Senate committee cancels votes on judicial nominees after Jeff Flake’s Mueller ultimatum | 220v Contactor Relay

Dust particles are often flammable, in high densities this means they’re explosive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_explosion

The stakes are much higher when you’re connecting your project to the house mains, though, as [Mattias Wandel] recently learned when the solid-state relay controlling his water heater failed, with nearly tragic results. With aplomb that defies the fact that he just discovered that he nearly burned his house down, [Mattias] tours the scene of the crime and delivers a postmortem of the victim, a Fotek SSR-25DA. It appears that he mounted it well and gave it a decent heatsink, but the thing immolated itself just the same. The only remnant of the relay’s PCB left intact was the triac mounted to the rear plate. [Mattias] suspects the PCB traces heated up when he returned from vacation and the water heater it was controlling came on; with a tank full of cold water, both elements were needed and enough current was drawn to melt the solder build-up on the high-voltage traces. With the solder gone, the traces cooked off, and the rest is history. It’s a scary scenario that’s worth looking at if you’ve got any SSRs controlling loads anywhere near their rated limit.

Reuben Saltzman is a second-generation home inspector with a passion for his work. Naturally, this blog is all about home inspections and home-related topics in the Twin Cities metro area. In addition to working at Structure Tech, he is also a licensed Truth-In-Sale of Housing Evaluator in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and several other cities.

Not to be argumentative, but please show me a case in which a H/O policy denied coverage for a fire loss because the homeowner used a non-UL listed device. H/O policies are contracts, strictly regulated by each state’s insurance department. The vast majority of H/O policies are “All Risk” based, meaning that you are covered for everything unless there is a specific exclusion for it. I have read many times on this forum and others about H/O policies not covering such claims, please show me ONE that actually is true. There may be one out there, but I have never seen it.

440.22 Application and Selection (A) Rating or Setting for Individual Motor-Compressors — The motor compressor branch-circuit short-circuit and ground-fault protective device shall be capable of carrying the starting current of the motor. A protective device having a rating or setting not exceeding 175 percent of the motor compressor’s rated-load current or branch-circuit selection current, whichever is greater, shall be permitted, provided that, where the protection specified is not sufficient for the starting current of the motor, the rating or setting shall be permitted to be increased but shall not exceed 225 percent of the motor rated-load current or branch-circuit selection current, whichever is greater.

I was tasked with doing this last week at work and spent considerable time researching the best/safest way to do it with consumer equipment. As far as I can see the best solution is to use one of the many 433MHz RF controlled power adapters (Watts Clever sell them for as little as $10 each) and use the same record/playback trick used to record TV remote IR signals and play them back with an Arduino. Unfortunately the project requirements changed and I didn’t get to actually implement it but I see no reason why it wouldn’t have worked. Apart from being very cheap (~20 per unit) it keeps the mains voltage completely isolated from everything else, which is particularly important from a liability perspective when you have to deliver the units to an external client.

[Ron] does a nice job of explaining some basic concepts like using opto-isolators. However, the real value to the video is the easy way to interface to the existing controller. A little configuration into Home Automation rounds out the project.

Styling of the Niro is barely distinguishable from the standard car, save the door covering the charge port and subtle teal accents inside and out that indicate to the outside world that this is slightly more eco than everything else. And those eco signifiers tend to be either green or blue, so why not blend them into Nineties-Fantastic Teal?

HVDC interties certainly simplifies some things (stability, voltage control, and frequency syncing & phasing is a non-issue), particularly in lines where their length approaches a quarter wavelength (which makes voltage control at the load end difficult). There are quite a few already: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects and the list is growing rapidly.

Installing a ceiling fan might not sound complicated, but it’s nothing like putting together a barbecue yourself. You’re trying to figure out the motor while hoisting a 70-pound fan 12 feet above the floor. Call me up—I can finish the job faster and safer than you could.

I play around w/ HV/low amperage PSUs all the time, that stuff will make you lose control of your muscles…

I’d been “dead” 3 times at that point and thought I knew what it meant to be scared, seeing that tanker about to be filled, surrounded by thousands of litres of petrol, diesel, kerosene and other agents of flaming, painful death was and still is the scariest moment of my life. After that nearly being eaten alive by a feral pig or trapped under a hang glider under water was nothing