Ask GRB

[Radbird]

I'm not sure if this is the right place or not......... but I'll give it a shot.

A few years ago, my wife and I decided to stop giving our adult kids material gifts for Christmas. None of them need more "stuff". They agree. Anyway, in lieu of that, we've been buying them "memories". Basically, they pick a place or an even that they'd enjoy, and we join them and pay for it. It's turned out to be a really cool win/win. They love it, and we get to spend quality time with them.

Anyway, the problem is that our only daughter and her husband now have an 18 month old son. It's tricky to find events, places, etc. that a toddler of his age can appreciate. Is there anything in St. Louis that would be recommended for a child that age? Any shows? Museums? We're in southeast Iowa, about 3 hours from St. Louis, but we definitely want a road trip to be a part of this........ and St. Louis works really well, from a proximity standpoint.

I can’t help with the toddler recs, but we switched over from gifts to “Destination” Christmas celebrations with the kid in 2017 after our move east. Montreal was the first year (waaaaay too cold), NYC in 2018 and New Orleans in 2019. Obviously stayed home last year. We were looking into places for this year but given current conditions it doesn’t appear likely. Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head, Charleston, Savannah, Bar Harbor were among the candidates. Will probably stay home with maybe a day trip to the Maine coast if weather cooperates.

[Socnorb11]

Turtle Park in Dogtown is a nice place for very young children to run around and climb.

I had never heard of this until you mentioned it. Looks like a nice place to include as part of a weekend get-away. Thanks.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Is there a way to suck more watts out of an inverter than the inverter is rated for without tripping it (eg run a 1200W induction cooker off a 900W inverter hooked up to a running car battery)?

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Actually, now that I look at it, the induction cooker has multiple settings for wattage. So it can be turned on and the setting lowered to like 600w and then, if I understand induction cookers correctly, only once the skillet is added does it start to pull power to the coils.

So now the question is how much juice does a 600w induction cooker pull from a 135 amp Hour 12v battery? If watts is amps x volts and the cooker is 120v that’s 5 Amps? And is that per hour?

[GeddyWrox]

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Well, I got the amps x volts = watts part right. Hope the rest works out, one way to find out. We're heading out to the lake next weekend and going to camp on an island. Not 100% sure if gas for the boat will be available so just trying to figure out how much gas it would take to recharge the battery if we use the cooker for a couple hours... but that doesn't seem like it's going to be an issue. Normally I wouldn't worry about it, but there's not much traffic out this time of year and I don't want to have to call the fire department to come tow my ass in because I'm an idiot.

And, yeah, I'll just say it, we could cook over a fire. But, the plan is to catch some catfish and fry them, so...I don't know how to get a skillet full of oil to 350 degrees over a fire, and I ain't about to catch a bream, use it for bait, catch a catfish, filet it, and bread it, only to throw it into 500 degree oil or 200 degree oil...unless the induction cooker doesn't work.

[Popeye_Card]

Volts = amps x watts

Watts = volts / amps

Amps = volts / watts

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Volts = amps x watts

Watts = volts / amps

Amps = volts / watts

So I’m pulling .2 amps per hour on a 600 w cooker at 120v. I could run it for a month off a 135 amp hour battery?

[Popeye_Card]

Volts = amps x watts

Watts = volts / amps

Amps = volts / watts

So I’m pulling .2 amps per hour on a 600 w cooker at 120v. I could run it for a month off a 135 amp hour battery?

[expletive]. I’m a mechanical. I’m just giving you what little I know. V=IR.

[ghostrunner]

Another electrical question

I’ve got an old house and 1 bathroom has a triple switch that uses these things called Despard switches.

They look like this and you line up 3 together and they fit in a small box. I installed these about 10 years ago replacing the previous ones.

[SHOW]

My son flipped one on yesterday and it sparked and blew out. He’s ok.

So the switch itself is good and cooked. Got some replacements and turned the breaker off, installed the one replacement. Flipped the breaker back on and now nothing on that circuit works. I didn’t think it was a short because it seemed to stay flipped on. So I installed all 3 of them the same way as the old ones. Same thing.

Turns out there’s a short because it even though the breaker doesn’t flip back to the middle by itself, you can easily flick it with your finger, unlike the others.

I installed these the same as the previous switches.

There’s one black and one white cable for each switch. Black cable goes in the top right corner around a screw and the white cable goes around the bottom left screw. No ground screws or cables in this box but there never have been.

Right now I’ve got the circuit back and working by just dismantling the whole switch and taping the wires at the ends. Have an electrician coming tomorrow.

I can’t understand where the short is happening. I had my older son flip the breaker so I could watch the box with the plate off and look for sparks or hear noise. Nothing.

Tested the black and white for each after taking the switch out. All active as you’d expect.

There’s not a lot of room for error. There’s six wires, and the wires are stiff so they’re pretty much stuck in the position they go into the switches. No way I’ve confused them. And the first time I only replaced one so it was the black and white wires for that switch only.

Only thing I can guess is maybe there’s an arcing going on I can’t see but there’s no noise and no apparent burning.