ElectricalAdvice

The Ambiance installation I will use for this "episode" is one I did in my workshop, where I have set up my digital camera and tripod to take the various photos for use in this blog, I use it as a shadow box.
After measuring and cutting the 48" track section to fit in between the sides of the cabinet, I snap a 1-hole clip over the track section about 1" in from the edge of the cabinet. I then apply double stick tape to the back of the cut piece. Using as the clips as guides, I adhere the track to the underside of my cabinet with the clips flush with the cabinet face. I can use as few as two or as many as six clips snapped on to the track, for use as guides, if need be, do whatever is easiest for you. Keep in mind that you will have to un-snap each clip at some point, to insert the Ambiance cable, but you can also slide these clips along the track if need be to get them out of the way. Anyway.. You can see that I have cut a 45 degree miter (sort of, roughly) where the track meets the inside of the cabinet and joins with a vertical piece, also cut at (woof) 45 degrees; don't worry, it's under the cabinet where no-one can see it except you! The vertical side track is also adhered to the side of the cabinet with the double stick tape.

Peeling the backing tape off as you go, align the track section against the style and press it hard against the cabinet surface for full adhesion. In some case the tape will have to be supplemented with a 1-hole clip, permanently mounted in place.
Once the track system is complete the Ambiance cable can be persuaded into the track base. If you intend on using the segmented cable markings, this is the time to line them up as you wish.


The cable should snap tightly into base and pushed into the corners with an insulated tool handle, in this case the insulated grip of my diagonal cutting pliers, or dykes. Pushing the cable into the corner in this manner is necessary especially when using the track cover piece, in order to make a crisp 90 degree turn, be extra careful not to damage the cable in any way.

If desired, the cover for the track can be cut with a power mitersaw and made to fit perfectly. This is a good idea in places where the undercabinet can be seen from another part of the room and the installation wants to be neat and clean. If each cover pieces are cut to the exact length necessary the individual sockets can be snapped to the track base, fit tight to the track cover on each side, and thus they are automatically spaced in exact increments . This takes careful measuring and cutting to pull off, but it is possible to do.

Pushing the lamp socket over the cable within the track the socket should be pressed down firmly until the unit seats and a snap is heard. This is to ensure a good connection. Be careful of those points, they are very sharp!
For the purpose of greater clarity, in this installation you will see the sockets and lamps from the front of the cabinet face, I will attach a cabinet rail later on which will hide these items.
Under normal circumstances, these items would be assembled behind the bottom rail of the cabinet door, while you were standing on your head, a lot like putting a radio in a '57 Chevy's dashboard! It should be clear that anything you can do before-hand to eliminate any space-time delirium while inverted, confusing left from right, up from down; that kind of thing, is very helpful. Unless you're a tree dweller!

Notice the socket has a reflector which must reflect thelamp's light back into the cabinet, don't put these in backwards, or the light would be reflected back at the cabinet rail.
For all intents and purposes, this installation will demonstrate how a china cabinet can be side-lit with this system, or a bookcase, stereo cabinet, etc.. Do you have trouble reading the label on a CD? Add Ambiance lighting to the CD cabinet and illuminate it!

These products are from Wiremold, a surface raceway system sometimes used in conjunction with the Ambinace system.
A functioning system actually roughed in by myself at another location, is presented here to illustrate a slightly different installation requirement.

the junction box, trac base, cable and a 1-hole clip are installed under a cabinet. The junction box, or splice box, is installed here to change over from a 14/3 romex cable, to Ambiance cable.
This photo shows how the trac can be bent around corners, a unique lighting scheme indeed.

The Ambiance lighting system is a low voltage application, in that the voltage feeding the lamps is 12 volts. Lighting can be designed for virtually any voltage (literally, too), however, normal house power for lighting use in the United States is 60 cycle / 120 volts / Alternating Current (AC). The 120 volt power source is then "transformed" to 12 volts AC, and this is accomplished through the use of, you guessed it, a Transformer!
A transformer you ask, what is that? A long story I don't want to bore you with, so the short of it is thus: A transformer is an electrical device that consists of two coils of wire, each with two "phase" conductors, or, at this juncture, simply two connection points or terminals.
A set of these phase conductors would be labled the input, or primary coil and the other the output, or secondary coil. As I obey the rules of basic electricity whilst building this device, I place the two "coils", primary and secondary in close proximity to one another, say like a pair of water wheels, side by side, immersed in a river of water.
This first coil, or water wheel, is energized (the wheel caused to move) by an infeed of electrical energy (read: water) filling successive buckets at the top of the wheel's motion, with gravity doing the rest of the work by dragging the wheel along with it as each filled and weighted bucket wends it's way to earth again @ 1-gravity.
The second wheel is without water filling it's buckets, but due to the movement of the first wheel and the current it stirs in the swirling water it rides in, the second wheel is pulled along with the first, in the same direction, perhaps with a little less energy than the original.
The first coil of wire, or waterwheel, is energized by an electrical current and a magnetic field is produced around it. If a second coil is in the same pool of weater (read: in the magnetic field of the first coil) then it, too will produce a current flow (read: wheel movement) in the second coil, perhaps with a little less energy than the original.
Enter Electrical Engineer with notebook, pencil and calculator, adjust figures to accommodate for losses in secondary coil by adjusting wire size in the coils of the primary coil. Eventually produce a "transformer" that converts the 120 volts of electrical energy we feed into the primary coil into 12 volts available at the secondary coil. Well, if you are not confused now, you will be shortly.....
So, our system uses these step-down transformers to produce the 12 volts necessary to energize the light bulbs.
I will start by identifiying the various system parts for you, and, along with photos of an actual installation, guide you through the process.

These are the individual lamp sockets for the system, the lamp installs in between the two posts in the front view (l), while you can see the two "spears" that pierce the cable and make electrical contact in the rear view. Trust me, these are very sharp and will cut your skin just as easily as it slices into the cable jacket (r).

This next view (below) shows the 2-conductor cable, inside the track assembly. The socket, shown snapped over the track section, actually helps to hold the cable in place, eliminating the need for the cover in this particular installation.
In this view notice the cable is marked in 2" intervals. The warning of using the wrong lamp in the system should be heeded also, overheating can cause fires; which is the result of using incorrectly sized lamps.

In this photo you can see the junction box, Sea Gull # 9459-15, this item is used in installations where the cable from the transformer to the track is run in a different cable type, in this case I used a piece of 14/3 non-metallic cable (romex). The splice allows me to change from one cable type to another; keeping the splice hidden behind a cover. When doing this, I consider the red and black, together as one phase; the neutral and the bare ground wire as the second phase. This allows for the use of the larger, combined conductor size of the two # 14 AWG, which can span greater distances without losing power.

The double-stick tape (sticky both sides) is very useful for fastening the track to the cabinet, but it must sometimes be supplemented with a clip, such as this use shown here.

The box, with cover is shown installed. The use of double stick tape and a one hole clip secure this set-up to the cabinet. When twisting the cable to make it fit into the track, it puts added stress on the other components, necessitating a secondary means of adhesion. There is also a short piece of track cover in use here, to further secure the cable in the track base.

The Ambiance undercabinet lighting components shown here are actually the parts of the undercabinet "fixture" that you will custom build in-place, in your own kitchen.

As mentioned previously, the components of the "fixture" are the transformer, trac base, trac cover, 2-conductor cable, light sockets, lamps, clips that hold the trac in place, as well as double-stick tape.

Undercabinet lighting in a kitchen can be a very effective means to light the countertop workspace. Over the past several years (13) I have been utilizing an application of undercabinet lighting system called "Ambiance", manufactured by Sea Gull Lighting; with fantastic results. I say an application of the Ambiance system, because there are many different products in the line, adaptable for a great number of uses. I will be take you through an installation of one of the systems, including track, cable, sockets, lamps and transformers, and I will be talking strictly about the undercabinet installation application amd considerations.
The Ambiance system consists of a flexible nonmetallic base trac, two wire low voltage cable, sockets that stab into the cable and snap on the track, a track cover piece and a transformer to drop the voltage from 120 volt line voltage to the 12 volts necessary to power the lamps.
The flexible track section is predrilled along it's length at six inch increments for fastening with flat head wood screws to the underside of the kitchen cabinet. This 48" trac section can be screwed in place, as mentioned, it can be adhered with two-sided tape, held in place with snap-on 1-hole clips, or a combination of all three.
The Ambiance cable, a flexible cord with two #10 AWG stranded conductors, is designed to snap into the base track and is held in place by friction, the lamp sockets and/or the snap-on track cover.
The Ambiance sockets snap onto the trac while simultaneously two very sharp angled points pierce the insulated conductors in the cable and make contact. A zenon lamp, 5 or 10 watts apiece, of very white high intensity lamp designed for the socket being used, is snapped in place.
The Ambiance trac cover can be used (or not) to hold the conductors in place, or to neaten up the work. The sockets are placed at whatever distance apart that is necessary, and in this way I will actually build the lighting fixture in-place, customizing each installation as I go.
Stay tuned for this tomorrow..

Rough-In Continued

With the home runs installed, the panelboard installation is almost complete. We have the panelboard mounted in the wall, roughly 60" to the center off the finished floor. This allows for easy access to everyone for utilizing the circuit breakers when necessary, such as a problem with a tripped circuit breaker. Tripping circuit breakers due to overloaded circuits should not happen in a new house, it is the electrician’s job to ensure that overloaded circuits not occur at any time, for any reason, with the designed-in-place circuitry he crafts. But they sometimes do and for that reason, and the safety of the maintenance people, there are a whole set of do’s and do not’s for the electrical panelboard installation and related service equipment.
An area designated as space for the electrical panelboard must have these attributes:
An adequate horizontal space (side to side) of not less than 30", or 2'-6". The panelboard can be mounted anywhere within this 30" horizontal space, although in most cases it is mounted near the center of this space. Above and below the actual foot-print of the panelboard a space of 14-1/4" or greater width, by the depth of the panelboard enclosure itself (usually 3-1/2" - 4") is reserved space for the electrical wiring. In this zone, which extends from floor to structural ceiling, no other system is allowed to penetrate or pass through this space. That means no heating ducts or pipes, no plumbing pipes, no vacuum system pipes, no telephone or alarm wires, no cable tv wires, or speaker wires, notta thing, Nuttin! But that is not all.
For the safety of the installer, the maintenance people and the homeowner, working space for panelboards and other electrical device and/or equipment installation is such:
In the space from floor to structural ceiling in the area defined as 30" (2.5') wide and 36 inches (3') deep and 80" (6.5') there shall be no other obstructions to the electrician (or anyone for that matter) working on a panelboard installation. If a usable space for the panelboard is available that meets the 6.5' height clearance requirement, it is best to utilize it. NO other obstructions is a reference to any bookshelves, desks, work benches and the like, that could be built under, or around the electrical equipment. No Can Do!
The thinking is that the user, leaning over a work bench or bookcase is in peril of falling into the live electrical parts, left exposed while under going any number of electrical tasks, including testing and resetting a blown circuit breaker. The idea is to allow the person room to stand in front of the equipment without banging his head, bending over, or squatting on one knee. Logical, don’t you think?
The next item that we consider for installation on the electric service, is the device that keeps track of all of electricity you use in your household, the receptacle if you will, for the electric meter. This socket, described as having two line and two load terminal jaws, or opposing parts that close to hold fast a connection between itself and the flat spade terminals of the electric meter, and a terminal buss for the Grounded or Neutral Conductor. These meter sockets or pans as they are also known to some, are rated for voltage and amperage, for residential work the most common are 100 amp and 200 amp versions and sometimes in the bigger homes a 400 amp model.
Housed most often in a steel enclosure, usually raintight since it will be mounted on the exterior of the building, or out in the weather. Line and Load lugs (connection tabs) are mounted on an non-conductive ceramic yoke to keep them insulated from the grounded connection made at the neutral buss, which is fastened directly to the steel enclosure. The two top terminals are the Line or the street side of the electric meter, the two bottom terminals are the load side. The neutral conductors are not metered, the connection for the neutral is made on a two-terminal strip, as mentioned, which is fastened to the steel enclosure, making it part (electrically) of the grounding electrode system. For the purpose of an additional connection, there is an additional lug on the neutral buss, for the connection of the grounding electrode conductor.

Photo / Meter Socket

Since we sometimes do overhead cables to the street for power, from a telephone pole and we sometimes do underground cabling to a pole, a hand hole or transformer vault, the raintight meter enclosure must be adaptable for these two uses. Some companies make a single, overhead meter socket and sell you a blank plate to use when you are going underground and don’t need the top knockout; others make both an overhead and underground socket for each use.
In the overhead version of the socket, there is a large hole at the top of the enclosure which will have four mounting holes for the meter hub, or raintight collar; which at once closes in the gaping hole and allows a threaded hub for the insertion of a rain tight PVC connector, or terminal adapter.

I use Poly-Vinyl-Chloride (PVC) Schedule 40 conduit for all of our service installations, it allows for a better installation, with longevity in mind. Also, when you have to re-shingle, or re-side your home, the conduit is much easier and safer for the subcontractor, be they roofer, siding installer, or painter. At this point in our house, I will use the 2" PVC, Schedule 40 conduit between the panelboard, located in the laundry / back entry, to the meter socket, located on the back of the house.

The panelboard is mounted between two wall studs, on an interior partition, this mandates that I enter the enclosure from the bottom, and shoot outdoors through and within the wood stud wall, with the 2" conduit. Directly below the panelboard, I glue a male terminal adapter (fancy word for 2" PVC connector) on a 90 sweep fitting. Adding a lock nut and plastic bushing inside the enclosure I tighten fast the lock nut with a screw driver and a hammer. Turning the 90 sweep to face the opposing stud, in this case to the rright or outside of the building I mark the centerpoint of the sweep end, and bore a 2-9/16" hole. I continue boring 2-9/16" holes through adjoining studs until I reach the exterior sheathing and stop. With a smaller, 1/4" drill bit, I continue boring through the exterior sheathing and shingles or clapboard siding, until I am through all of the material. I can then locate, on the exterior, where that 1/4" bit came through, lining up a pilot bit for a 2-9/16" hole saw to continue the larger size through the last of the siding and sheathing. By doing this, we eliminate tear-out of the shingles, caused on the outside of the house from the brawn of the larger, more destructive wood-boring bit. It may be necessary to adjust the height of the horizontal holes for the conduit so that they better match the position of the hole and it’s relation to the shingle courses on the outside of the building.
All this done, we can then calculate the size of the grounding electrode conductor, and the bonding jumper for bonding; to make one - electrically, the water pipes and the electrical service ground. One conductor, the bonding jumper, must be sized in accordance with NEC rulings in relation to the size of the service entrance conductors. The Grounding Electrode Conductor is sized according to a prescribed table in alignment with the total amperage of the Electric Service.
In both cases, these cables for the ground and the bond, must be in-place in this service, because the panelboard is mounted on an inside partition and accessing it later on will not be easy, once the finish (wallboard, etc.) is applied.
In our house, for the Bonding Jumper I run a #4 stranded bare copper (as opposed to solid conductor) to a cold water pipe, and I attach it with an approved grounding clamp at the pipe and attach it to the neutral buss in the panelboard. For the Grounding Electrode conductor, because I am using two ground rods for grounding electrodes, I run a # 6 stranded bare copper and attach it to the two rods, unbroken if possible, with an acorn ground clamp and the neutral buss in the panelboard.

Photo of Ground Clamps and Ground Rods

Clean Clothes and Cooked Food

The Laundry

Since both the clothes dryer and the cooking range in our house are electric, we must run cable to these two major electric appliances. For the Electric Clothes Dryer, which utilizes a 30 amp, 120/240 volt 4-wire receptacle, we use 10/3 romex. Size 10/3 romex is a cable assembly which consists of four conductors, all # 10 American Wire Gauge (AWG); with an insulated black and a red, considered current- carrying conductors, an insulated white, or neutral conductor (the ground-ed conductor) and a bare (no insulation) ground-ing conductor, called an equipment ground, to properly ground the circuit or device.
This 10/3 cable is pulled in between the electrical panelboard in the back hall to the dryer receptacle. With the washing machine and clothes dryer inside the closet, adjacent to the panelboard, this isn’t a very long pull. The cable is run into usually a 2-gang switch box, mounted around 36" above the floor, or so as to best serve the appliance. When the appliance is set in place, a proper 30 amp 4-wire cord must be used to bring the two live conductors, the neutral, ground-ed conductor and the ground-ing or equipment ground conductor to the appliance.

Cooking for Starters

The Electric Range requires a heavier cable than the Clothes Dryer, and utilizes a 50 amp, 120/240 volt 4-wire receptacle. This is served to the appliance with an 8/3 romex cable, which like the 10/3 cable has four conductors, in this case all # 8 AWG. An insulated red and black, or current-carrying conductors, an insulated white, neutral conductor, ground-ed conductor and a ground-ing conductor, to properly ground, in this case the receptacle and subsequently the range itself.
The range cable, as it is called at this point, requires the use of larger staples to fasten it to the studs and joists and the connectors are larger where this cable terminates in a deep 4-11/16" square steel box.
It utilizes a 4-wire receptacle mounted on a raised box cover and fastened so it stands proud of the wall by the depth of the box itself (2-1/8") plus the raised cover (½") and device (1/8") and the 50 amp 4-wire cord and cap (5/8"). This assembly must be mounted so that the appliance can be plugged into the receptacle and the range itself located such that the two don’t compete with each other for space, you’ll want to make sure there is a void at the back of the range to accommodate the depth of this assembly.
Another way to accomplish the range receptacle installation is to mount a 4-wire 50 ampere surface mount self-contained receptacle, these are available for the 30 amp clothes dryer receptacle and the 50 amp electric range receptacle. Like the electric dryer receptacle, where the box is mounted inside the wall cavity, the same installation technique can be applied.

Clamping for Lack of Mobility

I will mention here that all cables entering electrical boxes; most especially steel electrical boxes, per NEC must be installed in an approved connector with a clamp and two screws to tighten down and hold fast the cable in the connector. In some cases, where the connector is larger than 3/4", a non-metallic bushing is required to further protect the cable from the chafing effects caused from a cable left loosely in the connector. The point here is that, if there is a sharp steel edge against which the cable assembly scratches, there will be physical damage inflicted upon the cable sheath and eventually cutting through the insulation and eventually (and inevitably) causing a short circuit.

A Little Vibration

I should mention that I have encountered some of these cables left in loosed connectors and found in some cases that vibration has done most of the damage. What vibration? Consider that a large truck, driving by your house, cause a rumble in the earth that you can feel, applying these same factors to the electrical box situation, you can see the problem is a very real one.

Home Runs Without Rounding the Bases

The home-run cables are all brought to the main panelboard for connection to the power source, through the eventual use of circuit breakers. Each cable must be run through an approved two-screw connector and, if the connector is 3/4" or larger, we also need to install a non-metallic bushing, over the end threads of the connector to protect the cable from chafing damage. The reason that smaller cables don’t require non-metallic bushings? The larger cables are much stiffer and weigh more and thus cause more damage when pressed against a sharp steel edge.
Once inside the panelboard, the individual conductors of the cables are separated from each other and connected to the various electrical busses. An electrical buss is basically a terminal strip, or a common place to terminate the various sized conductors, held tightly in place under set-screws.

Public Transportation It is Not

A Ground Buss is a terminal strip for the ground-ing conductors. Bare copper; sometimes with green insulation; sometimes green and yellow striped. Solid copper or stranded conductors each one is placed under a set screw and tightened down fast. Assuring the screws are turned in tight is essential to electrical safety, a loose connection causes a voltage drop, as the current flow soars conversely, overheating and arcing, or sparks caused from the “chatter” of the loose connection. This condition is the number one cause of electrical fires, through-out the world. More on that later.
A Neutral Buss is a terminal strip for the ground-ed, or neutral conductors of the 120/240 volt system. I do not understand why they do this, but the NEC does not use the term “Neutral” for the Ground-ed conductor, they simply refer to this conductor as the Gound-ed conductor. This simple lack of definition cause a great deal of confusion, even for the veterans (like me) who skim the text of a dog eared Code Book and find themselves confusing the two terms. Anyway, the neutral conductors are individually connected to the terminal strip with a single conductor, solid or stranded, each under it’s own single set-screw.

Power Please

The remainder of the conductors are the power connections to the individual circuit breakers within the panelboard. Each “circuit” has it’s own characteristics, as I have mentioned before, with each conductor size warranting it’s own properly-sized circuit breaker (over-current) device. A # 14 conductor is protected at 15 amps; #12 at 20 amps; a #10 at 30 amps, and a 38 at 50 amps, etc., etc.. Over fusing is another area that causes a great deal of confusion also, not to mention fires, but this time it is not the electrician that is mistaken, for he knows better. This time it is the unaware homeowner that does the deed (overfuses) and cause an unsafe condition, - overheated conductors causing insulation failure, or worse, and eventually a very hazardous situation for the occupants.
A 120 volt circuit, having it’s white and ground conductors connected to the neutral and ground buss, is powered by a properly sized single-pole circuit breaker. A 240 volt circuit, such as the electric range and the electric dryer we have in our house, is powered by a properly sized double-pole circuit breaker. At this stage of the job, the rough in, we are not installing circuit breakers, that will come later.

The panelboard must be covered to protect it during the construction period to keep contaminants (construction debris and water) from damaging the electrical connections and components.
We will be installing the service to this house soon, stay with us......

Sorry that I have been absent from this blog this month and part of last, I am busy closing down my Electrical Contracting business (Old Harbor Electric, Inc.) and taking care of loose ends. But that is all behind me now, I will have weekly entries from here on in.

DH