Need Electrician's Advice (opener, install, price, electrical)

[RMSko]

I currently have an Intermatic E1020 timer and wanted a digital timer and Intermatic told me I that their ST01 is a comparable replacement. I purchased the ST01, but have some connection questions (sorry for the long post, but I wanted to give as much info as possible).

- The E1020 has 3 wires - black, red and white. The instructions say connect the red to the wire from the fixture, the black to the "hot" wire and use the white as a neutral.

- The ST01 has four wires - black, blue, red and green. The instructions say to connect one wire from the wall to black and the other to blue and the green wire to a grounding screw. The intstructions then say that the red is not used unless it's a 3 way connection so I believe I just need to cap that.

Here are my questions:

1. Is there any way to correlate the connections from the E1020 to the ST01 and if so, any suggestions?

2. I don't believe any of the ST01 wires are a neutral. Is it fine to just ignore that connection even though it was used with the E1020, or do I connect my ground (green) wire to the neutral?

3. If I don't connect my green wire to the neutral, I assume I need to connect it to a ground. There is a bare copper wire in the junction box. Can I assume this is the ground? The instructions also say, if you have a plastic box (which I do), then "connect to ground as supplied". The only thing supplied is a 2 inch black wire with copper connections at each end, however, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with that wire.

As you can see I am quite the novice, and so any help that anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated.

[southgeorgia]

Originally Posted by RMSko

1. Is there any way to correlate the connections from the E1020 to the ST01 and if so, any suggestions?

No need to. Do as the directions said; one to line, the other to load.

Originally Posted by RMSko

2. I don't believe any of the ST01 wires are a neutral. Is it fine to just ignore that connection even though it was used with the E1020, or do I connect my ground (green) wire to the neutral?

Do not connect the ground to the neutral.

Originally Posted by RMSko

3. If I don't connect my green wire to the neutral, I assume I need to connect it to a ground. There is a bare copper wire in the junction box. Can I assume this is the ground?

Yes.

Originally Posted by RMSko

The instructions also say, if you have a plastic box (which I do), then "connect to ground as supplied". The only thing supplied is a 2 inch black wire with copper connections at each end, however, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with that wire.

If you had a metal box, the switch would be grounded by contact. See the response above for the answer.

[jimboburnsy]

If you pull the cover off of any switch box in your house, you will see that none of the toggle switches has a neutral connection on the body of the switch. The neutral (white) wires will be twisted together and capped in the back of the box. This is how your new timer is designed to be wired.

You should have two white wires in the wall box; one running with the wire going to the fixture and one running with the incoming power lead. Twist these white wires together, cap them and forget about them. Do not hook the neutral to the ground.

The black wire and the blue wire are both hot. Electricity will be flowing into the black wire, through the timer switch mechanism and out the blue wire (or visa-versa if the blue wire is hooked up to the incoming lead). Then it goes to the fixture, powers the device and returns to the electrical panel along the white wire. The white does not need to be involved for this timer to work.

If you have a bare copper wire in the electrical box, that is definitely the ground. Hook the green wire to that. The ground wire is solely a safety measure and does not impact the functionality of the device, only the relative safety*.


*Usually

[RMSko]

Thanks for all your help. The first post said to connect "one to line, the other to load," however, I'm not sure which is which. If the above post is correct that they are both "hot," does it matter which one is connected to the line and the other to the load?

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by RMSko

Thanks for all your help. The first post said to connect "one to line, the other to load," however, I'm not sure which is which. If the above post is correct that they are both "hot," does it matter which one is connected to the line and the other to the load?

If the directions do not specifiy "Black to line, blue to load" it shouldn't matter, but if you know which is incoming power and which goes to the fixture, I would still connect the black wire to the incoming power and the blue to the fixture (OCD). If for no other reason you will remember which is which in the future.

If you do not have one in your toolkit, you may want to get one of these...



This is a non-contact voltage tester, about $20. It will tell you if a wire is hot. This is an excellent little addition to your kit for safety and it helps you ascertain which wire is the line and which is the load. I actually prefer Greenlee to Klein but didn't find a picture immediately.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by RMSko

Thanks for all your help. The first post said to connect "one to line, the other to load," however, I'm not sure which is which. If the above post is correct that they are both "hot," does it matter which one is connected to the line and the other to the load?

I just downloaded the instruction manual to the ST01. Sounds like a pretty cool timer. It doesn't matter which wire you connect to the black and which you connect to the blue. It will work exactly the same either way. All of the computing functions and actuators are powered by the battery in the unit and the switching mechanism is a simple "on-off" toggle. That is to say that no matter which direction the power enters the timer from, "off" is a broken connection and "on" is a completed circuit. Hope that helps.

[wyoquilter]

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

If the directions do not specifiy "Black to line, blue to load" it shouldn't matter, but if you know which is incoming power and which goes to the fixture, I would still connect the black wire to the incoming power and the blue to the fixture (OCD). If for no other reason you will remember which is which in the future.

If you do not have one in your toolkit, you may want to get one of these...



This is a non-contact voltage tester, about $20. It will tell you if a wire is hot. This is an excellent little addition to your kit for safety and it helps you ascertain which wire is the line and which is the load. I actually prefer Greenlee to Klein but didn't find a picture immediately.

My hubby who is an actual electrician and owns his own business said you would actually be better off buying an electrical meter over one of those voltage testers. He has tried various ones from various makers and all seem to give false information. He says he doesn't know how many times they will say a wire is hot when it's not or say it's not hot when it is. Now he won't touch one of those voltage testers and he is always getting after his crew for using them. He has had to make to many trips to help one of his crew figure out what is wrong, when the only thing that was wrong was the voltage tester. It has gotten to the point where if he catches one of his crew using one to trouble shoot he will take it, break it and throw it away.

He said you should be able to find a fairly good, reliable meter for around the same price as a tester.

As far as him answering your question, he wouldn't. He said until he could see the actual device that is to be installed he would not for professional and safety reasons say how you should install it. The only thing he said was that you do not want to connect the neutral to the ground or visa versa.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by wyoquilter

My hubby who is an actual electrician and owns his own business said you would actually be better off buying an electrical meter over one of those voltage testers. He has tried various ones from various makers and all seem to give false information. He says he doesn't know how many times they will say a wire is hot when it's not or say it's not hot when it is. Now he won't touch one of those voltage testers and he is always getting after his crew for using them. He has had to make to many trips to help one of his crew figure out what is wrong, when the only thing that was wrong was the voltage tester. It has gotten to the point where if he catches one of his crew using one to trouble shoot he will take it, break it and throw it away.

He said you should be able to find a fairly good, reliable meter for around the same price as a tester.

As far as him answering your question, he wouldn't. He said until he could see the actual device that is to be installed he would not for professional and safety reasons say how you should install it. The only thing he said was that you do not want to connect the neutral to the ground or visa versa.

The voltage testers will sometimes give a false positive due to an induction current and they are not precise enough to pick out a hot wire bundled with one or more dead wires, but "getting after the crew for using one" is a little over the top. I understand the sentiment, he sounds like a very competent and serious tradesman, and those guys tend to be very "brain-before-gadget" (as well as "you should be paying me $95/hour for that"). I get that and I can't really say that he's wrong, however, everyone has slip-ups like flipping the wrong breaker or forgetting to flip the breaker or relying on a pothead apprentice to know what's going on and I don't think there's a problem with waving the voltage tester over your work before you dive in with both hands. It has kept me out of trouble as a last safety measure more than it has gotten me into it.

And if he read the manual online, he wouldn't have any problems making a professional recommendation about how to wire it, just about warranting that the OP's house was properly wired to begin with.

I have a meter in my kit also, but it wasn't the same price as a voltage tester and isn't as convenient. Anyone who picks up a voltage tester knows how to use it, the same does not hold for a multimeter.

[southgeorgia]

Originally Posted by wyoquilter

My hubby who is an actual electrician and owns his own business said you would actually be better off buying an electrical meter over one of those voltage testers. He has tried various ones from various makers and all seem to give false information. He says he doesn't know how many times they will say a wire is hot when it's not or say it's not hot when it is.

I'm also an actual electrician who owns an electrical contracting firm.

They work fine if used properly, and if you buy the right one.


I use non-contact testers with a variable range, as they are the most reliable.

[wyoquilter]

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

The voltage testers will sometimes give a false positive due to an induction current and they are not precise enough to pick out a hot wire bundled with one or more dead wires, but "getting after the crew for using one" is a little over the top. I understand the sentiment, he sounds like a very competent and serious tradesman, and those guys tend to be very "brain-before-gadget" (as well as "you should be paying me $95/hour for that"). I get that and I can't really say that he's wrong, however, everyone has slip-ups like flipping the wrong breaker or forgetting to flip the breaker or relying on a pothead apprentice to know what's going on and I don't think there's a problem with waving the voltage tester over your work before you dive in with both hands. It has kept me out of trouble as a last safety measure more than it has gotten me into it.

My husband is a very competant tradesman, in fact he has the electrical inspectors recommending him and his company because he takes his job seriously. He however is not one of those who charge $95 an hour. Heck he just barely makes more than his apprentices. He doesn't feel it's right to over charge people, which is why he gets so frustrated when one of his employees wastes time using a useless tool to trouble shoot. He learned how useless a voltage tester was within the first year of his apprenticeship when he wasted a couple of hours tracing a wire so he could find it's source and cut and cap it off, only to find out the thing was dead the whole time, but the voltage tester said it was hot the whole way. Once he found the end he discovered it had already been cut and capped off, but the person who originally cut and capped it failed to remove the remaining wire that he wasted hours tracing. Guess who ended up paying for the false reading? The home owner that's who, because in all reality my husband was making sure that the bare wire he traced was not a safety issue. He wasn't about to leave a un-needed hot wire just hanging around.