220V dryer sparked on startup (3 wire) What to test?

[Stormin Mormon]

I expect an electrician or two to yell at me, for making dangerous reccomendations. The way I figure, it helps retard oxidation, and that's a good thing.

[Dan Espen]

SPARE POND/D?N????

[Danny D'Amico]

Hmmm....

The top 20A 120V circuit is not connected, but, the bottom 120V 15A circuit, if it says "Pond", might then be for the external water feature, which, if you wanted to, you *could* call it a "pond" as it has a collection area for the pumps to pump from.

But, the pumps for that water feature, I thought, are 220V, and not 120V. I'll need to check them again with this cryptoanalysis in hand.

[Danny D'Amico]

I must have missed that, but, I don't disagree. I love getting more torque, so, I'll look for those.

[krw]

The "main panel" is normally where ground and neutral are bonded. In my house (my last three, really), they're actually bonded at a box under the meter and run to a panel in the basement (attic and front porch in previous houses). I call the panels "mains" but they're not.

[Danny D'Amico]

The ones that I found on the net from Home Depot seem to be for both copper and aluminum. The only difference, I saw, was the acceptable gauge changes depending on the material.

[Danny D'Amico]

Nothing. No spark, anyway.

I'm not sure how the circuit breakers work because I saw A-B-A-B arrangements in this diagram, so, I know what answer you're looking for, but, I don't really understand how they wire circuit breakers.

Same thing that happens to birds and squirrels. Nothing.

I'm not sure what a "ground ring" is, but, I assume you're saying the tower loses its grounding. But, the lines are insulated from the tower, so, I would think nothing happens - but - again - I'm not sure how it's wired up.

[Nightcrawler®]

I already stated the "why of it". The ground wire is not supposed to carry current or voltage (be a part of a circuit). By bonding the neutral elsewhere you are making the ground system part of the neutral system going back to the meter-main. Part of the imbalanced current will flow through the neutral, another part will flow through the ground wire. This also will cause some nasty harmonics in your electrical system. A neutral is not allowed to be separated from the power conductors it serves, other than at the termination points, for this reason. Things like this may cause fires. Since the grounding system is not as direct as the power supply ( it may be branched and go almost anywhere) you will never know what kind of harmonics, powered ground loops and such you may create, and, as with neutrals, if you open up a connection in say, a junction box, and are expecting no voltage/current you will get a surprise. It is best just to accept things as they are and suffice it to say, "with good reason."

[Nightcrawler®]

Beats me. Turn it off and see what turns off or will not turn on, then turn it back on and observe for the same/inverse.

[Nightcrawler®]

This is normal. You might be better off getting the larger barreled variety. The larger ones might allow you to terminate two conductors per lug (size permitting, of course), though this is usually a desperate measure based on not enough terminals. Keep things clean, when you can, then if you need to do maintenance on one item you will not be messing with something else.

There is adequate space in your meter-main to add another neutral bus.

[Nightcrawler®]

That is not a Square D panel, but no matter. Not all panels are the same. With your panel it goes A-A, drops down a breaker and goes B-B. This is how you get both hot legs with the breakers that you have. In the example you provided, the circuit breaker would go all the way across the panel and would be rather complex inside for the thing to trip both legs. I have never seen a panel with this set up.

Most likely you would be dead. The static electricity that builds up on those things is so great that the difference in potential in just a few feet is close to what is strung overhead, and possibly more. Think around 100,000+ volts per meter, decreasing the further you are away from the tower. The only reason I brought this up is to emphasize the importance of equalizing potential, and that is one of the jobs of the grounding conductor and subsequent grounding methods within the system, and therefore why the grounding portion of an electrical system is its own entity and should be treated as such.

[Dean Hoffman]

There will be a parallel circuit between the case of the sub panel and the case of the main panel. It will be in parallel with the hopefully low resistance neutral. A person touching the sub panel will become part of the parallel circuit. He probably won't even notice it if the neutral is ok. He could get a shock if the neutral is compromised for some reason. The code has a special section devoted to livestock buildings and equipment. Critters are grounded better than humans. They'll notice a bit of stray voltage where humans won't. I guess dairies are one place where it's important to keep stray voltage to a minimum. Milk production suffers if things aren't up to Hoyle.

[Nightcrawler®]

LOL! And the bubba wiring jobs...

[Nightcrawler®]

That is why one aims for the corners. Less flex.

[Wes Groleau]

If the resistance through your shoe & sock, up your leg, down your other leg, and through your other shoe and sock is low enough compared to that through the earth between your feet, quite likely.

People HAVE died that way, but others have survived. With the right shoes, and enough moisture in the soil, you might not even feel it.

I'm not volunteering for the experiment.

[Danny D'Amico]

We were told that, if we were stuck inside the car (say, we ran into a lake or something), that you can't open the doors after the first few seconds, and, the door won't open until something like 30 seconds after the car settles into the mud (and maybe not even then).

So, if the door wouldn't open, then try the windows, but, often they won't open either (due to shorts), so you're only bet is to unhook the seatbelt and smash out the window.

The way, they said, to smash a window, sans tools anyway, is to kick at the BIG side (not the small side).

The big side, of course, is the side where the door opens, but I'm not sure if we kick there just because it's bigger, or, because it might be weaker on the big side.

[Danny D'Amico]

For me, the meter and the hot/hot/neutral feed, and the neutral grounding bar are all at the same set of three boxes connected together.

[Danny D'Amico]

Is the general consensus that lug corrosion is what actually caused the huge wires to overheat?

What would be other reasons? Or, is that the only reason a neutral would overheat, when no other wire appears to be overheated?

[Danny D'Amico]

That one sentence says a lot!

[Danny D'Amico]

This too is a very interesting observation. I was not aware of this togetherness requirement, but it makes sense.