Timeline for Low voltage on 120V receptacle after too much load
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 15, 2016 at 15:30 | comment | added | supercat | @MatthewLevine: I'd suggest overloading the outlet again to trip a breaker and find out which breaker tripped, and whether the failure to trip the mate was a one-time thing or represents consistent behavior. If the latter, one or both breakers should be replaced to ensure that a trip on either will disconnect the other, since the scenario where one trips and the other remains live can be dangerous. | |
| Jan 15, 2016 at 4:30 | comment | added | Matt | Luckily for me this turned out to be the problem. Either multiple breakers were tripped (but not showing it) or I didn't proper flip the breakers when I tried it the first time. I went through and carefully flipped each breaker off and on and that did the trick. Like you said, I probably have one of these dual breaker circuits setup (which would explain getting 13v instead of 0) or I simply didn't flip it correctly the first time | |
| Jan 15, 2016 at 4:27 | vote | accept | Matt | ||
| Jan 14, 2016 at 22:52 | comment | added | supercat | @MatthewLevine: Circuit breakers are designed with a mechanism which is cocked by moving the handle to "off" and released when an overload occurs, so a breaker can trip even if the handle is held in the "on" position; the handle will spring to the "tripped" position if it can, but the circuit will disconnect regardless. If you haven't flipped all connected pairs of breakers off and back on, it may be that one of the breakers has an insufficiently-strong "tripped" spring to switch off the other breaker, so the untripped breaker holds the tripped on in what appears to be the "on" position. | |
| Jan 14, 2016 at 22:15 | comment | added | Matt | Interesting, first I've heard of it, but then again, I'm pretty new to the world of electrical circuits. Given that, are you saying that it's possible there's another breaker that might need to be reset? I plan on trying to reset all of my breakers again to make sure I did it properly and with enough force. But if you have any other ideas on how to resolve it (even it if it's "call a pro") that would be excellent | |
| Jan 14, 2016 at 22:09 | history | answered | supercat | CC BY-SA 3.0 |