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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 37
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I was hooking up a ground wire in a panel and i seen a small spark when i touched it to the ground bar also i was tightning the screws on the neautral bar and my screwdriver touched the side of the panel and made a big spark is this normal??
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Anonymous
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If your ground is bonded to the box and your neutral and ground are bonded somewhere in the service, then there can be no spark between the neutral bar and the box.
A ground which sparks is energized. That indicates a short, malfunction, or miswiring.
None of what you describe is normal.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 2,148
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Stan, Was this in the main panel or a sub-panel? There may be a small arc between the grounding and grounded conductor in a sub-panel due to the voltage drop that will occur in the grounded conductor? Don(resqcapt19)
Don(resqcapt19)
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Joined: Oct 2000
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stan, said ground wire may be acting as a parrallel nuetral
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 37
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it is in the main panel inside the home
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 2,148
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Stan, Does this panel have a main bonding jumper? Don(resqcapt19)
Don(resqcapt19)
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Joined: Mar 2001
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How old is the house? Where does the circuit you are working on go to? Was the dryer running when you were doing this?
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 142
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This is not unusual, you created another path to ground. The Neutral and a ground share the current back to the transformer. Because the neutral has significantly lower resistance that the ground it will carry the bulk of the current say from 90-95 % of the current but by connecting a ground to the neutral bar it just ccreated another path.
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Posts: 28
Joined: February 2011
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