any ideas?

[Charlie Bob]

Customer calls. 3 receptacles, light by front door (with 2 three way switches) and little closet light are not working.

After asking all initials questions i find out that:



-Customer plugged a sander in this circuit, while working on floor.

-After a while breaker trips. He resets it. Breaker trips again.

-He resets it again. this time there's no power in the circuit. But breaker is on.

-He changes every receptacle, both switches and still nothing

-He replaces the breaker.still nothing.



Here's my troubleshooting:

-I inspect the panelbox. Everything is ok.Tight and every thing is on.

-I inspect receptacles, swithes and lights. Everything ok.

-I go to the attic looking for a juntion box or splices. None as far as i could tell.

-Since the problem was a certain overload, didn't think a GFCI recep. was the cause, but looked for one anyhow, nothing.



At this moment it got late and frustration set in.

I told customer i'd be back tomorrow.

The attic is a mess, with insulation and paper on top of it all over. Panel box is a mess too.wires every where.

Customer don't even remember which breaker is this circuit OCP.

All breakers are on though. None of them identified.

Evetime i dealt with something like it it wound up being either a GFCI recep. upstream or a fried splice in a junction box.



What do you all think?

Did i miss anything else?

Have you all run into something like it before?

Could the overload and excessive heat damage the wire inside its insulation cutting off its continuity? wild guess!



Thanks.

 

[masterinbama]

Find out which breaker it is and go to the last device that works. That will of course be an educated guess. That is where I usually find this type of problem. I have people ask me all the time ,why did you pull that one apart it works? Have to tell them yes it works to this point , everything else is downstream from here.

 

[Charlie Bob]

For what i checked today that seems to be everything in the circuit.
but i think like you, I know there's got to be something else there.It's a matter of finding it.
Just to find the breaker it's gonna be time consuming, since nothing is marked, and for what i saw in the attic there's no way to tell from up there.

 

[JFletcher]

"He replaces the breaker.still nothing".... "Customer don't even remember which breaker is this circuit OCP".

My first thought is the customer may have a bad breaker and replaced the wrong one.

 

[Charlie Bob]

that could be too.
He claims it is brand-new.But who knows.
He shouldn't reset it a second time to beging with, but hey he's paying my bills after all.

 

[1793]

Customer calls. 3 receptacles, light by front door (with 2 three way switches) and little closet light are not working.

After asking ...

Here's my troubleshooting:

-I inspect the panelbox. Everything is ok.Tight and every thing is on.

-I inspect receptacles, swithes and lights. Everything ok.

"He replaces the breaker.still nothing".... "Customer don't even remember which breaker is this circuit OCP".

My first thought is the customer may have a bad breaker and replaced the wrong one.

I would look at the circuit again and study how you would have wired it. From the description I would say there is a bad connection at one of the receptacles on this circuit.

 

[mivey]

Things like that make a $1000 tracer seem cheap.

 

[Charlie Bob]

you got that right!!!

 

[LarryFine]

1. Check each breaker's output wire (not just screw) for power agains the neutral. Wiggle each wire, too.

2. Check each receptacle still working on the circuit, ID by turing off the breaker he tripped and reset.

2a. If only part of the circuit is out, it's either in the 'last' working outlet or the 'first' dead one.

3. Plug a lamp into one of the dead receptacles, and have someone watch it while wiggling the other ones.

4. Use the extension-cord-and-wiggy test to determine whether you're missing one conductor or both.

4a. If only one conductor is missing, it's a connection. If both are missing, it's probably a GFCI.

4b. I once found three (!) GFCI receptacles wired in feed-through fashion. All three had tripped.

 

[growler]

He replaces the breaker.still nothing.

Here's my troubleshooting:

-I inspect the panelbox. Everything is ok.Tight and every thing is on.

Here is my thinking. The breaker did trip. If the breaker tripped then the circuit had continuity at that time. What would cause the circuit to go bad after the breaker tripped or at the same time, not much, odds are against it.

I would go back and re-check those breakers for power on the load side because that's fast and easy and you need to make sure that you have power out. The homeowner may have replaced one bad breaker with another bad breaker. Make sure there is power on every breaker ( not just on). If it's good then I would re-check everything the homeowner did, normally they leave a wire loose or something ( check real close ).

The odds of a homeowner screwing something up are much better than a circuit losing continuity at the same time a breaker trips.

I could be wrong but I always play the odds and go for the simple stuff first. I can check this out in about 20 minutes and if that's not it then it's time for real trouble-shooting and the circuit tracer.

 

[Cavie]

Things like that make a $1000 tracer seem cheap.

An $80.00 tracer from the big box will do the job just fine. 2 peice transmitter and receiver

 

[tryinghard]

A conductor's open somewhere upstream. Locate the known conductors down to the unknown; connect all the conductors together in this unknown cable. Find continuity upstream from there once found determine phase or neutral once determined open outlets looking for the open circuit.

Ask owner if any addition or remodel has been done ever in the problem area. You may even find a buried splice, gotta love it!

 

[mivey]

An $80.00 tracer from the big box will do the job just fine. 2 peice transmitter and receiver

Those work ok if you know where the wire goes. If you don't, you can hook up the other and walk through the house, tracing the wires as it travels in the wall, under the floor, through the ceiling, and underground. A sudden signal drop can indicate the wire made a turn or you have found an open point.

 

[Charlie Bob]

found it guys!

found it guys!

Ok went back today with a fresh mind!
went to the attic spent 45 min tracing the circuit.
Foun the last apparent working device. it was a light fixture.
The weird part about it, the connections seemed to be ok. The neutrals had wire nut on it, the hot conductors was soldered.
Since this was the last working one i took it apart and re-splice it.BINGO
everything worked.
how you think that the overloading of the wires compromise the integrity of the connection? the wires were tight.

Thanks you all for the tips.

 

[mivey]

Ok went back today with a fresh mind!
went to the attic spent 45 min tracing the circuit.
Foun the last apparent working device. it was a light fixture.
The weird part about it, the connections seemed to be ok. The neutrals had wire nut on it, the hot conductors was soldered.
Since this was the last working one i took it apart and re-splice it.BINGO
everything worked.
how you think that the overloading of the wires compromise the integrity of the connection? the wires were tight.

Thanks you all for the tips.

Just curious. How many wires? What type? What kind of wire nut?

 

[Charlie Bob]

Well porch light had a small metal ceiling box with 5 romex cables going into it, 12/2 no ground.
The way it was wired, 4 grounded cond. twisted together, 3 ungrounded(hot) cond. plus switch leg (white ) twisted together, this leaves the switch black return and the othe hot to the other light operated by the same swtch.
The wire nut on the neutrals was way too small, but it was ok to the eye.

 

[mivey]

Well porch light had a small metal ceiling box with 5 romex cables going into it, 12/2 no ground.
The way it was wired, 4 grounded cond. twisted together, 3 ungrounded(hot) cond. plus switch leg (white ) twisted together, this leaves the switch black return and the othe hot to the other light operated by the same swtch.
The wire nut on the neutrals was way too small, but it was ok to the eye.

Then I am almost certain that all of the conductors did not reach the end of the twist. I have found this countless times when troubleshooting where one or more conductors in a multi-conductor group is either cut too short or has been "pushed" back down the twist. This leads to a loose connection that can fail.

I twist the wires, and either trim the ends at the same point or ensure they all reach the end of the twist, then put my wirenut on. This gets all of the wires under the compressive force of the wirenut.

 

[Charlie Bob]

i do the same thing too,mivey. Remember that what cause this was an overload. That's what i'm trying to figure out.
Could the overload worked a connection loose?even if they were twisted together? or the overload could have done something to the surfuce of that particular wire, and prevent good continuity?
Heck i know it's fixed but i'd like to reallly know what happened.

 

[mivey]

A fault can certainly make the wires move. There are formulas to calculate the forces involved. Sometimes you can feel the vibration if you have your hand near a box when a fault occurs. I have even heard the buzz in a box with a poor connection. A poor connection like I described before would be more prone to failure. The moving wires under fault conditions are usually of concern with buswork and at termination for cables with large available fault currents.

I highly doubt a connection like we make would fail without some additional evidence of damage being noticed.

You had a marginal connection that failed. I don't think anything happend to the wire surface or you would have noticed it and the connection would not have looked ok to the eye.

 

[tryinghard]

Maybe you tugged on the conductor/cable causing contact with the nail again; for a short time anyway?? Just something to think about cause you could replace the cable in this light lagitimatly.