220 volts, anyone

[Micky]

My landlady wanted to watch me change the second receptacle, but time is running out, I sleep until she goes to work, and she gets home late, so I did it myself today and all of a sudden the power went out in the whole apartment.

I rthought it wasnt' I, but when she got home she flipped the master breaker and amazingly, the power went back on.

So I started where I left off and I noticed that, because the old receptacle had the white wires** at a 45^ angle on the bottom, for this one the opening pointed straight down. So I had twisted the receptacle, which as yet only had the white wires in their hole, and the red and black touched the same piece of metal***, and again I cut off all the power.

What I think interesting is that the power was off to this receptalc (and its wires) -- I'm positive of that -- there was no spark at all.

So what exactly happened, and what is the device or circuit that did this called.

She has a breaker box that is only 20, probably less than 10 years old.

**This one had two white wires, one that went to the other receptacle 2 inches from it, which is on a different breaker.

*** (a tab that gets forced out when a screw in front is tightened. There is one on each side, to hold the recetale inc place

[Thomas]

Can't believe I ran out of popcorn.

[TimR]

Can't make this stuff up.

[TimR]

I gotta ask: how in the heck is he still alive?

[trader_4]

I'd like to watch too. She must have seen you in action before and either wanted the amusement or to be there with a bucket of water to put out the fire and a phone to call 911.

[TimR]

Don't feed, don't feed, don't feed, not gonna bite, ah crap I'm gonna do it.

You knew the power was off because you did live-dead-live, right?

[Micky]

The power was off. The proper breaker was thrown and the radio stopped playing when I threw it. But it played fine when I plugged it into another circuit.

Plus there wasn't the slightest spark. This is something like ground fault or arc-fault but it didnt' involve a ground or an arc.

I guess all the sarcastic guys don't know enough about 220 volts to answer the question. I'm not surprised.

[trader_4]

Why don't you just go look at the breaker and see what it is? You were there when it happened. I suspected GFCI, but you say the power went off in the whole house. IDK anyone that has an AFCI, GFCI main breaker. But aren't you overseas now or something?

[TimR]

Actually, your method of doing live-dead-live is good. You probably should get a meter at some point if you're going to do much electrical work, but for the purposes of just checking power a radio is fine.

Now you need to explain where you are. Most of us are more familiar with US wiring than European or somewhere else. It does make a difference.

When I lived in Germany, for example, most of the breakers fed relays. Hardly ever did a wall switch actually switch power - it sent a momentary to the relay.

Many countries regulate who can do electrical work, and it should be wired correctly. In the US, if Bubba has been at it, there's no telling how a circuit is wired.

[Micky]

I did bring a voltmeter. I'm the only one I know who travels with a voltmeter. But this receptacle and the radio are the only electrical things, and I've given up on the radio.

The light switches are definitely toggle switches.

It would be hard to mess up. Black, red, and white in that order, going clockwise. At least the second one was. Whatever the first one was, I wrote it down and reproduced it, but it was probably the same. I took pictures of the first one to convince her,but they will be hard to find. The new receptacles seem to have doors on the pin holes, I guess to keep kids from sticking things in them. You have to push a bit at first to get the plug in. I'm sure the old ones, maybe from

1979, when the building was first built, didn't have doors.

I'm sure I'm not allowed to do this. But the only reason she's renting me the room is that she needs money. Although she's gotten a job since then. She's 70 and still has to work She's very healthy, walks a half mile too and from the bus. (had a car until 2 years ago when it was wrecked) . That's why my landlady should show a lot more grattitude. She thanked me twice for doing the hand-held shower hose, which took me 5 minutes, but not at all for this or for replacing the door on one of the cabinets. (maybe she doesn't like it that the added door hits the old door. but the adjustments are at their max. it must be that the new hinges aren't exactly like the old hinges, though they look the same.) But the outlets aer perfect and she hasnt' thanked me.

The original apartment had say, 5 1/4 or 5 1/2 rooms, but later they added two rooms on every apartment in the building. All 12 of them. And later 2 more rooms for every apartment. It's amazing it doesn't look terrible, but you can't tell they've done that. They own their apartments, and oOne of these two times, they added two more floors to the building, which the builders or the origijnal owers of the building got to sell, and in return, she got those two rooms for only about 5000 dollars. I don't know what the deal was on the other two rooms.

I'm in one of the last two rooms and the receptacles etc. are new, the windows are beaufitully made, And they also put in a new breaker boxs during one of the two improvements. And built in phone jacks, and I think cable tv jacks, maybe throughout the apartment. . But they didn't replace the old receptacles. The ones used most of the time were very loose. Others were still good.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I though most elderly in Europe had good pensions at lower age than in the US. Tough to have to work at that age. I did because I wanted to but quit recently.

[Diesel]

You don't strike me as the kind of person who has a clue about what he's doing. You seem to have problems understanding how your credit/debit card works, and, unsurprisingly, don't seem to know what you're doing with electrical circuits either... I'd say, based on what little descriptive details you've provided, a gfci or arcfault (or combination of the two) breaker kicked in, but, you haven't provided enough useful detail to reliably be able to determine that. You wouldn't see much of any 'spark' if either is present on that line and kicked. They aren't like a normal breaker.

As for why it downed the entire house, I'd have to know more about the panel used where you live. I've never seen a mains gfci/arcfault breaker in a normal 200amp residential panel in the states. It doesn't make sense to me to have one in such a setup...But, I don't claim to know everything either.

Umm...So which is it then?

Hey, Here's an idea.. is there any chance you could take a pic of what you're looking at, and, upload it to say, picpaste? I request picpaste because it doesn't use a bunch of scripts to provide an uploaded picture on the screen.

As your description isn't very helpful. A pic of the panel feeding the area you live in would also be a plus.

[trader_4]

We still don't have an answer to the simple question of where you are? Why do you ask a question that is obviously going to depend on what country you are in and not include it? Tim asked, I brought it up too, and we still don't know. Are you hiding out with Julian Assange or something?

[Micky]

You strike me as someone not very perceptive.

And did you know the things I told the group about in that thread? Does your bank send emails when a hold is cancelled or a charge is retracted?

Of course I know what I'm doing. I don't know what sort of system or breaker cut the power off, but it's clear below that you don't know either.

What did I leave out?

How could connecting the red and black, both of them normally hot, in a 220 volt system when the power is off, to at least one of those, cause a ground fault?

How could an arcfault breaker trip where there was no arcing. (and one slight arc will not make an arcfault breaker trip either, because toggle switches often have arcing in normal operation. It's continued arcing that makes those breakers trip.) You are just sputtering words you know about things that interrupt current, but they have nothing to do with this situation.

Arcfault: definition coming later.

So, we're the same.

I don't know or I would have said. Is your knowledge of electrical history so extensive that the difference between 10 and 20 would tell you what the answer is?

I probably don't have time. Only 7 days left on my vacation and lots of things to do. But maybe I'll have time.

But most of the breakers are Delixi The main breaker is RS and it also says BRL

[VinnyB]

On Sat, 20 May 2017 14:00:17 -0000 (UTC), Diesel wrote in

+1

[Diesel]

Yes. I worked for a big bank in the states in the fraud dept...I responded to your post and some other posters explaining the holds, etc.

No. And, other banks shouldn't do that either. It only leads to confusion. Your bank statement doesn't show all activity that took place on your card or your account. Invalid pin entries, bad swipes, etc, don't appear on YOUR copy, but, they do appear on your account that a bank employee with proper security rights has.

That information is required in order to help you, the customer if you call about a possible fraudulent transaction. Or have another issue to discuss with the bank that specifically concerns transactions on your account and/or other services the bank may offer/be able to provide, based on your account status and transaction history.

I wasn't there to see the configuration, the wiring, or the panel you interacted with, so I don't know for certain what the system is, no. I'm relying on you to provide details; which you haven't provided much of, so far. I'm not a mind reader.

It would greatly help to know which country you were in when this happened. Suffice to say, a current leak detected by ground fault and/or arcfault/ground fault combo breaker could have occured. But without further details from you, it's not possible to know.

What country do you live in?

I'm doing nothing of the sort...

Already provided..

BRLAFGF120

Is one such combo model. It's a combination ground fault and arcfault, single pole.

Not necessarily, but, it could help to narrow down the possibilities.

You don't have time to take a few pics and do a quick upload?

Is this panel inside or outside your home?

What country is your residence in?

They have to say more than that...

Do they look anything like these:

If so, which one(s)?

Seriously though, the country in which you reside and some more details (as much as you can provide on the breakers) and/or some decent pics of them would be very helpful here. Like I said, I'm not a mind reader.

Along with good quality pics of the outlet you tried to work on, and it's enclosure. That is, if you expect any of us to be able to provide you a reasonable explanation as to what happened...

[clare]

I don't know how some people survive to retirement age.

[TimR]

This makes no sense if you're in Europe.

In the US, yes you can have Red and Black, both hot with respect to Neutral which is White. Safety ground is bare or Green. Red and Black will be 12

0 reference neutral and 240 reference each other.

Not true in Europe. There IS NO 120. There is only 240. In the older far mhouse I lived in, Black was hot, Red was safety ground, Gray was neutral. But most places had been updated to the new standards, and now Brown is ho t, Blue is neutral, ground is Green/yellow. I was renting and I didn't tou ch the wiring myself, no point. Oh, kind of interesting, at work the cover s for electrical panels were clear plastic and you could see all the wiring connections without opening anything.

Your description does not make sense in Europe unless you've mistaken gray for white and it's a very old system.

So PLEASE, where are you?

My guess is North Dakota.

[clare]

He is vacationing in Northern Europe - Denmark I think.

[TimR]

ral which is White. Safety ground is bare or Green. Red and Black will be 120 reference neutral and 240 reference each other.

farmhouse I lived in, Black was hot, Red was safety ground, Gray was neutra l. But most places had been updated to the new standards, and now Brown is hot, Blue is neutral, ground is Green/yellow. I was renting and I didn't touch the wiring myself, no point. Oh, kind of interesting, at work the co vers for electrical panels were clear plastic and you could see all the wir ing connections without opening anything.

ay for white and it's a very old system.

Then go here: