I'm trying to power a terminal that I placed in my house, but nothing works. Both pylons and conduits fail to provide power to it even though they're basically next to it, but with a wall between them. I've tried looking at various power guides, but they're all basically useless and terrible at explaining things in detail.

Move wall, connect terminal, put wall back. Does that work?

Won't work, the terminal is in one of those pre-fabs where the wall, floor, and ceiling are all one piece.

EDIT: Nevermind, apparently the wire connected through the wall for some reason without even having to move it..

Haven't figured that out yet. I must have got lucky. My indoor electricity comes from a generator on the roof. For some reason it let me connect a cable right down through the roof panel to one of those little pointy doohickies. I thought I was going to have to run a power line through the front door.

I was frustrated by this at one point . . . but then I got distracted by the prospect of another "looting for junk" run!

Some sort of detailed "how to work with wiring" guide would be sweet, if anyone reading this is so inclined or has seen one already.

Ditto.

Where are all the guru kids with nothing better to do! ;P

Skyrim forums were thick with Alchemy, and enchanting tips and tricks.

We need a Fallout Electrical Primer thread, big time!!

How about an old guy who can get the power running instead of a guru kid?

I suggest a save before starting this, because you may not be happy with your first attempt or results.

Okay, so first build your generator where you want it.

Second, look in "power" and you'll see a gray conduit box, click on that.

in there you will see several useful items like a power pilon and gray conduit boxes. The pilon is good if you want to connect more than one item to the generator. If you use it, run your wire from the generator to the plon, then run wires from the pilon to your devices. (pay attention to the numbers on your devices and the numbers on the generator because generally you can run three lights, or one spotlight and a light bulb from a small generator etc.)

So, to go through a wall, grab one of the conduits. One is good for going up through a roof, others go down, and one goes through a vertical wall. Find a wall that seems thinner (they won't work on all walls for some reason) and place your conduit. Run a wire from the generator to the pilon if you're using one, or directly to the conduit if it's close enough. Theoretically this should provide power to the entire building, but sometimes you have to run a wire from the conduit to a device.

For instance, a three level building with a light bulb on each level. You can run a wire from the conduit to whichever light is closest to it, and all three lights will work when the generator is running.

Remember though that the line from the generator to the pilon needs to be very short.

Sorry to go slightly off topic, but what exactly do terminals do? I know you can Change the colours of light boxes and stuff, but anything more useful?

Turret control, musical speakers, etc

It's trivial stuff.

I just hooked up a terminal on the outside of the building, and then one on the inside and had a wire go from the inside terminal to the device. It seems to me that supplying power to devices is not truly direct as it might be a small AoE. I've only hooked up two power devices in the game so far, and one was through an open window (the PC's house in Sanctuary, I hooked up the TV). The other one though I did at Red Rocket. I turned the alcove behind the register counter into a small relaxation nook. Complete with TV, elegant chair, a floor lamp (very 50's decor), and an end table in between the chair and lamp, with some items like bourbon, rum, a shot glass, an ashtray and a cigar box. It's my little spot. To power it, I put a generator outside and ran a wire to a terminal on the outside wall, placed a terminal on the inside wall, and ran a wire from that to the tv. That wire powered both tv and lamp.

I made some hidden compartments for wires, generators, and terminals. I cannot post links but if you want to see how I did it, go to YouTubes homepage and copy and paste this in the address bar at the end of the .com.. Paste this --> /watch?v=Tg9iX1lYDb8

Terminal is required to set laser trip wire to hostile only. Otherwise you will kill friendly visitors.