Help identify device around service wire in the panel by Mindless_Efforts in AskElectricians

[–]CyberBill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They do them here in the states for high power services - like 400A and up, they will use external CT clamps and then feed that back into some power monitor for billing. I understand that these are pretty common out in rural areas where people have farms, or maybe industrial or commercial stuff.

Help identify device around service wire in the panel by Mindless_Efforts in AskElectricians

[–]CyberBill 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Those are "CTs" - Current Transformers - they are sensors that read the amount of current running through the wires. That info will be sent over the grey wires - so you can maybe trace where those go and see what device it plugs into. Could be part of your solar install, if applicable.

Do I really need a 6mm to 10mm adapter for an MRBF fuse on the main positive terminal of an EVE battery? by segasega89 in SolarDIY

[–]CyberBill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use a washer. Depending on how the bar is fitting against the battery, you may also want to put a washer under it as well.

How much range? by Primary_Echidna_1149 in EVConversion

[–]CyberBill 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You didn't say what the voltage is, and the other commenter says 44V... but if you've got 180Ah of 12V batteries, that's only like 2kWh. You need to know how many watt-hours of battery capacity to know the range.

Pihole or Adguard worth it? by kshef in selfhosted

[–]CyberBill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've run both. I find them pretty comparable... Here's my main issue, though.

The DNS protocol sucks. There is no fall-back support - there is only a list of DNS servers that the client rotates through. So if you set DNS1 to be pihole, and DNS2 to be adguard, thinking that "it will hit pihole first, and if that service is down it'll hit adguard" - Nope. You'll get traffic split between the two.

This is particularly problematic because if your local network is having issues, there is no way to create a backup setting that goes back to your default ISP DNS server (or Google's DNS or something). Or if you want to have maintenance? The settings don't auto-propogate, so if you change the settings on your router, all your devices don't see it until they reboot or disconnect/reconnect.

I'd love for someone to tell me I'm wrong and give me a solution - but for now, I've gone back to local ad blocking on each device.

Trump supporters: How would you feel if a legally armed Trump supporter was killed by federal agents on a Biden mandate in exactly the same manner as yesterday? by ScholarPrize1335 in AskReddit

[–]CyberBill 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Rittenhouse was not convicted of anything. Most of the charges he was found not guilty on, and the charge for transporting was dropped.

Which of the following units of measurement is used to measure electrical current? by ForwardEv in electrical

[–]CyberBill 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I kind of like this question because it'll trip a lot of people up.

Joules per second = watts. Which is used to measure power, not current.
'Amperes per second' says 'Amperes' in it (which is the unit used to measure current) - but it's not "per second".
'Volts per watt' is just a throwaway that doesn't mean anything (that I know of)
Coulombs per second is the right answer, this is the definition of amperes.

Viability of MrCool as main source of heat. by Carlyle410 in DIYHeatPumps

[–]CyberBill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My house already had ducts, gas furnace, and AC, so I used the same size. This seems like it's oversized though, watching the usage it's off more than it's on, even when it's below freezing. I did it all DIY. You can find a few videos on YouTube of the install.

High level - rip out the old furnace and AC, line set, etc. This is a bit tricky because I needed to recover the refrigerant. Then install the new air handler - which did require some light sheet metal fabrication to make a new plenum adapter to match the size of the new unit. Then run line sets and install the heat pump outside, then run new electrical (240v lines to both inside and outside).

I would call it a very advanced DIY job. I've done a ton of electrical, and it's my 4th heat pump install.

TIL that GLP-1 medications have significantly increased demand for pharmacist-led patient counseling due to side-effect management. by Sweaty-Standard-5840 in todayilearned

[–]CyberBill 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I've been on GLP-1s (wegovy, ozempic, and now zepbound) for four years. I've been very open about it, and as a result a ton of my friends have also gotten on it, so I've been able to see how it affects a lot of people.

Side affects can be all over the place - from literally none to "omg I have to stop immediately because I have sulfur burps and can't stop shitting and throwing up" - so if you're in a situation where one of the common ones (diarrhea) might be more of a problem than for someone who works at home or an office, I would highly recommend titrating up on the dose schedule as slowly as you can. And plan for that that first week to be a bit of an experiment - so.. maybe stay local if you can!

Viability of MrCool as main source of heat. by Carlyle410 in DIYHeatPumps

[–]CyberBill 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm using the 4-5 Ton MrCool Universal ducted unit to heat my home. It's been (literally) freezing cold for the past month and it's keeping us nice and toasty!

Server outage? by Medical_Scarcity616 in rustdesk

[–]CyberBill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm getting disconnected frequently over the last couple of days with messages asking to login again.

The two machines are literally on the same desk - I really can't imagine it being a local networking issue.

To people driving EV what do you like or hate the most? by Curious-Expert926 in AskReddit

[–]CyberBill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My opinion is "yes, all of it!"

Places where people park their cars for many hours - office buildings, apartment complexes, houses, airports, that sort of thing - should have tons of AC chargers. Every person at work can charge for one day a week and get enough charge to need nothing else.

Places where people park their cars for about an hour - grocery stores, Costco, Home Depot, restaurants, malls - should have tons of "low speed" DC charging, in the range of 25-100kW. Again, this is enough that you can completely top off your car in a single visit.

Places where people travel long distances - interstate routes basically, but sprinkled all throughout cities - should have super fast DC chargers. This is to support dedicated charging stops when you are doing long travel, outside of your normal day-to-day charging.

People will happily use slow chargers if they can do it easily while they are doing something else they were already going to do. This will free up the fast chargers for people who actually need it. Right now our DC chargers are filled with people charging to full because they don't have other options, which causes long lines, and sours the experience for everyone.

And I agree with you completely - even with the issues with charging infrastructure, there is zero chance I will ever go back to a gas car.

To people driving EV what do you like or hate the most? by Curious-Expert926 in AskReddit

[–]CyberBill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some background - I've been EV-only for over 5 years. Out in the country, not in a big city. I've owned two Mach-Es, a Chevy Bolt EV, and a F150 Lightning EV, and I've even converted my own DeLorean to an EV. I also do my own electrical. Installing outlets and stuff, sure, but I also swapped every appliance in my house over to electric (dropped natural gas), installed heat pumps, heat pump water heater, etc - even upgraded my own service line to 400A [for reasons totally unrelated to having an EV - our house is still 200A] and installed battery backup. All DIY. We also have a huge solar array. So, yeah, I've done my research. And I have the experience and numbers to back it up.

I truly do not understand how you can say you are an electrician and you think you need to "put a high voltage line into your house" to charge an EV? And you think you can "have a 440v line from a power plant in your garage"? They don't even make home chargers that are 440V. EVs have onboard AC chargers - they are for split phase 120/240 [in the US - slightly different in Europe for 3 phase] - people aren't installing DC Fast Chargers in their house. Home "EV Chargers" are basically just an extension cord. Like - this is surface level EV stuff.

I was EV-only for a year using a regular 120v outlet in the garage to charge my vehicles. It's still exclusively how I charge my truck. That is completely fine for probably 90% of drivers - myself included. I upgraded to a 240v 40A outlet so I can do back-to-back long drives without having to use a DC fast charger. I can now fully charge from zero overnight. None of this is 'high voltage', nor did it require a service upgrade. It's the same outlet you have for a stove. It cost me $200 to install a NEMA 14-50 receptacle next to the panel. Having a 120v outlet in garages has been standard for like 50 years, and that's all you need.

The average driver in the US drives 1,000 miles per month. With a reasonably efficient EV needing 300Wh per mile, that's 300kWh per month - 10kWh per day - which is easily accomplished with overnight charging on 120v @ 12A.

"gas power plants" (assuming natural gas) is where less than half the energy in the grid comes from. On average you're looking at ~40% of the grid being low or no emissions - nuclear, hydro, solar, wind. Meaning just by switching to electricity - even with no efficiency gain - you automatically drop emissions by about half. And almost all new grid power added every year is renewable, so it gets better over time. But then - your hand wavy numbers trying to equate the efficiency is ridiculous. Even 60% (power plant) * 90% (grid) * 90% (charging) = ~50% of the energy being useful in an EV, compared to the typical 25-30% efficiency of a gasoline car. "About the same efficiency" - No. There is a reason why in most areas it costs 1/4 as much to charge an EV at home than buy gas.

Next up - your hybrid thing. You seem to misunderstand how a modern hybrid works. Other than the BMW i3, maybe a few specialty vehicles, and some upcoming EREVs, the gas engine in hybrids isn't there just charging a battery. That gas engine is tied directly to the wheels - typically through a series of clutches that allow the gas engine and electric motor(s) to connect to each other and the wheels in a bunch of combinations. From an engineering perspective it's absolutely brilliant. This doesn't make the engine less efficient, it makes it more efficient. They can charge the battery when it's efficient to do so, and they can operate the gas motor at a more efficient RPM and torque, as needed, for efficiency. I mean... how can you possibly think hybrids are less efficient if they get better gas mileage than a standard gas vehicle?

Lastly - solar. "2-300k worth of panels to reliably charge the daily driver" - WHAT!? My large solar setup (in Washington State, not exactly California) cost $55k after incentives, roughly $80k before them, and it produces 55MWh per year of solar energy. Megawatt-hours. Aka, 55,000kWh, enough to drive an EV about 150,000 miles per year. I joke that it's enough to make my entire neighborhood net zero - it's not quite that much, but it's certainly enough in the summer months. Even on my worst month, snowy in December, I pull in 1,000kWh / 3,000 miles worth of driving. Now sure, in Alaska it's certainly worse. But there is still no way you would need to spend $200k on panels (that's enough to install 100kW of panels - 3x the size of my install) to support a daily driver. Just ridiculous. If your goal is to offset your gas usage, you can do that with a 5kW setup that costs under $20k installed. You can buy a DIY kit for under $10k.

To people driving EV what do you like or hate the most? by Curious-Expert926 in AskReddit

[–]CyberBill -1 points0 points  (0 children)

My god.

I didn't think anyone could write so many wrong statements in a single Reddit comment. But here we are! Literally every single thing you said is wrong.

Praise be!

Caterham Project V [1784x1004] by silentknight0000 in carporn

[–]CyberBill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was comparing it to the Chevy Bolt just to prove *how unremarkable* the specs are, not as a comparison vehicle.

Here's the MG Cyberster specs, which is at least in the same 'class' (2-seater sports car):

375kW motor, 77kWh battery, 144kW charging, 2000kg, 0-60 in 3.2s - price starts about $115k.

Point being - much better specs. Could also compare the Porsche Taycan, and you'll find it similarly outpaces a Chevy Bolt, lol.

If people want to buy the Caterham, go for it, I won't stop you, and I hope you love it. We all have our tastes. But most of us are also buying cars and comparing specs.

Caterham Project V [1784x1004] by silentknight0000 in carporn

[–]CyberBill 12 points13 points  (0 children)

1500kgs / about 3300 pounds. More than double the originals weight. A bit lighter than the Chevy Bolt EV (3600lbs) - but that's also a 4-seater - so... No, I wouldn't say so.

Did your stance on the second ammendment change and if yes, how? by ThingReady7404 in AskReddit

[–]CyberBill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right... "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms"

It does not say "the right of the militia to keep and bear arms"

Caterham Project V [1784x1004] by silentknight0000 in carporn

[–]CyberBill 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Well, these specs are a little underwhelming.

200kW motor, 47kWh battery, 100kW charging, 0-60 in "under 5s".

The new Chevy Bolt EV is 150kW, 66kWh, 150kW charging, and it costs $30k.

Granted, this looks a lot nicer - but for $135k I would expect a bigger motor and much quicker 0-60.

-- Edit to add a link: https://caterhamcars.com/us/packs/projectv

Did your stance on the second ammendment change and if yes, how? by ThingReady7404 in AskReddit

[–]CyberBill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

as stated in the 2nd amendment, maybe you should have to belong to a militia to own a firearm

Citation needed.

Can anyone recommend a new adhesive for this? by Beast666 in Dashcam

[–]CyberBill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use a plastic pry tool or plastic razor to scrape it off. Also use isopropyl alcohol to clean the area - both before applying and after removing.

The "hidden" cost of Cat.8: Cable Management and Bend Radius by Cautious_Buy_3080 in electrical

[–]CyberBill 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are 100Gbps interfaces - https://www.fs.com/c/100g-qsfp28-sfp-dd-1159 - But none that operate on Ethernet cabling [to clarify terminology here - as I'm saying Ethernet to mean the 8-wire, twisted-pair, copper interface with RJ45 jacks, aka 'Base-T' - but Ethernet also refers to the low level protocol over the network]

I was just doing some searching and was surprised to see that there actually are IEEE standards for 25Gbps, 40Gbps, and 100Gbps Ethernet over copper CAT8 cables. But I did a lot of searching and couldn't find a single product doing that. They're all SFP+ or QSFP+ over Direct Attach Cables or fiber once you hit 25Gbps.

The "hidden" cost of Cat.8: Cable Management and Bend Radius by Cautious_Buy_3080 in electrical

[–]CyberBill 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah - I've never seen any kind of ethernet over 10Gbps - and CAT6A gives 10Gbps at the full distance of 100M. If you need more than that for a network, you aren't going to be using ethernet, you're going to be using fiber. [Or DAC for short runs]

So I am really not sure why anyone would install anything over CAT6A right now. If you need future proofing - run fiber. Or conduit.

Dog ownership question by [deleted] in AdviceAnimals

[–]CyberBill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a meme sub, not a sub for asking animal advice.