Hello all,
I’ve just purchased a CR234 repeater from Bill at www.homeautomationnet.com. BTW, excellent advice and the best place to shop on the net. Now I’m ready to install it.

Here’s what I think I need to do:

Turn off the main breaker
Remove the cover from the panel
Determine location of j-box and knock a hole in the drywall to run the wires through
Mount a j-box somewhere near the panel
Find a 240 breaker, connect two wires and run them to the j-box
Run a neutral wire to the j-box
Connect the wires to the CR234 and mount to j-box
Turn the breaker back on

Sounds simple enough. Keep in mind though that I’ve never worked on a breaker panel. A couple of questions come to mind.

What gauge wire should I use? 16 gauge?

Is there anything else I need to do be aware of as far as electrical codes, safety, etc?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Carter

Carter, just think of hooking the coupler up as if it were a 240-volt appliance. The wire should be a cable, not individual conductors, wherever it's not enclosed in either the panel or J-box, unless they're nippled together.

The wire should be sized according to the breaker it's connected to, so it may be better to buy a 2-pole breaker just for the coupler. If you can find a 15-amp 2-pole breaker, you can use #14; if a 20-amp, use #12.

Be sure to use the same brand of breaker as your panel. Don't go for the "all interchangeable breakers are interchangeable" mentality. They'll fit, but haven't been tested/approved for intermixing.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

Larry,
Thanks for your reply. I just went out to the panel and I don't have a space for another breaker. The instructions with the coupler say that I can share a breaker. My dryer breaker is 240v/30-amp so I'm planning on using that one. What gauge cable should I use for that size breaker? Also, I'm assuming the neutral line feeding the panel is the big cable that has been marked white? Thanks again for your help!

Carter

Ideally (i.e., according to code, etc) you should use #10 wire on a 30-amp circuit. Another possibility is to use any adjacent pair of 15-amp breakers, although ideally (again), the two breakers should have a handle tie.

However, since there will be no genuine load away from the panel that uses the two breakers (besides the coupler), you could safely get away without the handle tie. Better that than to connect #14 to a 30-amp breaker!

Hello,
I found a web page that has an excellent example of how to connect a coupler.



The example is not for the CR234 but it would connect the same way.

My big stumbling block was I wasn't sure how to know if I was actually conecting the wires to two different phases. A friend at work showed me an easy way to determine this. Open the link above and look at the breakers on the left side. The top one is phase A, the one just below that is phase B. So from the left top on down you would have, A, B, A, B, all the way to the bottom. The right side is just the opposite, B, A, B, A and so on. This weekend I'm going to hook up the coupler and I'll let everyone know how I fare.

Carter

Carter,

You can also put a meter between the two connection points you are thinking about using. If it reads 240 you are on two different phases.

Bill
www.homeautomationnet.com

Carter, your friend is wrong; BOTH sides start with A on top, thus. If you look in the bottom of your panel, where there is room for more breakers, you'll understand.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

Larry,
Thanks for the info. Here's the page my friend sent to me that made me think that: [Link: x10ideas.com]

It appears (from looking at the colors on the diagram at the link above)that you could get 240v from the two phases by connecting wires to two breakers that are directly across from each or above and below each other.

I see what you mean from the your link though. I'm going to connect the coupler tomorrow (my wife won't let me turn the power off on Thanksgiving) so I'll use a meter on the breaker box and see what I can learn. I'm no electrical genius but I'm learning something new every day thanks to this forum!

Thanks,
Carter

Carter, the X-10 diagram is wrong. I'm going to attempt to email them.

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

Done.

This message was edited by Larry Fine on 11/27/03 12:56.

Hello,
Just an update on installing my CR234 phase coupler. First of all, it was very easy to install. It solved most of my problems with dead spots, but not all. So I walked around and started unplugging things until I found the culprit. Turned out it was my computer and audio equipment causing the noise problems. I could unplug one or the other and the dead spots miraculously cured themselves. Well, I knew then that I needed some noise filters so I'm waiting to receive those and then I'll have another update on how that works out.

Carter

I have all computer equipment and A/V equipment in our house on filters. They are such common noise producers that I don't even try to run with them unfiltered.

Hello,
I installed the filters that I bought from Bill and everything works fine now. It's amazing how something that simple can make such a huge difference.

Carter