Hi, guys. It's been awhile since I've posted, but I've been extremely busy Good for the bill collectors etc......
Anyway, I was changing a service today, and after taking the existing wires off the old breakers, I felt a "tingle" on one of the 220 circuits ( with the wire off the breaker.) I got my meter and checked it. I was getting around 25 volts, but the voltage would start going down immediately. I checked it again and the same thing. I was too involved in trying to get their power back on to worry about it then, so I taped the ends of the wires and proceeded to finish changing the panel out. After I pulled the meter and had my new panel mounted and was about to tie the new breakers back in, I thought I would check the wires again, just for curiousity, knowing for sure they couldn't be any power on it now. In fact, I said to myself, "if there's power on them now, I've got a problem. Guess what? It was still there. I've got to go back tommorrow to finish the job. The only thing I can get out of this, is that somehow the telephone line in somewhere in contact with this circuit and somehow bleeding through??? If that is the case, then the high voltage must be bleeding onto the telephone circuit somehow??? The homeowner came home and I asked her about if she had some sort of other power supply in the house ( her mother is sickly, and I thought maybe for her sake they may have some sort of back up or something). She said "no, she did not, but that her telephones were still working when the power was off, which leads me to think she had the standard phones and not a cordless phone which requires 120 volt for the adapter. Another thing I guess it could be, she said something about batteries, so the voltage could be coming from the batteries in her phone system, what ever type it is ( I know there are several new types of phones out there), but it would still have to be in contact with the 220 volt line somewhere it looks like. Anyone ever come across this, or have any ideas? Thanks for listening. This is a new one for me. When you think you've been through it all, there seems always to be something new. Keeps our line of work challenging

[This message has been edited by sparkync (edited 10-17-2005).]

Did you measure the voltage with a digital meter, or a wiggy. Also are these conductors in close proximity to the service wires or another circuit?

Dave

What does this 220 circuit supply.

Was the freak voltage a/c or d/c.
I'm sure you checked it with a digital because I've never been able to get a reading with a wiggy on a voltage that low.
If it were batteries feeding into the system, it would have to be d/c unless there was an inverter involved.

Cap discharge?

Sounds like cap. discharge except that the voltage keeps returning even with the service disconnected.

Thanks for the replies. Yes I used a digital meter. Lamplighter, I think you may have the answer. It may have been a cap discharge. I forgot to say that after I checked it a few times, that finally I got nothing. I thought it strange that all of a sudden after all that checking it stopped. I'll check it tomorrow to see what it went to. The breakers wern't labeled correctly, and there had been some
unauthorized "tampering" with the panel before I got there. I could tell from the way they brought a piece of 3/4" pvc into the panel. Instead of using an "LB" to come in the side of the panel, they used 2 90's, ( one to go under the panel, then back up in the panel) I had to change it. I didn't want the inspector to think I did it And by the way, when I was putting the new breakers in, I noticed that they had a 50 amp. breaker on this # 10 wire that I had the voltage on. At first I thought they just over fused the wire, then I determined that it might be coming from an a/c unit somewhere, in which case you'll allowed to overfuse the wire. This may explain that it was a discharge from one of the capacitors, though I've never had it to happen to me before. Thanks for the input. I'll check it tomorrow. Steve

Back again. Checked out the job today, and it Was the a/c circuit giving out the voltage. I checked it at the disconnect with the power off, and I got about the same readings. It would go up to about 34 volts then start dropping. The unit is pretty old. Never seen them do this before. Anyway, another mystery solved. Thanks again... Steve

[This message has been edited by sparkync (edited 10-18-2005).]

Is the mystery really solved? If this were a case of capacitor discharge, why does the voltage keep coming back? What am I missing?

It's the phone guys using a a nail driven through one of your conduits to support their wire before they string it festoon style across the alley to the neighbors yard where a teenage girl is making random long distance calls at the expence of your customer.

Tripp, some capacitor types exhibit what is known as "dielectric adsorption". The insulating material stores a certain amount of charge that isn't immediately available at the electrodes. You can short the electrodes, and the voltage drops to zero. But then when you open the electrodes, the voltage will rise again as charge carriers slowly trickle out of the insulation.

-Jon