flickering lights & power interuption

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wouter

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went on a service call today - customer has a series of lights and receptacles that for no apparent reason flicker repeatedly on and off then sudenly just go off for about 30 seconds then back on. looked for loose neutral in panel, problem breaker, overloaded circuit -found none of those conditions. when the power went off i tested a receptacle and found no power at all but did read continuity from neutral to hot through my tester. the lights and receptacle affected are not all on the same circuit and each time it happens it involves the same group.

any suggestions as to what is happening and how to solve

thanks wouter
 
Re: flickering lights & power interuption

Originally posted by wouter:
the lights and receptacle affected are not all on the same circuit and each time it happens it involves the same group.
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I'd be curious how you determined that.

Sounds like a receptacle has about burned up a backstabbed conductor.
 
Re: flickering lights & power interuption

only likely ways to have multiple circuits involved is to have problems with a main lug/main breaker or a connection to or between neutral bar and service. no tandem breakers involved are there?

I would suggest killing all the power and removing each neutral connection and bonding point and inspecting before replacing and retighten. Recently missed just such a bad connection myself by only shaking and tightening the neutrals. When I finally found it, it was obvious once I removed it from the neutral bar.
 
Re: flickering lights & power interuption

It sounds to me like you are talking about a single branch circuit. I think you have a loose connnection somewhere in the hot or neutral.

Continuity between hot and neutral won't tell you anything (on either side of the loose connection, you will still have lights connected that will give you continuity).

If you can get the problem to happen again, try to make note of exactly which fixtures go out, and which stay on. Look at the connections between the last one still on, and the first one off.

If you can't get the lights to go off again, I would suggest wiggling wires and wire nuts and things like that where you think the problem might be.

Steve
 
Re: flickering lights & power interuption

a long time ago i was on a service call in an older house with a similar problem. i just happend to be lucky to be testing inside the panel when the lights went out. i found a bad leg comming in from the utility. it was an overhead drop, and when the wind blew just right, the connection was lost.

it was on a sunday i had to wait about three hours for the utility to arrive to fix. the homeowner made me a wonderfull breakfast, so i gave them a break on the waiting time.
 
Re: flickering lights & power interuption

I had a similar problem once where I kinda suspected the utility transformer but didn't realy beleive that was it. I didn't do any work there but it was all better when they replaced the transforemr a month later.

That's probably not the problem but it happens to some guys like once.
 
Re: flickering lights & power interuption

I had a baffling one in an apartment building...nothing seemed right...finally figured out that the screw that held the neutral lug onto the bus in the gang-meter base was loose...it had been stripped-out when it was installed at the factory many years before. We had to pull the meter to find it and then had to have the poco kill the xfmr so we could fix it.

Sad thing was, the college boy who had the apartment had his TV blow up (220v) and a couple of other things.
 
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