macmikeman
Senior Member
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- Planet macmikeman
Ok, first my question: Is this to be expected after one of my customer's dropped around 50g's to have another company come in and set all that neato system up?
Now the background. About 4 days ago a call comes in generated from the internet from a couple I have never met. The problem of the call? They bought this new system and while the "technician" was setting up the swap of critical load branch circuits from the house panel to the standby panel he experienced a shock from removing one of the neutrals out of the neutral busbar. He at least knew it was probably a back fed neutral connection from another circuit and he was right about that, he identified the two circuits with red tape and told the owner it isn't in their contract to troubleshoot and repair existing problems, and frankly I agree with that, except I got on the phone with that tech and politely scolded him for not checking for current flow before pulling a neutral out of a neutral busbar , cause that isn't the first time something like that has been found . (drifting off topic, sorry bout that.). Anyhow they call me to come fix a shock problem and I dispatched. Turns out original wiring of the house - 3 way for hall lights fed off circuit A , two wire old style nm cable with no ground run to the other 3 way and the common on that end run to a j-box from another lighting circuit where the guy grabbed a neutral and ran out to the lights. Guess this went ok till now for a 1970's house . Ok. All good, fixed that, I'm paid and I leave. That was 3 days ago. Today the owner calls me up and complains of flickering in the hall lights, the ones I fixed the neutral problem on. So back I go. And while bypassing the dimmer with a standard 3 way switch, owner mentions the pv company came back earlier in the day and finished up moving those circuits to the emergency panel. I checked the flickering. It wasn't loose connection flickering, it was the type a fluorescent light with a dying ballast type of flickering- a frequency issue. It actually affects all the dimmers in the house , not just the circuit I repaired. So I get paid twice , and I told the owners take this up with the other company that installed the pv and the backup battery pack. It was a Generac system not the usual Tesla wall system I have also seen around a few times. I'm thinking inverters are chopping up the sine wave, and then the dimmers are chopping up the sine wave and we are seeing flickering. That's my guess. I'd kinda like to know if I am on the right track. And maybe there is a fix, such as using those ? Torredial coils ? at the dimmers maybe cleaning up the wave? We didn't get to have these type of issues back when I was coming up the ranks and dimmers were rheostats.
Now the background. About 4 days ago a call comes in generated from the internet from a couple I have never met. The problem of the call? They bought this new system and while the "technician" was setting up the swap of critical load branch circuits from the house panel to the standby panel he experienced a shock from removing one of the neutrals out of the neutral busbar. He at least knew it was probably a back fed neutral connection from another circuit and he was right about that, he identified the two circuits with red tape and told the owner it isn't in their contract to troubleshoot and repair existing problems, and frankly I agree with that, except I got on the phone with that tech and politely scolded him for not checking for current flow before pulling a neutral out of a neutral busbar , cause that isn't the first time something like that has been found . (drifting off topic, sorry bout that.). Anyhow they call me to come fix a shock problem and I dispatched. Turns out original wiring of the house - 3 way for hall lights fed off circuit A , two wire old style nm cable with no ground run to the other 3 way and the common on that end run to a j-box from another lighting circuit where the guy grabbed a neutral and ran out to the lights. Guess this went ok till now for a 1970's house . Ok. All good, fixed that, I'm paid and I leave. That was 3 days ago. Today the owner calls me up and complains of flickering in the hall lights, the ones I fixed the neutral problem on. So back I go. And while bypassing the dimmer with a standard 3 way switch, owner mentions the pv company came back earlier in the day and finished up moving those circuits to the emergency panel. I checked the flickering. It wasn't loose connection flickering, it was the type a fluorescent light with a dying ballast type of flickering- a frequency issue. It actually affects all the dimmers in the house , not just the circuit I repaired. So I get paid twice , and I told the owners take this up with the other company that installed the pv and the backup battery pack. It was a Generac system not the usual Tesla wall system I have also seen around a few times. I'm thinking inverters are chopping up the sine wave, and then the dimmers are chopping up the sine wave and we are seeing flickering. That's my guess. I'd kinda like to know if I am on the right track. And maybe there is a fix, such as using those ? Torredial coils ? at the dimmers maybe cleaning up the wave? We didn't get to have these type of issues back when I was coming up the ranks and dimmers were rheostats.
