Can I do this? Electrical

[micky]

I know you're going to tell me to do this another way but I don't know how strongly you're going to say it.

I am going away for a few days, and I didnt' expect this. I planned to put a timer on my kitchen ceiling fixture. The one I used to have worked fine but failed, and the one after that failed too (after about 15 years each). The one I bought recently turned out to be no good for CFL's so I just got another one and it wants the neutral wire.

Only for the current that it needs to run the internal clock. Not much more than a watch battery puts out, right?

All I've got available is the ground wire. How bad is it to use that until I can run a neutral wire?.

I already have a 12 or 14 gauge wire running to this box that used to be used for another purpose, but no time before I go away to scope it out.

[hrhofmann]

The neutral and ground wires are often tied together at some pint in the house wiring. Rather than go to all this trouble, why not just have the timer run a table lamp placed on the kitchen table??

[gfretwell]

It is not legal but it works as long as there is no GFCI in there. I can't say it os a good idea tho. I found a 2 wire occupancy sensor at Lowes that supports CFL and LED so I bet you can find a timer. I suspect there is a resistor or diode array in there that creates enough voltage drop to power the circuitry.

[clare]

It definitely won't meet code, but it will work, it won't kill anyone, and it won't burn your house down. Do I recommend it? No. Have I done it? Yes.

[micky]

I want it to be the ceiling light, the same light I have on every night when I'm eating dinner etc. So it will look just as it usually does**.

I'm going to be away for 11 weeks, plenty of time for someone to notice I'm not really there, so I dont' want to be obvious also.

All the reasons on the web for not doing this are about the the ground being hot if the ground gets cut, and it will be, but any current that flows out of it will have to go through the switch's clock first.

**I have another timer to turn a light on in my "office" a couple hours later, when I'm normally there.

[micky]

Dang, I didn't think of Lowes!

Maybe because they used to have a "search engine" for the search box in Firefox and they don't have one anymore, but HD does.

Thanks for checking. Yeah, I see that too. Lutron. Came up when I searched on wall timer.

It's interesting how countdown timers are more popular now, I think, than plain timers. People concerned about electric bills. I don't think Lowes has a single wall timer that replaces a wall toggle switch, and the other stores didn't have many. Home Depot had 4 that woudl handle CFL's but one or two were countdown, 1 was controllable from a tablet or phone!!!t, and the most expensive one, the one I want, by Intermatic, $37, no branch of HD stocks and the earliest they can get it is after I'll have left. That'll teach me to wait too long.

What else is funny is all these store with My Store are constantly changing My Store, never to a store I actually go to, and sometimes they pick one 50 miles away.

Okay. You know more than I do.

[clare]

another "solution" is to put a small (like 5 watt) incandescent bulb in the circuit

[micky]

That's very good!

In that case, I can get by when I'm not home. When I get back mabye I can disconnect the whole timer part (one wire), and if not, I'll get to work on that other wire.

The other wire was an early attempt to get the burglar alarm to flash the kitchen light, which I thought would scare away anyone who broke in, and make it easy to see which house had the alarm***

(The first summer I was here, someone kicked my front door in between 6 and 8 on a Sunday evening, when I was out for dinner. He didnt' steal anything, I think the annooying** dog next door started barking, but I still got very concerned about alarms, especially when they got rid of the dog. **The dog barked constantly every time they took him out, when I was trying to go to sleep and before I woke up in the morning. I hated him, but I dont' know why else the burglar would have left without stealling anything.)

*** The first alarm panel had a connection that did that, it had a pulsing ground, but I connected it through a relay to make sure it could handle the ceiling light, then 3 incancescent bulbs. It worked fine until I put a timer switch in in place of the simple switch, and I thought I had a way around that too.

Hmmm. Why didn't I just run another wire, since I'd run one already. Too late now. The current alarm doesn't have that....although I coudl put my own flasher in. I already have the relay wired. (There arne't enough burglaries to go to all this trouble, but it can be fun.) -- thinking outloud.

[micky]

Do you mean in parallel with the load, or between the swtich and the ground acting as neutral?

[micky]

What's amazing is that Amazon has two models, for about $24 and 43, and they will ship it to me tomorrow, meaning today the third if I order it by noon today (which is tomorrow afaic) For $9.98 extra dollars.

===> Okay, I bought the fancy one. Should come today. Amazing.

Even though I'm not in Prime. Were I in Prime it would be free, for over $$35 and $6 for under 35, but non-Prime it's $10 no matter what.

They have another model Woods, for $10 that won't come until Saturday, which is still plenty of time.

[Feeder]

I guess I'll feed this troll.....

Do what you propose, but dont turn on the power until you're ready to leave for your vacation. Right before you leave, spill a gallon of gasoline on your kitchen floor, then toss a match into the gas, lock the door, and leave.

The end result will be the same...... The llames will provide a lot of light until the fire dept brings in a bulldozer to remove any dangerous standing walls (If there are any).

[philo]

I call bullshit.

In the amount of time you have spent posting here, you could have traced out that apparently unused wire and wired the thing properly.

[philo]

The only place a ground and neutral wire could correctly be "tied together" would be at the ground buss within the breaker box.

[John G]

The current on that ground will be on every ground wire in your house. Eve ry metal wallplate and every grounded appliance will have that potential cu rrent on it. It is possible that you could touch an appliance and a water faucet at the same time and get zapped.

Get yourself some plug in lamp timers. You don't want to create an electri cal hazard for your entire household.

John Grabowski

[TimR]

Buy one of those screw in outlets. You know what I mean, it fits in a normal light socket, but it has slots to plug in. There's probably a name for it but I don't know it.

Put your step ladder under the ceiling light. Put your lamp on the top of your step ladder. Plug your timer into the ceiling outlet and your lamp into the timer.

Problem solved.

[gfretwell]

Not exactly true. It will just be on the grounding conductor going back to the main bonding jumper, that one circuit. (unless you have bonded that EGC to other circuits down stream of the MBJ) In normal installation these are star wired. It still can present a hazard and it is still a 250.6 violation. Whether it would impose the >5ma considered a threat to life would depend on the timer. There used to be a standard in U/L about how much ground current was acceptable from a device like this but it was in the range of 500 micro amps. I believe that has gone away tho.

[gfretwell]

AKA the main bonding jumper

[TimR]

I agree it's a violation but the hazard part would require a couple of othe r faults, wouldn't it?

If a ground carries current but is at ground potential, seems like you shou ldn't get a shock. If the ground conductor was broken anywhere on the path back to the main panel, all the connected grounds would be hot. But then your light wouldn't work, you'd know you had a missing ground.

[C. Sparks]

Maybe MacGyver the timer switch into your breaker panel so it switches the entire kitchen light circuit.

[clare]

as part of the load.. The timer runs on the "tickle current" through the bulb, which is why it won't work with a cfl or led