took some temporary bracing and a bit of cursing, but I managed to get a nice channel cut out for the opener, without losing my all-important storage area.

The middle of it is hung from the ceiling, which you can see a bit better here:

The structure is hung by 1×4 maple (yes, I decided to go fancy) which is bolted to 90deg angle brackets, which are then lagged into the ceiling joists.  It’s pretty damn solid, fortunately.

Here’s one more picture from the door’s end of things, just for fun:

Between figuring out a plan, removing (and later re-wiring) the lights, restructuring the overhead storage, installing and configuring the opener, getting power to the opener, and about 4 trips to Home Depot, what should have been a simple project ballooned into a 9-day adventure of anger and confusion.  (OK, so 2 weekends and some evenings in between, and I was calm for most of it).

Fortunately the whole thing works just fine, and I managed to avoid any major blunders along the way (except assuming that this would be a simple project from the get-go, of course).

Oh, and the garage door is probably 50 years old and will fall apart under the stress of constant use, so I’ll probably be replacing that soon.  (Hooray?)

Sorry if you were expecting a how-to, but I hope this gave you some ideas if you’re stuck in a similar situation.  (Plus, I just didn’t think to take pictures during the project).

I’ve been wanting to upgrade the electrical since I moved in about 7 months ago, and I figured I’d do it in EMT. It’s rather stupid because the wall I’m installing most of the conduit on is adjacent to the house — however it’s framed separately, and there is a ~2″ gap between the back of the framing and the side of the house. It would make a perfect wiring chase for NM-B, making the job a hell of a lot cheaper and easier. But I wanted EMT because, well, for fun. It looks cool too. This is the first project I’ve ever piped and I made a few mistakes (like not putting offsets at the boxes), but I learned a lot.

This is by far not my first electrical project, and it’s probably not for the faint of heart.

Background

The garage had 2 20A circuits running to it, one for lighting and 1 recept. group, and the other for just receptacles. Lighting consisted of a single 100W bare bulb in the garage, and another in the garage attic. The receptacles are all about 12-18″ off the floor, and were always getting blocked by crap I’d store against the walls. A couple are damaged; probably the previous h/o had been doing a project of his own and knocked into them.

The circuits were basically fine for me for the time being — my highest draw tools are a 15A contractor table saw and a 12A shop vac. So long as I ran their cords to opposite sides of the garage, I’d be fine. (Of course, I couldn’t run my compressor at the same time).

The lighting was my main problem. I’d get plenty of natural light during the day, but at night I’d need to set up portable lights, which is inconvenient at best and they’re never in the right place at the right time.
I happened to rip a 4-bulb T8 fluorescent fixture out of my kitchen recently (I installed recessed cans in its place), which is plenty bright. So my plan was to put that in the garage, plus a couple of other light fixtures, and also add some more receptacles.

Pics follow.  If anyone has suggestions, comments, criticisms, etc., please let me know!

Front of the garage. Good lumber storage above, but it makes lighting difficult.

Back of the garage. Good natural lighting and ventilation. I have a couple of window fans I use for cooling and venting out paint fumes.

My fantastic task lighting. Ceiling is 10ft. high.

First Home Depot run. Didn’t forget much. Figured I’d post this in case anyone wanted to know what brands I’m using.

New main light fixture. Sorry for the weird angle, but it’s the only way I could get the full conduit run in there.

Lights in the front. I realized far too late that the one in the background gets hit by the door, so now I can’t get it open.  I’ll have to move it back to the next 2×4. Fortunately I did those lights with MC and not EMT, so it should be an easy move.

The jbox just after the panel on the bottom will have a dedicated MWBC split onto 2 receptacles on the same yoke. Next jbox just has wiring connections, no devices. You can see some AC coming out of it; they feed 2 new single-bulb fluorescent fixtures. The EMT coming out the bottom of that box goes to a receptacle unit with a dedicated circuit, to be used for chargers, a radio, and other things.

The conduit that goes up into the ceiling in the previous pic comes out here, in the garage attic. It looks a bit weird, but the offset goes back towards the wall (~3″) and also to the left. It is plumb where it heads up towards the jbox, even though it looks angled in this pic. The NM-B coming out of the jbox goes to 2 luminaires on the front of the garage — they are controlled by the timer in the next pic. Some NM-B that currently runs to a switch next to the door in the back of the garage will enter this jbox from the left.

Timer for the outdoor lights. The GFCI supplies the timer/lights — personal preference, but I like my outdoor lighting on GFI. I had to put offsets in the EMT coming from the panel because the knockouts close to the wall are all blocked by the neut. buss bar!

Receptacles closest to the front of the garage — at the end of the conduit run that goes off the right of the panel. I needed to get some usable power coming off the new panel so I can have lights when I disconnect and re-wire the existing circuits.

Close-up of the panel. Not much done yet — the circuit hooked up is the one from the above pic.

Details

50A breaker at the main panel (in the basement, about 6 feet below and 6 feet to the left of the sub).

6/3 feeder. (Yes, I bought 125 ft. of 6/3. I just could not bring myself to spend $2.36/ft. when I could get 125 ft. for $136).  I figure I’ll use it eventually, or at least sell it.

100A disconnect at the sub.

Why only 50A, and not 100A+? Simply because I don’t need more than 50A. And if I ever do, I can pull a new line from the main panel to the garage. It’s a very easy pull. The only reason I’m doing a sub is b/c I don’t have space in the main panel for all those breakers.  (And yes, I like LOTS of circuits).

I’ll connect the existing receptacles near the floor to the sub today or tomorrow.

All wiring in conduit is 12 AWG THHN/THWN. The NM-B in the attic is 14/2 and will be on a 15A breaker. Existing receptacles were wired with 12-2 NM-B. I tagged the wiring for each circuit with its own color of electrical tape. Wiring is tagged in every box, even if it doesn’t terminate in that box.

EGC is #12, except where it hits a future 240V/30A receptacle; there it’s #10 from the panel. I didn’t want to use the EMT to bond everything together. I don’t have a good reason for that…

UPDATE 2009-06-10

I didn’t do anything last night, but did some new work on Monday. I also did three stupid things:

1) I mounted a light switch upside down.

2) I shorted the neut. to ground in a box and almost didn’t notice.. You’ll see — it’s not quite as stupid as it sounds (well, maybe it is).

3) I bought the wrong switch. Or they mfr. them in an illogical fashion.

The good news is I moved the light that was blocking the garage door. They all work, and it’s a heck of a lot brighter in there!

Upside-down switch. I was in a hurry to get the new lights on.  This switch was existing and has 14/3 NM-B to the box from the attic. Luckily the 14/3 in the attic was just sorta strung on a nail with tons of slack. I was able to easily get it to the new metal box in the attic, and I properly secured the cable to the rafters.

I installed this switch just to the right of the box w/the GFI recep. and the timer. It’s to control the attic lights, and is slaved off of the main light switch.

This switch has a pilot light. When I saw the switch I thought “the light must go on and off with the switch”. Not so! It just stays on constantly.

You can see where the insulation is chafed on the white wire, and a little bit on the red wire, too. When I put the switch in the wire rubbed against the EMT coupling, hard. I didn’t notice, but the neut. screw was also touching the coupling when the unit was fully seated, and the hot screw was maybe a millimeter from shorting.  I’ll be replacing it with a plain single pole switch, which is much thinner in the back.

Oh, one more thing: All the other boxes are bonded to each other with wire. This box is only bonded by the EMT. It’s a switch, so I’m not terribly concerned; I’ll probably leave it that way.

Close-up of 2 boxes, for no reason.

Lighting connections, ready for a box cover. (You can kinda see the tail of one of them, but there are anti-short bushings in the ends of the MC. The box is bonded to that green pigtail, too).

That’s it for now.  More to come later..