Druidic exploits of a various nature!!

[v8druid]

guess where I've been this afternoon .....summoned up the enthusiasm for another look at it





goggles, mask, CO meter, etc. and ventured back into the roof space, where I'd left everything a couple of weeks ago, when I abandoned me post feeling rough as a dog.


got a fair bit sorted and one pair of tails for me catenary re-routed through the isolator and from thence to the boxes.
still got the 10mm tails to 'persuade' down into the consumer unit from the isolator, to feed the black shed with ..... Pam was off out at 5 and I wasn't allowed to play with the live bits, once she'd left, so a job for the morning


took a couple of pix of Pam's 'new' sleeper flower boxes, before it pee-ed down this morning ..... they're maturing nicely

[v8druid]

I would really like to meet the muppet who wired our consumer unit ....





what a pig's guts ..... no one seems to take a pride in their work anymore, or the extra few minutes to make a tidy job of it ... should be shot !!





tails inserted gynecologically and suitably inserted in their final resting places amongst the mayhem already there





time to go see if everything was as it should be ..... now't had tripped or gone off pop .....





well happy with the results ......other than a weird anomaly with the outside floods ??????


I have them set up on a two way circuit which can be activated/switched off from either the house or a switch on the outside of the shed ....
was fine one way .... t'other 'way' they were briefly flashing on ??????


lot of head scratching, circuit checking, wiring investigating, more head scratching and it came to me ......
these IP67 switches I like, for outdoor use, have a 'tell tale' neon in them, so's you can find 'em in the dark. The neon can be wired one of three ways .... on a one way circuit only, it would appear ....
pity the data sheet with them doesn't say it can't be done on a two way circuit, even though they're a two way switch!!


the flashing was the neon triggering the LED floods through a 'sort of' 'leak' to live ..... took it out of circuit ... problem cured .... took a little thought, but sussed it in the end .


now awaiting darkness to see just what sort of results we have .... both in't shed and outside.

another hour back in me favorite place to square up and secure everything ....





I like flexi conduit .... bit easier than SWA and greater choice of core numbers, as needed!!





trying to thread it all amongst the pig's guts above the consumer was as 'uphill' as it actually was in the unit, tight in a corner





and I was out o' there





must fix a couple of permanent crawl boards in there for future access to the isolator , for ' as and when ' !!


Am I glad to have that end wrapped up !!

[v8druid]

it did it again Muz had to re-insert the links an' the emoji just took 2 mins to appear
links were fine in preview, but no show when posted

[AndrewMawson]

Every alternate picture is giving me a 404 error in a little black box

[v8druid]

Every alternate picture is giving me a 404 error in a little black box

Tha's 'cos I went back in and had to re-post the pix Andrew.
they showed in preview and disappeared in the post.
Left 'em in for Muz to see them .....the 404s are the pix below them
summat weird going on ..... exactly the same links

[v8druid]

been a wild 36-48 hrs here ..... horizontal rain and howling winds ..... which continued well after the rain stopped ... and dried it all again

can not believe the grass growth in a couple of days and well happy to find it all dry enough to massacre this afternoon






Sparty did his usual trick of riding round on my lap whilst i tried to keep the mower on course ....



he draws the line at the Dane though







sorted for a few more days and the evening has come out real nice ..... time for some grub

[Muz]

Some posts here about https have been moved over to the https thread to preserve this thread

[v8druid]

right gentlemen .... any leccies/sparkies on here
.... pitch darkness here last night - I mean 'kin black ... looked at the shed and the LED flood is flashing again ... very much reduced from the first 'fault/issue' ..barely visible and can't be seen in daylight at all .... but a faint pulse, all the same, maybe once every two seconds

standard two way circuit employed ......

Two way circuit.JPG

been out and bought some new switches again today, as the only thing I can think of is a faulty switch leaking voltage ... can't be an earth leak or the RCB/MCBs'd be popping off .... has to be a voltage leak triggering the LED ... if it was a faulty unit it'd show in the 'on' position .... in the 'off' position there should be ZERO voltage going to it

any one care to contribute ??
this is officially pissing me off

[v8druid]

been out to a mate's most of the day, helping him strip a gert machine that needed two pairs of eyes/hands/brain cells.
didn't get back 'til gone four and have had a couple of hours investigating.


before anyone asks ... it has a full and complete earth circuit, right the way back to the consumer unit in the house ?


Cannot find any leak with a meter across circuits or switches?
replaced the pull cord switch .. no difference ..... had the 2 way rocker out of circuit and meter-ed it .... sod all .....


the flash rate is approx. every three seconds and so dim you need to be up the ladder next to the unit to see it.
meter across live and neutral gives zero to 46 volts, building over the three seconds .. LED triggers, return to zero and builds again .. etc., etc. .... it's just like a capacitor charging


Isolate the circuit at the MCB .... zero Volts at the LED and both switches, so it's somewhere in that circuit, but shows zero cross talk between any line with a meter ?? I have three points at which I can meter it over the length of all the circuits between the house and the shed and two more at the shed end .... all showing zero cross talk with a 2 meg Ω test ??
..... then the bell tolled and it was tea time


I might try replacing the LED unit with a bulb holder and tungsten bulb and see WTF I get then ..... but can not for the life of me see how the voltage is arriving and building slowly over three seconds at the LED unit, with both switches in the off position ???????
Inducted voltage over the length of the two control wires between the switches ... about 100 ft ?????
there is a constant live at the L1 poles, in both switches, running beside the L2 and common leads
'S got me foxed ......... for now at least .....


'sposed to piss down tomorrow, so leccy fiddling'll be out the window, if it does and'll probably be over at Simon's tomorrow rebuilding said lump, if he gets a couple of bit's mod.-ed tonight

there is summat odd about these things, for sure
.... just been out and locked the shed (as I forgot, after tea ) and having turned the 3 strips on inside, when turned off, they took a good minute to stop glowing to the point I couldn't see them
not bad light off the little floods though .... only 10W ones (see WTF you are type thing) and a very respectable amount of light from them
got some bigger 50W ones I haven't tried yet .... be interesting to see what level of light they emit .... 'sposed to be equivalent to a 500W halogen


more than happy with the strip lights .......



without the overhead storage in the way it'd be some bit bright in there

[Mattir]

right gentlemen .... any leccies/sparkies on here
.... pitch darkness here last night - I mean 'kin black ... looked at the shed and the LED flood is flashing again ... very much reduced from the first 'fault/issue' ..barely visible and can't be seen in daylight at all .... but a faint pulse, all the same, maybe once every two seconds

standard two way circuit employed ......

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4373[/ATTACH]

been out and bought some new switches again today, as the only thing I can think of is a faulty switch leaking voltage ... can't be an earth leak or the RCB/MCBs'd be popping off .... has to be a voltage leak triggering the LED ... if it was a faulty unit it'd show in the 'on' position .... in the 'off' position there should be ZERO voltage going to it

any one care to contribute ??
this is officially pissing me off

Below is my style of drawing of the circuit you have.

The leds can flicker due to induced electricity but the question is that what else is in that circuit? Any other loads?
61BDA100-9A04-474B-A381-DB7E35FCF8C9.jpg

[AndrewMawson]

I'd certainly agree with Mattir that his circuit is how I'd wire a two way switch. Never seen it done your way Druid, but I'm not saying it won't work, just unconventional..

[v8druid]

Below is my style of drawing of the circuit you have.

The leds can flicker due to induced electricity but the question is that what else is in that circuit? Any other loads?
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4375[/ATTACH]

there is no other loading on the two way circuit at all Mat just a 10W LED flood

I'd certainly agree with Mattir that his circuit is how I'd wire a two way switch. Never seen it done your way Druid, but I'm not saying it won't work, just unconventional..

cheers guys ..... it's the circuit that the rocker switch has it in it's tech spec. and I believe allows for 3 way/multi way functionality.
Mat's way is certainly what i'd expect for a conventional 2 way set up ............. but ..... it would still allow induced current as one of the two links is always live and has the capacity to induce a voltage in the other .... unless they had a decent separation ...... which i can't do

what i need now is something to 'kill' the induced voltage .... like maybe a resistor or a capacitor across the load perhaps??

having spent many idle moments pondering all possible, I am convinced it's induced voltage as EVERYTHING checks out fine, circuit wise ... no **** ups
will have a suss of the practicalities of re-arranging things to the simpler 'std.' two way circuit ...... but as said there will still be 100+ ft of live wire nestled beside the offending non-live wire, to induce a voltage into ..... bugger

I'm considering going to low voltage (12-24V) control system and banging a relay in the shed to handle the 240V side of the switching .... a bloody faff, but would isolate the remote cabling completely

thanks for the input guys

[v8druid]

OK ... on the right track ..... it's called Ghost or Phantom voltage ....
" Ghost voltages can be caused when energized circuits and non energized wiring are located in close proximity to each other, such as in the same conduit or raceway. ... The meter is actually measuring voltage coupled into the disconnected conductor. "


... the longer the run, the worse it is


trying to find a method of eliminating them has proved a lot more difficult on Google .... Any ideas chaps?? ... capacitor (or resisitor?) across the LED connections to suppress that ghost voltage and stop the LED tripping/firing (flashing) ??


can't seem to find any 'proprietary' ghost voltage 'slayers' on google

been rummaging me stores this evening for suitable relays for a variation on the control circuits .... got 24V, 110V and 240V on 11 pin with plenty of bases for an install ....

might see if the ghost voltage'll trigger a 240V relay at all .... will save transforming the voltage down to 24V for the control circuit, if it doesn't and simplify the install .... even got some DIN rail relay bases that'd go in the consumer unit

[AndrewMawson]

Trouble is that anything you put across to discharge the phantom voltage will have to take full mains when the light is on intentionally unless you add complicated switching to take it out of circuit. I would have to be a resistor as it's the wires capacitance that causing the problem. Our stairs light glows dimly when it's supposed to be off for the same reason, but I just live with it as it's handy when the grandchildren come to stay!

[v8druid]

Trouble is that anything you put across to discharge the phantom voltage will have to take full mains when the light is on intentionally unless you add complicated switching to take it out of circuit. I would have to be a resistor as it's the wires capacitance that causing the problem. Our stairs light glows dimly when it's supposed to be off for the same reason, but I just live with it as it's handy when the grandchildren come to stay!

a dim glow would be tolerable TBH .... it's the flashing every 3 seconds that i can't tolerate ..... aside from the annoyance of it and the cause .... triggering the unit like that is going to drastically reduce its life span

the 'snubber' units are rated at 300V and designed to run in parallel with the load, so should be fine
Also been told that an incandescent lamp in parallel will sort to issue too

Gonna give a 10W bulb a try in circuit later and see if it cures the issue .... should in theory ground the phantom voltage to neutral through the bulb filament .... but you're then running a.n.other bulb when the LEDs are in operation