Hello everyone. I am in need of some good lighting to paint my miniatures and I'm sick of balancing this shitty little old CFL that I can't see poo with. So I got a big fucking 4 foot Fluorescent tube, 3250 lumens, 6400K for that real good brightness to hit every little detail.
Problem is I haven't a clue how to wire it and I'm scared of electrocuting myself. The hardware store guy told me it's simple, just wire the brown to brown and blue to blue in the fixture. He didn't mention earths though and I dunno where to stick the two wires in the 3 parts of the plug (earth, neutral, live). That and I dunno what the fuck the swirly wire is connected to the metal but I'm thinking I'll get shocked if I touch it when it's on.
I tried looking up guides but everybody kindof assumes you know terminology and have a similar model..
>>908377
Hello mr troll.
Please wire the earth to the "swirly wire", the brown to the brown and the blue to the blue, in the connector where they're literally all right next to each other. Cut the blue wire an inch shorter, and the brown wire two inches shorter.
Attach the wire to the case with a cable tie so it can't be pulled out if you trip on it.
Stick the plastic circle inside the bit that holds plastic circles and twist it in.
At the other end, check out this site: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+wire+a+plug . It's super helpful and will tell you everything you need to know. Pay attention to the lengths of the wires: this stops them killing you if you trip over the lead.
Now delete your thread, and if you have another stupid question, ask it in the Stupid Question Thread ( >>895059 )
>>908377
Oh, and if your wire has two wires instead of three, throw it in the bin and go buy the right wire.
If you cut the other end off a PC power wire, then the plug will already be wired for you.
>>908393
Because there's a thread for you to post your small, stupid questions so they don't push a more-worthy thread off the end of the board, and you didn't.
Because the sticky right at the start of the board, which you're supposed to have read, says
>- First ask Google, then ask /diy
and you didn't.
Two-wire flexes are for double-insulated devices, which your device isn't. Your device has a grounded case, and needs a ground wire, which is what the "swirly wire" is.
>>908377
you are not going to be able to power a 4 foot fluorescent tube with the ballast from a shitty under-cabinet fixture ballast. im sorry but there is no way. you need a proper ballast for that tube you bought and you should just BUY a proper fixture already assembled, its clear you are too stupid to DIY this and in your best interest you shouldnt attempt to do so because morons like you are the ones who end up in the hospital cause of this.
the tube will light up with just the blue and brown wires
it's safer if the yellow/green wire is also connected
>>908399
>>908400
1) I bought the tube and the fixture at the same time, everything was given to me as a set and both tube and fixture have the same brand. The fixture is as big as the tube so I'd assume it's made for it.
2) I did ask google, as I said in the OP but I didn't find anything so I asked here
3) I didn't realize it was small enough to not warrant its own thread. Perhaps if someone cares enough about their thread, they wouldn't wait a week or two for it to fall off the board when its so slow, perhaps they don't care about it anymore and that's why they don't bump it.
So the guy gave me the wrong wire because they assumed the case will be out of reach up on the ceiling perhaps. That's all?
>>908401
So it does go back just to the wire. The case will have a current going through it with the two-part wire or no?
>>908402
1) kill yourself
2) die
3) end your life
4) an hero
5) GTFO
6) I gotta take a shit. BBL
>>908400
you're full of shit mate
>>908404
I didn't realize /diy/ had such juvenile /b/-tier cunts in its helpful midst. Hasn't tainted my opinion of the board, fortunately.
>>908402
>So the guy gave me the wrong wire because they assumed the case will be out of reach up on the ceiling perhaps. That's all?
Nope, you still need to ground it, no matter where it is.
Maybe he wanted you to get electrocuted and die?
>>908407
Well, I didn't expect that. Thank you very much, friend. Just.. can someone explain why I don't use the ground in the plug? Just curiosity and concern since it seems as if it would be safer. I am not a clever man but I know grounding wires are so you don't cook yourself like a thanksgiving turkey should you touch something you're not supposed to. Having a ground wire attached to the metal fixture seems counter-productive.
I defer to your wisdom, I just want to know.
>>908407
I really like the way you wired the plug backwards.
10/10, would be trolled again.
>>908410
>grounding wires are so you don't cook yourself
>Having a ground wire attached to the metal fixture seems counter-productive.
> I am not a clever man
Clearly.
>>908407
What's with this thread literally trying to electrocute a guy asking a simple question?
What's the yellow block for? I found one almost identical in an old PC power supply.
>>908420
It's an X capacitor.
It's like a regular capacitor but it has mutant powers that reduce electrical noise sent back to the mains.
>>908428
How does it do this? Filtering like the normal ones do? Or some kind of ectoplasmic matrix armature in the core?
>>908431
>How does it do this? Filtering like the normal ones do?
That and guaranteeing to fail open rather than fail short.
>>908433
That's some clever shit.
>>908407
Flip the live and neutral and you are set
We get lots of Chinese tools and appliances here that only have live and neutral. So we cut off the original chink plug and throw on an English type G plug and just pray.
So with live and neutral, does that mean that the live one (for AC) is always doing the work? As in alternating between "blowing" and "sucking"?
I thought they took it in turns to each blow or each suck. Is that also a valid setup in some systems?
>>908407
This is not correct but good effort anon I like your spirit!
>>908410
The purpose of a cpc (circuit protective conductor (if you want to play with British electricity lets do it properly)) is to carry current in the event of a fault where the case (the bit you can touch) somehow becomes live. The purpose of this is to create a short circuit in order to operate one of the hopefully many circuit protective devices you have in your home. Without the cpc, under a fault condition where say the line wire became loose and contacted the case it would be at 240v wrt earth. If you touched it you would get a shock.
2 core wire like you were given is acceptable in some circumstances, double insulated devices where the failure of one single part do not render the appliance dangerous are commonly found with 2 core cable. Pendant lighting fixtures also use this type of cable for reasons I can't explain. This is probably why it was given to you by some numpy who didn't know better.
The reason you should leave well done the earth connections in your case is that you only have 2 core cable and so nowhere to connect the earth to.
Ideally you should replace the cable with a suitably rated (current carrying capacity) 3 core flex at the earliest opportunity.
It would be incredibly irresponsible of you to leave this accessible to anyone else as the dangers are not clear. It should be ideally dismantled but if you keep it locked away with a suitable warning sticker attached then I won't tell anyone.
Don't touch it while its on.
>>908441
If the circuit isn't complete, the electricity doesn't have anywhere to go and therefore the case doesn't go live.
>>908447
Until you touch it and become the path of least resistance?
>>908447
No current will flow but the case will be live
>>908437
They're not called "X Capacitors" for nothing!
>>908377
> tired of bad color.
>replaces fluorescent with fluorescent
My sides are in orbit.
Sir, this is still going to look like shit
>>908406
Yeah, every now and then they take a break from beating their wives to shit up /diy/. It's not usually like this.
![trans63[1].gif](https://i.imgur.com/HQmA8Vv.gif "trans63[1].gif")
>>908440
>So with live and neutral, does that mean that the live one (for AC) is always doing the work? As in alternating between "blowing" and "sucking"?
Yes. The neutral is nominally zero, though depending on how it's loaded it might float a bit WRT true ground.
>I thought they took it in turns to each blow or each suck. Is that also a valid setup in some systems?
No, never.
There closest to that happening is the American 220v system, whereby 220v comes down to the house from the street, and is fed into a center-tapped transformer. Now transformers don't allow electricity to flow /though/ them; there's no direct connection between the inputs and outputs. Instead they cause whatever difference in voltage is between their inputs to appear on their outputs ('transformed' by whatever their ratio is).
The American mains transformer is a 1:1 center-tapped transformer, which means the input is a 1-unit transformer, and the output is two 1/2-unit transformers wired in series. The middle output is held to ground, which makes the two outputs become +110v and -110v, WRT to each other (it's still AC, so they're still +-110v WRT neutral). These 110v lives are used to feed different parts of the house, where they appear to be 110v lives, because that's what they are.
But inside the 220v outlet, the magic happens. The two lives are fed to the 220v appliance at the same time, meaning that when one is +110v, the other is -110v, and the appliance sees a 220v potential difference. 180 degrees later, one is -110v and the other +110v and the appliance sees -220v.
To use your analogy, at any given time, one 220v live is blowing, and the other is sucking. The 220v from the street is recreated out of the two 110v phases it was split into.
>>908477
>Ctrl-F colo
You're actually the first person to bring up colour. OP only mentioned luminous flux.
>>908440
in uk we say line and neutral
both conductors are live
one wire has a varying voltage however both wires will carry equal current
>>908483
>paint my miniatures and I'm sick of balancing this shitty little old CFL that
>op talks about color temperature in k like it matters with fluorescents
>op is trying to do artistic shit under a garage tier fluorescent tube, obviously needs to be stopped even if he wasn't thinking about it, which he was
Maybe if you knew anything about painting minis or art or color you'd have seen all the words op used to talk about then in addition to brightness?
>>908479
It's alright, I've been helped plenty before, I know /diy/ is probably the nicest and most helpful board there is and I'm from /tg/ where we're pretty good to each other.
>>908477
The problem with the CFL is the size and its lumens, not the colour temperature. It's just too small for me to see anything in detail unless I literally almost touch the model to the bulb.
I got myself a 3-core and wired it properly and it works. Everything is visible in such crisp detail, I should've done this ages ago holy shit.
>>908489
You have no idea what you're talking about. Stop shitting on people. A Colour Temperature between 5500K to 6500K is ideal for minipainting.
>>908491
The color temperature of a fluorescent doesn't actually reflect its ability to reproduce colors. Look up a few posts to the spectrum graph of different bulbs wrt daylight. You see how fluorescent is nothing but three spikes? All your light comes at those three frequencies. This is absolutely impossible to paint under because of pigments. You should take it back and get an led
The light heat refers to how the entire spectrum is shifted, not to the spectrums actual content.
>>908491
Find the package and see what the cri is. If its before 80, you're mad to continue to use it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_rendering_index
>>908495
>Almost impossible
Might look big on paper but the difference in practice is fairly negligible. You're going to extremes, only people like the 'Eavy Metal group and Golden Daemon winners have to use such min-maxed setups.
>>908501
Okay anon. Enjoy your artistic endeavors when this is the greatest chance to upgrade your lighting rig in 5 years.
This is cri 80. Imagine if you got a typical garage work lamp that's like cri 62?
>>908502
And yet the picture you're looking at is almost certainly being illuminated by a fluorescent tube.
>>908506
Haters gon' hate
>>908503
A $50-$100 99 CRI fluorescent in your laptop carefully designed for your screen, and your screen designed around it.
Vs. Op going to the home store and buying the cheapest shit there and getting lucky that it's 82 CRI, which is still pretty shit tier >>908502
I'm sure op had a lighting problem and needed more light. All my advice was friendly, but he got butt blasted because he didn't understand the difference between color temp, spectrum, and CRI for 40 minutes.
No wonder everyone degraded op for not being able to into wiring. pic related, as always.
