i think dropped neut.

[bullheimer]

detached garage sub, with ground rod i think(as opposed to attached garage sub w/o a ground rod). anyway the egc goes down into the rocks, i assume there is a g rod. i will have to dig it up but the subpanel also has a neutral to the home underground. there is no ground wire run to the home (service panel)

the grounds are run with the neutrals and the egc is connected to the no longer floating neutral/ground bar. yea, home owner!

the conduit? into the bottom of the sub is done with plumbing pipe.

i get perfect readings when nothing is on, but as soon as you turn on anything in the garage, you get a phase with about 90V and one at 150V, 240 ptp. when he turned on a 120V compressor across the garage, i was reading a jump from 120 to 240 from hot to N on my light circuit, (not connected to other).


another weird thing. measuring Hot to N in a light fixture with 120V in, i put one meter lead on a hot and the other on the line in N and get 120V. then i put one lead on the hot and the other on the feed out N, WHICH IS KNOWN TO BE 10 FEET LONG AND NOT CONNECTED TO ANYTHING IN THE NEXT LIGHT FIXTURE IN THE ROW, ALL wires in that one disconnected; now my meter lead is basically going nowhere: I READ 120v. why is that?

i plugged in a work light into the garage recept ckt gfi and it was like a 30 watt light bulb. i measured 5 amps coming into the garage on one phase, but NO CURRENT LEAVING ON EITHER THE 'EGC' OF THE GARAGE OR THE NEUT GOING BACK TO THE HOUSE, NOR THE OTHER HOT. shit!

is it possible my neut wire going underground is connected by like one strand or something? how can a wire going into outer space give my fluke meter a voltage reference????? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!

i screwed around with this for i'm ashamed to say how long.

tomorrow i am going to run a N wire from the sub to the home panel and see what happened then.

 

[kwired]

detached garage sub, with ground rod i think(as opposed to attached garage sub w/o a ground rod). anyway the egc goes down into the rocks, i assume there is a g rod. i will have to dig it up but the subpanel also has a neutral to the home underground. there is no ground wire run to the home (service panel)

the grounds are run with the neutrals and the egc is connected to the no longer floating neutral/ground bar. yea, home owner!

the conduit? into the bottom of the sub is done with plumbing pipe.

i get perfect readings when nothing is on, but as soon as you turn on anything in the garage, you get a phase with about 90V and one at 150V, 240 ptp. when he turned on a 120V compressor across the garage, i was reading a jump from 120 to 240 from hot to N on my light circuit, (not connected to other).


another weird thing. measuring Hot to N in a light fixture with 120V in, i put one meter lead on a hot and the other on the line in N and get 120V. then i put one lead on the hot and the other on the feed out N, WHICH IS KNOWN TO BE 10 FEET LONG AND NOT CONNECTED TO ANYTHING IN THE NEXT LIGHT FIXTURE IN THE ROW, ALL wires in that one disconnected; now my meter lead is basically going nowhere: I READ 120v. why is that?

is it possible my neut wire going underground is connected by like one strand or something? how can a wire going into outer space give my fluke meter a voltage reference????? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!

i screwed around with this for i'm ashamed to say how long.

tomorrow i am going to run a N wire from the sub to the home panel and see what happened then.

If your neutral still has one strand connected you will not have any noticeable voltage problems. If enough load is on the one strand it will heat up and eventually fail but things will work until that happens.

You likely have a neutral that is open someplace - does not matter if you have ground rod or not the earth resistance is too high to carry the load reliably.

As far as a wire going to space giving your meter a reading you need to verify that is truly is going to nothing, and test with a low impedance meter or test with a load between the points you are testing to eliminate capacitive coupling - although you would not likely see full 120 volts of capacitive coupling - could be ground fault in the conductor that is supposably going to nothing.

 

[cadpoint]

Could you please define the exact count of wires and size out to the garage? Also state the sub panel size!

the grounds are run with the neutrals and…

Can we assume the typical 3 conductor wire NM (Romex) in the garage?

… the egc is connected to the no longer floating neutral/ground bar. yea, home owner!

What exactly did you find as opposed to what you did? If it’s a sub panel they should be separated right!

I will have to dig it up but the subpanel also has a neutral to the home underground. there is no ground wire run to the home (service panel)

Another weird thing. Measuring Hot to N in a light fixture with 120V in, i put one meter lead on a hot and the other on the line in N and get 120V. then i put one lead on the hot and the other on the feed out N, WHICH IS KNOWN TO BE 10 FEET LONG AND NOT CONNECTED TO ANYTHING IN THE NEXT LIGHT FIXTURE IN THE ROW, ALL wires in that one disconnected; now my meter lead is basically going nowhere: I READ 120v. Why is that?

Did you check the garage individual device wiring to assure everything is wired correctly ?
Back to my second question or even my third question.

is it possible my neutral wire going underground is connected by like one strand or something? how can a wire going into outer space give my fluke meter a voltage reference????? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!

Depending on your quoted 2nd statement and how it was or is now and bad wiring inside the device boxes you could get a reading of voltage. A wood head would help here!(A three light indicator) on the receptacles. Besides you could be reading off of the other side of the phase.

If you do get the go ahead, I’d replace the run and install 3 wires w/G. Note where the damage is I’d tape the conductors together in front and behind that point maybe by two foot per side.

You can use your new trial neutral wire to test the wires that make up this branch, with a meggar!

 

[Split Bolt]

Sounds like a classic open neutral to me!

 

[LarryFine]

i get perfect readings when nothing is on, but as soon as you turn on anything in the garage, you get a phase with about 90V and one at 150V, 240 ptp.

Definitely an open neutral. That's the only way to get a voltage increase on one line.

then i put one lead on the hot and the other on the feed out N, WHICH IS KNOWN TO BE 10 FEET LONG AND NOT CONNECTED TO ANYTHING IN THE NEXT LIGHT FIXTURE IN THE ROW, ALL wires in that one disconnected; now my meter lead is basically going nowhere: I READ 120v. why is that?

Because your meter has a high input impedance, and capacitance is completing the circuit. The same meter in parallel with a load (like a 120v bulb) won't read this 'phantom' voltage.

i plugged in a work light into the garage recept ckt gfi and it was like a 30 watt light bulb. i measured 5 amps coming into the garage on one phase, but NO CURRENT LEAVING ON EITHER THE 'EGC' OF THE GARAGE OR THE NEUT GOING BACK TO THE HOUSE, NOR THE OTHER HOT. shit!

First, please drop the profanity. Second, the current cannot exist without a complete circuit. It's gotta be going somewhere, or your bulb wouldn't light up.

Regardless, such a load will not pass 5 amps. That's 600w at 120v. Your clamp-on is reading wrong, or you've missed tracing the current pathway somehow.

is it possible my neut wire going underground is connected by like one strand or something? how can a wire going into outer space give my fluke meter a voltage reference?????

See above meter info, but, it sounds like you're using only the earth as the return pathway. You could use a single wire (or a 3-wire extension cord) from the house as a genuine neutral/ground reference.

For most troubleshooting, knowing the exact voltage isn't as valuable as knowing if you have 'real' power available. I suggest investing in a low-impedance tester, like a solenoid tester or a low-impedance meter or meter add-on.

 

[bullheimer]

i just invested in another 100 feet of extention cord.

once i jumped the neutral back to the panel 200ft away everything was fine. larry fine. haha

i knew there was an open neutral before i hung up the phone with this guy, (text book, after all), but all the other misc crap that went on got me thinking that the open neut was in the light ckt. even worse, fed from a 3 wire cable. bad move. lots of wasted time.

i crawled the whole house. what a drag. the UDR whatever you call it, is just laying on the ground under the panel. somehow inside the wall under the panel the two hots come in from one connector and the neut by itself on the other side of the panel. so there are some monkey shines going on inside that wall. i told him to tear it apart and see what was what. as for the break, it could be anywhere except under the house. it was rock-solid. it was either a crappy splice inside the wall under the panel, or in the water pipe fittings under the sub-panel, or it was hit out in the dirt.

anyway, i feel fortunate the guy gave me $300 for what should have taken me 15 minutes to figure out. (that includes today). usually i don't charge for something if i dont fix anything, but that woulda been just flat out ridiculous.