hey man, mainly been doing only high voltage as a third year apprentice, thanks for catching me up on all the residential stuff, appreciate it! Keep the youtube stuff coming.
We had this objectionable current problem in our garage refrigerator. I wouldn’t have known about it until I plugged an electric pump in to pump water out of a kids pool. It used the same outlet as the refrigerator. I touched the stream of water while holding on an aluminum ladder stood up in the dirt. I got an immediate shock. I thought it was the pump. It was plastic. I thought it was the extension cord. It wasn’t. The ungrounded outlet box had the hot wire pierced by a cover screw. It passed the hot voltage through the ground blade of the appliance plug to the refrigerator. I grabbed a non-contact voltage reader and the whole refrigerator skin - top, sides, back, doors, was live from the hot line tied into the metal box. I finally tracked the issue to the outlet box.
Do you have a video explaining what objectible current is? Im thinking its a 240 v circuit that has 120 v usage on one leg creating more amperage on that leg. Now it needs a return path for the imbalance. Hope i said that right. What i am getting out of this is the ground is replacing a neutral to create the 120 v circuit. I recently installed a 240 v circuit for a dryer. There wasnt anything i. The dryer for a neutral, just two hots and a green ground screw. I used 10/2 nm through EMT labeling the neutral wire with red tape at both ends. With a 4 wire receptacle being code now, where would the neutral be connected on the dryer?
Question. The voltage potential would be split based on how much resistance is on which wire right? So that .7V is based on the resistance difference in the neutral and the ground wire through the meter? So therefore your resistance likely being higher than the meter means you would experience even less volts
So in this case touching this ground with objectionable current is not different than touching a good neutral. Also to add the danger not talked about here is fire hazard on a loose ground.
I see and understand the concern. I have never encountered any voltage sparking off like this before. The stove connects to 240 and usually has a neutral wire with it's plug set up. Stoves work off 120 and 240 depending on the temp rheostat setting so that neutral return wire from plug carries the imbalance. And stoves should be grounded for safety as well. Looks like this stove ground is carrying more than that. The neutral connection is on this stove I assume going to ground ?
Yes, this is a 1968 stove wired to pre 1996 code. It is just one wire acting as both ground and neutral. Which electrically is the same a not separating the grounds and neutral in a subpanel. If you have a sub-panel with ground and neutral combined and there is an imbalance, the metal from any equipment fed from that panel will arc if it contacts any the metal frame of equipment fed from a properly grounded panel Or it contacts any properly grounded like a metal a water pipe.
4:02. Some ranges during the 1960s, instead of using an infinite heat control that virtually all modern ranges use to vary the power of the burner by cycling on and off, instead used a fixed position switch or push buttons for 5 power levels, and the cooktop element was actually two elements, 3 terminals, and by switching various combinations of 120 or 240 volts in parallel or series, provided the different power levels. In these older ranges, if the neutral failed the lower burner settings wouldn't work, leaving you only with high and medium-high, for instance, oven and broiler would still work, however the oven light, timer, indicator lights and convenience outlet wouldn't work. So this 1968 NEC handbook is sort of correct, regarding the appliance becoming inoperable. The permission of using a grounded conductor to ground the frames of ranges and dryers (essentially a "code compliant " bootleg ground receptacle) can trace it's roots to the Tentative Interim Amendment 53, put in place July 1942 and supposedly as an effort to conserve raw materials during WWII. Ironically Canada never permitted this and therefore required a dryer or range to have a 4 wire receptacle as soon as equipment grounds were mandatory in the early 60s.
I have a tik Tok with 96k followers I would love you input ony videos over there too. My RU-vid is just me reposting some of my tik toks. I have a code book collection back to 1940 it only complete back to 68 my I have a 40, 47 and one from the 50's I think it's a 53
