sparkyrick
Senior Member
- Location
- Appleton, Wi
400A Main turns off by itself
- Thread starter Ride the Lightning
- Start date
- Status
K8MHZ
Senior Member
- Occupation
- Electrician
Let it live!
I want to know what's up with thing.
This is one of the best troubleshooting threads I have read here in like.....ever.
I, too, want to see some pics and vids of the haunted panel and hope to find out exactly what is going on. I wish I lived close enough to RTL to help him solve this as I find the problem fascinating.
- Location
- Massachusetts
- The only thread started by this member.
- The only thread this member has posted in.
- Impossible events described by this member with no explanation.
- Its the Internet.
Yet folks still believe. :lol:
K8MHZ
Senior Member
- Occupation
- Electrician
I don't see you spinning the dial, Bob!
I'll bet you are just as curious as any of us, even if you (like me) don't 'do' supernatural. At the very worst, RTL is pulling our leg.
Let's face it, there are much worse things on TV that captivate audiences for weeks. This thread is WAY better than 99 percent of TV programming, which is probably why I don't watch much TV.
sparkyrick
Senior Member
- Location
- Appleton, Wi
Who you gonna call!
Make no mistake about it, I'm not "curious" and the OP's reluctance to lock the breaker or provide pictures or videos proves (IMO) he's just stringing you and the other believers along.
He said early on he recorded it happening but now it's in the stores DVR, then every other time he has been asked to provide some proof he can't for whatever reason.
In retail stores or commercial buildings I deal with stopping power from going off would be the primary concern and locking a breaker or disconnect would in fact stop it from happening .
If it went off after this it would mean it is tripping but that would be a major let down wouldn't it.
Roger
K8MHZ
Senior Member
- Occupation
- Electrician
Who you gonna call!
Funny!
The EC I work for once in a great while sometimes calls me up to do troubleshooting. When he does, he asks me if I want to do some ghost busting for him. He calls the box I have my test stuff in, some very specialized and some home made, the 'Voo Doo Box'.
If I was good with PhotoShop, the Caddy would have a ladder on it and the words 'Electrical Division' on one of the doors.
K8MHZ
Senior Member
- Occupation
- Electrician
OK, when you say 'believer', what, exactly do you mean by that?
IOW, what are you accusing me of believing?
mgookin
Senior Member
- Location
- Fort Myers, FL
- Occupation
- Retired inspector, plans examiner & building official
I'm enjoying this as well.
The first thing I look at is how many posts an OP has. When I first saw this thread it said "1".
I agree with everything you're saying.
We had the guy with a panel and half the breakers "turning off" last year. Is this the same guy under a new name?
If this guy disappears like the last one I think it's probably the last time anyone on here will entertain someone coming along with that claim again.
I also take notice of OP's screen name. Who's going for the ride? Us or him?
Can mods verify the location he states does indeed correspond to the IP he is posting from? And/ or check to see if it's the same IP (or same area) as the last guy who had mystery breakers turning off?
sparkyrick
Senior Member
- Location
- Appleton, Wi
- Location
- Massachusetts
I don't see you spinning the dial, Bob!
I read lots of posts, I respond to lots of posts. I have not been responding to the OP 'problem'.
Only in what makes folks troll.
K8MHZ
Senior Member
- Occupation
- Electrician
Thanks!
I used to own a shop and did electrical troubleshooting on cars, trucks, boats, trailers....just about anything that moved. I could write a book about all the crazy stuff I ran into and their ghost like causes. My girlfriend at the time was kind of into crystals and the Illuminati and the like. If I got a call to go fix some strange electrical issue on a truck, for instance, I would tell my girlfriend I was going to 'put a root on a truck'. 'Putting a root' on something is a term I picked up watching an old Voo-Doo movie.
mgookin
Senior Member
- Location
- Fort Myers, FL
- Occupation
- Retired inspector, plans examiner & building official
K8MHZ
Senior Member
- Occupation
- Electrician
Let's say I am giving him the benefit of the doubt. I will admit that RTLs reluctance to share photos and vids or use a lock is casting some sort of shadow on his story.
Also, since RTL is a 'new member', IIRC we are supposed to treat new members (less than 100 posts or something like that) differently, like trying to offer assistance instead of calling BS. I think I read that somewhere in the rules.
junkhound
Senior Member
- Location
- Renton, WA
- Occupation
- EE, power electronics specialty
Have actually read the entire thread as I've spent 60+ years troubleshooting electrical and electronic problems on everything from satellite power anomalies, aircraft near crashes, and classified military base power outages.
Over the last decade, have had the opportunity (as the expert of last resort <G>) to investigate similar type 'mystery' happenings.
In every case, a PERSONAL trip to the site was required to resolve the issue (except for satellites of course) as ALL the original reporting missed at least one critical factor that was either not reported or plain missed as being 'insignificant'.
To me, lack of photos or videos implies gross incompetency in investigating technique or fraud.
OP NEVER did say if or if not a motor control is involved as some have already asked. I HAVE seen similar cases of turn off IF there was a motor control and EMI (not EMP) was present. Have personally talked to folks involved in the 1960's nuclear test programs who did see a LOT of strange happenings from EMP, like garage doors opening in HI. Or the loss of early satellites a few weeks after a nuclear test. The supposed NK test recently may be involved (said very sarcastically)
Ach well, we will learn something, maybe even another lesson in "how to waste time on the internet" ?
I did like the post (Beck?) about the joker with his hidden strings attached to the breaker - as probably an explanation as any other without actually being on site ourselves.
Over the last decade, have had the opportunity (as the expert of last resort <G>) to investigate similar type 'mystery' happenings.
In every case, a PERSONAL trip to the site was required to resolve the issue (except for satellites of course) as ALL the original reporting missed at least one critical factor that was either not reported or plain missed as being 'insignificant'.
To me, lack of photos or videos implies gross incompetency in investigating technique or fraud.
OP NEVER did say if or if not a motor control is involved as some have already asked. I HAVE seen similar cases of turn off IF there was a motor control and EMI (not EMP) was present. Have personally talked to folks involved in the 1960's nuclear test programs who did see a LOT of strange happenings from EMP, like garage doors opening in HI. Or the loss of early satellites a few weeks after a nuclear test. The supposed NK test recently may be involved (said very sarcastically)
Ach well, we will learn something, maybe even another lesson in "how to waste time on the internet" ?
I did like the post (Beck?) about the joker with his hidden strings attached to the breaker - as probably an explanation as any other without actually being on site ourselves.
junkhound
Senior Member
- Location
- Renton, WA
- Occupation
- EE, power electronics specialty
PS: My first experience back in the 60's of practical jokers was in designing Minuteman power supplies.
Some of the technicians would like to string a small tube into the circuit you were designing and they did hide them well, including drilling holes thru bench tops. This was back in the days when smoking was allowed in workplaces.
So, merrily going along watching scope traces and recording data and all of a sudden your circuit starts to release the magic smoke!
The dead giveaway was the laughter from the next bay at them seeing the horrified expression on the face of the 'new kid' and his mad grab for the power switch !
I do hope the OP is not a practical joker (or the object of one) and we can learn something from this thread that is real.
Some of the technicians would like to string a small tube into the circuit you were designing and they did hide them well, including drilling holes thru bench tops. This was back in the days when smoking was allowed in workplaces.
So, merrily going along watching scope traces and recording data and all of a sudden your circuit starts to release the magic smoke!
The dead giveaway was the laughter from the next bay at them seeing the horrified expression on the face of the 'new kid' and his mad grab for the power switch !
I do hope the OP is not a practical joker (or the object of one) and we can learn something from this thread that is real.
mgookin
Senior Member
- Location
- Fort Myers, FL
- Occupation
- Retired inspector, plans examiner & building official
Motor control is an option on the breaker model he has (from what I read on the spec sheet when he finally posted a part number).
His part number did not indicate presence of motor control.
Do any of the breaker guys on here know if that activator is present lacking only the trigger in such case?
He did acknowledge trips on branch circuits. I don't believe he ever said branches were "turning off" but I could be wrong.
The commonality between the GFCI's & the main breaker are that the GFCI's would trip prior to the main "turning off" in most or all cases.
If tripping the GFCI breakers was producing a phenomena, that would have ceased upon removal of the GGCI breakers as he has stated has been done; it didn't.
GerryB
Senior Member
- Location
- woodbridge, ct. USA
I don't believe the OP's post, But his profile is from CT as I am and he has the right code cycle listed. Hey RTL, what's the name of the coffee shop? That might help us believe.
mgookin
Senior Member
- Location
- Fort Myers, FL
- Occupation
- Retired inspector, plans examiner & building official
K8MHZ did an analysis of this OP vs. the guy from last year with a similar allegation. Here are his findings:
"The grade level of the scolaz post is 7.5, while RTLs is 8.8. The use of passive sentences is way off, scolaz being 23 percent with RTL being only 11 percent. Reading ease was 63% for scolaz and 73% for RTL.
RTL scored rather well when I indexed his OP. That means does he have some education, but not lots of practice writing.
By comparison, I just grabbed something I wrote and rated it. My Grade level was 6.0 (means a 6th grader could understand my post), but my readability was 77.7 percent and I only had a 3 percent passive sentence rate. That big of a spread is the result of thousands of posts on Internet forums.
Nonetheless, the 'fingerprints' of the author of the two threads are different enough for me to be pretty sure they were done by different people.
Doesn't appear to be the same person."
"The grade level of the scolaz post is 7.5, while RTLs is 8.8. The use of passive sentences is way off, scolaz being 23 percent with RTL being only 11 percent. Reading ease was 63% for scolaz and 73% for RTL.
RTL scored rather well when I indexed his OP. That means does he have some education, but not lots of practice writing.
By comparison, I just grabbed something I wrote and rated it. My Grade level was 6.0 (means a 6th grader could understand my post), but my readability was 77.7 percent and I only had a 3 percent passive sentence rate. That big of a spread is the result of thousands of posts on Internet forums.
Nonetheless, the 'fingerprints' of the author of the two threads are different enough for me to be pretty sure they were done by different people.
Doesn't appear to be the same person."
- Status