HELP! need some help with a small electrical job

[gaiusmarius]

so could that be causing the wall receptacle melting?

i think that might be the middle 2 fuses, they are both for our water heater, it's a giant electric sucking fucker from the last century the 2 fuses in the middle are dedicated to the boiler, so maybe thats why they are daisy chained? does that make sense? it's only the 2 fuses at the top that are powering the wall sockets. look at pic 1 and you will see the first fuses on top are not daisy chained.

edited to add:

the daisy chained fuses are for the stove and dishwasher. the bottom 2x16amp fuses are for the water heater

 

[rives]

The fuses being daisy-chained on the supply side wouldn't have anything to do with receptacles melting - it would only affect the wire that is daisy chained. It just seems odd because the wire appears to be the same size as the others, and the load on it could potentially be doubled. It might be fine, but to make sure you would need to trace it back to where it is connected to the main, see what size the main breaker is, and make sure that the wire is appropriately sized for that amperage.

 

[gaiusmarius]

while i have your attention, there is another thing that might be part of the problem. when i calculate how many kwh i use at the moment over an average 3 month period i come to about 1670kwh used. but the bill i'm getting recently is charging me for nearly 4000kwh of use. now we do have a electric sucking water heater, but if i remember my old set up it was running at this rate with 4 lamps as well as normal usage. i remember a mate telling me once that if the lamps were wired wrong, they could suck double the power, cause otherwise it's not logical that the household uses more power then the grow.

maybe i will snap a pic of my self wired ballasts i'm using here so you can take a quick look for any obvious wiring flaws. i still didnt get round to picking up the other controller.

 

[rives]

I can't think of any scenario where mis-wiring a lamp would cause it to draw excessive power. It's more likely that you have a leak on the hot water side of your water heater, or a refrigerator/freezer that is giving you trouble. If you have a large exhaust fan going, they can add up because of the 24/7 nature of the load. A Kill-A-Watt meter is invaluable for finding these kinds of things.

 

[gaiusmarius]

yeah i was considering buying one of those plug in kilowatt counters. would be interesting to see what's using so much power. trouble is the fridge and stove are hard wired and built in. also the stove is running with the 380 watt connection. both units are only a few years old. i was thinking to get 1 of my new digital 600 watt lamps and plugging it in here to see how the rotations on the meter change speed, if they do. but i suppose the kilowatt meter is better for finding the problem.

yeah this was many years ago at another place. the lamps were the philips industria 600's and the electrician installed a whole system for us in the location, with the right amount of power, but as soon as we plugged all lamps in the fuse switch tripped. so the electrician checked something in the lamps and said that they were drawing way more then they should due to something or other being falsely wired in. the falsely attached unit was added to stop the lamps giving off too much interference for the old fashioned boilers that would get their signal to turn on at night over the grid, but too many lamps could interfere and the boiler stopped turning on. so these things were added to all lamps used in older buildings by us. in German it's called a Sperdrossel, to be honest i don't think these ballasts here even have one of those things wired in. but thats all i can think of. i guess i'll grab a kilowatt meter on Monday, hope they are not too expensive.

 

[gaiusmarius]

here some pics of the ballast and the sperdrossel thing pics didnt really come out to show everything.

 

[rives]

The picture on the left is a little perplexing. It looks like the transformer nameplate says that it is 600w (the top line), but the second line from the bottom looks like it says that it pulls 5.8 amps. 5.8a x 230v = 1330 watts. By any chance is that a double ballast? The schematic on the right doesn't appear to show that, but that wattage is right at double what it should be.

 

[gaiusmarius]

why the fuck would it pull twice as much as it's supposed to? man that would explain a whole lot. the amount of usage stated in my electric bill for example. i will buy one of those watt meters you can plug devices into and see how much watts they are pulling. that will quickly show if they are sucking too much. in the end though thats the only explanation for all this extra kwh's i'm getting billed for. what a crazy fuck up for a lamp whole sale co, to have the ballasts falsely assembled. specially as thats the same place i got the industrias at all those years ago that were also pulling double, till it was discovered and fixed.

 

[gaiusmarius]

better pic of the type of ballast

better pic of the type of ballast

here's a clearer pic of the label

 

[rives]

why the fuck would it pull twice as much as it's supposed to? man that would explain a whole lot. the amount of usage stated in my electric bill for example. i will buy one of those watt meters you can plug devices into and see how much watts they are pulling. that will quickly show if they are sucking too much. in the end though thats the only explanation for all this extra kwh's i'm getting billed for. what a crazy fuck up for a lamp whole sale co, to have the ballasts falsely assembled. specially as thats the same place i got the industrias at all those years ago that were also pulling double, till it was discovered and fixed.

It's very strange. The wattmeter, or a clamp-on ammeter, would be about the only way to tell what is going on.

 

[gaiusmarius]

i will call the guy that sold them to me. he might remember a problem that happened with that line. will ask him about the 5.8 amps. maybe get the watt meter first and check the usage though. man i wish i'd done electrician as an apprenticeship. probably wouldn't have taken over a year to figure out that the lamps were drawing double power, lol.

even the 1600 watt water heater wouldn't explain it, as it only runs a few hours a day in the economy tariff time at night so even if that fucker was drawing double it wouldn't more then double the whole usage, it's got to be the ballasts, can't wait to get this shit figured and sorted out step by step. i even have 2 nice new digital 600 lamps not being used right now, so i could trade them out quite easily.

 

[gaiusmarius]

so this is the newer controller, it seems to have plenty of free spots on the relay, and everything is easily accessible. maybe when you have some time, you can explain step for step what would need to be done with the new power cord with 2 hot legs. as well as what changes if any are needed with the internal wiring. will be getting the watt meter tomorrow. i'm really curious how thats gonna go, would be good to know where all that juice has gone to.

 

[rives]

so this is the newer controller, it seems to have plenty of free spots on the relay, and everything is easily accessible. maybe when you have some time, you can explain step for step what would need to be done with the new power cord with 2 hot legs. as well as what changes if any are needed with the internal wiring. will be getting the watt meter tomorrow. i'm really curious how thats gonna go, would be good to know where all that juice has gone to.

That one looks like a slam dunk to modify.

To first isolate another circuit, it looks like it would easiest to use the receptacle shown in the top of the picture for the new circuit. At the bottom of the contactor, there are two black wires going into terminal #2. Remove those wires, separate them from one another, and replace the wire going to the two receptacles on the bottom back into that same terminal. They look like they have some heat shrink on them and may be soldered together. You can just cut them off (leaving them as long as you can) and re-strip the insulation. Make sure that you torque the screw down snug, and tug on the wire to insure that it is captured in the terminal and held well.

The wire going up to the terminal block and then on to the receptacle in the top of the picture will remain - you can terminate it in either terminal #4 or #6. Those should be normally open contacts. #13 & #14 are probably normally closed or rated for lower current. If you have an ohmeter, we can go through how to test them.

The feed cable will need to be changed out to one with 4 conductors. You will want to replace all of the existing wires going into the terminal block between the relay and the cable entry. You will have one wire left over - you can either change out the existing terminal block for one with four terminals, or bypass the terminal block and terminate it in terminal #3 or #5 (use the one opposing whichever terminal you used above). The strain relief fitting may need to be changed out to one that will accept the larger cable, but it looks like you may have room to work with.

Once the other end of the cable is hooked up, you will now have the two bottom receptacles and the one on the top of the box on different circuits. Double check all of your connections to make sure they are tight.

 

[gaiusmarius]

hi again, thanks for the instructions above, will have to read them carefully a few times while looking at the open unit.

anyway the watt meter is telling me the lamps are not at fault, 1 of them runs at around 645w and the other is running at 620w. i can hardly believe we are using so much power for the rest of the house. the ventilation is running at 239watts. anyway i guess i should check what the tv, computers and consuls are using.

 

[rives]

Yes, I couldn't come up with a scenario that would explain the lamps pulling more power than they should - the lamps would burn out very quickly if the power was getting to them, and the ballasts would be glowing if they were dissipating that much extra power. I still find that nameplate odd, though.

Do you happen to have any faucets that are dripping? If you have a small leak on the hot water side, it can add up pretty quickly from the water heater having to run more than it should. Also, any type of refrigeration or air conditioning that is low on refrigerant will have to run longer in order to maintain the temperature that they are set for.

 

[gaiusmarius]

as a matter of fact the ballasts are very hot, you can not keep your hand on the block for very long before it gets too hot to stand. i have wondered for a while if they are supposed to get so hot.

have been checking the appliances and nothing is sucking a crazy amount of power. now i regret i didnt buy the more expensive meter which could be clipped on the wires, then i could check the water boiler. but the thing is that thing is set to only run during the cheap power time after midnight till about 5 or 6am. it takes about 4 hours to heat up a cold tank from my experience. so i dont think that explains it either. will have to work it out on paper.

how do you calculate the vacuum cleaner, hair drier, microwave oven, glass top stove and oven usage? we don't have ac, climate is not to extreme here and even in summer we get by with oscillating fans. the heat is run with oil. need to get to the bottom of this. we are a big family, but still seems extreme to use more power for the house then for the grow.

 

[rives]

Ballasts do run hot. If you can touch them and keep your hand on it for a few seconds, they are probably normal. Also, the total draw for the circuit should be around +/- 110% of the lamp wattage, so they look like they are fine. If anything, the one pulling 620w looks low to me.

Usually what you are looking for would be loads that are longer duration than normal, not that pull immense amounts of power at one time. Even very heavy loads (clothes dryer, oven, welder, electric furnace, etc) are only a problem if they run too long or too frequently. If they are pulling more power than they should be, the device will usually burn up in pretty short order or blow the fuse.

Your smaller appliances should have a wattage on their nameplates, as should the stove, etc. You can calculate what each would cost you per hour of usage and then multiply it by the duration that they are used.

Do you know how to read your meter? You could get a handle on your daily usage by reading it at the same time every day and trending the data. Also, watching how quickly the meter reading increments and systematically killing the loads may be informative.