Mid twentieth century wiring - relays

WobblyHand said:
Good ideas. Maybe I can cobble something up. Been a while since I've played with stuff like that.

Jeepers, I just got another teardown offer for the house, makes me sad. Cash, but well under FMV. Damn speculators.
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I understand the sad part. Our current house is one we had built by a custom contractor about 12 years ago. It's on 1.4 acres in a locale where 99% of all the new houses are replacements on the original 10,000 SF lots. We get inquiries all the time about selling the property, and know if we do it's highly likely the house will be torn down, all the big trees cut and a mini-development will be plopped down in the middle of the neighborhood. Once the property is sold there's not much to be done to control its fate. Ugh.
 
matthewsx said:

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As a technical guy who once played around with IR sensing, what these devices fail to show in their specs is what temperatures can be resolved. If it's 10 deg F, that's not very good. Well under a degree, much better. The link (no fault of the poster) doesn't seem to tell me that, only it can maybe detect +/-3 at temperatures I'm interested. So it can resolve 6F? Or am I misunderstanding?

Yes, I know this is a "consumer grade ish" device. Good stuff usually costs more, a lot more.
 
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Yes, it's easy to spend 10 times as much on a good IR camera. The pictures show it being used to troubleshoot a bad breaker so it may be useful for your situation.

But, for $300 if it's a tool you don't need or if it won't do what you need it to then don't waste your money.

I just happened to be looking for something similar for troubleshooting problems on our battery line since one of my colleagues used his SEEK camera and iPad to check a hot contactor the other day and I thought it would be a good capability for my job.

1722028087251.jpeg

This is from the SEEK unit which might be more to your liking.

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Affordable Infrared Thermal Cameras

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Or, just call in an electrician....

John
 
That tells me a pixel can measure +/-3 degrees, more or less. What I don't know is if the unit will be able to detect an energized relay through 1950's plaster walls. Probably my lack of experience for things like this. When I did work in the IR field they rated sensors with NE delta T, or noise equivalent delta temperature. The sensors I used were 0.01 degree. But then again, the sensor was liquid nitrogen cooled, not a room temperature micro-bolometer. Big difference in cost and performance.

It's not clear to me that making these simple fixes will improve the marketability of the house.

I'm pursuing looking at house upgrade costs vs rate of return and doing a tear down and rebuild of the property. I have no idea if either makes any sense for me, but I do have to check it out. That's my task for the next week. If it isn't economic, then I may take someone's tear down offer and walk away. Sad, but sometimes you have to do that.
 
WobblyHand said:
That tells me a pixel can measure +/-3 degrees, more or less. What I don't know is if the unit will be able to detect an energized relay through 1950's plaster walls. Probably my lack of experience for things like this. When I did work in the IR field they rated sensors with NE delta T, or noise equivalent delta temperature. The sensors I used were 0.01 degree. But then again, the sensor was liquid nitrogen cooled, not a room temperature micro-bolometer. Big difference in cost and performance.

It's not clear to me that making these simple fixes will improve the marketability of the house.

I'm pursuing looking at house upgrade costs vs rate of return and doing a tear down and rebuild of the property. I have no idea if either makes any sense for me, but I do have to check it out. That's my task for the next week. If it isn't economic, then I may take someone's tear down offer and walk away. Sad, but sometimes you have to do that.
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I know you'll make the right decision when you have all the data. It's hard to go through these times but you were selected because you have a level head and sense of fairness.

Honestly, with the prices of real estate these days, if you have a valuable parcel it's probably worth the hassle of doing the development so you get the profit, not some speculator. I just completed a very expensive addition to our Santa Cruz home. Only the crazy prices around me make it such that it wasn't just throwing money away. It's what my wife wants so it's worth it anyway, sometimes you do whatever it takes....

John
 
Sometimes the neighborhood catches up with you. When we finished our house 12 years ago it was the most expensive one in the vicinity. But no longer....
 
WobblyHand said:
I'm pursuing looking at house upgrade costs vs rate of return and doing a tear down and rebuild of the property. I have no idea if either makes any sense for me, but I do have to check it out. That's my task for the next week. If it isn't economic, then I may take someone's tear down offer and walk away. Sad, but sometimes you have to do that.
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I hate to be the nay-sayer in the crowd, but at some point with major remodeling, or tearing it down and rebuilding it on your own, you are speculating with the estate's value. Like the stock market, current costs and values are not a promise that those values will be the same when any given project is done, especially when the time involved starts to become considerable. You may want to consult with the estate attorney before doing more than simple repairs commonly done for any home sale.
 
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