Outdoor Plug... how can I tell if it's broken?

[solrium]

Bought a house -

Long story short there's a fountain with a "Red Dot Code Keeper" set up, I flipped the fuse for it and when I plug something in an orange light comes on next to each plug (there are 4 total). - when plugged in to the left two plugs. The right two plugs, nothign comes on - no lights or anything.

Any case, nothing works - besides the orange light, there's nothing showing wether it's working or not - the fountain doesn't come on, or any other appliance I stick in the thing, but just those little orange lights. I can't find anything online about what it means, any instructions... soo... any electricians know about this, or what I can do to get the fountain to start working again?

Thanks

[Jeff Wisnia]

The "Red Dot Code Keeper" is just a wet location receptical safety cover.

Your fountain pump prolly has developed an internal electrical leak to ground, and there's very likely one or GFCI receptical there feeding a second downstream non-GFCI one(and possible maybe even a GFCI breaker in the panel, feeding that circuit) which sensed a fault in the pump and did their job by shutting off the power.

I respectfully suggest that if your knowledge of electrics is so limited that you'd say you "flipped the fuse" that you'd be better off protecting yourself and others from serious injury or death by getting a qualified person to diagnose and repair the problem. It may be as simple as replacing the fountain pump or perhaps it will be more difficult if moisture has invaded whatever conduit or whathaveyou which brings power ot to those recepticals.

HTH,

Jeff

[solrium]

Yup, not an electric person - at all. ;)

See, that's the point though - if it is something as simple as pushing a button to reset the system and suddenly everything comes alive; I'd hate to pay some 60$ for the 5 minutes (since it's upped to an hour) and an extra 20 $ to stop by the house.

The pump works (have connected it at other places.) Whatever connection comes up to the 4-plugs, two don't do anything, two of them turn on four orange lights when something live is plugged into them.

Just wanted to know if the four orange lights means something or not.

Thanks for the advice!

[Jeff Wisnia]

The pump could well "run" fine when plugged into an non-GFIC protected outlet, but still have internal electrical leakage rendering it potentially unsafe.

Unless you have the know how to determine whether all those "other places" you tried plugging the pump into are in fact GFCI protected circuits, then it's not correct to assume that the pump is completely OK.

What do you mean when you say "something live" is plugged into them? That's sort of a contradiction of terms.

I'm reasonably confident that those orange lights are coming on to indicate that there's a ground fault in what's plugged a receptacle, but I could be wrong. Four lights sort of seems like more than needed, but then again, when you said "four plugs" in your OP, I took that to mean you telling us there were TWO duplex RECEPTACLES there, creating four places where PLUGS could be inserted.

Posting a photo of those "four plugs" and the "orange lights" may help.

Jeff

[Jim Elbrecht]

-snip-

You're looking at it the wrong way. You would be paying, not for the effort of pushing a button and the instruction that comes with it. You would be paying to have a professional look at it, assesss any possible dangers, and protect you & anyone who comes close to it from electrocution.

Is that peace of mind worth $100?

Jim [not a pro-- but paid one $40 once to change a fuse. I was making $5 an hour then, but considered the $40 a fair price to learn that fuses don't have to *look* blown.]

[solrium]

Jeff, Jim

You guys are right, thanks for the replies... I'll just get someone to come look at it here in a few weeks. And Jeff - thanks for the little lesson, yes, it's two duplex receptacles - creating a place were four plugs can be put in... there are little orange lights next to each one

- if I plug in a machine that is turned off (like let's say, a blender)

- the lights stay off, if I turn on the blender, however; all four little orange lights come on.... *if* I plug it in to the left side (either top or bottom 'plugs')

While if I plug it to the right receptacle, none of the lights come on.

So, guess it's time to pull up the yellow pages.

Thanks Jeff! (my camera is in one of 20 random boxes packed... won't be another week or so, but I thank for the offer of checking further into it)

[PipeDown]

On most plugs with indicator lamps, the light simply means there is power at the receptacle and does not change wether you plug something in or not or even if the device is turned on. Your setup is wired in a somewhat unique way.

Without needing to know how it is supposed to be wired, you could turn off the breaker, unscrew the receptacles, pull them out a bit and inspect the wiring behind for something obvious like a wire fallen out of a wire nut or a wire charred or loose etc.

It sounds a little like you have an open neutral and the lamp is wired across the hot and ground but as I said, that would be unusual. I do think something is open though.

[... ...]

Certian manufactures have a GFCI recpt. thats shows an orange or yellow light when the GFCI is tripped. Take a closer look at the recpt. and look for a trip andreset button

[mm]

That doesn't seem right, either the left two or the right two. So it might be that red dot thing. And I think it is beyond you to fix it.

Do you have instructions for this red dot, or coudl you find them on the web. Despite the previous paragraph, I have 4 outlets that I wired differently. But I plan to tell the next owner of the house about it, and there are no funny red lights.

I was going to suggest a friend or neigbhor that knew more look at it, but this one sounds a bit tricky and that it would the guy if he were like me, hours. A pro, much less time.

[Mark Lloyd]

Should that "tripped" light go off when the plug is removed? Maybe it's indicating some wiring fault.