Progress on the Crown (A.K.A. POTD)
Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 5:42 pm
<table border="0" width="100%" bgcolor="#FFFFC0"><tr><td>For the last week I've been feeling very energized and have begun putting some time in on my Crown project, installing the electrical wiring rough-in. Here's some photos of that process:
<center></center>
Two routers that I set up to carve dados in the rigid insulation to make channels for house wiring.
The router on the left is set up with a ¼" drill bit that has had the end ground off. It's used to rout out the space in the insulation for the electrical fixture enclosure box. The depth of the bit is calculated to just allow the box to nest in the insulation. A plywood template is screwed to the framing and the router moved around inside it until the hole is cleared. You can see one of the resulting holes in the insulation above the router bit.
The right hand router has a ½" cutter that is used to rout a narrow channel in the outside layer of insulation for the Romex wiring to run from a chase in the top of each wall to the individual device enclosures.
Both routers have had the tool area enclosed with sheet aluminum and a vacuum attachment fitted so that I can catch all the insulation dust as the holes and channels are cut. Insulation dust is full of static cling, and once it gets spread around, it's miserable to clean up. This way all the dust ends up in the shop-vac. I've also duct-tapes the intake vents for the cooling fans to lessen the airflow through the motors. This makes the vacuum more effective at pulling dust out of the shoe.
Between the routers is a lamp-dimmer turned speed control. Neither of these router motors needs to run at full RPM, so I slow them down so that they don't have all that crazy gravitational inertia so that they are easier to handle.
<table border="0" width="100%"><tr><td><center></center></td><td>
Here's three circuits being installed, kitchen, bath and laundry. The laundry has the wire and box installed, while the bath outlet is merely routed. The kitchen is about to be routed, with a particle board guide used as a fence to keep the router running straight.
Note that the inside layer of insulation and furring strips have been removed so that I can work on the outer layer of insulation. Once the inside layer is replaced, the wiring is sandwiched between the two layers.</td></tr></table>
<table border="0" width="100%"><tr><td>Another view of the kitchen after some routing. There is going to be another outlet to the left of this one, so I am routing a channel for the wire to run under the window. This required me to make another template to get the correct radius on the wiring.
The foil facing on the insulation doesn't rout very well, it kind of tears, which makes it look really ragged in this photo. I haven't found a good way of cleaning this up, so I'm just ignoring it...</td><td><center></center></td></tr></table>
<table border="0" width="100%"><tr><td><center></center></td><td>
An image of the load center. I'm using a three-phase breaker panel with two phases dedicated to shore power (240 volts) and the third will be switchable between shore and inverter power.
A run of Panduit arches at the ceiling, a neat way to manage all the wiring into one package with a cozy cover to hide much of it.</td></tr></table>
These were taken at the end of the day yesterday, I've made progress since then, more pics tomorrow.</td></tr></table>
<center></center>
Two routers that I set up to carve dados in the rigid insulation to make channels for house wiring.
The router on the left is set up with a ¼" drill bit that has had the end ground off. It's used to rout out the space in the insulation for the electrical fixture enclosure box. The depth of the bit is calculated to just allow the box to nest in the insulation. A plywood template is screwed to the framing and the router moved around inside it until the hole is cleared. You can see one of the resulting holes in the insulation above the router bit.
The right hand router has a ½" cutter that is used to rout a narrow channel in the outside layer of insulation for the Romex wiring to run from a chase in the top of each wall to the individual device enclosures.
Both routers have had the tool area enclosed with sheet aluminum and a vacuum attachment fitted so that I can catch all the insulation dust as the holes and channels are cut. Insulation dust is full of static cling, and once it gets spread around, it's miserable to clean up. This way all the dust ends up in the shop-vac. I've also duct-tapes the intake vents for the cooling fans to lessen the airflow through the motors. This makes the vacuum more effective at pulling dust out of the shoe.
Between the routers is a lamp-dimmer turned speed control. Neither of these router motors needs to run at full RPM, so I slow them down so that they don't have all that crazy gravitational inertia so that they are easier to handle.
<table border="0" width="100%"><tr><td><center></center></td><td>
Here's three circuits being installed, kitchen, bath and laundry. The laundry has the wire and box installed, while the bath outlet is merely routed. The kitchen is about to be routed, with a particle board guide used as a fence to keep the router running straight.
Note that the inside layer of insulation and furring strips have been removed so that I can work on the outer layer of insulation. Once the inside layer is replaced, the wiring is sandwiched between the two layers.</td></tr></table>
<table border="0" width="100%"><tr><td>Another view of the kitchen after some routing. There is going to be another outlet to the left of this one, so I am routing a channel for the wire to run under the window. This required me to make another template to get the correct radius on the wiring.
The foil facing on the insulation doesn't rout very well, it kind of tears, which makes it look really ragged in this photo. I haven't found a good way of cleaning this up, so I'm just ignoring it...</td><td><center></center></td></tr></table>
<table border="0" width="100%"><tr><td><center></center></td><td>
An image of the load center. I'm using a three-phase breaker panel with two phases dedicated to shore power (240 volts) and the third will be switchable between shore and inverter power.
A run of Panduit arches at the ceiling, a neat way to manage all the wiring into one package with a cozy cover to hide much of it.</td></tr></table>
These were taken at the end of the day yesterday, I've made progress since then, more pics tomorrow.</td></tr></table>