Very old Two wire Pump NO EGC

[drcampbell]

Oops -- we forgot to ask: They called you out to troubleshoot it; what was the original complaint?

I can imagine that 70-year-old cable, plus 70 years of frost heaves, microbes, root growth, street repaving and all that, there might be enough cable damage and leakage current to open the breaker when the pump switches on while the soil's wet. It would be interesting to put a megger on that cable. (or just normal line voltage and an ammeter)

 

[hillbilly1]

I’m betting it’s pump wire, they ran it all the way and buried it to the pond. The old stuff was pretty stiff.

 

[ptonsparky]

I Megged some old buried rubber covered cu. It failed of course, but I never found a fault. It 'leaked' the whole way.

 

[petersonra]

Maybe dbl insulated???

 

[LarryFine]

How about adding a 1:1 isolation transformer?

 

[texie]

I would not touch a thing like this. ESD (electric shock drowning) is becoming far better understood and it is now obvious that things like this are a huge danger, particularly in fresh water.

 

[hillbilly1]

I put one of these in at a boat dock last year. It gives an alarm if the voltage gets too high. At least it would give a warning of impending danger.

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[kwired]

How about adding a 1:1 isolation transformer?

Might mask a problem for a while, but will still eventually fail.

Any fairly solid ground fault will turn the secondary into a grounded system as well then you sort of right back where you started.

 

[ggunn]

The customer must come around to the fact that there is no such thing as a permanent installation and this system is reaching the end of its useful life. It seems to me that as painful and expensive as it will be to replace, replacing it or abandoning it are the only real options.