Combination Motor Controller Trouble Shooting

[JOHNEO99]

Today at the job I was finishing up and the GC asked me to move a box that was in the way of a new wall. This "move" wasn't on the plans but I said I would do it anyway. I really wish I had the in house guys move this box because it became a headache for me.

The box had 4 pairs of control wires going through it. One pair is going to an HOA on a combination motor controller, one goes to some sort of monitor device in the controller for a recirculating pump. The other two pairs go to thermostats. When I went to move the box I saw that they were 18-2's and started labeling the and cutting them one at a time then taping them off one at a time so I could move the box. In this process I heard the coil of the starter turn off after cutting one of the wires. I'm not sure if this was the beginning of my problem or not. Anyway I did that and then moved the box and put everything back the way it was.

I noticed the coil didn't kick back in and I wasn't sure if it should at that point due to some sort of control or whatever. Well the controller wouldn't work right and the pump wouldn't work so I started checking the Apogee wires, continuity tested them and re-spliced. The coil still wouldn't work so I started looking at the starter and noticed the contacts had no power. The control transformer is a 208 to 120V 100VA and I had 208 coming in but no 120.

Does anyone know if I could have destroyed the control transformer by doing what I did? Is this just a coincidence?

 

[Smart $]

Hmmm... first off, an HOA switch that is actually wired as HOA uses 3 wires in most cases, but not an absolute. By your description, it only has 2...???

If you cut each conductor individually, without shorting to any other or ground, you likely did not destroy the control xfmr. If on the other hand you cut by the pair, having destroyed the transformer is much more probable.

Is xfmr secondary fused? If so, are you measuring secondary voltage ahead of fusing? If you did not create a short in cutting the wires, the xfmr going bad may have been a coincidence... but you will likely be held to blame and held accountable, IMO.

 

[JOHNEO99]

Hmmm... first off, an HOA switch that is actually wired as HOA uses 3 wires in most cases, but not an absolute. By your description, it only has 2...???

If you cut each conductor individually, without shorting to any other or ground, you likely did not destroy the control xfmr. If on the other hand you cut by the pair, having destroyed the transformer is much more probable.

Is xfmr secondary fused? If so, are you measuring secondary voltage ahead of fusing? If you did not create a short in cutting the wires, the xfmr going bad may have been a coincidence... but you will likely be held to blame and held accountable, IMO.

Yes I cut them one at a time. I figured it out last night. There are three fuses on the xfmr and I only continuity tested the 120V fuse and tick tested the 208 fuses but one of the fuses was blown and I didn't notice. I was a little flustered when I did this so that's why I went back last night to double check the fuses before I ordered a new xfmr. I'm still not sure how that fuse blew.

Oh the HOA was tied in at the starter and the apogee 600 upstairs so that why it had the extra wire.