Pool light niche bonding mount broken

[kiwipool]

Hi,

I replaced my 120v pentair pool light today. It all went pretty smoothly, and the light is operational now. This is a 'new to me' pool that came with the house, so I don't know the history.
I have not lowered the water, chipping out the old epoxy sealing the conduit sure sucked!

However the bonding wire is causing me some grief.

- Just before I finished up, I gave the bonding wire in the back of the niche a very light tug to make sure it was still secure. Of course, the striped part of the wire broke off.
- So I stripped it and cleaned off the sealant over the bonding terminal.
- I went to screw the bonding screw in to re secure the wire, and it broke half of the terminal off. (longitudinally, from top to base)
- There's now no way to secure that bonding wire that I can think of.
- I've been through some great threads here of people who had similar issues, including some feedback from pool companies about whether that bonding wire is even needed. Because the pool was installed in 96, I'm pretty keen to replace everything with how it was, as I'm sure it was inspected and to code then.

I'm figuring I have two options
- Because half of the lug/post is still there. I'm wondering if I can somehow clamp the wire to it.
- I could also in a repair ring, this may also make the light more secure as it really just feels like it would be hanging by the pilot screw. The only issue with this, is I do not have a lot of bonding wire to play with, so I would need to extend it to reach the bonding/grounding lug since it would not be up front. Is it acceptable to do that I wonder? Pool Light Adapter Repair Ring

The other gotcha, is that the pilot screw does not appear to be long enough to secure the new light into the niche. Is there an extra long version of the pilot screw that you can buy?
I've looked online but have not had any luck finding one. Maybe the best bet is to just head to Lowes and find a matching longer SS one.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

This is pretty close to the niche that we have.

 

[JamesW]

The bond wire is connected to the outside of the niche.

The purpose of the wire from the niche to the junction box is to provide a supplemental ground in addition to the ground wire in the light cord.

The wire is called a bonding jumper, but it's purpose is grounding.

There is no good answer to this. Here is a thread that addresses the same thing.

Rust from pool light ground wire

I don't know what the final resolution was.

 

[kiwipool]

Thanks so much James.

Your advice was beyond helpful!!

I have managed to get a temporary solution in place with a permanent solution to come.

Temp Solution - I managed to attach a bonding clamp to the very base of the remaining lug, actually against the nut that looks the lug into place. The type that is usually used to bond water pipes and the like. The Bonding Jumper is now reconnected to that.

Permanent solution - I'm ordering one of the repair rings Pool Light Adapter Repair Ring . I actually need this as the pilot hole is stripped meaning the pilot screw is not grounding the light casing to the metals trip in the fixture which the bonding jumper is relieving anyway.

You start to see why they have so much redundancy with the groundings. My niche was already not grounded due to the striped pilot hole, and that lug was probably a season away from just corroding off on its own without a light tug.

Nothing is easy.......

Thanks again.

 

[JamesW]

Ok, glad that we could help.

 

[kiwipool]

Hey James, I figured I'd ask this since its fresh.

As mentioned, my long term fix is to use the ss repair ring which will allow the light to have a grounding path to the bonding jumper (inside the niche) and the bonding wire (outside the niche) ...... via the pilot screw.

I just came across these wedges - as far as I can tell these would not ground the light correctly to the grounding path right? (as they replace the stripped out pilot screw). (link)

 

[JamesW]

The wedges are designed to secure the light. I don't think that they qualify as a ground lug.

 

[PoolguyinCT]

Several of the popular wedges actually interrupt the path to ground.

Frank Wall Enterprise’s has some clever & compliant products for this situations.

 

[kiwipool]

Well the Pool Light Adapter Repair Ring did not fit into my pentair plastic niche. So thats a bust sadly.

The grounding bond clamp I used to temporarily secure the bonding Jumper to the broken lug at the back of the plastic niche is rusting like crazy, so I need to get that out asap.

Frank Walls solutions look interesting, but do not tie the light to the grounding bar inside the plastic niche (that is attached to the bonding jumper).
So that would be the equivalent of the wedge for grounding purposes (or lack of).

I'm thinking the best solution is to find a immersible, corrosion resistant version of the bonding clamp, and simply add another wire from that to the pool light retaining ring. Then using a wedge to hold the light in the niche. (Then address next time the liner needs replacing, or switch to low voltage next time the light dies.)

Does anyone know which type of metals I should be trying to use for that bonding clamp? Brass?

In the following diagram, the green wire would be added to connect the light casing to the bonding lug, replacing the broken path (marked in red) due to the pilot hole rusting out.

 

[aaronhl]

Hi Did you fix this issue? The set screw for the ground broke off on my Pentair light niche also

 

[kiwipool]

Nope. After hours of research it seems like the only way to repair it is to rip out the niche (which is a massive expensive job).
I twisted the bonding jumper around what was left of the lug, and reinstalled the light.

Its very difficult to get an understanding for what that wire actually does.

Ive read that serves to pick up any stray current inside of the light wire conduit, and tie it back to the bonding grid.