Circuit Breaker Finders Amprobe

Greetings all.



This is my first post here, I hope it goes well.



My name is Joe and I have searched Google. and this forum for my answer but have not been able to find a definitive answer to my question.  I have seen many replies talking about getting a tone generator or a line tracer but my experience is that tone generators are for Data and phone cables rather than electrical cables and the line tracers I've found online all seem to be about tracing the line back to the breaker panel so without knowing more I'm hesitant to purchase a line tracer in case it cannot do what I want.

My dilemma is very likely very simple to anyone with electrical experience so I hope it's not too trivial for this crowd.

I have recently purchased a house that is over 120 years old and have a motion sensor light on the porch that is supposedly connected to a switch inside but does not turn on.  I've opened the wall plate and used a voltage indicating pen to see where the electricity is.  In this case there are two light switches, one that has lines that have been spliced and another that supposedly leads to the porch light according to a long time tenant in that unit.  It all looks like a bit of a mess and the connections don't make sense.  In this scenario the black cables have the electricity and the white cables complete the circuit.  The switch to the porch light has a black cable coming from the top of the box going to the switch and a white cable connected to the other screw that comes from splitting the white cable from the other switch.  What I would like to do is know which cables in that wall box correspond to the cables to the porch light.  Can anyone give me an idea what I should do?

Do I need something like the Amprobe advanced wire tracer (http://www.professionalequipment.com...0/wire-tracer/) and can it do what I need, or is there something simpler I can do?

All help is appreciated.

Thanks



Joe
      

My kitchen circuit breaker tripped again (California).  Resetting the suspect circuit breaker used to fix this...   (it happens every few months) Now things are dark again in the kitchen and most of the back of the house. Resetting the usual suspect circuit breaker does not help. I reset all of them for good measure. (still dark).



The strange is when checking voltages with meter voltmeter, from the bottom-up, every other breaker terminal does not read 120V, they are OV.   All of the breakers are set properly, so why are half of them dead at their output terminal (where the wire connects)  I'm thinking possibly a buss bar problem? If so, how to troubleshoot that?





                                                                            Thx!!



                                                                       Mark
      

That means it applies to the entire country

Permits & Inspections are usually required for ALL electric work

It may not be legal for you to do your own work, Check with your local Building Dept

This thread will be added onto as a form of "Cliff Notes" for the NEC

If there is something that needs to be corrected, or if you wish to add to this thread; please let us know



The NEC is available online, you may have to sign up for an account to view it:

http://nfpaweb3.gvpi.net/rrserver/br...NFPASTD/7008SB

(may not be working)



Draft Version:

http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF...08ROPDraft.pdf 



Also a link to State specific NEC/Building codes:

http://bulk.resource.org/codes.gov/



New Code book comes out every 3 years, it is not always fully accepted by States & sometimes not until 1-2 years later

Local codes can vary from the NEC



210.23 An individual branch circuit shall be permitted to supply any load for which it is rated (some think you can only load to 80%)



210.50 Required Branch circuits

14g wire is rated for 15a, 12g wire is rated for 20a

15a outlets ONLY on a 15a circuit

15a/20a are allowed on a 20a circuit

A single 15a receptacle is not allowed on a 20a circuit

AFCI protection is required almost every where under NEC 2008

Exceptions are GFCI required: bathrooms, kitchens, laundry (GFCI if sink within 6' of receptacle), garage & outside circuits



Bathroom requires a dedicated 20a GFCI protected circuit that can serve outlets in multiple bathrooms

OR

Outlets & Lights in One bathroom



Kitchen requires 2 dedicated 20a GFCI protected circuits for counter (no lights)



Laundry area requires a dedicated 20a GFCI protected circuit

.

.
      

Hi,



I just purchased a new Leviton whole-house surge suppressor (model 51110-001):  http://tinyurl.com/6rza9xk



It requires a 2-pole 20 amp breaker. I have a Square D 200 amp service panel (house is new -- about 3 years old) and I have installed a new QO 20 amp breaker  (model QO220CP) to be dedicated to the surge suppressor connection: http://tinyurl.com/7kxbbub



However, I noticed the Leviton SPD has what appears to be stranded aluminum wires rather than copper which I thought was unusual.  Is it acceptable to attach the stranded aluminum wires to the breaker even though the breaker has copper terminals?  Do I need to use an anti-oxidant compound on the wires before connecting them to the breaker?



Thanks!
      

I was going to put this in this thread  Junction box in stud wall behind drywall?  but, decided to start a new one.



Two nights ago while sitting in my kitchen the can lights in my soffits above my cabinets suddenly went out. At first I thought my daughter or her boyfriend was messing with me and reached around the corner and flipped the switch. Nope. Tried the other switch near me and nothing. Everything else in the kitchen worked.



Thinking tripped breaker for a moment...nope other lights work on the circuit. Can't be 6 CFL's burnd out at the same time. Hmmmmm?



Background:

Kitchen was remodeled 12 years ago. Drywall was in good shape so not removed. Added circuits for Fridge, Microwave, Garbage disposal, Stove (gas),Dishwasher, range hood, and countertop recepts. None of these are tied to lights. Original task lighting was 4' tubes over countertops above cabinets. Remodel added sofits and can lights from these two feeds



Started tracing circuit path to look for loose/broken wire. Found no power at lights. Checked power at breaker...Good. Follow wire to kitchen, no junctions. Wire disapears up into wall below the switch area. Check for power at switch box. Yep, power there. Power off and pigtail Neutral/hot  wires at a can light together. No continuity on the load side of the switch circuit. Broken wire somewhere between the switch and the lights. Fortunaly there is an attic space above the kitchen. Unfortunatly, it is a short headroom ~3' or less and full of blown ihn insulation. In I go to trace the wire.  after about 10 min up there I found the burried junction box. At some time in the past there used to be a single light in the center of the "U" shaped kitchen cabinets. This was abandoned and the box was drywalled over...still in the location for the light hookup so the cover was not readily accessable. found a tightly twisted Ground, Neutral and Hot with nuts. All looked good untill I Started messing with them. found that one of the hot leads had broken right at the insulation on the wire. Looking at it closer I could see some arc burn at the break. I am thinking that when the handy hack that did the job nicked the wire he did not know or care and tristed it together anyway. It took over, to my best guess, 20 years for it to fail.



Moral... It can happen
      

Now I have a 20 amp breaker at the circuit box that has older two wire, ie black and white no ground.  This cable looks to be in good shape.  This services several overhead lights in bedrooms.  I need to tie into this to create overhead lights in the bathroom and hallway.  Can I replace the 20 amp breaker with a 15 amp breaker, and then use 14-2 cable to connect the bathroom and hall lighting?  I do not know if the present older cable is 12 or 14.  I assume it is 12 since it has been tied into this 20 amp breaker before I bought the house.   



  Thank you to all who help. 
      

Hi all, this is my first post, so...my kitchen was just renovated and the electrical outlets are on the walls and I wanted them in plugmold under the cabinet. Why didn't it happen?  Long story, but I'm doing it myself now.  The electrical receptacles are on 2 separate circuits with a gfci receptacle on each and neither circuit has a receptacle outside the kitchen where I can put the gfci's, so I'm putting gfci breakers in the panel instead. I've run into a different problem on each circuit that'd like some advice on.



Circuit 1: this is a 20 amp circuit.  I have to plug this circuit's neutral wire into the gfci breaker, but I couldn't see which neutral wire matched the hot wire (buried in mess of wires) and I don't have a continuity tester so I just pulled one neutral at a time (tedious) until the circuit failed, but it never failed. So I did this again for every neutral...same result. This circuit shares a few boxes with other circuits so I'm wondering if the neutrals on different circuits are tied together somewhere, and if so I'm pretty sure, but not completely, that that's not going to work with the gfci breaker.  So I didn't install that gfci breaker since I'm not confident it would actually gfci (yep i verbified gfci).  What do you think?



Circuit 2:  this is a 20 amp circuit.  This circuit currently has the refrigerator, gas stove and range hood, and then a gfci in front of 3 electrical receptacles, which already sounds bad since I thought the kitchen receptacles required 2 dedicated circuits. I replaced that breaker with no problem, but it tripped after a few minutes and continued to trip every few minutes. I haven't changed anything else on that circuit yet and it's never tripped before, but now it is, so I put the old breaker back for now. The current gfci receptacle is only protecting the 3 outlets since the appliances are ahead of it. I know you wouldn't normally want the appliances gfci protected, so do you think the refrigerator motor may be a problem?  Do I need the appliances on a separate circuit?  What would you suggest I do?



Thanks, and if you're wondering "why all the effort?", it's partly because I'm meddlesome, partly because I'm bored, and partly because the backsplash tile is to be on showcase, not the electrical receptacles.
      

One link I found that has possible changes

http://www.ecmag.com/?fa=article&articleID=10115



Another

http://www.iaei.org/magazine/?p=4454




    Quote:

   

   
      

         
            New: 404.2(C) Switches Controlling Lighting Loads

A new subdivision will require a grounded conductor to be provided to switch locations that control lighting, unless the wiring is installed in a raceway or the physical construction of the building allows for relative ease of future addition of other conductors
         
      

   
   


Seems a Neutral (grounded conductor) may need to be included on switched loops

Still looking for more info



DRAFT:



http://www.4shared.com/file/23118541...011_Draft.html
      

Hey there,

I'm kind of a noob to the electrical feild so i'm sorry if this is a really basic question but I wanted to know if I could connect this circuit

















to something like this



http://www.pegasuslighting.com/elect...paltr60pi.html



Could anyone give me any ideas on how i could do it?
      

Getting ready to replace my well jet pump with a 240 volt model (currently I use a 120 volt pump. Currently I have a 20 amp, 120 volt circuit that runs from the house to the pump house about 60 feet. I use that circuit for the pump, a light and a receptacle. I want to replace that circuit with a 20 amp MWBC using 12/3 UF cable from the sub panel in my detached barn to the pump house (about 20 feet).



Question: Can I use 1/2" seal-tite to run from the sub panel to a a junction box prior to going underground with the 12/3 UF? The seal-tight run would be about 30". (I have a bunch of seal-tite, connectors and #12 THWN that I bought cheap at a storage unit auction.) The seal-tite would be run in the stud bay and along side the ceiling joist to get from one side of the barn to the other.



Question: Can I use an unfused air conditioning disconnect at the pump house to disconnect the 2 ungrounded conductors of the MWBC.



I can find nothing in the NEC that would bar either of these items, but I am a code novice.