Comments by "eDoc2020" (@eDoc2020) on "Technology Connections" channel.

  1. A heating pad is usually sixty watts, well under the 1000w continuous that a light-duty extension cord is capable of. So I'm sure chaining cords wasn't the cause of the incident. Having said that, it's still not a good idea to do that. The cause of the damaged outlet was almost surely from arcing due to a loose connection at that location. If there's a decent amount of current flowing arcs can leave quite a bit of damage. Due to the way outlets are daisy chained a load on one outlet could smoke a different outlet on the same circuit.
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  2. The V-Chip is the same thing. The ratings data is encoded in the same line 21 data stream as the captioning data.
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  3. While Alec touched on this he could have mentioned more. A rule I have seen is to halve the capacity when the cord is spooled.
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  4.  @harshnemesis  What do you mean? Turning on floor lamps from the entrance to a room is useful anytime you want easy access to light. It's literally the reason we have light switches instead of switches at the light socket. Keep the lamp's own switch on all the time and it's easy.
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  5.  @MusicByproduct  Temperature is one of the factors in degradation. if you charge regular batteries at high C rates they heat up, accelerating their demise. In modern EVs the cells are liquid cooled and sometimes also connected to the air conditioning system.
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  6.  @lirawyn  The colors are indeed correct for regular single-phase 120v outlets (NEMA 5 plug). However, this is a 240v device with two hots and no neutral (NEMA 6 plug).
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  7. Temperature compensation could work but do you know what would work even better for ensuring consistent light output? A photoresistor. I bet the circuitry found in $2 light sensing incandescent nightlights would work pretty well with minimal adaptation.
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  8.  @pilotavery  Not quite. SD and SDHC use different protocols. A 4GB+ SDHC card is not recognized as storage at all by legacy SD-only devices. It's not like hard drives where you can use large drives as small ones.
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  9.  @radiotec76  Your bulbs likely are using switchers. The majority may be linear but I'd guess ~25% are switchers. Side note the circuits used in CFLs are quite different than regular switchmode supplies. They are much simpler, only using two transistors and little else.
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  10.  @Sha.ll0w  A stove ignitor normally using grid power but having batteries for backup ends up being a terrible solution. When you have power the batteries sit and sit, likely leaking and causing damage. Then when the power's out it's still no good. It would work if you regularly check the batteries but nobody will do that. If somebody is willing and able to change the backup batteries chances are they can handle some matches. Also the circuitry needed to seamlessly support both is much more complicated than only dealing with a single power source.
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  11.  @KyouTGD  Furnaces need fans but basic gas fireplaces do not. There are also some very old gas room heaters still in use which don't use fans.
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  12.  @markm0000  Thermostats for (whole-house) heat-pump systems have built-in support for backup heat systems. It will work automatically and will maintain constant living temperature. As a plus smart thermostats can use other data to help make their decision, such as weather forecasts and realtime energy prices.
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  13. How about a touch lava lamp?
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  14.  @TheNabeshein  Modern dishwashers have an exhaust fan? My mid-90s Maytag runs a fan during the dry part of the cycle. It's so not-modern it doesn't have any semiconductors.
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  15. He's just doing it to cool off the air. I hope you saw his last video.
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  16. Hydronic systems are also an option. Have one central compressor heating/cooling a loop of water which goes to simple fan coil units. The thermal mass of the water means the compressor can cycle less often during low load situations. A water loop also enables in-floor heating which is usually more efficient.
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  17.  @rafflesmaos  If you have fan coils and in-floor heat you could configure it so the fan units are always contributing. That would mostly eliminate thermal lag. But I also need to ask, wouldn't insulation between the slab and the floor also eliminate this lag? Having said all this I would probably also have a small ducted system for air circulation and HRV/ERV.
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  18. With a smaller system you wouldn't need as much airflow. This results in much quieter air ducts.
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  19. I think if installing an outlet you should go with a NEMA 14 and if designing a device you should aim to be NEMA 6 compatible. Since the only electrical difference is the neutral wire, you can safely and easily convert a NEMA 14 receptacle to a NEMA 6 receptacle, but the reverse is not true.
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  20. If your radiators don't put out enough heat with low temperature water you can add a fan to them. In the US the term for this is a fan coil unit (FCU). A fan blowing through an existing radiator would also work.
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  21. Yes. An uncoiled 12AWG extension cord will always be protected by the circuit feeding it.
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  22. Some ants release pheromones when they die which cause other ants to come and attack the threat. So once one ant gets fried there's a positive feedback effect. I've heard this is a common problem in Texas.
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  23. LED grow lights seem to have settled on a de-facto standard set of connectors, making the drivers user-replaceable.
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  24. @asdrubale bisanzio Albania, the Congo, Iceland, and Paraguay use basically 100% renewable electricity sources. So yes, it's more than possible to last a day or two without coal. Hydroelectricity is by far the main renewable source and it naturally provides storage. If you are insistent on the 'bad weather' excuse, consider that most days wind and solar does generate. This reduces the need for fossil fuels which can be saved for those bad weather days.
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  25.  @greggv8  A good look at policy is always a good thing, even if no better options end up being found. While mass transit is infeasible for most of the US, it certainly is more practical for most Americans because most people live in more densely populated areas.
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  26.  @gregorymalchuk272  I saw those mentioned on another comment. They're still not ideal as they seem quite small and there's no thermal contact with the fixture. More ideal would be a 4 inch or so (~10 cm) square which is pressed against the fixture via a thermal transfer pad to keep everything cool.
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  27.  @ClaytonDorris  Are you forced to use resistance heating as your home's main heat source? Are your light bulbs where you need heat? If you answered no to any of these questions then switching to incandescent light bulbs because of their heating effect is a poor idea. Even something as simple as ceiling mounted lights (where the heat stays above your head) is less effective at heating than electric heaters at the floor. The best way to use resistance heating is a radiant heater pointed at you. If managed properly this could be done with incandescent floodlights but I doubt your existing lights are designed to do this.
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  28. The secret is we only have one phase going to residential areas. The second leg is an exact opposite (180 degree) instead of 120 degrees as if it were three phase. I hope this makes sense. In areas with true three phase, you indeed cannot get an entire 240v from two phases.
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  29. Modern American RVs with more electrical use a four pin 120/240v 50a connector.
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  30.  @asbestosfibers1325  The raw equipment doesn't cost much more but that's before any dealer markups. And regarding that $10, it's probably a little bit more, especially since you're probably switching from a 17" to a 21" cabinet. Probably more like 100-300 USD.
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  31. That would definitely be a poor wiring decision. If you have overhead lights and a switched outlet it's definitely better if they have separate switches.
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  32. The technical feature becomes much more acceptable if it is fully advertised and incentives are offered for using your car as grid storage.
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  33. The story involving your excessive hair didn't make the cut. I get it. Btw you need the Reed stories.
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  34. @Nigel Cam You're saying electric cars don't have soul, size, opulence, or class? That's the automaker's fault, there's no reason they couldn't release an electric version of the Town Car or any other model of your choosing. I agree electric cars don't have the engine note of an ICE. I don't think most people care, they just want something that will get them from point A to point B reliably.
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  35.  @arnehurnik  The prices I'm seeing are $735.26 for the WiFi version and $387.45 for the standard version. Certainly very expensive for the components within (especially for the WiFi version, that's probably <$10 more in parts), but IMHO not too bad, considering the special flexible cabling and machined plug. Most people will spend more than that on an electrician to run power line and install the unit.
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  36.  @klikkolee  Some companies make all-in-one units with one compressor running home heating and cooling along with hot water production. This Old House installed one by Mitsubuishi in season 40. They specifically mentioned it was capable of heating one room while cooling another so I can assume it would also choose the best heat source for water.
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  37.  @danielfay8963  Those outlet testers can only detect a few of the possible wiring errors. Most notably, they cannot detect if neutral and ground are flipped or shorted. The most exciting thing is a reverse polarity bootleg ground. A tester will report such an outlet as perfectly fine, even though the ground pin is actually connected to live.
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  38.  @lztx  They can't be shrouded because that would break compatibility with outlets that grab the prongs further up.
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  39.  @kyleflounder9783  Confused about rotary phones? You put your finger over the number you want to dial, rotate it to the fingerstop, then release to dial a digit. It's easy to use (although I've never actually dialed a live phone). Internally there's a governor to regulate the pulsing speed, and a switch opens once per pulse transmitted.
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  40.  @run2thestore  I'm guessing the downstairs bedroom opens up into the landing area. If that's the case maybe it originally had a 3-way switch but it was replaced with the wrong type of switch (or an incorrectly wired 3-way).
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  41. The important thing to note is that the different settings have no effect on efficiency. Choose a lower setting if the heater is sharing the circuit with other devices. And lower settings will lead to more consistent temperatures. Higher settings will make it heat faster (obviously) but the hidden gotcha is self-heating will cause the thermostat to switch off early so it's not actually faster at heating a room unless there is some amount of airflow. Matthias Wandel made a video about this.
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  42.  @VictoriaKimball  I should probably note that the issue with inconsistent temperatures is much less with an oil-filled heater compared to hot air. The oil-filled stays warm for a while after the thermostat cycles off but a hot air heater stops putting out heat immediately.
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  43. Not too much. Like an ICE car going uphill will consume much more energy but unlike an ICE vehicle you can use regenerative braking to recharge going downhill.
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  44. IIRC Code requires that if you have extra switched outlets (AFAIK all switched outlets outside of dwelling units) you put a label on the outlet saying it is switched.
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  45. Yes, we need this. Even with a cheap mini-split you have installation costs but a window one is easy. It's probably not ideal for actual windows but plenty of people have in-wall units which are basically the same.
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  46. If load does not affect your runtime the generator is running very inefficiently. You could increase efficiency by using it to charge a battery and then running off the battery.
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  47. The problem with calling them auxillary sweaters is that many people associate the term 'sweater' with feeling warmer.
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  48.  @a.b2966  Even in the US all of that would probably be fine going through a single light-duty extension cord. The thinnest cords we have are 18AWG which are still good for 1000 watts continuous.
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  49. Ground source heat pumps are definitely the way to go if you can.
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  50. A tip from when I did this: bundle all your 'dock' cables into one using cable ties/wrap or whatever. It keeps things tidy. Also USB hubs are your friend (and many monitors have built in hubs.) Power, video, and USB are all you need.
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