Wiring A Motion Sensor Light, Connecting A Power Cord To A Portable Generator And Troubleshooting A Septic Lift Station

Jack Laponto asks:
I’ve got 3 wires coming from a light sensor (red, black & white) and 2 wires + ground that come from my light. I know that I connect white-to-white and black-to-black, gnd-to-gnd; where does the red wire connect?

Answer:
The red wire connects to the power source and the black wire connects to the black wire going to the light.

Dillard Baker asks:
I have a Generac GP 65000 gas generator that has a 4 wire female receptacle and I would like to use a 3 wire female at the end of my cord when plugged into the generator. All my other devises that require 220 are 3 wire. Can I use a 4 wire plug and not use one of the connections in the plug and only use three and if so which three?

Answer:
It really depends on which 220v devices you are feeding. I’m guessing that you only need to connect the 2 hot wires and the ground wire. However, you need to ensure that you ground your generator as well. When I used my portable generator for back-up power, I had an 8 foot ground rod driven into the ground where I parked the generator. I also kept a 6 foot coil of #6 bare copper wire connected to the ground lug on the frame of the generator. When I needed the generator, I would back it into place and connect the ground wire to the ground rod. I recommend that you do this for your generator as well.

David Figaro asks:
My basement toilet and bath are below ground. I have an extractor or sump pump to take the waste water to the sewer. I noticed that my pump only works when I plug it into the outlet directly and not via the automatic plug that is plugged into the electrical outlet first. What could be the problem? It worked fine last week so I am not sure what went wrong. The pump works it is just not automatically coming on after numerous uses of the toilet as it should. I have to manually unplug the automatic plug and the sump pump plug then directly plug in the sump pump plug for the pump to work. I can’t leave it plugged in because I don’t want to burn out the pump’s motor. PLease help.

Answer:
You have a bad float. You should have 2 or 3 floats in the tank where your pump is. one float is to turn the pump on. Another float is to turn the pump off and if there is a third float, it is for an alarm. You need to test your floats. Check for continuity across the 2 wires with the float up and down. The float with no continuity in either position is the bad one.

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