..maybe relay failure followed closely by onset of arc ignited Fire is your main worry??
..smart move.
normal, if you bought it off the likes of nicksanspamATece.villanova.edu I can see the humidity has been a problem as well,, not that Nick would concur :-/
I see U R looking for a Sparky, second smart move :- ). Knowledge would not be the problem (I would hope),, the fortitude and patience, not to mention the acceptance of any protracted Risk, would be - for a Sparky of substance.
Did the last man in come out alive?
Thanks for sharing that,, I can use some of the info in my work,,anon of course.
If you have a large house, those low voltage remote switching systems are really great, and, as noted, in a master bedroom, a selector switch and button arrangement can be installed to turn on or off just about any light in the house or outside lights. It is a shame that someone has wired such a mess as illustrated, but, and again, as noted, it is not a disaster, and it can be repaired.
A remote low voltage switching system would be extremely desirable in the case of long corridors in large buildings to control the corridor lighting from several different places rather than using the usual 3-way and 4-way lighting switching systems to reduce the voltage drop on the long runs of lighting wiring.
It is also used for energy management. Computerized BMS systems (Building Maintainence Systems) control the lighting levels based on occupancy and ambient daylight.
In a residential setting, master stations of 16-24 zones allow one to actually see which rooms are lit and which are not.
The OP is lucky that his system has one central location for the relays. This arrangement defeats one of the acclaimed benefits of a LV system - saving wire.
Ding Ding Ding. We have a winner. We found a master board with a ton of buttons on it behind the curtins in the master bedroom. None of the buttons are marked of course so it will be trial and error to figure out what is what.
My parents used to own a house with that system and I ended up being the person to keep it running.
First: I am not a licensed electrician. I would like to think that any electrician worth his salt could help you. It really is a simple system.
Second: My advice is worth what you are paying and describes the system I had which could be different then your system. If you are uncomfortable with any of this call a pro!
I don't know how much you understand about low voltage systems so bear with me. The system uses a relay to control the ac power. So the device you see in the box is a relay. Out of one end is probably three small gauge wires(common, off, on) which are connected to the wall switchs. When you press the switch in the on position, the switch causes two of the wires (on, common) to form a circuit which energizes the circuit and causes the relay to close thus turning the power on to the light. Pressing the switch in the off position cause two of the wires (common, off) to form a circuit causing the relay to open shutting the power off. The circuit is only active when you press it. The relay stays in a latched state until the switched is press again.
If the light does not turn off:
1) Look for a stuck switch (consider labeling all the switches in the house (yes a hell of a job) until you know what they all do). If a switch is stuck then the on (or off) circuit is always energizes. Bear in mind that with this system a switch could be anywhere.
2) Push the switch into the off position and hold it there. Does the light go off then come back on when you let go? If yes could be a bad relay or switch.
3) Locate the controlling relay (If the relay is working you will probally hear a click when the swich is pressed to turn the light on or off. Again consider labeling all relays). Count the number of low voltage cables attached. This will tell you the number of switches that control the light. Did you find them all and check them. Disconnect all the low voltages wires at the relay in question. Do not touch the line voltage wires. With all the low voltage wire removed, you should have three unattached small (22, 24 awg) wires left unconnected coming out the round cylinder (which protrudes out the main electrical box. By try and error, identify the common wire (which supples the low voltage). By touching and releasing either of the other wires to the common wire the light should turn off or on. If the light does not still on or off after breaking contact (ie all three wires not touching) then you need a new relay. They are not cheap. If everything works then a switch is stuck or bad or the low voltage wiring has a short (unlikely).
4) The old non solid-state relay had a tendency to fail. I have been told that the new ones are solid state and should last longer.
5) I wonder: should the hot side (the ac side) of the box have a cover? I hope so.
With a little bit of effort, you can trouble shoot this system. I will leave up to you to decide if you are comfortable replacing the relay.
If you have questions let me know, Free free to email me.
Figuring out what button is for which light is much easier if you have a small child handy. You stand there and push buttons and have small child run from room to room to see what has turned on or off.
It took me forever to figure out which button was which on other master panel. When we figured out what was what, I took an index card and made a diagram of the panel and wrote above the area of each button what lights were controlled by that button. I then put the index card on the wall above the panel. Eventually you won't need it anymore, but we still have it on the wall for when other people are here - somehow they like to be able to turn the lights on and off without assistance
In addition to what Philip said, it is a good idea to have someone stand near the relays while the buttons are being pushed. That way you can identify which relay activates a particular circuit. You should put tags on each relay as you identify them.
I know from experience that troubleshooting Touchplate systems is very time consuming because you must check two systems; the low voltage and the high voltage in order to correctly identify the problem.
My patience is bad enough, a small child would probably send me over the edge. I will send the wife running instead.
In those pictures of the wiring from hell, there is a list of numbers and locations. As none of it matched up with the boxes, I'm hoping it matches up with the control panel upstairs. I can hope anyways.
I installed a low voltage switching system in a large house that I had a few years back and used a ratchet type relay. Pulse it once and it ratchets on, and pulse it again and it ratchets off. It used just two control wires, and was rated for 20 amps; 24 volt control. I made a pulse control circuit board that produced a DC pulse of around 36 volts and then quickly decayed. This would eliminate double pulsing in case a push button happened to make double contact on one push. I used the round,white doorbell push buttons in single gang stainless steel plates around the house. One of the plates, which controlled some outside lights, and kitchen, entry, and basement lights, was a single gang with six buttons in it. The kids had a time trying to remember which button worked which light. The higher buttons worked the high outside lights, and lower buttons worked the basement lights. The central buttons worked the kitchen and landing lights. Easy. In the master bedroom and kitchen I had a one gang plate with one button and a selector switch to select the relay and the button to engage it, mostly for outside lights for security purposes. I had a panel made at a local tin shop and used aluminum angle and punched holes in it and placed rubber grommets to set the relays into. This separated the high voltage from the low voltage in the panel. I used 22 guage paired wiring -- brown/tan -- and had no problem with voltage drop. One run was around two hundred feet of wire out to the garage to work an outside light. The 36 volt DC pulse wasn't on the wire long enough to create a problem, and the relay, which was in the garage in a separate box pulsed on and off as demanded.
I thought it was a neat system. It worked really well. It was safe, and there was no maintenance to it.
We borrowed walkie-talkies from our neighbor's kid to do this. Cell phones are even better.
FurPaw
Some of ours were marked with label-tape when we moved in, but they weren't all correct. Nor were the circuit breaker labels. We ended up having to remap the entire layout. But that paid off handsomely later in time saved troubleshooting.
I hope you left thorough documentation behind for the next owners! One of the problems with our low-voltage house was that there were NO circuit layouts or any other sort of documentation beyond a few mislabeled switches.
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