Resonosity

joined 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The NEC is not for the occupant, it's for the architects, general contractors, and electricians. Unless you're doing construction in your house you don't need to worry about it at all.

What I'm arguing and what those in the link I shared above argue though is that if a homeowner finds that their new PC setup is drawing more than a 15 Aac circuit breaker allows, then they have two choices: 1) downgrade the PC, or 2) upgrade the building wiring. And if they choose the latter, then they can either 1) do the upgrades themselves or 2) have those architects, general contractors, and electricians do it for them.

While I would want to think that homeowners would prefer qualified personnel do installations on their premises because such personnel understand the hazards and code requirements, I don't think that ends up happening in many instances. If a homeowner wants to upsize their 15 Aac circuit to 20 Aac, they have now crossed the line from electricity "user" to electricity "installer", hence activating the NEC.

If an installer knows that they're going to install a 20 Aac breaker, then they must follow the portions of the NEC code limiting the load on that breaker to 80%. For the homeowner, they know which loads they want to hang, so this automatically means they can't load more than 16 Aac. If instead the homeowner were to contract an electrician to do the work, it would be up to the homeowner to not disclose what kind of load they wish to place on this circuit to the electrician so there isn't established any grounds for code violation. Bear in mind that like you say even if you run more than 16 Aac on a 20 Aac breaker it's going to work; what we're discussing is code violation and grounds for revoking licenses of practicing electricians, architects, engineers, etc. - and you may argue that if a homeowner does the install then they have no license to revoke, in which case should they have done the install to begin with? We run into a circle.

or worst case start a fire if your stuff wasn't installed well.

I would wager to say that there are many competent and incompetent electricians and inspectors out in the world, and as much as we wish for good intent, I still believe greed and convenience exist to counteract that.

If you live in an older house/apartment that was built before the 1970s/1980s, perhaps a good rule of thumb would be to derate your circuits given the uncertainty surrounding those installations. If after, or if your building has undergone electrical renovations specific to the circuit you wish to load with your beast of a PC, perhaps homeowners/apartment dwellers can be more confident that they'll be safe.

As an engineer myself, I tend to lean on the safer side of things by virtue of not knowing the unknown (and to save my own ass), but I recognize that that virtue isn't respected by everyone. Just be safe people!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You could make the argument that people with 5090s do run their PCs longer than 3 hours since those folk are more prone to longer bouts of gaming to feel like they're returning on their expensive investment. And as the capabilities of our PCs become more and more robust, it will likely mean that people will more and more need to consider whether the circuit they're plugging into will take the load they're giving it.

Doesn't hurt to plan for the future regarding building wiring, since most tech folk do so regarding their PC builds.

But, up on further inspection... I may be inclined to agree with you. See this thread from licensed and qualified professionals in the space.

It seems that homeowners are given a special class of immunity when it comes to manifesting hazards associated with their use of electricity. Whether or not that immunity should be granted, given that improper use of electrical equipment in a household can lead to fires and cause undue harm to the community at large, I think is up for debate.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Actually the National Electric Code (NEC) limits loads for 15 Aac receptacles to 12 Aac, and for 20 Aac receptacles 16 Aac iirc because those are the breaker ratings and you size those at 125% of the load (conversely, 1/125% = 80% where loads should be 80% of the break ratings).

So with a 15 Aac outlet and a 1000 Wac load at minimum 95% power factor, you're drawing 8.8 Aac which is ~73% of the capacity of the outlet (8.8/12). For a 20 Aac outlet, 8.8 Aac is ~55%% capacity (8.8/16).

Nonetheless, you're totally right. We're not approaching the limit of the technology unlike electric car chargers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

A given group of people are not a monolith. While we do share a lot of similarities, we also all have the potential to be a little different from one another.

I hope you get a chance to find someone that will allow you to be open like that again. Sharing those emotions and having someone their to empathetically receive them is one of the most gratifying things as a human.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Amazing. I know what my next board game purchase is, if this is still sold that is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

No I think they just show up randomly. You'll have to look out for Lemmy posts to see if anyone from Mastodon comments. Next to their name is their instance, so if I were on Mastodon, my username would be something like: [email protected] or something

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

How do I do what

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Welcome to Lemmy! I'm glad you joined. There are tons of tutorials out there for how to use the platform, but if it helps, here's my advice:

I use the Android app Sync For Lemmy. Reminds me a lot of rif is fun from before Reddit shut down 3rd party API access about a year ago.

Lemmy.World is the name of the biggest instance on Lemmy. Think of it as a discord channel with different sub-channels except those are called communities here (and instead of r/ for subreddits we have c/ for communities).

There are still trolls here. What's nice about Lemmy is that you can block individual trolls, communities of trolls, or even instances of trolls (if you deem them so). Conversely, if you get banned from any of the above, you can make a new account on any other instance (like dbzer0 or shitjustworks) and still have access to the content from those people/places. The same is true if certain communities/instances change their policies on things like Luigi, which happened on Lemmy.World recently. I switched over to dbzer0 to avoid that censorship and to also see stuff about pirating - that which is banned on Lemmy.World.

Lastly, we can see posts/comments from other people on the Fediverse, like from Mastodon (Twitter alternative) and others.

Hope you enjoy your stay here! Lemmy is primarily tech- and politics-focused rn, but a lot of people draw parallels to Reddit's early days, which is good!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

At that point? It wasn't when they expelled Palestinians from their homes in 1948?

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