Electrical Wiring for our Gaming Center - What could go wrong?

[nicklmg]

Buy Ethernet Cable:
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Buy a Brian (only $999!):
loljk

 

[Enderman]

I remember the time when LTT converted DC to AC and then back to DC and then to AC again.

[wANKER]

This was actually really enjoyable to watch. 

 

Good to see people who have no idea what they're doing, perfectly acceptant that they have no idea what they're doing.

[LeapFrogMasterRace]

Does anyone even game anymore?

[FeedbackGuy]

I noted that the latest videos have been in a 21:9 aspect ratio, what's up with that?

I preferred 16:9 more, also because most people use 16:9 monitor...

[poochyena]

downvoting until the aspect ratio is fixed. No reason to crop the frame.

[minibois]

1 hour ago, FeedbackGuy said:

I noted that the latest videos have been in a 21:9 aspect ratio, what's up with that?

I preferred 16:9 more, also because most people use 16:9 monitor...

36 minutes ago, poochyena said:

downvoting until the aspect ratio is fixed. No reason to crop the frame.

It's extremely funny to note that when they show a clip from an older video (16:9), the video (on 16:9 screens, in anything but theater mode) suddenly has pillar and letter boxing. You can see it in the very first clip of this video.

 

The 'new' aspect ratio didn't really bother me at all really, since I don't watch videos in fullscreen (or small screen), but just found that interesting to note, since you do see the pillar+letter boxing when viewing the video on the forum YouTube embed (since that is a 16:9 frame).

[Exalted159]

First off I have been watching for years now, love LMG's content. It is probably most entertaining, and informative tech content on YouTube. I truly respect the work you all at LMG do on a daily basis.

 

However note that this is my first post, I created an account to tell you this. Seeing something this relevant to my work on LMG is pretty neat. I have worked in a Datacenter running vertical and horizontal cabling (including cat6a) for ~10 years so please trust me. Overall you did a fantastic job Bryan knows what he is doing for sure, to be honest I was expecting a disaster. But please speed test those cat6 runs to make sure you get 10 gigabit over them if the speed is important. I have been doing it for a long time now, I have done over 3000 easy, and I still speed test every single one. Cat6 terminations to keystone jacks (what you punched down to attach to the wall plate) can be incredibly fussy, especially with the additional patch cable to the PC (as this adds another connection point). Even relatively short runs like this that are well under the 100 meter spec need to have good terminations at all connections to get 10 gigabit. 

 

[Kroon]

1 hour ago, poochyena said:

downvoting until the aspect ratio is fixed. No reason to crop the frame.

 

I will do that same thing.  

[Enderman]

2 hours ago, FeedbackGuy said:

I noted that the latest videos have been in a 21:9 aspect ratio, what's up with that?

I preferred 16:9 more, also because most people use 16:9 monitor...

It is not 21:9, it is 2:1 like MKBHD is doing.

[Syntaxvgm]

lol

[Egg-Roll]

"Hi honey, I don't think I'll make it to your parents place for dinner tonight, Sorry but Mr. Linus is hindering my work"

Note: I wrote this before actually watching the video  So far it doesn't look that far off, tho Linus seems to be having fun and so far a good video so 

Linus should never touch wood again it's easy to drill threw...

8 hours ago, Enderman said:

I remember the time when LTT converted DC to AC and then back to DC and then to AC again.

That wasn't that long ago, you can say it like that when it is 2019, but not in the same year...

[Bryan549]

5 hours ago, Exalted159 said:

First off I have been watching for years now, love LMG's content. It is probably most entertaining, and informative tech content on YouTube. I truly respect the work you all at LMG do on a daily basis.

 

However note that this is my first post, I created an account to tell you this. Seeing something this relevant to my work on LMG is pretty neat. I have worked in a Datacenter running vertical and horizontal cabling (including cat6a) for ~10 years so please trust me. Overall you did a fantastic job Bryan knows what he is doing for sure, to be honest I was expecting a disaster. But please speed test those cat6 runs to make sure you get 10 gigabit over them if the speed is important. I have been doing it for a long time now, I have done over 3000 easy, and I still speed test every single one. Cat6 terminations to keystone jacks (what you punched down to attach to the wall plate) can be incredibly fussy, especially with the additional patch cable to the PC (as this adds another connection point). Even relatively short runs like this that are well under the 100 meter spec need to have good terminations at all connections to get 10 gigabit. 

 

When did Romex staples become acceptable to use on any CAT cable?? If they get 1gig thru that crap, it will be a flipping miracle.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Linus had it easy on that wiring job since the wall was all opened up for him. I also love his electrician's voice (and i'm a Lesbian!).

 

I would have liked to have seen Linus working on the wiring job I just finished earlier today after an aborted start on Saturday. I live in an older mobile home. I needed a new outlet on the outside wall in my hall for a Ryobi 18v six port battery charger. There was an outdoor outlet mounted on the outside of the same wall about three feet away so, I'm thinking, easy peasy. Famous last words.

 

After cutting the hole in the paneling for an old work single gang box and preinstalling the Romex and outlet in the old work box, I took the bottom screws holding the aluminum skin on my home out in that area so I could reach inside the wall from the outside, then removed the weather proof cover plate from the outside outlet. It was a shallow metal box that had been nailed in. There were already three Romex cable runs going into box. Besides not having enough room for another cable, the nails holding the box down to the rim joist blocked access to the one remaining knockout that had a built in strain relief clamp (mutter, mutter, mumble mumble).

 

Plan B: steal power from the switch box nearby. I already knew there were two, separate circuits in the box--one for the house lighting and outlets for half of the house--and one for the outdoor lighting and the outdoor outlets on that side of the house.  All the light switches in my home were wired with the power line going to the switch box first, then on to the light...except for those two switches: one went to a three way circuit for the hall lights as a switch loop and the other one was also a switch loop (more muttering and mumbling). By now, I'm hurting (it doesn't help that I'm handicapped and pushing 70) so i just buttoned everything back up so I can turn the pawer back on.

 

I spent Sunday recovering from Saturday.

 

Today, I was ready to invoke Plan 9 but settled for Plan C instead. I had installed the three outdoor outlets a little over twenty years ago but don't remember exactly how I did it. I thought (hoped) that the middle one in the run would have two cables--one in and one out--and the last one 30 feet away from the new outlet would (I hoped) have only one cable going into it. This time before cutting any Romex, I opened up the last outlet and, sure enough, there was only the one cable going into it. Even better, the box was a deeper plastic box with easy to remove knockouts so I removed the screws from the bottom of 30 feet of siding.

 

I had to play dodgem with an inconveniently located stud (polite term), but I was able to feed the Romex into the knocked out knockout from the front of the box into the wall until I had enough Romex pulled through the outlet and back out the bottom of the siding. It was tedious doing that way but I wasn't able to go the opposite direction because of the misbegotten stud. As it was, I had to push the Romex through the knockout with my left hand while pulling back outside the wall from under the siding on it with my right hand so it would go around the outside of that misbegotten stud (by then, I was calling it words Mama told me not to use). Once I got enough Romex pulled through, plus some extra for whatever (it's easier to cut off extra cable than it is to stretch it out), I cut the Romex going into the box, stripped the jacket off, pigtailed the two ground wires together to a third wire so I could screw the end of the third wire to the outlet, wired the black and white leads to the outlet, reinstalled the outlet, then buttoned up the weatherproof cover.

 

After that, I pushed the Romex back up under the siding so it would rest on top of the rim joist. I had to feed the Romex over some obstructions (the other two outlets and awning posts) where I couldn't open up the siding--that got a bit tricky--and buttoning up the siding as I went to make sure the Romex didn't slip off the rim joist. While it was easier than I expected, it was tedious and I had to take a couple of breaks because my back was complaining about me bending over so much. I couldn't get the Romex to poke it's way over the top of the last outlet box so I had to run a fish tape over it from the other direction and, with some industrial strength fiddling and quietly muttering words Mama told me not to use (the neighbor kids were outside playing), I finally was able to drag the last of the Romex through.

 

From there, I went back inside and tried to reach through the hole in the wall for the new outlet to pull the Romex into the hole but couldn't reach it. I was just about ready to shove the fish tape through wall and outside under the bottom of the siding when I spotted the Romex laying on top of the rim joist when I had pushed the insulation out of the way so I grabbed some wire and made a hook to snag the Romex and drag into the house through the hole in the wall.

 

After going outside and buttoning up the rest of the siding and bringing my tools inside, I fed the Romex through the old work box but left enough length so I could sit on a stool and wire up the outlet without having to kill my back and knees working with it in the wall. After wiring up the outlet and installing it in the box, I installed the box into the wall, plugged a tester into the outlet, and flipped on the breaker. It showed everything was fine so I declared the job finished. Not including the time I wasted on Saturday busting my backside getting nothing done, I spent a little over three hours on one lousy cable for one lousy outlet (20 years ago, i could have done in an hour). i also got one scratch on my arm that bled like a stuck pig and took 15 minutes to get to stop bleeding (I take two 81mg aspirin daily so I bleed a lot) and I picked up a few bruises along the way. My hands look like I Iost a fight with a barbed wire fence.

 

After a late lunch and a quick errand, I cut up some plywood to make a printer stand so I can put my printer over my new sub woofer, ran to Wally World to pickup some prescriptions, and called it a day. While I was picking the prescriptions, the muscles in the backs of my thighs started cramping up on me. I thought they were going to have to call the paramedics for me but I managed to get the cramping under control (old age is just so "inconvenient"). I'll be spending tomorrow in bed.

[Enderman]

16 hours ago, Egg-Roll said:

That wasn't that long ago, you can say it like that when it is 2019, but not in the same year...

I never said what time  I remember the time I had breakfast...which was yesterday

[Guest]

Oh God in Europe it's completely different...

Never seen any electrical wiring without tubes here

[dalekphalm]

On 12/27/2018 at 5:11 PM, Lukyp said:

Oh God in Europe it's completely different...

Never seen any electrical wiring without tubes here

Especially in commercial or industrial applications, seeing BX Cable (metal armoured power cables) is exceptionally common.

 

In an actual construction project, you typically still run conduit - especially when running wire between floors, etc.

 

The idea with Conduit being that once the conduit is run, you leave a string in it, and it's easy to pull more cables through the conduit later.

 

With that in mind - I don't know what the Electrical code is for running multiple BX or Romex through a conduit - that might not even be allowed.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

34 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Especially in commercial or industrial applications, seeing BX Cable (metal armoured power cables) is exceptionally common.

 

In an actual construction project, you typically still run conduit - especially when running wire between floors, etc.

 

The idea with Conduit being that once the conduit is run, you leave a string in it, and it's easy to pull more cables through the conduit later.

 

With that in mind - I don't know what the Electrical code is for running multiple BX or Romex through a conduit - that might not even be allowed.

I'm not completely up to speed on the code on running BX or Romex through a conduit but, when you do, it's called a sleeve instead of conduit. Pulling Romex through anything other than a straight run would be a bear; BX would be impossible.

 

It's hard to pull additional wire through a conduit that already has wire in it. It's often easier to use the existing wire to pull a string or rope, then pull the replacement and new wire all at once.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Lady Fitzgerald said:

I'm not completely up to speed on the code on running BX or Romex through a conduit but, when you do, it's called a sleeve instead of conduit. Pulling Romex through anything other than a straight run would be a bear; BX would be impossible.

 

It's hard to pull additional wire through a conduit that already has wire in it. It's often easier to use the existing wire to pull a string or rope, then pull the replacement and new wire all at once.

For power cable - yes, that would be difficult. I'm sure it's possible with Romex - BX, I agree would be impossible unless the runs were dead straight and the conduit was very wide.

 

But running additional Ethernet cables through a conduit is a piece of cake, assuming you ran the string through with the original cable the first time. Just remember to attach a new string to the new Ethernet cable so that there's always a string there no matter what.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

5 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

...But running additional Ethernet cables through a conduit is a piece of cake, assuming you ran the string through with the original cable the first time. Just remember to attach a new string to the new Ethernet cable so that there's always a string there no matter what.

It depends on the size of the conduit, the number of bends (you are allowed up to 360 degrees worth; obviously, the more bends, the more difficult the pull), and the number of runs already in the conduit. I've helped pull new wire through conduit with existing runs and, even though the new total number of conductors in the conduit were within code, it was a bear. I've seen crews at work pull the old runs out, add the new one, then pull everything back in.

[DataEmo]

As European I feel heavy pain every time I see the american wiring practice.

Pulling out old cables could be quite difficult too.

[dalekphalm]

4 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

It depends on the size of the conduit, the number of bends (you are allowed up to 360 degrees worth; obviously, the more bends, the more difficult the pull), and the number of runs already in the conduit. I've helped pull new wire through conduit with existing runs and, even though the new total number of conductors in the conduit were within code, it was a bear. I've seen crews at work pull the old runs out, add the new one, then pull everything back in.

Obviously all these things would apply.

 

But you wouldn't install a single cable into a conduit with no room for expansion.

 

Typically you'd do 40% fill (or less). The size of conduit depends on which cables you're pulling, and how many. You can find calculators online that account for the unusable space (since, ya know, circles).

 

You'd also install junction boxes if there were too many bends, so that you can do the first run to the junction box, then do a separate run to your end point.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Especially in commercial or industrial applications, seeing BX Cable (metal armoured power cables) is exceptionally common.

 

In an actual construction project, you typically still run conduit - especially when running wire between floors, etc

 

Maybe it's just an Italian thing... But I've never seen those, as other countries probably we are required to do certification procedures from electricians for houses you sell or rent, or even when you got a garages (my case) and you put them for rent.

 

In my case (garages) and I have the certificate made in 2001 we have those plastic tubes everywhere

 

The same also on a sports hall I go often (I have an eyes on those electrical aplliances) and it's basically the same plastic ones, even for 3 phase AC

 

Maybe because they are cheap and offer best value probably, but they are made in there, I mean the makers are three, and they are all Italian, not imported from other countries, I think that could also have an impact on which is the common method for each country

 

The only thing I've seen are metal housings but always with plastic tubes in there, like the following (maybe this picture is a bit too big for an example, they are a lot smaller than this)

 

Or without plastic tubes only in the case of only Ethernet, phone and fiber optic cables, even when going on other floors, like the case of my old school

 

For another house I own, very old, there are also other types of plastic housings like those, that were added later for fixing or adding other sockets, over the old and not conformant one

 

Edited January 3, 2019 by Guest

[Lady Fitzgerald]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Obviously all these things would apply.

 

But you wouldn't install a single cable into a conduit with no room for expansion.

 

Typically you'd do 40% fill (or less). The size of conduit depends on which cables you're pulling, and how many. You can find calculators online that account for the unusable space (since, ya know, circles).

 

You'd also install junction boxes if there were too many bends, so that you can do the first run to the junction box, then do a separate run to your end point.

You would be surpised how contractors, etc. will cut corners by meeting the minimum requirements for the initial runs instead of allowing for future expansion,

 

Pull boxes are mandatory if the total number of turns exceeds 360 degrees, such as four 90 degree bends in a run. Again, many contractors, etc. will avoid pull boxes (technically, they are not junction boxes unless a splice or termination occurs there) to cut costs so the chances there will be one at less than 360 degrees is slim.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Just now, Lady Fitzgerald said:

You would be surpised how contractors, etc. will cut corners by meeting the minimum requirements for the initial runs instead of allowing for future expansion,

 

Pull boxes are mandatory if the total number of turns exceeds 360 degrees, such as four 90 degree bends in a run. Again, many contractors, etc. will avoid pull boxes (technically, they are not junction boxes unless a splice or termination occurs there) to cut costs so the chances there will be one at less than 360 degrees is slim.

Most Western countries require exposed wiring to be encased in conduit (such as the plastic tubes). Nonmetalic cable, such as Romex, can be used only inside walls, not exposed (though I've seen plenty of people cheat).