Handy-Man Corner

[Iowanian]

I'm tired of bad Chiefs news.....


I thought it would be a good idea for a thread on the Handy-Man.

Do you have any Home remedies, gadgets you've made, advice on car repair, home maint, sollutions to kill weeds in your yard, bugs in your garden?

Use Coke to clean your batteries? That type of stuff.
Home made floor dry?

[DJ's left nut]

Electricity is ****ing magic.

Seriously, that's all you need to know. My buddy works in energized services where they honest to god replace power lines that are still hot. The guy knows his shit backwards and forwards when it comes to electricity. He has a patent or two on some shit designed to keep strikes from coming from the earth at an aura or some weird shit like that.

And as we're wiring something up in my shop and talking about a jumper of some sort, I just got frustrated because I get lost as hell in that stuff. He just looks over and says "man, I'm not trained in engineering but the guys that I work with that are all tell me the same thing when my eyes cross - electricity is ****ing magic and sometimes that's the best answer we have"...

So that's what I go with. I can occasionally operate a multi-meter correctly. I sometimes remember the difference between volts and amps (though I don't believe today is that day...is amps volume and volts velocity? Shit, I don't know). Mostly I just electrocute myself a lot.

Electricity is ****ing magic.

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by lewdog

Ok, here's the deal. I want to put a programmable timer switch for the first switch in the picture below. The first switch in this pictures turns the outside garage lights on and off. I would like to have this a programmable switch for security and safety purposes such as going on at dark every night and shutting off at say 10 pm. Coming back on at say 5 a.m. before I leave for work and off at daylight. Adds a bit of security and makes it look like we are home since we have blackout screens on the front windows and even with lights on inside, the house sometimes looks empty.

Am I able to simply take the programmable switch in the link below and easily connect it to the first switch? I don't really know much about electric work but we changed a switch from a regular one to a dimmer switch once and that was super easy.




AMAZON switch below.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SOZHXY..._t1_B004SOZHR0

Why not put a photo eye at the light?

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by aturnis

Why not put a photo eye at the light?

Please explain?

As you can see, I'm quite dense.

[displacedinMN]

Originally Posted by lewdog

Please explain?

As you can see, I'm quite dense.

Maybe he means motion sensor. Come on only when something moves.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

Maybe he means motion sensor. Come on only when something moves.

Nah. Comes on in the dark, goes off in the light. Most full time yard lights out here have them.

[Buehler445]

This is what he is talking about and there is a decent description at the link.


https://www.amazon.com/Woods-59408-O...otocell+sensor

[loochy]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

. I sometimes remember the difference between volts and amps (though I don't believe today is that day...is amps volume and volts velocity? Shit, I don't know). Mostly I just electrocute myself a lot.

Electricity is ****ing magic.

Amps = Current (how many electrons are flowing through the material)

Ohms = Resistance (how difficult it is for electrons to travel through the material)

Volts = Current * Resistance (also called potential difference)

Does that help?

[mikeyis4dcats.]

Originally Posted by aturnis

Why not put a photo eye at the light?

+1. I added one to our driveway lights, easy to do.

[ScareCrowe]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

Nah. Comes on in the dark, goes off in the light. Most full time yard lights out here have them.

I thought about that at first too, but he's wanting it for security & I'm thinking a criminal would be able to figure out that the light was just coming on when it gets dark.

If I understand correctly he's wanting it to shut off at about bed time & come back on about the time someone would wake up to simulate someone being home. Not sure the dusk to dawn light is going to accomplish that.

[mikeyis4dcats.]

Originally Posted by ScareCrowe

I thought about that at first too, but he's wanting it for security & I'm thinking a criminal would be able to figure out that the light was just coming on when it gets dark.

If I understand correctly he's wanting it to shut off at about bed time & come back on about the time someone would wake up to simulate someone being home. Not sure the dusk to dawn light is going to accomplish that.

nobody's ever going to say "OMG, they turned the lights on at a set time thats not coinciding with dusk, they must be home!!!1!

Criminals are idiots, but they know about timers. The only thing that's going to deter them (if it will) is having the light on period.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by ScareCrowe

I thought about that at first too, but he's wanting it for security & I'm thinking a criminal would be able to figure out that the light was just coming on when it gets dark.

If I understand correctly he's wanting it to shut off at about bed time & come back on about the time someone would wake up to simulate someone being home. Not sure the dusk to dawn light is going to accomplish that.

Originally Posted by mikeyis4dcats.

nobody's ever going to say "OMG, they turned the lights on at a set time thats not coinciding with dusk, they must be home!!!1!

Criminals are idiots, but they know about timers. The only thing that's going to deter them (if it will) is having the light on period.

Eh, he's kinda right but that's not the whole reason. The light bulbs in these two fixtures are the smaller candle light looking light bulbs. Not sure if they even make sensors for fixtures like this that would work? They are also fairly bright even with just one bulb in them, instead of the 3 I could put in there. I do not want them to be on all night as they are fairly bright and don't think they need to be necessarily.

[mikeyis4dcats.]

Originally Posted by lewdog

Eh, he's kinda right but that's not the whole reason. The light bulbs in these two fixtures are the smaller candle light looking light bulbs. Not sure if they even make sensors for fixtures like this that would work? They are also fairly bright even with just one bulb in them, instead of the 3 I could put in there. I do not want them to be on all night as they are fairly bright and don't think they need to be necessarily.

the sensor wires into the electrical and controls the fixture, bulb type is irrelevant. if you don't want your lights on all night, a photocell won't work for you, but anyone will tell you that lights on outside your home at night are added security.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by loochy

Amps = Current (how many electrons are flowing through the material)

Ohms = Resistance (how difficult it is for electrons to travel through the material)

Volts = Current * Resistance (also called potential difference)

Does that help?

I've done a fair amount of stuff with irrigation and fish tanks so generally I fall back to water/hoses and it makes sense.

Amps = amount of water flowing through the hose
Ohms = Pressure of thumb on the end of the hose
Volts = resulting spray

Run a ton of water through a hose but don't put your thumb on the end, it just runs out to no real issue. Put your thumb hard on the end with no water behind it and again, not much of anything. Put a ton of water through the hose and then put your thumb on the end of it, suddenly getting blasted in the eyes is gonna hurt.

I have a basic handle on it....sometimes....but the I get the terminology turned around because I just never use it.

I zapped the hell out of myself with my Sous Vide machine over Christmas because some stray voltage made it into the water bath. I put my hand in there to check the temp and got quite a jolt. It didn't hurt as much as it made it tense up quite a bit; high current, low volt? That's my memory of how that works.

But again, it's all magic and like Baby Lee - I had legos and shit as a kid; the little electricity kits just didn't appeal to me. I'll build cabinets (poorly) and work on suspensions or the like (again, poorly), but I'll be damned if I'll ever get electricity figured out.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I've done a fair amount of stuff with irrigation and fish tanks so generally I fall back to water/hoses and it makes sense.

Amps = amount of water flowing through the hose
Ohms = Pressure of thumb on the end of the hose
Volts = resulting spray

Run a ton of water through a hose but don't put your thumb on the end, it just runs out to no real issue. Put your thumb hard on the end with no water behind it and again, not much of anything. Put a ton of water through the hose and then put your thumb on the end of it, suddenly getting blasted in the eyes is gonna hurt.

I have a basic handle on it....sometimes....but the I get the terminology turned around because I just never use it.

I zapped the hell out of myself with my Sous Vide machine over Christmas because some stray voltage made it into the water bath. I put my hand in there to check the temp and got quite a jolt. It didn't hurt as much as it made it tense up quite a bit; high current, low volt? That's my memory of how that works.

But again, it's all magic and like Baby Lee - I had legos and shit as a kid; the little electricity kits just didn't appeal to me. I'll build cabinets (poorly) and work on suspensions or the like (again, poorly), but I'll be damned if I'll ever get electricity figured out.

Yeah!

but high current can be quite dangerous too though

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by mikeyis4dcats.

the sensor wires into the electrical and controls the fixture, bulb type is irrelevant. if you don't want your lights on all night, a photocell won't work for you, but anyone will tell you that lights on outside your home at night are added security.

Can you link what you're taking about, the actual product?