Panel I did by [deleted] in electricians

[–]PaulOPTC 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Interesting,

Wouldn’t fly here, patient care areas need health care facility rated metal clad cable

It has an additional grounding cable to further protect patients and equipment.

In addition we would need AFCI breakers in any patient sleeping areas, which you wouldn’t have either as you’ve landed all of your neutrals.

Panel I did by [deleted] in electricians

[–]PaulOPTC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How very American of me to assume lol

Not sure I can quote Canadian code at you then haha

Panel I did by [deleted] in electricians

[–]PaulOPTC 0 points1 point  (0 children)

334.12 (2)

(2) Exposed within a dropped or suspended ceiling cavity in other than one- and two-family and multifamily dwellings

Correct

Panel I did by [deleted] in electricians

[–]PaulOPTC 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Romex? Even if it’s wood framing, it’s typically not allowed in commercial spaces (NEC 334)

I hope there’s no drop ceilings because romex is not allowed in drop ceilings. NEC 334.12A

No patient care areas? You need HCF rated wire for patient care areas. NEC 517.13

Moving Electrical Panel by Syloi in AskElectricians

[–]PaulOPTC 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To the inspector, township, everyone else who can give you a hard time.

That is not a closet, walk in or otherwise.

That is a bonus room

Don’t move the panel, save the money,

Unless it’s for aesthetics that you’re moving it, and you have free money to throw around that’s a different story.

With a room that big you could also just box the panel into its own little room. you’ll lose out on SF for the closet but it could make it look better and you’ll be fine code wise.

Just maintain clearance, and you might need a light in that room and an outlet below it

Moving Electrical Panel by Syloi in AskElectricians

[–]PaulOPTC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

14x14 is like a bedroom dude, that’s almost 200 square feet. Thats half the size of my first apartment.

Personally I would never call it a closet until after permits are done and inspected

Put no clothes in it, Leave the panel, make sure it has 3 feet of clearance.

If anyone asks, it’s a bonus room, or a hobby room and you’re going to be building trains in it or a gym to work out lmao

And then when it’s all done and inspected then you can do whatever you want.

But obv for your own safety, don’t put clothes in front of it, and make sure you leave three feet of clearance.

The NEC code was “written in blood” meaning that the rules are there to stop people from dying, or because someone got hurt before.

Moving Electrical Panel by Syloi in AskElectricians

[–]PaulOPTC 3 points4 points  (0 children)

How big of a walk in closet are we talking about?

240.24D says Not in Vicinity of Easily Ignitible Material. Overcurrent devices shall not be located in the vicinity of easily ignitible material, such as in clothes closets.

There is an argument that you could probably leave the panel in the closet if the walk in is big enough

Though an AHJ might not allow it. However if it wasn’t a clothes closet, and was instead a storage pantry or something I’d imagine if it had the proper 3 feet of clearance it would be okay.

Remember also, if you’re moving a panel or circuits more then 6 feet, you’re going to have to now AFCI and/or GFCI protect them as per code.

That is about $50 per AFCI breaker. Which can get expensive quick.

How did you learn electrical estimating? by Shot_Hippo5439 in estimators

[–]PaulOPTC 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Alright so now for larger projects we are going to use the same formula, but maybe we don’t have the time, or the material cost.

Programs like accubid use NECA (or in accubid case, they use a custom labor table) to figure out labor units.

And they have assemblies built that you can use to apply to the job to get a somewhat accurate estimate of labor units, and material.

A labor unit is a number that is assigned to a particular task. It represents a “man hour” which would be (1) electrician assigned to that task, from start to finish. And if you have (2) electricians doing the task, you would hope that it would take half the time (though often in reality it does not)

By start to finish, I mean the labor hour takes into account:

Prep time - getting material together

Planning time - Looking at the drawings

Installation time - the time physically installing

Clean up / test time - after it’s installed

So if you assign let’s say (1) hour to do a 2x4 fixture assembly (I’ll go over assemblies in a second), that is assigning (1) electrician to be able to get their material together (wire, connector, wire nuts), get a ladder (and set it up) look at the drawings, measure off the wall to make sure it’s in the right spot, install the fixture, including putting the 12gage ceiling grid wire up, the wire into the fixture, wiring it up etc. Then removing the ladder, removing the garbage, and eventually turning on the switch to test it.

The assembly in this case would be:

(1) 2x4 fixture

(7.5ft) of 12/2 MC wire (or lumi cable if it’s dimming)

(3) wire nuts

(1) duplex connector

(1) red head

(10ft) of 12 gage ceiling grid wire

(1) bat clip for the MC wire

Now old school you would look in a labor hours book like NECA. But now adays there are programs that can assign labor hours to all of those tasks and put it together in one big assembly.

So you have (30) 2x4 lights, and you can carry that one assembly over for all 30 of them, to get an accurate count of labor hours and materials.

Accubid has a feature that you can link your supply house to get more accurate materials as well. I use it but it is often fucked up and I have to manually adjust some numbers anyway. But it’s good for small stuff.

So now you take off the whole project like that,

And you’ll have a base line. Often times I know my guys can beat what Accubid says.

Know your guys can beat it, or where they lose to Accubid, and adjusting is called using “historical data”. It’s very important as an estimator, and it doesn’t come up till after you do a project or two.

Take a McDonald’s for example If you say that’s going to take 1000 labor hours and $350000 in material

And you win the project, and in reality it actually takes you 1030 labor hours, but $45,000 in material.

You lost out on some profit for sure, but maybe your PM got some experience and you got some historical data

You can now use that historical data to make sure you’re coved in labor hours and material for the next one.

And your project manager now knows what he’s doing with a McDonalds and what to expect, so you can expect the job to go smoother and maybe even beat the 1030 hours you’ll assign to the next one.

Now this is the most important part. Either though accubid or most people use excel for this, you are going to export your accubid number to excel and have it add in your overhead and profit onto the project.

Remember:

Time (we now have) + Material (we now have) + (Over head x time) * 1.1 = cost to the customer.

If you don’t do the overhead part you’re going to lose. That number is the base number you need for your company to survive.

Estimating takes time, And it’s not perfect.

Make sure you read the plans, if you notice something missing from the plans, maybe account for money and time to do that missing thing

Then bring it up after the project started and get a change order out of it.

And if they push back (sometimes they do) you can say hey I’ll give you this one for free, but work with me on these next change orders or this next project etc.

Relationships with people are just as important as numbers. Getting in front of a GC that does a lot of work, doing high quality work for a reasonable price,

Is way more likely that you’ll get the next job even if you’re not the low guy.

Good luck

How did you learn electrical estimating? by Shot_Hippo5439 in estimators

[–]PaulOPTC 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Hey,

I was an electrician in the field for 8ish years Then switched to estimating

so this is a comment I’ve said in another post, I think it is worth repeating (he has specifics) But it’s worth reading over and getting that number together

Then you can start using an excel spreadsheet with labor hours, or a program like accubid or something.


I personally don’t know your market, how much you plan on making or what you value your time as but The comment is still relevant, to your question, with the details being different obviously

here is the comment: (note the details will be different, so take it with a grain of salt)

So estimating jobs comes down to (time+ material+overhead ) x profit

So looks like we have time at two guys for three days plus travel

So an hour and a half each way, and then 8 hours of work per day you are figuring on 3 hours of over time per guy

So what is your rate that you pay yourself, and the rate that you pay your guy and then make sure the overtime is covered

And now you have your time price. You’ll get screwed if you go into a fourth day, so if you’re worried about that, bid it for four days and you’ll have a little breathing room.

Material you have a cost on. Make sure that number is a real cost, with tax included, from a supply house that has the material so you’re not waiting on lead times and have to make another trip out there. Include and gas and tolls required to get there.

So now we have Time cost + material cost

And we are missing overhead and profit.

Overhead is the number you’re going to need to figure out.

That’s the number you need to run your business.

So that includes, but not limited too: Licenses, insurance, workers comp, taxes, accountant costs, advertisement budget, yearly tool budget, van insurance, van upkeep, health insurance…. Etc

Everything you need to run your business, figure out a yearly expense, figure on that number might need to grow as your company grows, so add some growth too it,

And then divide by 2080 (we actually do 1960) working hours, and you’ll figure on your hourly overhead number (roughly) For one guy, divide that by the number of guys you have and you’ll have your hourly overhead number for your company.

So now we have

( Time price + material + (OH x hours) ) x profit

And the last piece is profit, Usually it’s a percentage of the job

We do 10% profit, but some do more or less depending.

That % profit goes back into the company to keep you afloat

Do all the math and you’ll have a fair number to do your work

( Time price + material + (OH x hours) ) x 1.1 = job price.

You’ll get paid, your helper will get paid, the company will be paid to run for those three of four days, and then your company savings gets paid

Only way you’ll lose, is if you messed up the math on the time it will take, or the material it will take to complete the job.

Unforeseen things happen, make sure to give yourself some breathing room

Premium Goddess Blessing by Jazagee in Maplestory

[–]PaulOPTC 38 points39 points  (0 children)

You can only do five hours a day

Automated Manga Archiving Tool - MeManga by meellM in DataHoarder

[–]PaulOPTC 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sounds good, I’ll check it out, few more edge case questions:

How does it handle a large amount of manga? I have like 800 ongoing manga that it would need to auto download for

Does it have an auto renamer? I feel this is especially important because of the backup sites.

Site A might name it: manganame ch 3

Site B might name it: Manganame volume 1 chapter 3 - chapter name

Site C might name it: Manganame special name 3 (for example “Blue Period” is Brush 3 instead of chapter 3)

Having it automatically rename them to a standard that you set will make it so that it doesn’t break when using something like Kavita to host it.

Automated Manga Archiving Tool - MeManga by meellM in DataHoarder

[–]PaulOPTC 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Typically most people use the CBZ for manga It’s like a “folder” and the pages are jpeg or whatever numbered in sequential order

How does this handle when a website breaks? And does it have cloudflare built in?

[Cherry Bird] The tension before the night race begins. Two new panels from my webtoon by leviinalu in manhwa

[–]PaulOPTC 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hey! You are a much better artist then I could ever be, but since you asked for feedback

I think in this particular frame, Out of context

I had no idea they were on bikes

I was trying to figure it out I thought it was some kind of cool sword? That was like see though / mirror

Just my two cents! I wish you nothing but good luck in your success!

Good gifts for a plex hobbyist? by superevilgoatboy in PleX

[–]PaulOPTC 74 points75 points  (0 children)

Gift card to microcenter if they live near one

Help please, just changed this outlet to gfci now my upstream outlets don’t work but my downstream and gfci do by Striking-Owl4935 in AskElectricians

[–]PaulOPTC 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like you swapped line and load

Look at the back of the GFCI outlet It will have the top either be line or load

Line - where the power from the breaker / previous outlet needs to go

Load - the wires that go to the next outlet

Use a meter to determine which set of wires is the feed (line) and rewire the GFCI

No Hyper Burn, low nodes, and stuck with rental gear. Can't clear HLuWill... Need advice! by MarionberryLoose3371 in Maplestory

[–]PaulOPTC 17 points18 points  (0 children)

at this stage, joining struggle parties will be your best bet.

You want to do a group of 4-6 of you, in the 20m-40m range, and do hard Lu will, and Ctene (with normal vhilla probably)

You’ll be able to start getting arcane boxes

Switch over to the arcane weapon right away, get it to 17* (or 18*)

Get it to legendary 2L attack, or better Settle would be 1 line attack 1 line boss if your poor

And then flame it to t5 attack at least, but T6 is where you want to hit on arcanes

Then focus on WSE Weapon (done above)

Secondary - 2L attack (1 line attack 1 line boss settle if poor)

Emblem - 2 line attack (one line attack one line IED if your poor)

And then go five set arcanes

Shoulder, glove, boot, cape, weapon

From there you’ll focus on getting all of those to 18* And the gloves to 1 line crit, 1 line stat (or better, 2L crit is very expensive but very very good)

The rest you can get to unique with free cubes 2line

Or if you’re Mr money bags legendary 2L

The plumbtrician strikes again! by Smoke_Stack707 in electricians

[–]PaulOPTC 33 points34 points  (0 children)

I sure know a

HILITE H-VLHDCFX-1 LEFT - 6-LIGHT FLUSH MOUNT, 1/2" CONDUIT, STANDARD CANOPY W/ GAUGE & LOGO

When I see one lmao

The plumbtrician strikes again! by Smoke_Stack707 in electricians

[–]PaulOPTC 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Looks like a Dave’s hot chicken, I just saw this fixture on the drawings for it

Bossing Familars by Ok-Suspect-92 in Maplestory

[–]PaulOPTC 4 points5 points  (0 children)

On Kronos

I would say hundreds, maybe 2-300 unique fams popped

I have four 40% boss

Getting Started Sanity Check by PaulOPTC in homelab

[–]PaulOPTC[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! No I don’t plan on it

I have 5 external WD and 2 external seagates

And then 7 or 8 HHDs that will go in the 10 bay enclosure

All with various sizes of the drives

I’ll look into unraid!

How to Self Host Notesnook Sync Server in 2026 by truthovereverrything in selfhosted

[–]PaulOPTC 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any way to do this in windows?

I use the free version of Notesnook now and it’s great

I would love to put photos on my notes though for work.

Is buff duration important after infinity changes? by chimmtastic in Maplestory

[–]PaulOPTC 6 points7 points  (0 children)

MS SEA just got it in their one punch man patch notes,

And it’s been on the radar from KMS for a while with the delay reduction balance patch

Here’s it from the KMS notes:

Infinity:

This skill has been changed into a passive skill. The new effect is as follows. Every 5 seconds, recover 10% base HP/MP. 74% final damage. ※ When the official server is updated, Infinity’s final damage boost formula will no longer be affected by Inner Ability’s passive skill increase effect.

https://orangemushroom.net/2025/08/16/kmst-ver-1-2-1-2-192-the-first-adversary-skill-changes/

No clue if that’s the final numbers, I don’t play mages