Lab Build: Electrics Phase 1 & 2 -

23-25/07/17

As promised, now that the building is done structurally, the fun parts can begin and this starts with the installation of our power, networking and water systems. On Sunday, our electrician came and fitted chrome sockets to the bare wires hanging out of the wall. Filling in the holes in the wall really transformed the feel of the place as it rectified the impurities that made the walls look incomplete. Sorry for the blurriness, this was mostly due to bad lighting which wont be a problem when phase 3 kicks in.

On Monday, I mounted the power cabinet onto the wall and secured it in place using 4 sleeve anchors to lock it directly into the concrete brick of the building. Before that I needed to cut a hole in the back to allow the cables for the socket ring main, socket radial, and lighting circuits to enter the cabinet. After it was mounted I proceeded to attach the breaker panel I had already wired a few months ago.

Phase 2 commenced on Tuesday and involved deploying a 40m steel wire armored 3 core power cable down the length of the garden. To hide and protect the cable, it was dumped into the trench that we dug the week prior and the rest was hidden behind the bushes and trees that ran parallel to the garden fence.

At the lab end, the armored cable was ran through conduit into the building and into the cabinet and secured to the underside then properly grounded. At the house end, the cable was secured to the wall and a hole was drilled into the house. An isolator switch was then fitted over the hole outside to act as a junction between the SWA cable outside and the standard twin and earth cable inside. The Cat5 ethernet will pass through a different hole and will be dealt with in phase 3.

Finally, the contacts inside the cable were wired up into the power cabinet. I then fitted the door on it and made some other small but needed connections; cabinet wiring was then finished.

This pretty much concludes the lab wiring for the power network. On Sunday, phase 3 will begin which involves connecting the isolator to the houses main breaker panel which will complete the circuit providing power to the lab once and for all. Trunking will need to be fitted throughout the house and many more holes will need to be drilled so phase 3 will be an all day operation. On top of this, the 4 LED strip lights and central LED dome light will be drilled to the roof in the lab and connected up as well as the 4 gang light switch. The exterior security light will be added but the symmetric aesthetic lights will not be connected as they have not yet been purchased.

Concurrent to all of that, I will deploy the 40m armored Cat5 network cable along the garden and connect it to an internal Cat5 cable in the house which will run through the existing trunking for the power and into the upstairs router. At the lab end, this will run into another router providing a wired connect as well as WiFi.

After that, the electrical and networking infrastructure of the lab will be mostly complete, only the water system will remain. This will involve deploying a 40m water pipe down to the lab and the installation of a sink. This will take place at the same time as the construction of the main work surface which has not yet been decided. 

More news, updates and video are on their way. Before long the lab will be operational.