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Loser Araysar

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Question for all you big brains. This is pissing me off.

In the garage attached to my house there are many outlets. On several different breakers. All of them 20 amp. However, when I use something like my table saw with those outlets it trips the breakers on the first try every single time. Once I reset the breaker it works fine unless I stop for more than 20 minutes. Then, once I start the table saw, it trips it again. I reset it, and it's fine for a while.

What in the actual heck is going on here? I've checked the wiring, it's solid. 12 gauge, all connections are good, I've even replaced the breakers but it continues to happen.

help me
 
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Captain Suave

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Question for all you big brains. This is pissing me off.

In the garage attached to my house there are many outlets. On several different breakers. All of them 20 amp. However, when I use something like my table saw with those outlets it trips the breakers on the first try every single time. Once I reset the breaker it works fine unless I stop for more than 20 minutes. Then, once I start the table saw, it trips it again. I reset it, and it's fine for a while.

What in the actual heck is going on here? I've checked the wiring, it's solid. 12 gauge, all connections are good, I've even replaced the breakers but it continues to happen.

help me
Have you tried a clamp meter to see how much power your saw actually draws on startup?
 

Erronius

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Are they arc fault breakers, or standard? I'm assuming standard because garage. GFCI breakers?

Only time i can think of seeing something similar, that it wasn't a breaker issue, was water in a box. So sometimes it would short, but water likes to boil off if there isn't much. Continued use kept it from accumulating, but if you left it alone water would re-accumulate and cause another initial short, Rinse and repeat.

But it's also weird that I think you're saying it happens on multiple circuits/breakers.
 
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Fucker

Log Wizard
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Anyone have any experience with cheaper generators like Predator or Champion? I'm looking for one because we are coming up on power outage season here. Usually not more than a few hours at most, so won't need beefy hardware.

I'll have an electrician come out and put in an interlock and run a line to the outside.

I'm looking at a Champion open frame inverter generator...dual fuel. 3500 watts continuous. I have a natural gas furnace and water heater, and the rest of our use is lights...and all those are LED. Won't be running anything big like AC or washer dryer stove microwave. Can turn down the temp on furnace and water heater, so overall power requirement won't be big. I like the idea of dual fuel. The Champion will run off propane tank that you can buy anywhere. Champion says 22 hour run time at 25% load which isn't bad at all. Way easier to store a few bottles of propane than 5-gal gas cans.
 

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
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Question for all you big brains. This is pissing me off.

In the garage attached to my house there are many outlets. On several different breakers. All of them 20 amp. However, when I use something like my table saw with those outlets it trips the breakers on the first try every single time. Once I reset the breaker it works fine unless I stop for more than 20 minutes. Then, once I start the table saw, it trips it again. I reset it, and it's fine for a while.

What in the actual heck is going on here? I've checked the wiring, it's solid. 12 gauge, all connections are good, I've even replaced the breakers but it continues to happen.

help me
obviously Erronius Erronius is gonna be the savior here, if i remember you said you had a big boi table saw, not like a contractor table saw, so i expect that would want to draw more, is it plugged directly to the outlet or w/ an extension cord, and if it is an extension cord is it 12gauge or less, if it's less that might be an issue. when i first had to learn how to mow i just thought itd be easier to get a corded mower, the one thing everyone said was, get a 12gauge cord or the mower will eventually smoke or trip a breaker, cuz 14/16gauge is too weaksauce for it.
 

Lanx

<Prior Amod>
65,282
147,198
Anyone have any experience with cheaper generators like Predator or Champion? I'm looking for one because we are coming up on power outage season here. Usually not more than a few hours at most, so won't need beefy hardware.

I'll have an electrician come out and put in an interlock and run a line to the outside.

I'm looking at a Champion open frame inverter generator...dual fuel. 3500 watts continuous. I have a natural gas furnace and water heater, and the rest of our use is lights...and all those are LED. Won't be running anything big like AC or washer dryer stove microwave. Can turn down the temp on furnace and water heater, so overall power requirement won't be big. I like the idea of dual fuel. The Champion will run off propane tank that you can buy anywhere. Champion says 22 hour run time at 25% load which isn't bad at all. Way easier to store a few bottles of propane than 5-gal gas cans.
have looked in battery generators? i talked about em briefly cuz of florida ian, obviously it's not really a generator, just a big battery, but the good about is that you wont have to leave your garage door open or wheel it outside especially when it rains

the main player here is deltaflow, this is a good video introduction to it


and this guy, you can tell he's serious cuz he's got like 6 of em (some are actually just cheaper battery units you can daisy chain) and he shows real world use and using it w/ the interlock
 

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer
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Are they arc fault breakers, or standard? I'm assuming standard because garage. GFCI breakers?

Only time i can think of seeing something similar, that it wasn't a breaker issue, was water in a box. So sometimes it would short, but water likes to boil off if there isn't much. Continued use kept it from accumulating, but if you left it alone water would re-accumulate and cause another initial short, Rinse and repeat.

But it's also weird that I think you're saying it happens on multiple circuits/breakers.
I had no idea this was such a problem till a couple days ago when I was talking with the guy that does all my handyman stuff. He was telling me he was spending all this time trying to figure out what was blowing.. I guess the main breaker?.. Until he started going through each and every circuit breaker until he found the one that was tripping. Which just so happened to be outlet 5 feet behind him, below a window that was leaking. He said as he was taking off the cover plate, water was coming out of the screw holes.

I guess Ive just been lucky to never experience such shit. It's just hard for me to imagine that water will get into an outlet like that and just sit there.
 
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lurker

Vyemm Raider
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Question for all you big brains. This is pissing me off.

In the garage attached to my house there are many outlets. On several different breakers. All of them 20 amp. However, when I use something like my table saw with those outlets it trips the breakers on the first try every single time. Once I reset the breaker it works fine unless I stop for more than 20 minutes. Then, once I start the table saw, it trips it again. I reset it, and it's fine for a while.

What in the actual heck is going on here? I've checked the wiring, it's solid. 12 gauge, all connections are good, I've even replaced the breakers but it continues to happen.

help me
I would try a different saw. You've replaced the breakers, different circuits are affected and the only common denominator is the saw. It takes a pretty good meter to record instantaneous start-up draw. Most meters won't record that.
 
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BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Yes. Not over drawing.

It's probably the inrush current charging your motor capacitor when it's fully drained. Once it's charged up then you can turn it on and off without as much of a spike. If it's a big saw you can probably safely put a 30 amp breaker on it or better yet rewire it for 240 volts and put a big boy outlet out there.
 
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stupidmonkey

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Did you rule out a lose wire(s) in the panel? You said it's solid but didn't know where you checked. That will cause things to just suddenly trip. I know you said several outlets with different breakers but I had a similar situation and it was due to a loose neutral on the bus bar.

If you've got a hair dryer or something else that'll draw a lot of power, can see if that does the same thing. If not, maybe the saw has an issue as mentioned above drawing too much or something internally.
 

lurkingdirk

AssHat Taint
<Medals Crew>
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Thanks to all for the advice. There's no water in the box, Erronius Erronius , thank God. I think I'm just going to pull heavier wire through and update the breaker for the saw to see if that does the trick. Still strange to me.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
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What's the accuracy on your clamp meter? Can it detect spike current draw? I'd have to agree with Brutul on the capacitor charge/discharge.

Is this a new development or have the breaker and table saw always interacted in this manner? Electrical parts can degrade over time. A similar problem in computers is that while a PSU is able to maintain a 12V line within spec after bootup, the computer needs well over 12V immediately after bootup and the PSU might not be able to maintain 12V within spec for just a small sliver of time. If you're overclocking components, that momentary lapse might be enough to cause bootup to fail.

Simple electrical motors are usually driven by square waves with variable duty cycle to get the desired RPM. If you look at the square wave on an oscilloscope, you'll notice sine wave components ringing far above and below as the square wave steps up and down.

Can your clamp meter detect that?
 

Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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<slaps forehead>

I didn't even think of that, and I should have

They're relatively cheap and easy to swap out

Duh! How could you forget the capacitor!


2001.gif
 
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McCheese

SW: Sean, CW: Crone, GW: Wizardhawk
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I've noticed a tiny drip of water coming through the ceiling of the basement after using the master bath shower, which is above it. However, I don't think there are any pipes directly above it where it would be coming from. The basement ceiling is unfinished, so I can see the water pipes and shower drain pipe running between the joists, and they're both about 2 feet to the left of where the water is coming through. The water pipes and shower drain run in the opposite direction of the drip and connect up to the main water line, all of which I can see.

Best I can tell, directly above the water drip is maybe the edge of the shower. Could it be an issue of the shower flooring or tile being slightly cracked? Maybe a tiny hole in the caulking? I did a quick look at the floor of the shower and didn't see any place obvious where water could be getting through.

Might there be a water pipe up between the basement ceiling and 1st story floor that it could be dripping from? I don't see why a pipe would be running that way, since there's nothing water-related towards that part of the house and I can see where everything connects up to the main water line and goes outside.

drip drip.png
 

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer
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I've noticed a tiny drip of water coming through the ceiling of the basement after using the master bath shower, which is above it. However, I don't think there are any pipes directly above it where it would be coming from. The basement ceiling is unfinished, so I can see the water pipes and shower drain pipe running between the joists, and they're both about 2 feet to the left of where the water is coming through. The water pipes and shower drain run in the opposite direction of the drip and connect up to the main water line, all of which I can see.

Best I can tell, directly above the water drip is maybe the edge of the shower. Could it be an issue of the shower flooring or tile being slightly cracked? Maybe a tiny hole in the caulking? I did a quick look at the floor of the shower and didn't see any place obvious where water could be getting through.

Might there be a water pipe up between the basement ceiling and 1st story floor that it could be dripping from? I don't see why a pipe would be running that way, since there's nothing water-related towards that part of the house and I can see where everything connects up to the main water line and goes outside.

View attachment 438529
I dont know what the dye is called, but its a type of dye thats used just for this kind of shit. It can be all different colors, but it fades away after a few hours. Im thinking you could maybe use that to see if something is cracked / losing its sealant layer. If its not that, then you're likely going to have to do a bit of demolition unfortunately. :(
 
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Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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I've noticed a tiny drip of water coming through the ceiling of the basement after using the master bath shower, which is above it. However, I don't think there are any pipes directly above it where it would be coming from. The basement ceiling is unfinished, so I can see the water pipes and shower drain pipe running between the joists, and they're both about 2 feet to the left of where the water is coming through. The water pipes and shower drain run in the opposite direction of the drip and connect up to the main water line, all of which I can see.

Best I can tell, directly above the water drip is maybe the edge of the shower. Could it be an issue of the shower flooring or tile being slightly cracked? Maybe a tiny hole in the caulking? I did a quick look at the floor of the shower and didn't see any place obvious where water could be getting through.

Might there be a water pipe up between the basement ceiling and 1st story floor that it could be dripping from? I don't see why a pipe would be running that way, since there's nothing water-related towards that part of the house and I can see where everything connects up to the main water line and goes outside.

View attachment 438529

Just remember that water travels to the lowest point before dripping, which can make leaks hard to track. So even though the water is leaking through that specific spot in the ceiling, it could be traveling from god knows where. Just don't assume the leak is directly above it.
 
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Goatface

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I've noticed a tiny drip of water coming through the ceiling of the basement after using the master bath shower, which is above it. However, I don't think there are any pipes directly above it where it would be coming from. The basement ceiling is unfinished, so I can see the water pipes and shower drain pipe running between the joists, and they're both about 2 feet to the left of where the water is coming through. The water pipes and shower drain run in the opposite direction of the drip and connect up to the main water line, all of which I can see.

Best I can tell, directly above the water drip is maybe the edge of the shower. Could it be an issue of the shower flooring or tile being slightly cracked? Maybe a tiny hole in the caulking? I did a quick look at the floor of the shower and didn't see any place obvious where water could be getting through.

Might there be a water pipe up between the basement ceiling and 1st story floor that it could be dripping from? I don't see why a pipe would be running that way, since there's nothing water-related towards that part of the house and I can see where everything connects up to the main water line and goes outside.

View attachment 438529
does your shower have an access door?