Should I Buy These Generac Generators For 100. Each?

Hello all,



I am trying to decide between the Generac 14kw vs 17 kw residential generators.  17 kw would be an overkill for me but I am attracted to their quiet test mode which supposedly runs 6 db less during weekly test.  I think my neighbor would appreciate this.  Any thoughts on Generac or perhaps other brands you guys recommend?  My budget is under $4k for the unit.



Thanks
      

I'm buying a 12 lead Stamford generator, engine driven, and have a question or two about over current protection and ground fault protection.  I will normally have it wired for single phase 120 and 240 in the double delta configuration.  I may occasionally rewire it for 3 phase 240 in the series delta configuration.



For the single phase setup, what I've read so far leads me to believe I should have a main circuit breaker of about 125% continuous ampacity; it's a 10 kw generator.  Is that correct?  What kind of breaker do I need?  Should this main be a GFCI?  Do I bond neutral and ground?  This is a portable unit so I need to package a load center on the generator frame.  Can I wire one 240 receptacle directly to the main and two or three 120 volt GFCI's on it as well?  Or do I need another 240 breaker downstream of the main?  What should I be thinking about for swithching back and forth between single phase and three phase?  Alot of questions, trying to get smart and be safe.  Thanks.
      

I have converter a 3 phase 220 volt  air compressor to single phase. I need a  timed relay to start the

the system when the air pressure drops. Since it is momentary, it needs to be a timed relay with a short (1-2 Seconds) to prevent burning out the capacitors.



Can someone help me with the timed relay I need or how I can have the motor start when the pressure drops and kicks out when it reaches the top limit
      

I have an outdoor light fixture that I am trying to replace.  The house was built ten years ago.



When I removed the original lamp, I noticed one of the two leads was wired to the ground, and one was wired to the black wire, which is hot per my current sensor.  There are three wires in the box - black, ground (bare copper), and white or neutral, all from a single romex cable.  Unfortunately, I do not recall where the white was when I removed the original. 



I wired the new lamp per the instructions, something I have done many times before - black to black, white to white, and bare copper ground to ground.  Nothing.  The lamp and bulbs are brand new, and I have tried four separate bulbs.  I checked the black and neutral with my current sensor and with the switch on and the lamp installed this way, both show as hot. With the lamp not installed, the switch on, and the wires disconnected only the black shows as hot.  The switch is single pole, and appears to be wired correctly with a black to each screw on one side and a copper ground on the other.



Assuming the new fixture was bad, I reinstalled the old fixture correctly -  black to black, white to white, and bare copper ground to ground.  Still nothing. No light, and I confirmed the bulb is good by putting it in another lamp.   The only way to get it to light is to connect the neutral in the lamp to the bare copper ground.



I capped the wires, turned the circuit back on, and identified all the outlets, switches and fixtures on the same circuit.  I opened every one of them up (four lights and eight outlets) and found three (one switch and two fixtures in another room) where multiple commons connect.  All were properly connected.  My outlet tester shows all outlets as "correct".  I found no instances of grounds connected to commons or vice-versa.



Any ideas?  Is it proper to wire this thing the way I found it?



Thanks for any and all advice!
      

Greetings all.



This is my first post here, I hope it goes well.



My name is Joe and I have searched Google. and this forum for my answer but have not been able to find a definitive answer to my question.  I have seen many replies talking about getting a tone generator or a line tracer but my experience is that tone generators are for Data and phone cables rather than electrical cables and the line tracers I've found online all seem to be about tracing the line back to the breaker panel so without knowing more I'm hesitant to purchase a line tracer in case it cannot do what I want.

My dilemma is very likely very simple to anyone with electrical experience so I hope it's not too trivial for this crowd.

I have recently purchased a house that is over 120 years old and have a motion sensor light on the porch that is supposedly connected to a switch inside but does not turn on.  I've opened the wall plate and used a voltage indicating pen to see where the electricity is.  In this case there are two light switches, one that has lines that have been spliced and another that supposedly leads to the porch light according to a long time tenant in that unit.  It all looks like a bit of a mess and the connections don't make sense.  In this scenario the black cables have the electricity and the white cables complete the circuit.  The switch to the porch light has a black cable coming from the top of the box going to the switch and a white cable connected to the other screw that comes from splitting the white cable from the other switch.  What I would like to do is know which cables in that wall box correspond to the cables to the porch light.  Can anyone give me an idea what I should do?

Do I need something like the Amprobe advanced wire tracer (http://www.professionalequipment.com...0/wire-tracer/) and can it do what I need, or is there something simpler I can do?

All help is appreciated.

Thanks



Joe
      

hey i jus need a simple answer.  single phase pump motor needs to be connect to power.  there is one green, one black and one red/white? (i believe this wire used to be red but faded).  i kno green is ground, i just need to know which wire gets hooked up to L1 and L2.  the motor is set on 115V.  and dont worry power is cut off completely.
      

Hello.

my electricity bills have been sky high for as long as i have been keeping track of them (less than 2 years).   i finally decided to try to track down the culprit.  I bought a watt meter to find phatom loads.  I found some and took care of them



However,

The electric hot water tank has got me thinking.  Could this be the cause of high utility bills?  The tank itself is ancient (RHEEM).  By the way it is rented from the utility company.  it is hard to tell the age because there is no date stamp, and the model number does not come up on the internet at all.  If i were to guess, maybe 25 years easily.  It functions in that I get hot water no problem



1.  Is it possible that the electric  HWT consumes way more energy than it should?, and how?

2.  Is there a way to track the usage?  My utility company installed a smart meter last year, and required an upgrade to get a new circiut breaker panel from old fuses

thanks
      

this topic came up on another thread but its buried pretty deep. it is my understanding from several experienced posters that under normal circumstances all neutral current should flow back to the utility neutral, not the grounded plumbing or rods.



i am trying to figure out why. bear with this simplistic example.



100a service - 3 wires in - A (hot+), B (hot-) and N (neutral).

circuit 1 on A is using 12 amps

circuit 2 on B is using 7 amps

so a total of 5 neutral current amps have to go somewhere.



they could all flow back on N, but if bonded to N at the panel is a low resistence connection to say, copper water pipes, wouldnt some of the current flow there?



is the utility neutral supposed to be so low resistence that none of the current would flow to the grounds? if that is the case i need to call my utility ASAP because a considerable amount of current flows to my main ground.



where i am struggling is i dont see how a utility pole or transformer would be any lower resistance than miles of metal plumbing and since they are bonded together, the current can choose (i know wrong word but im not an electrican or an engineer) either path
      

sir

i have seen on this site------------------------------------------------------------120/240 for houses:  120 is line to ground, 240 is line to line



so got the point from this point that we have three phase connection so

120 is phase voltage and 240 is line voltage



but line voltage is=squareroot of 3 *phase voltage and (240 is not equal to sqroot of 3*120)

please send the answer on  ---------   as soon as possible
      

I built a shed and wired it.

I used #8 direct burial from the house to the shed.

I have a breaker in the house 15 amp for just my compressor.

When i run the compressor i seems to drain power from everything else,

ex: all light in the hose fad, my filter on the fish tank stops.

Could some one help me figure this out and put a stop to it.



Thanks Dak