Posts Tagged ‘Electricians Tools’

How To Fix The Fluorescent Light Humming ?

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

It’s a well-known fact that fluorescent lighting is cost effective and cheaper to operate than incandescent bulbs. People being aware of the harmful effects of incandescent lamps are now switching over to florescent lamps. Since these are capable of illuminating a large amount of bright light and consumes less energy.

Apart from above listed advantages, fluorescent light have certain disadvantages that cannot be overlooked. You must have heard humming noise from the tube light that is generally due to some defect in the ballast.

The basic reason for the fluorescent light to hum is the presence of the ballast in the light fixture. All fluorescent lights require a ballast to function. Loose magnetic ballast can be the cause of ballast hum. Well, you can save yourself from such annoyance and get some extra time from your fluorescent light bulbs.

Here, we’ll tell how to fix a hum in a fluorescent light fixture. Fixing the annoying noise in the lamp means, you will have to work with electricity. So, before making any installations and replacements, go to the electrical panel and trip the circuit breaker. Make sure, the power is completely turned off.

What Is An E- Lamp ?

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

E-Lamp stands for electrode- less lamps. People are phasing out the use of incandescent light bulbs and fluorescent lights in favor of energy efficient lighting. Moreover a large percentage is now using E- lamps so as to minimize their utility charges. Unlike the old incandescent lights, this distinct technology emits a large amount of visible light than heat.

In other conventional gas discharge lamps, the electrodes are the part with the shortest life, limiting the lamp lifespan severely. Since an induction lamp has no electrodes, it can have a very long service life. For induction lamp systems with separate ballast, the service life can be as long as 30,000 hours, which is 11.4 years continuous operation, or 22.8 years used at night or day only. These are both user as well as environmental friendly.

Readers might be thinking, what does this E- lamp signifies. Well, let me tell you. These lamps eliminate the need for electrodes and are totally based on magnetic induction. For this reason they are also named as induction lamps. With such lights, no electrical connections through the lamp are needed. Rather, in induction lamps, light is transferred from outside the lamp through magnetic field.

Qualities Of A Good Receptacle Box

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

An improved electrical receptacle box has resealable openings and adapted to enclose an electrical apparatus such as a five-wire receptacle. Wall receptacle boxes are used to mount standard electrical switches or duplex plug-in receptacles.

Hence, choosing them rightly as per the need, goes indispensable. When buying an outlet box, consider weather it is deep or shallow, metallic or non- metallic, nail- on or bracket mounted type. With this article, one would discover, what to buy and what to avoid, what looks good and what is really good, what works and what doesn’t- before you install the receptacle boxes.

First of all, determine the thickness of the wall where you plan to install the receptacle. Do not choose the boxes too deep that do not even fit into the wall. The box should be as deep as the thickness of the wall framing or smaller. For example, a wall with 4-inch studs requires a box that’s 4 inches deep or less.

Moreover, the overall size of the box should be of correct size. Using a box that’s too small, results in a problem known as “cable fill violation”, which is not only a code issue but also, a potential safety risk.

Tips On Building A Hand Operated Electric Generator

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Some of the electrical projects allow you to learn a lot. The construction of an electric generator is one such project that informs you about the basics of electrical working. A small-sized electric generator is too regular to build. Moreover, the small voltage limit renders a safe course of action to the project.

An electric generator is a mechanical device or apparatus that generates electricity owing to the energy of a fuel. It offers a number of advantages to the homeowners. The primary objective of an electric generator is to provide electricity to all the spaces of the home when the actual power supply is absent. The procedure of building a small-sized electric generator asks you to follow a sequence of steps.

Initialize the project by looking for a regular DC motor. The voltage range of the motor decides the operational range of the generator. Hence, choose a motor that complements the voltage range of the electrical devices. You can use a DC motor of 6 volts and 1 ampere. Such a voltage range would be quite safe to work with.

How Could An Electrician Stay Healthy On The Job ?

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Commonly an electrician suffers from back, knees, fingers and hands injuries. An electrician may need to do some things on the job that can lead to pain and discomfort in these areas of their body. Such things are: working in very hot or cold temperatures, staying in the same position for long periods of time, holding vibrating tools, constant pressure from a hard surface on the body, constant moving or twisting of body and using force on your body to perform any task.

To keep the body fit, he should do some exercising before going on job. Stretching exercises help in reducing strain in body and muscles. If you are not able to do the work then look for another alternative of doing the work.

An electrician may have some of the following symptoms like fatigue, weakness, loss of energy, swelling, numbness, tingling and aching or burning pain. These problems generally occur in back, arms, shoulders, knees, hands, fingers and neck.

In case an electrician is suffering from any such problem then he should take all the preventive measures as soon as possible. He should inform his boss about the problem and follow the preventive actions.

Step By Step Guide To Wire A Ceiling Fan

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Wiring a ceiling fan is not so difficult and is mostly like wiring a light fixture. While wiring a ceiling fan, make sure that all the wire connections are made securely and with the proper size of wire nuts. The nuts should not be loose and no copper strands should be left uncovered.

Mostly all the ceiling fans have 4 wires or say 3 wires plus a ground wire. Their colors are black, white, green and an additional color (usually red, blue, or black/white striped).

Black wire of ceiling fan is used to connect the hot terminal of the fan and for connecting hot terminal of light kit, red/blue/striped is used. For connecting the neutral terminal of the ceiling fan white wire is used. In the end, for whole setup green wire can be used to make ground connection.

Now start connecting the wires of fan to the home wiring. Start with the neutral wire connection. The neutral wire of fan that is white in color is required to be connected with the neutral wire of house (white color). Also check if the white wire of your ceiling fan has a colored tape over it then that may signify that this wire should not be used as neural wire.

Steps To Choose The Right Electrical Fixtures

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Building up a new home requires a lot of care and monitoring. Without proper maintenance, one may have to face the severe consequences of the ignorance. To avoid these types of severe consequences, one has to monitor the material requirements on a constant basis. The outcome of a laid back attitude can do serious damage to the structural integrity of your electrical setup.

The severe outcomes would definitely harm your home and reduce the safety of the persons living in the home. To avoid these outcomes, one has to take some general precautions. These general precautions would save the lives of both the human and machines.

The process of monitoring the electrical material used by the electrician is not a difficult job at all. One can start off by monitoring the type of wires used for different types of appliances. For example, if an appliance uses heavy voltage then it should be installed with the proper wire type which can resist high voltage. Moreover, one can look for the quality of the wires and the sockets used because low quality wires and sockets can catch fire easily.

Uses Of Dimmer Switches

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Dimmer switches help in creating a good environment in dinning room or home theater as per your choice. They are not so difficult to install. Once you decide to buy these dimmer switches for your home, have good knowledge about them.

You can use 120V incandescent bulbs and halogen bulbs along with these dimmer switches but you can’t use fluorescent bulbs and most compact fluorescent bulbs.

Commonly, dimmer switches work with those bulbs that have wire filaments like 120V incandescent and halogen bulbs have. But when we talk about fluorescent bulbs and compact fluorescent bulbs, they usually work with a gas and they also need voltage for their functioning. If you are purchasing halogen bulbs having very low voltage then you need to purchase special kind of dimmer switches.

Two different kinds of dimmer switches are: single pole and 3-way dimmer switches. A single pole dimmer switch can be operated from a single location or single switch. A 3-way dimmer switch can be operated from two different switches located at different locations but out of two, only one is dimmer switch.

Steps To Hide An Unsightly Breaker Box

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Sometimes, the flaws or irregularities in any of the electrical components affect the look of the home interiors as well. The suspended electrical wires, detached outlets, broken switches, untidy breaker box etc. disintegrate the calmness of the home spaces.

Similarly, an electrical breaker box owing to its unpleasant design and color hurt the beauty of the walls to a large extent. Though the breaker box doesn’t quite complement the composure of your interior walls, but it is too essential to be removed from the setup. Hence, proper measures must be adopted to hide the existing breaker box.

The simplest method to conceal your untidy breaker box makes use of paint. Observe the theme of your walls and paint the body of the breaker box accordingly. If you are somewhat creative and artistic then you can draw an attractive picture on the face of the box.

An additional shadow box can be purchased to hide the breaker box. Since the size of the shadow box is larger than the breaker box, it covers the entire structure well. Moreover, it offers a section or fragment which can be used to exhibit some showpieces. The problem with this setup is that it makes the access to the breaker switches a bit difficult.

How To Use A Wireless Home Security System Efficiently ?

Monday, December 21st, 2009

After development of wireless home security systems, the days of wired security systems have come to an end. It is very convenient security device that has made home security very easy. Its installation and operation is quite fast and easy. You need to have proper knowledge of your wireless alarm system working, so that no burglar can break into your house. Following are some useful tips to improve the usability of your wireless home security system.

Before purchasing a home security system, find out how many windows and doors you want to be within the range of your security system. By this you can buy a security system of right size that has required coverage area.

Select a suitable place where you can place your control panel and from where you can easily operate the security system. The place should such that you can easily reach there anytime and in any emergency.

It is extremely essential to install the security system and its various components at the proper place to make every area in the house secure from robbery. This will ensure that no area is away from the wave range of the security system.