Today on Planet Christmas someone posted that Menards had 15A GFCI outlets for $4. I had wanted to go out anyhow, so I took my lunch and headed there and Office Max. I was wanting to go to Office Max to look for Avery Weather Proof labels. I read that is what RJ uses over at DLA for his case labels and it seemed like it would be much easier that my “packing tape over normal labels” method, so I thought I would pick some up and try them out. I wanted the smaller ones, and naturally my Office Max doesn’t carry them. So off to Menards where I found that our local Menards did indeed have $4 GFCI’s, so I picked up 6 white ones (probably should have gotten more, but gotta save money). While I was there I looked at prices for an enclosure to mount my 15A SSRs in.
I’m not sure if I’ve talked about this yet or not, but this is the plan for distributing power to the display. The local hardware was able to find me a 50A 240V RV outlet (basically a 50A stove outlet in an outdoor enclosure that allows the plug to be plugged in and still be weather proof). So that will be permanently be mounted to the house and tied to a 50A 240V breaker in the breaker panel that is meant for the stove, but is unused because we have a gas stove. Come setup time, I will have a portable distribution panel that will have a 100A main lug outdoor breaker panel on it. This will plug into the 50A 240V outlet and provide up to 100 amps of 120V power (50A on each of the 240 legs). The panel will be populated with 6 15A breakers for each of the 6 circuits that will be used to power the display. From the main breaker panel, the breakers will go into one of six Crydom CY3455 15A SSRs (Solid State Relays) that will be used to kill power to the display during the day. The 6 SSRs will be wired into 6 separate GFCI outlets that will then distribute the power to the controllers, that will distribute it to the lights. Hopefully I can find some good (free) diagramming software and draw up a diagram. Not only will killing the power during the day save a little bit of energy, but will make everything safer as there won’t be any power running around when it isn’t needed. The SSRs will be triggered by a small “wall-wart” type power supply that will be plugged into a regular old electronic lamp timer. The timer will be set to come on a bit before show time and will turn off some time after, thus enabling and disabling power to the entire display at the appropriate times. Anyhow, I needed a place to put the 15A SSRs. I had found an 8x8x4 NEMA3R enclosure on eBay for pretty reasonable, but wanted to check prices at Menards before buying it. I found a 6x6x4 enclosure that seems like it will work just fine that was cheaper (no shipping) and looks prettier too! It will be a little tight, but I’m fairly certain I can make it work.
I received the 15A SSRs a few weeks ago, but they have just sat at work since then. Tonight I finally decided to bring them home and try them out to make sure they work. I hooked them up to a string of lights and powered them with a 12V supply and they all worked like a charm. I then tried powering a controller with one to make sure that the controller pulled enough amperage to get the gate on the SSR to close and it seems like that works fine as well.
After testing the SSRs, I set to work getting enclosure #4′s grounds trimmed, tinned, and connected. Some of you may notice that I skipped enclosure #3, and that wasn’t intentional, it’s just that I picked up #4 first. It is definitely easier (and neater) doing the ground wires before the PCB/heat sink is in place. I am still getting asked about it, so I’ll remind everyone — The grounds are not necessary whatsoever. I’m using them because they are there and because I have the room for the grounding bar, and because I’m anal like that and like to see stuff grounded. Might come back to bite me in the end because I hear having a ground may cause GFCIs to trip easier, but we’ll see. Anyhow got all the grounds on that enclosure done and the PCB/heat sink mounted, and it’s ready for final wiring tomorrow night.
Before calling it a night to write this (now rather long) blog post I searched for the smaller Avery weatherproof labels, and found someone on eBay selling them for a reasonable price, so I’m going to order some tomorrow and hope that they work out. Sure will save some time on the labeling if they do.
Tonight’s pics also include some pics of the beginning stages of my arch creation from the other night.
Posted in Electrical, Miscellaneous, Ren24 |
, I ran a sequence on my first arch in its “arch configuration” for the first time tonight. Also, I took my first video (of hopefully many more) of my Christmas stuff. I took the video with my still camera, and I’m not thrilled with the results. I will try the actual video camera next time and see if there is a difference. Also, I edited my first video in Microsoft Movie Maker. Sure I only added a title screen, but pretty neat nonetheless. Also I posted my first Christmas related video to YouTube, and here it is.
