Took advantage of the cold front that passed through last night, got to work on installing the soft starter on the AC unit. Had done the research and mapped which wires went with which pins on the cap, so that was the easiest part of the process. The most time consuming was mounting the damn thing
Had a bunch of holes in the panel already, so used some painters tape to transfer my chosen set of holes, to the back of the device's mounting plate.
After getting everything wired up, I put it in a position that made it easy to bundle most of the wires and keep things tidy... But the problem was, the unit was too far to one side, and you couldn't put the cover back on
Ended up relocating the bracket to the left a bit, and flipping the unit 180*, problem solved.
Popped the disconnect back in place, lowered the temp on the t-stat to trigger a start, and everything came on with no odd noises or issues.
Was feeling pretty productive, so I got a couple other things done outside. Not pictured: Replaced a couple of wooden pickets on the fence between myself and the neighbor's back yard. Nails had rusted out and let go, so punched those through, ran some screws, so those are all set.
There's a utility area behind my house, that's somewhat shared with the county pumping station. Milton destroyed the gate to this area, and as many times as the county sent people out to deal with the pumping station, they never fixed the gate, just left it laying there. Took it upon myself to do something about it. It had a metal frame, with all the wood bolted to it, so that made it easier to deal with. The hinges were still attached to a 4x4 which had snapped off at the ground somewhere. I grabbed some 6" timberloks out of the tool chest, and ran those through the 4x4 of the gate, into the neighboring 4x4 for the wood fence. Of course there was a pretty good sized gap on the other side, about 6" but that's better than being wide open.
I often see people get nosey and poke their heads in there, but the overgrown weeds and brush turn them away. Didn't stop people from dumping a lot of bags, and trash, so hopefully that will stop. Grabbed a scrap of 2x4 that was laying around, ran one screw through one end that the board can pivot around, into the opposing post to form a cheap gate latch. That will keep it closed and not swinging in the wind.
Did get my permit approval from the county for the transfer switch, so I'll start moving on that pretty soon. Probably punch some knock outs, and do some test fitting to check the wire length this weekend to make sure I can mount it where I want it, and if I'll have to extend any of the wires that need to reach the higher breakers or not.
In a couple of small spots, I could see where the solder reflowed among the wire strands, but it wasn't complete. After the 1st two doing that, I swapped the heat gun for my hot air soldering station. Didn't have any better luck there. Cranked the heat setting to the max, and the only change was melting through one of the plastic areas NEXT to the solder ring. 
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