Installing my Electric Car Charger - What Could Go Wrong??
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
3,331 words · ~16 min read
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so in a recent video i and alex used this kit that like kind of like lego for
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batteries kit that we found online to make a diy lithium battery to soup up my
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kids power wheels car you know those little ride on cars for kids that make
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it make it go real fast and that project along with some really great positive
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feedback that i got from the electrician and
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engineering communities really made me feel like
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why stop there i think we're ready for the big time
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so as some of you know i recently got
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myself a little car upgrade i went from my 2003 honda civic to a plug-in hybrid
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2017 chevy volt and uh one of the things that you kind
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of need when you have an electric car is an electric car charger
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so today we will be installing
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this 240 volt charger
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is it 240 volt and yeah don't worry i'm not doing it by
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myself this is brian he's an electrician he's going to help
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hello the t-force excalibur RGB ddr4 RAM uses
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a unique totem pattern design and ultra wide 120 degree panel lighting find out
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more at the link in the video description
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so step one is why i actually feel the need to install an electric charger by
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the way this is this is charging land this is the corner of my garage where i
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make sure there's nothing flammable because i have one of those old
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hoverboards here and you just you you just never you just never know what
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those so this is the the wall charger that's
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included with the volt so it runs at 120 volt and it charges at i think a maximum
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of about yeah there it is about 1400 watts which quite frankly is lots for a
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plug-in hybrid if i had this running at full capacity i could easily charge it
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up overnight but as some of you might remember from the
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video where i talked about getting this car my intent is to do car reviews on an
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ongoing basis moving forward so if i were charging up an actual full electric
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car this would be painfully slow so um i
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think the first question the audience is going to have for you is you're a real electrician right
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like not like a like a Linus media group video host pretending to be an
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electrician no okay good
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um so then you helped me pick out this
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particular this is a level two charger is that correct
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yes and can you explain to our friends out there what the difference is between
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a level one and a level two charger while i go ahead and open this baby up
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basically it's just the amount of power that i can shovel into the car so you
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know a level one charger like what you're using right now
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plugging into 120 volt receptacle
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you're only pulling about 1400 watts something like this
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will run off a 30 amp circuit at 240 volts so theoretically you can charge
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about four times faster cool and we went with one from uh siemens
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it's uh it's a shame they didn't uh try that try that company name out in
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english before they uh they went and they put it all over
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everything
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so uh this is my siemens verse eight
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and why did we pick this one
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frankly it's what the wholesaler had in stock
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wow you really are a contractor
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this was a little overkill for this application wasn't it
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but a little bit kind of a nerd and so you were like well the difference is
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only you know three dollars and you know this is better and i'm a nerd and i love
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overkill i knew it no i just know where it's going and well
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i can't drop anything on something in the ceiling so we interrupt this program
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to bring you stunning footage of the damage
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that dennis has done to my house there's the brand new hole in my ceiling
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of my garage that we had not intended to put there can we pull this panel off so
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we can show the bus bars sure okay let's do that
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just don't touch the shiny i'm not gonna touch this
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okay so our plan is i think
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i think all the access holes are kind of in use here
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oh wait nope i see one but this looks too big for it dang dang it you and
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you're overkill brian that's what drills are for oh okay
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all right so let's let's let's let's get a move on then this is it right
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installing a armored cable with this you can either
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go surfaced yeah in the garage that's weak this week
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or yeah like you're originally talking you can run it through the attic space
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yeah so that's what we're gonna do riley murdoch what if i told you
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that not far from where you're standing one of your compatriots
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fell through the ceiling it was a dark time i could have died
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okay so you're gonna stick a screwdriver up yes okay can you see the screwdriver
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hi there huh i i have you met my friend
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mr pokey now you can poke something through a hole okay
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can it be black and really thick i'm gonna say yes yeah
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you are and properly sheathed it's ribbed for her pleasure oh my gosh
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it's really long
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that's good okay you've had enough have you
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i mean basically the idea is that we might sell this place at some point and
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i don't know which side whoever buys it would want their electric vehicle on so
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i wanted it somewhere in the middle accessible enough that you could kind of
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run it across the hood of this one or plug it into that one
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so that that's basically the entire rationale so i just i just want it to be
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i mean if a hobbit like me can reach it
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then i figure anyone can reach it so i just wanted it to be somewhere where you
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can get this down
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somewhat easily pretty easily i can reach that pretty easily so let's go
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let's go like right up onto the drop and then we'll just run our little board so
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that we have something to screw the bottom into does that work
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yep do you want to build it or do you want me to i can i can build things i
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actually have wood as well if we need any other wood
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you got wood my workshop is equipped with all kinds
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of things like safety glasses
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hearing protection a staple gun
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come on you can't feel those can you
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hey it may not be straight but it's 22 inches long right now so i think
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okay yeah two perfectly 22 inch exactly the same
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pieces of wood with very um perpendicular ends
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oh yeah close enough
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all right are you assuming i don't have screws i
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have screws also i have a level i have
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two i accidentally bought a second one when
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i lost my first one you know what i'm using my level i'm not using any of your
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tools anymore i'm going i'm going to get my drill
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so are we aiming for approximately centered here i have screws i got my own
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screws they are just as good as your screws
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which screws bigger lines they are actually slightly shorter but not in a
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way that matters it's not as thick either Linus
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hold on let me see if i let me see if i have better screws just a sec
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i'm gonna be right back with better screws
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you know what you know what brian
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fine you know the funny thing is no no no
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whose screw is longer now bring yours back
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length is the same Linus well then that's fine isn't it
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okay are we just gonna kind of eyeball this like
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wait a minute whoa why are these two pieces of wood very different lengths
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hold on a minute here ah oh there's the other one
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that was close would have been funny though
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uh okay something like that yeah do you mind
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no no it's mine
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on my last vacation i completely reorganized the garage put in all the
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shelving and all that kind of stuff and got it from
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this entire side being completely consumed by all the things that are in
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the overhead storage and shelving yeah um to well now being able to park two
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cars in here so wait what was that word you used
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vacation yeah well yeah no that well
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that's how i vacation i i like work and organize no i i was
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gonna say you take vacations
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yeah it was nice actually okay
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yes i can do one that's enough yeah the latter was a drag
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factor goodies so that's all the the fun bits
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inside and then yeah this uh this hinge does seem to come
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right off but we need an allen key all right so now the part that i really
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shouldn't do so yeah at this point basically what you
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just kind of stick it in there
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stick your conductors in there and kind of you know cable management a little
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bit maybe a little something like like that
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remember it's always cut towards your abdomen because if you're gonna
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eviscerate yourself you make sure that it's like really graphic well actually you
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have more control going towards i i i know i did make the mistake one
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time with having my hand below where i cut ooh and did you slip i did
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right through this finger ouch if you look carefully you can still see a line
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going i don't have to look that carefully so you're going at an angle
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there is that so we can kind of unwrap it no
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no it's uh we're actually not going to have to unwrap it at all because once
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you go far enough so then just kind of unthread it almost
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and then just slides off bippity bop just like that eh oh very cool okay look
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at me i'm doing electrician things wow wow
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electricity okay and then this blue one i'll just
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kind of well that that we're gonna actually tape
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off oh okay tape the end up
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sure and do you know you have like the little caps
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i have the little caps oh
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house electrical this one's uh this one's looking a little bear
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oh no i swear i have them oh i haven't i have it i haven't had it i have caps
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i got a cap here i just i want to get a nice little one here i got one no i got
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it i want to put the cap on i want to put the cap on you can do with
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the paddle oh he already had a cat i thought you you said you were gonna tape
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it i was going to then you went cap hunting
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so then i just grabbed one
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you're having too much fun brian this clearly isn't real work not anymore no
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this is way too entertaining okay okay
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that looks not bad hey
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and i sort of did it myself this is where
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i actually stopped participating because i don't trust myself in there
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yeah i got a nice clean cut there
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the general idea i'm just bugging you you're doing a great job i'm so
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supportive i feel like in a past life i was probably a brazilian
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wow you know i also love being close to breasts you know that's another
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indication
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this has been patched before yep sure has
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that's cool yep so it has this part so has this part so has this part
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yep it's kind of a it's kind of a patchwork you know house
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you ever considered just putting a new sheet of drywall on nope
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oh maybe back with the hammer before he's
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done yes you just won't use my hammer wow
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disrespect
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look how much better that hammer worked it's a nice hammer it's wood you know
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wood craftsmanship i do have a fresh pack of blades too but
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so do i i actually don't i'm just you know we
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were comparing yeah food was more equipped and i got i got carried away there
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okay
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oh right you can't just like take it off no it's the metal part that just slides
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off okay i got it i got it
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oh wow it's so soft it's actually like really easy to cut
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huh it looks tougher and more rigid than
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and i guess it is yeah it's the armor that makes it hard right okay so i need
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the hacksaw then yep
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and then kind of that kind of angle yep yeah roughly a 45. are you okay so
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you're not supposed to cut on the backstroke but you can still run it back and forth
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you just want to make sure you stay well fairly level
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oh level whoops i'm sliding all over the
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place here are we you're twisting the other way
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there it is there there you go and pull
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okay there you go blackhead
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so this is a bit different style of connector okay
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so it's just one screw to do uh you know what hold on
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is that solid enough yep cool going anywhere
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tie in the bond yup sure uh proceed with the bond tying in
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one side okay cool so okay so this blue one we're not going
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to need so we'll just cap that and chuck it here or whatever out of the way
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yep and then next we put the breaker in
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so how these work this is actually an old-style breaker these are called
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commanders yeah so if you look
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on the back side of the bus part here yeah those there's a little kickouts yes
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that goes right in there exactly cool okay so
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this hooks on make sure the breaker's off because my fingers are on the lugs
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so that hooks on and then these two screws
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just tighten down into the bus bars yeah sure no problem
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and is is is there a like is there a
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reason that we haven't just turned this off while we do this part because that
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would kill power to the entire house
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so i mean that's what i do whenever i do
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anything with the house wearing you just kill them yeah i just put my
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i just put my head lamp on well because they're not very well labeled so i don't
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know what exactly yeah i guess that's true
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like when you don't know what you're doing yeah you know you just
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play it safe but it seems fine so i
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guess you're fine well because this like plastic and rubber are
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insulators yeah so obviously you wouldn't want to touch this
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slip and like get your hand all over it and like because i'm me so i you know
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fair enough i'm gonna keep doing it the way i do it okay but again if you strip
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too much we just nip a little off sure
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they call me the nip king
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i don't know about that pop it like it's hot
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or neutrally ground ah
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actually it looks like something in here is oh blown up a little bit
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maybe a breaker tripping or something a little bit of flash
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oh that's sexy
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something exploded here okay let's put it back exactly the way it was
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without any further investigation
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pretty fancy
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that's the coolest looking siemens i've ever seen
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he's gonna do it
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don't get run over now
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oh wrong pedal there man
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all right
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yes
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so my cats are both gone presumably dead
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so the best thing i can do with their old
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toys is make my little alignment thing here see that see that parking job see
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how nailed that is so that means i can open my door up like this
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and the sliding door the van and there will be about this much space
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nice all right
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so here we go unholster
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bring one loop down you know what i'm probably going to do is like
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just a little strapper we'll tie it yeah strap that in there or something i have
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smaller straps if you want to pop and
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pow it's charging oh i heard it kind of click on there too
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look at it go
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makes some noise there doesn't it this is really giving her may not be RGB but
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it's g it's got the g part
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so i wonder how long it's going to take to charge on this thing it actually takes more than overnight on the low
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setting of the one that came in the box
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and the reason i use that is because i've got my deep freeze plugged into the same circuit so i was worried that if
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that kicked in and i was drawing 14 14 50 watts or whatever it was then it
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would turn off both of them and if my food all spoiled that'd be a problem sorry i'm
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like i'll just wait until i get the proper charger but this should charge
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this puppy up in like i don't know probably not very much time
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a few hours yeah cool
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nice so that's pretty much it that was garage
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tv installer time uh thank you brian for
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