Problem with Breaker

Jump to latest Follow Reply
reindeerboy

reindeerboy

0
LifeTime Supporter
May 27, 2008
519
Jamestown, ND
Does anyone know why a breaker keeps tripping. Ran perfectly until today. Brand new Super Pump installed so I know its not the pump.

I did call the electrician that put it in, but its Sunday and everything goes to heck it seems on Sunday! :grrrr:

The electrician has to put in the twist lock plug yet but to get things running he just hardwired it in like our old pump was. Its a 1.5 hp super pump and has been running great so I would not think it was the pump.

I did get the breaker on once but within 15 minnutes it tripped again.

My thought is that the breaker crapped out on me. Weather is sunny and beautiful. Was gonna take the first swim of the year today, but now I probably wont as I have to clean the pool first and cant do that until the pump is working again.

Worst case is tomorrow to try to get it running, but the electrician is definitely the one that has to fix this issue.

Any ideas than what I am thinking above?

Thanks
 
The electrician actually called me back. Pretty good for a Sunday. Said he will be by at 9am with a new breaker and to finish putting in my plug system so that I can take the pump inside during the winter time. It was previously hard wired and the previous owners always left the pump outside. Since then, I updated the pool pump pad and am putting a twist lock plug system in to solve that problem.

The electrician thought it was the GFCI breaker. Said they sometimes do go bad and since the pump is on a switch outside, it most likely would not be the new pump. He said there could be a short in the system and would locate it and replace the wire if thats the case.

Will report back as to what we actually find out it to be wrong.

Thanks!
 
Thanks Ted.

Yea, I agree. :hammer: This guy seems to be pretty darn sharpe. Too bad Pool Companies arent that way! :lol:

Pool was great today. We did decide to jump in even without the pump on. Figured that by tomorrow, I will have it up an running anyway. Pool was 75. Pretty darn good!

Weather however this week is going to be cool, but hopefully with the sun and the solar blanket, it will help it out.

Thanks again Ted! Have a good one! :goodjob:

Another Question: Does anyone have any opinions on a pool heater? I have heard good and bad about it. The bad being the cost and the breakdowns. What do you all think?



Anyone
 
UPDATE: Ok, found out that the breaker was shot. Its a GFI breaker so he put in an outlet box that is watertight. This thing is an GFI plug in system. 10 times easier now to use as it has a light on it to tell me that there is juice to it. I have the option now of adding a timer to this thing as well and may work in getting that setup too.

Then we found a loose wire on the motor itself. Apparently, when it got shipped, the manufacturer must of not plugged the 2 wires correctly as they came loose on the back side of the motor. Electrician found it, fixed it, and we fired it up. Works awesome now. Whey! That got me a bit worried there for a minutte, but now all is good to go. I have to say, I will continue to use this good electrician. He knows his stuf, is dirt cheap at $39.00 per hour, and is really fast. Only cost me $200 for 4 hours of work including parts. I thought that was pretty reasonable.

Oh yea, and Ted, I put an eyelet on my return and now no more bubbles. Not sure why, but I cannot see any more bubbles comming out now on top of the water, plus now I can move the water direction twords the skimmer and that has made a huge difference. Funny what a $5 dollar little thing can do to help with the overall setup of my pool.

Pool basket has only a minor amount of bubbles, so I think I have it pretty well solved. I know I have to fix the basket lid gasket yet, but I will get to that after this rain spell passes this weekend. Then I can clean the pool and fix the gasket at the same time.


Have a good day and thanks for all your help! Later! :goodjob: :party:
 
Depending on how your electrical run to the pump is done, I prefer to have the GFCI breaker on the panel to monitor the ENTIRE path of electrical current from the circuit breaker and beyond.

Putting an outlet GFCI in only protects from the outlet box and beyond.

If you have a ground fault with the actual electrical run, you would get no protection with the outlet GFCI. The GCFI breaker provides coverage the whole way.

Can any official electrician confirm this?
 
On my system, this wire is dedicated to the pool pump only. It does not feed any other outlet except to the pool pump itself.

I understand what you mean about the GFCI breaker, but if I did have an electrical issue between the box and the panel, then wouldnt the pump still be protected because its plugged into the GFCI outlet box?
 
GFCI protects people because it detects a leak of current to ground via another route instead of the neutral or ground wires in the circuit.

The current is flowing some other route than intended and that indicates a problem, so the gfci trips and cuts the current.

Not protecting the whole circuit from the breaker leaves the lines up to the outlet box vulnerable to shocking someone.
 
Good to know. Well, its done, so I am definitely not going to change it. I guess if it shocks the heck out of me, then it would not have been the first time. I grew up on a Dairy Farm up here and have been shocked too many times to count. Oh well, it is what it is.

Thanks for the clarification guys.

Later.
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Lol! Yes avoid the wire with the glass insulator on the fence post. I learned that thanks to all the dairy farms around us.

As well avoid the pasture with only one "cow" in it. That would be the bull. :)

The GFCI circuit breaker is easy to install. It goes in physically just like another breaker.

The difference is that the neutral wire (white) from the line running to the outlet goes into the breaker and the curly white wire included on the breaker goes to the grounding bar instead.
 
Something I could probably install myself down the road. Thanks for the tip.

Yea, I have 3 brothers and you know how cruel an older brother can be. i.e. taking a leak on an electric fense, change the fuse without turning off the power first, those dumb things. Oh yea, and things like, "oh that bull wont hurt yea" and then you find yourself flying through the air after the bull just threw you over the gate. :cheers:

Another question. Ted (waste), you had mentioned that you had done this, but I have a question:

Has anyone replaced a face plate on the return valves that are over the top of the liner in the pool. I am a bit nervous in doing that. It has a few cracks and the thing is still sealed as the gasket behind it seems water tight and the plates in the pool will most likely hold until I winterize the sucker this fall. I think I may wait till winter and then drop the water below the return jets and then replace the face plates?

What does everyone think? I could do it now, of course the water needs to warm up first, but I could do it myself but I am a bit afraid of missing the screw holes and puncturing the liner as its a bit harder to see them with 2 ft of water to look through from the surface?

Anyone done it?
 
mtbarr64 said:
the curly white wire included on the breaker goes to the grounding bar instead.
Click to expand...

The "curly white wire" goes to the NEUTRAL bus bar, not ground. Technically, in the main panel neutral and ground bus bars are bonded together, so its the same thing. in a sub panel, the bond is taken off and the busses are separate.
 
In every panel I have, the ground and neutral are bonded since they are the same. The grounds and neutrals are connected on the same tie downs.

There are three wires on a 240 service. phase 1 hot, phase 2 hot and neutral, which is the "common" line from the grounding of the generator at the power plant.

You tie the incoming service neutral to a local ground (usually a rod driven into the ground near to your electrical panel). This prevents the return current from traveling large distances through the soil to find its way back to the source (generator). Instead it will travel the least resistance to the local rod and prevent these stray currents in the soils.
 
Only one panel should have the neutral and ground bus bonded. Any other service panels on the same system should have that bond removed.

Also, you actually only have one phase coming into the house for regular 200 mp service. The second leg that 180 degrees out of phase is actually just converted out at the transformer on the pole or at the street box from the 1st phase. True 2 or 3 phase service is only wired up for commercial or industrial applications where > 400 amp service is required. The common is not the ground. Its the return for the current. On a 3 wire service, the other hot leg is used as the return or common since they are 180 degrees out of phase. Very different from ground. But thats probably more than you wanted to know :wink:
 
Sorry to interrupt the discussion on breaker panels, but I gotta answer Chad's question on faceplates :p

Chad, it's sooo easy, even I can do it :lol: Don't worry about loosing water as long as the water is over the faceplate. The hydrostatic force of the pool water ~seals the hole while you're replacing it - as long as the screw holes are still matched up, you'll only loose a couple of ounces of water in the 3 minutes it takes to make the change-out 8) (if I'm rushed, I'll even do it with the system running - it's honestly not a big deal :-D ) Just be sure to have the new faceplate and a #3 phillips head screwdriver on hand and it literally takes less than 3 minutes :party:

Isn't it about time you went swimming? :?
 
Brad S said:
Only one panel should have the neutral and ground bus bonded. Any other service panels on the same system should have that bond removed.

Also, you actually only have one phase coming into the house for regular 200 mp service. The second leg that 180 degrees out of phase is actually just converted out at the transformer on the pole or at the street box from the 1st phase. True 2 or 3 phase service is only wired up for commercial or industrial applications where > 400 amp service is required. The common is not the ground. Its the return for the current. On a 3 wire service, the other hot leg is used as the return or common since they are 180 degrees out of phase. Very different from ground. But thats probably more than you wanted to know :wink:
Click to expand...

That's what I get for trying to keep it simple. What was the original post about? :)

Turns out the 240/120 in most houses is one of the phases (there are a total of three on the transmission lines). By tying between any two of the three phases they get the 240 feed which is then stepped down and split into two 120's feeds by the transformer.

They are both at the same phase. Only phases 1, 2 and 3 of a three phase are out of sync from each other and that is how 3-phase works.

For those who care to read a lot of information, here is the wikipedia reference to explain all this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply