The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
Technical Discussion => Misc. Technical Discussion => Topic started by: DeeG on July 06, 2009, 02:17:09 AM
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I have been cleaning up the shop (we call our 40x60 garage 'the shop'). Moved the tool boxes and workbench so now I have a nice space to park a bike and work on it without bumping into anything.
Problem is: Shop has electricity going to the panel on the wall. Have a nice big switch box with lots of open places to put circuits. Currently only one 110V and one 220V. The 110 has a passel of extension cords coming off it. Yes, I know. Only major thing on them is some flourescent lights. ANd everything gets unplugged when I'm done.
We will be installing more 110 circuits this fall as I want permanent lighting and such.
What I want is a 12V line to my work bench. Spouse says too much work. Gotta add this and that and a battery and yada yada yada.
CAN this be done???? Or would it be easier to have a circuit with a separate power converter?
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"The 110 has a passel of extension cords coming off it."
Please tell us your shop is not attached to your home! Danger, Will Robinson, danger!
Would be far more economical to add additional circuits and breakers within your existing service panel than to rebuild after a fire caused by overloading the snake's nest of extension cords. If you are unsure about doing this yourself, hire an electrician...soon.
Then, plug the new 110-12V inverter into one of those breaker-protected circuits you recently installed.
Be safe. Stay safe. Monte
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I'm drooling.... 40 x 60? Wow.
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how much current do you require? there are a few was of doing that.
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Depending on your 12V current needs, a basic 120V input, 12V output power supply can be had for reasonable cost - either lifted from an old PC or a very basic 12V linear power supply and fitted with a proper AC cord and plugged into a normal 120V receptacle. IF you're looking at more than a few amperes of 12V, then it does get more expensive, but still easily do-able.
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If your not useing the 220V line get an inverter for that but please make sure you have RCCB protection on any supply power points
Lou
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If this is for simple testing, troubleshooting, or any number of little DC mad science projects, I've found that a drawerful of second hand wall transformers is very handy. Many jobs can be handled with a 5A switch mode power supply from a laptop computer. They'll range from 12 to 20 volts DC generally. I've got half a dozen of these for a buck each from Goodwill. I've also got lots and lots of fifty cent standard wall transformers ranging from 1.5 volts up to 30. Most standard (non switch mode) wall transformers are both low current (usually in milliamps) compared to computer power supplies, and much less precise (and much cheaper to manufacture). If it's labelled 4.5 or 12 volts, for instance, a meter will reveal it to be off of that by quite a few volts in either direction. The cheap consumer items they mate these to just don't really care if they get EXACTLY 4.5 volts. An SMPS is usually spot on.
You can tell if it's an older style transformer, or an SMPS by weight. A similarly rated SMPS will weigh 1/4 that of a stacked plate xformer. A very few occasions arise that will not tolerate the signal conditioning that an SMPS puts out, and you must resort to the old-school transformer, but they are rare (diode circuits seem to not like them). SMPSs also don't like to respond to modern dimmer inputs (for similar reasons). A simple dimmer input feeding an standard AC/DC wall transformer is a cheap and handy way to peg the voltage output if you need it to be right on the numbers, or if you need a very light duty adjustable power supply (maybe you want a variable speed muffin fan placed somewhere).
For needs beyond 5A then a more dedicated bench-top supply, or a module out of a PC is needed. Brand new though, this stuff is pretty pricey.
The best quick and dirty, occasional use, high amperage testing tool is always going to be the humble benchtop car battery and trickle charger.
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Montmil, The only thing that I use the cords for are a couple of florescent lights which get unplugged when I leave. And the main plug coming off the box gets shut off as well. If I need to run the air compressor, I use it during the day when nothing else is 'on'. The only time a cord is used when I'm not around is during the winter when the Battery Tender is in use. I'm pretty anal about what all gets used at one time. Had a house burn down once (stupid kids and fireworks) many years ago when I lived in the hills in SoCal. And no, the house and shop are not attached, the shop is about 40 yards from the house..... hehehe
Until we started riding, the shop was mainly used as storage and a place for field mice to live. So having lots of outlets wasn't an issue. Now that I am spending a lot of time down there fussing with the bikes, I want to finally get the miserable place more user friendly and cleaned out. (anyone want to buy a couple of 70's era Jeep Wagoneers???)
I only want the 12V for convenience. Charge the GPS or maybe charge up my cell phone without having to drag the cords down from the house. Or use the Slime 12V air pump instead of firing up the compressor. Not sure how many amps the Slime draws, but I'm thinking 5A will probably be more than sufficient. Small things. OR maybe I can find one with enough capacity so I can snuggle up in my Gerbings and work on the bikes when its 20F out....... ;D
Hm.... we have a couple of old desktops stuck up on a shelf (antique machines.... Windows 3.1 and even one with IBM OS2!!!). Perhaps I'll gut one and see if I can't make that work. I love soldering!!!! Honest. I'm finally figuring it out. Yeah, I know... I'm a dork. ::)
THANKS!!!!
Dee
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Would be far more economical to add additional circuits and breakers within your existing service panel than to rebuild after a fire caused by overloading the snake's nest of extension cords. If you are unsure about doing this yourself, hire an electrician...soon.
Then, plug the new 110-12V inverter into one of those breaker-protected circuits you recently installed.
Be safe. Stay safe. Monte
+1
My dad and I did this to my garage shortly after I bought my house a couple of years ago. I started with two outlets and one light fixture in the entire garage. Now, I have a couple additional circuits, over a dozen outlets spread across those new circuits, and half a dozen 4' shop light fixtures spread throughout the garage (thinking of growing that by another one or two).
It's pretty cake. I have pictures somewhere of how we did it if you're interested.
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Shop photos? Like Tim The Tool Man Allen, we rewired it. Heck yeah. [smiley=thumbup.gif]
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If you need more lighting, without adding more wiring , try some 8 foot dual lamp flourescent light fixtures .
I installed four of them in my three car garage, it's like daylight in there .
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http://www.suraklyn.com/projects/garage/
We ran all of the wiring externally of the wall inside some 5/8" conduit (that's some massive conduit for the wiring we ran, but the local Home Depot didn't stock anything smaller); in addition to that, we ran hot, neutral and ground wires individually inside the conduit up to the attic -- why? we thought that was what you were supposed to do when using conduit, but we later learned it's fine to run romex through conduit.
We ran romex in the attic for attaching each strip of outlets to the new breakers added into the box; we snaked the romex down the wall with a fish tape through the existing bundle of wires (a little tip from an electrician friend of mine).
For the lighting, we just tapped into the existing circuit the one light fixture was already on; there wasn't a lot on this circuit, so it turned out pretty convenient.
We took about a day and a half to do all of it, but we weren't in a real rush; you could probably get it done in the better part of a day if you felt so inclined.
All in all, it only cost a couple hundred in material to do; I figure I'll get that back when I sell the house.
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If you need more lighting, without adding more wiring , try some 8 foot dual lamp flourescent light fixtures .
I installed four of them in my three car garage, it's like daylight in there .
Bob, are those all wired in series? I have one 75watt bulb in the center of the garage, soon to be Man Cave, and that's just not enough lumens. How many amps will an 8ft fluorescent draw?
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I'd have to take one apart to check the current draw, but I think it's about 1.5-2 amps per fixture, they are 40 watt lamps .
I'm not really sure how its wired, I had the electricians install the wiring when the house was built, and I installed the fixtures later .
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Anyone remember the electrical system in Oliver and Lisa Douglas' kitchen, circa Green Acres? Let's see, Darling. A two vit a three or a one vit a four...
You can add two dozen or so outlets around your shop -for convenience- but you must, absolutely must, know how many amps you're asking a circuit to handle.
Adding additional circuits -and their associated breakers- to an existing service panel is not difficult. Check your panel and read the load rating of the breakers you presently have. If you find a few 15amp breakers, these can be safely upgraded to 20amps in most newer homes.
Service panel full? A sub panel can be fitted, too.
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DeeG,
You mention a host of applications you would like to use the 12v for but I'm not so sure it would be a good idea. Many of the recharges you mention may very well be of application specific design and connecting a universal 12v supply to to your cell phone or gps may just void the warranty in a spectacular way. For running a 12v air pump or firing up your Gerbings an outdoor light transformer [think Malibu lights] may be a good accessory. I Also like the overhead auto retracting cord reel. I'm remodeling the shop as well, some pegboard and also track lights from the recently remodeled kitchen are going up. Also looking for a small but good quality tunes box.
rich
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Careful - The Malibu outdoor light transformer that I have is 12 volts AC!!! It may work your Gerbings but it will damage your battery, air pump, and many other things. Come to think about it the Gerbings controller might not like it either! YMMV
One way to add your 12V DC supply is to use an old 12V car or motorcycle battery - put it on a float charger and you should have a good stable source of 12V DC. Just make sure that the "old" battery still has some life left in it - don't use one with a bad cell.
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The 12V requirements/uses will have to be well defined before any kind of recommendation could be made...
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Good catch Drew. I just thought 12v & didn't realize my error. Forgetabout the Malibu lights thingie. Bad Idea.
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Just wire your garage to code with a few seperate 120v circuits and buy yourself a standard bench top 12 volt dc power supply many of which come with a built in car cigarette lighter jack on the front and you could use your car style chargers plugged into that...like this :
http://www.autotoys.com/x/product.php?productid=7208
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OOH I like that table top converter.
Wish it also had a BMW plug on it.
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After the electrical/radio genius at work overheard me chatting about wiring up the shop, he offered to come and help. Well, he offered to come over and teach me how to do it. This guy wires up all our radio towers and everything associated with our comm center, and he built the two houses he has on his property, so I think I'm in good hands. Which is probably just as well, as the spouse is thinking that maybe we should install a couple of them radiant heaters so we can work in the winter and not freeze to death.
He also pointed out a 12V converter box thingie he had on his workbench. About $100. The one that ampliflyer posted the link to would work just as well.....
MrRiden, I've been wanting a radio/CD player for the shop as well. I have a set of Altec Lansing computer type speakers set up in my kitchen. Fairly inexpensive (about $90) and it sounds really nice. I'm going to use a Am/FM/CD player that I already have and just plug it into the speakers. It also has a port for an MP3/sat radio as well.
The one in my kitchen is plugged into the Garmin GPS which has the XM puck on it.
Now I just have to wait for the temps to cool a bit before I start the project. The shop temp was about 8 degrees warmer than the surface of the sun this afternoon. I had to wait until 10pm before it was tolerable to work in.
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when I need 12v in the garage use a wall transformer , they are cheap. If ya need more ........ there's alwasy your batter charger!
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On Fleapay or a ham radio site like QRZ.com you will often find ASTRON 12 volt (13.8 nominal) power supplies in models up to 75 amps or so. They use common repair parts and are "short" sensing meaning you can short the leads of a 50 amp Astron and it will shut down without big Thor's Hammer sparks. Only down side is the shipping, their pass regulated supplies are HEAVY. I have a 35 amp which has been plugged in and operating 24/7 for about 20 years. Big switchers - like PC supplies - are tough to fix, "they have to be working before you can fix them".
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Battery chargers are about as unfiltered and unregulated as you can get. I wouldn't use one to power anything "electronic" without a battery across it for smoothing. BTW one can buy all sorts of parts for custom in wall (or anywhere else) speakers from Parts Express, just google them. Among other things, they send you a nice fat paper catalog just like the old days.
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My car battery charger is a 110v to 12v converter, and it has 3 levels of output: 2, 10 and 50 amps.
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_02871222000P?mv=rr&i_cntr=1312332073385
Oh yeah, Herr Stig, I suppose it isn't the cleanest power out there.
Duane Ausherman would recommend a Variac transformer for your experimenting.
http://w6rec.com/duane/bmw/battery/index.htm
I don't know how regulated that output is, either.
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I did away with the 12v idea. Too much of a pain. I FINALLY had the time to run some conduit. Installed four separate 20 amp circuits and one hard wired 4' fixture over the main 'work desk'. Next month I'll hard wire the banks of 8' fixtures and an outside light next to the door and an outside GFI to plug the tractor into when it starts snowing.
Spouse has two of them electric infrared heater things hanging from the ceiling of his company shop, I'd like to get a couple of those as well for when the temps drop. Working on a bike with old ski pants/parka and thick gloves on is no fun at all.
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Ceiling heaters sound good, except that heat rises.
Is the entire building insulated?
Except for the noise, I really like my propane-powered forced-air floor heater (http://www.mrheater.com/ProductFamily.aspx?catid=46).
It's fun watching the thermometer at the other end of the garage rise!
Yes, mine is a small 1-car garage.
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Duane's a "radio guy" like me, part of his email address is his "ham" callsign. A variac will produce variable voltage but it will be UNFILTERED AC. You could crank it down to 12 volts but nothing electronic or electric motor powered in a car, bike, boat, or aircraft shout be subjected to 12 (or 24 for a lot of aircraft) volts AC. It has to be DC and CLEAN, or all the magic smoke inside the unit will be let out, and it ain't easy to put it back in. We used to call cranking up a new mains powered transmitter or whatever for the first time the "60 cycle smoke test".
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Pure DC on a scope looks like a straight line. Lousy DC from a charger or cheap power supply looks like a politician's trace on a lie detector. AC, of course, goes the wrong way half the time. It's the PEAKS on a badly or non filtered supply that kill small expensive transistors and ICs.
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A variac will produce variable voltage but it will be UNFILTERED AC.
Yep - you busted me, Stig - thanks for the warning!
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Someplace like Newmark Electronics would be a good source for a bench type experimenters power supply...All regulated and stuff..
As for the 110 circuits.. I just have four quad outlets nippled to the breaker box and with 8 circuits in those... And a couple 220's for the welders and stuff...
Get an outside type HID street light and hang in the middle of the shop... Unless you get a gigantic one they usually draw less than a hundred watts... That'll give you enough light to see.. The use area lighting as necessary for individual areas...
John