What residential wiring questions are on-topic here?
I'm not very familiar with this site but was pointed to it by a comment.
That made me wonder, what exactly is the scope of this site when it comes to residential wiring? For example,
- Basic wiring of switches, lights and outlets
- Diagnosing electrical faults in a house
- Appropriate safety procedures and equipment for doing residential electrical work
- Working with residential panels and breakers
- Questions about deciding where and how to lay down conduits (ie. underground, overhead, through walls, etc)
- Low voltage applications aka so called "data wiring" - ethernet (with and without PoE), coax (for TV/internet)
Where do you draw the line and how would newbies become aware of it?
2 answers
Thanks for asking.
In my view, if it's something you'd first think of asking an electrician, it's probably off topic here. That includes what type of cable to use, whether it should be in a conduit or not, working with breaker panels, what size wire is needed for a particular application, etc. This particularly includes electric code issues. Electricians have to know the code, but there is no particular reason an electrical engineer would know.
Acceptable questions here need to be about EE or the technology or physics behind it. Put another way, when it comes to home wiring we're about the why, not the what.
If you want to know what size wire to run 20 m to a 15 A outlet, ask an electrician. The answer in that case may be more about legal requirements than anything electrical anyway. But, you could ask here how to determine what voltage drop you would get, how much power that would lose, etc.
You could also ask what requirements a cable would need to have to carry 100 Mb ethernet, the advantages and disadvantages of different cable types, etc. If an electrician would answer "I don't know, I don't have to, I just do what the code says.", then it's more likely to be on topic here. But then it's not about what to do or install, but the technology behind it, what the tradeoffs are, etc.
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The reason I left that comment is because determining the quality of a coaxial cable involves electrical engineering more so than an electrician, let alone some DIY.
The rule of thumb "would you ask this to an engineer or electrician" is good. However, in this case you are unlikely to get a good reply from an electrician, since this was actually a RF question.
There are various obvious things you can check with a multi-meter such as signal and shield contact. But the main concern here is the characteristic impedance of the coax and measuring it is pretty complex. Also it involves a LCR meter, VNA or a similar EE tool which you are unlikely to find outside a professional setting, since they are very expensive. (Decent LCR meters start at $500 somewhere, a VNA typically costs as much as new car.) And then some theory and equations, depending on just how picky you are with finding the exact value or just "close enough".
Similarly, soldering and assembly of coaxial connectors is quite tricky and definitely not a job for an electrician let alone some DIY. So if you find out that a connector is bad or lacks shield, the only serious option for an electrician/DIY would be to replace the whole cable and buy a new pre-assembled one. (I have personally soldered/assembled my fair share of these but it's in a professional context and with IPC training. RF connectors are some of the trickiest things out there when it comes to hand soldering.)
What's definitely on-topic here:
- Determining the characteristics of electrical components in theory and practice.
- Impedance matching and similar RF design concerns.
- Design or component level questions regarding VAC mains power supply.
- Soldering and electronics assembly.
But to summarize, I think the question would be fine on either site and we can tolerate having a scope overlap, and refer people to one site or the other, when a question might get a better reply elsewhere.
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