I feel like i wasted my time with fiber, certs but rarely get the work for it

Sc and st?

Yeah, fiber's exploding around here so it's actually pretty easy to find work as AT&T is pulling it to all the current businesses and ressies

And usually just SC

But I've done fiber patch panels that are in ST

When i was in the military i worked with a system that was fiber for engineering spaces on an aircraft carrier. Got out and barely touched glass

Ha. I didn't do any of this tech stuff in the service. I was combat arms

Nice

Got out and needed a job. Got picked up for an IT help desk and worked my way up from there. Eventually outsourced and got into low voltage from there.

Well anything you can learn that will let you eventually contract is good imho

Beginner question here: I'm currently working on rewiring the lighting in my basement; at present it's a mess of different fixtures, wiring, and breakers. My question is how many 100watt bulbs can I run off a 10amp breaker. Ideally I'd like 9 or 10 lights; should I upgrade to a 15amp, or will the 10amp handle that load?

@Izat - VA#3390 take the total wattage of the bulbs and / 120 volt that will give you the amperage of that circuit. you really want to keep the load on the breaker at 80% so with a 100 watt light bulb you're looking at 8 bulbs. It goes the same with CFL bulbs or LED bulbs. You take the total wattage and / your voltage to get your amperage

Your voltage in your residence should be 110 volt but for little pad you can use 120.

To go a little deeper if the wire is 14 gauge wire you can change that 10 amp breaker to a 15 amp breaker. If it is 12 gauge wire you can bump your breaker size to a 20 amp. A 10 amp breaker is not used these days. 15 20 30 at cetera are the applicable sizes according to code

I know the math does not work out exactly on that but that'll get you right in the ballpark

Awesome, so upgrading to a 15 amp breaker would be sufficient for 10 lights

Yes the wire needs to be at least 14 gauge before you can change the breaker safely. Once you have the 15 amp breaker in place as I said before simply count up the total wattage on your bulbs and / 120 and that will give you the amperage. on a 15 amp breaker you want to keep the amperage at 12 amps for your 80% rule

And 10 bulbs would give you about eight and a half amps so yes you would be fine on that

I'm pretty sure the wire is 12 gauge (not at the house rn), so I should be good

One more question - the basement's unfinished, so the joists are bare; is it code to drill holes thru each joist to run the line thru? I see a mix of that and stapling the wire to the underside of the joists. It would mean me drilling more holes, not enough space in the existing holes

If wire is number 12 you can put a 20 amp breaker in safely again keep it at the 80% rule which is 16 amps maximum load

(If you haven't picked up on it, I'm a complete novice; just bought my first house in April)

Gotcha

I'll go with 20 amps then

Code now tells us not to strap to the bottom of the floor joist. I guess that's in anticipation of finishing out an area further down the road. So if it were being inspected yes you would need to drill through the joist. The way you decide to do it is up to you it is an existing home with a mixture of both styles of wiring so it's kind of at a decision call on your part

Not sure that I'll end up finishing, but if its code it's worth the extra time to go ahead and do it

No problem that's what we're here for. You'll find a lot of this stuff is just common sense. You just need to exercise safety anytime you get into a live panel. If you're unsure of what you're doing you can always shut the main breaker off and use a flashlight or a headlight of some type to perform the work

^i did that twice already replacing all the outlets; I have a pretty healthy fear of getting zapped

Thanks again for your input, it's much appreciated 👌🏻

Yes I can be difficult because you have to kind of visualize how the circuit works a lot of times in order to work and safely. Anytime someone with limited experiences working on something they should be energized the circuit

* de-energize

I concur with greg 100%

@Izat - VA keep an eye out for broken tabs on outlets. They may be switched

As a rule of thumb on a 120v circuit a 100w is around 1a

And dimmer switches can only handle usually around 600w. So if you plan on dimming that area you may need to divide the load across two dimming switches

Good to know, luckily no dimmers here but I may do some on the main level eventually

Anyone ever make an alternator?

That is, convert physical energy into electrical?

It is not the easiest thing to do. You basically have a motor that is working backwards. You have to have quite a bit of copper windings inside the frame and you would have to spein it very quickly. If you had it attached to a bicycle or other of means it would not be so bad

Electric lady would not be that difficult to build the difficult part is when you have to do the spinning!

*electrically