Wayne K Posted December 2, 2018 Share Posted December 2, 2018 Yesterday I come home from work and checked all of my controllers after we had 3/4" of rain. Found 2 controllers off. I use cords with the indicator lights in the end of them to power all of my controllers, So, it is easy to see if they have power to them. So my first thought was gfi tripped, go to reset gfi and it will not do anything. So, I grab my electrical tester. No power at gfi. So, I go to the basement and check the breaker panel, breaker is tripped. I reset it and it immediately trips again. I go outside and unplug one of the 2 cords and try it again. Does not trip. Go outside again and unplug the one and plug the other in and go back to the basement and it immediately trips again. Well this is not looking good. I go back out with my channel config printout and look at all of the circuits and see none that visibly could be causing a problem. I decide that I have a controller that has went bad. So I go down to shop and grab spare controller and swap out and I take the old one back to the shop. As I walk back to the shop I think I should have popped both fuses out to see if it was a triac. So I decide when I walk in the shop to pop both fuses out and plug this controller back in. So, with both fusses pulled I plug it in and it power up and no breaker trip, shut it off and put 1 fuse back in and power up again with no problem. So, I shut it down and put the second fuse in and power controller back up and no problem. Now I am saying what in the *** is going on. I get brave and come back up to the house and decide to turn breaker back on. Immediately it pops the breaker again. So, I go back outside and I decide to pop out both fuses and power it up and see what happens. Turned breaker on and it is fine. Turned breaker back off and go back out side and put in 1 fuse and tried it again, no trip. Go back outside and put second fuse in and tried breaker again and it tripped. I now know it is something on circuits 9 thru 16. Now that I have an idea what circuits it is I looked at all of my cord plugs and they are all off of the ground. I then decide to unplug channel 15 and 16 as these go to strobe light circuits. I go back to the basement and turn on breaker and it stays on. So I turn it back off and go out and plug channel 16 in and go back to basement and the breaker stays on. I go back out to controller and on channel 15 I have about an 8" zip cord with a inline plug on it so I could tie 2 strobe light circuits onto 1 channel. I then unplug those and the little cord and plug them in one at a time and they both work. So I finally decide it has to be water in the little cord. I go and get a 3 way tap and hook back up and all is fine. I found it very strange that the breaker was tripping instead of the GFI. But I guess gfi measures to earth ground and the breaker trips with a short. There must have been enough water in the small zip cord connector to be a short. The only thing I can say is the CTB16D controllers must be pretty tuff to take a short circuit like that, as it appears to not have hurt the controller. ( Sorry about the long story ) Wayne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orville Posted December 2, 2018 Share Posted December 2, 2018 Finding the simplest issues sometimes takes the longest time. But at least you found it and resolved the issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDucks Posted December 2, 2018 Share Posted December 2, 2018 Binary isolation is a proven way to narrow down where an issue. Break it in the middle: Stays, Not. Break the side that Stays until you have only ONE side left (Drove my Instructors in ET school nuts, because I already knew this and homed in on their 'Inserted' troubles' very fast) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mega Arch Posted December 2, 2018 Share Posted December 2, 2018 5 hours ago, Wayne K said: ….. I found it very strange that the breaker was tripping instead of the GFI. But I guess gfi measures to earth ground and the breaker trips with a short...... Wayne - you may not be done yet.... GFCI receptacles are a consumable type device that are not designed to last forever. Especially ones on the o/s of the house. The new style lockout electricity when they fail / no longer able to protect the people. Older ones possibly could still allow unprotected use. I would get a cheap tester to see if your recepts are at end of life and replace them if need be. If you do replace them, spend the extra buck for the newest outdoor versions. They will hold up to internal corrosion longer. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Stop-Shock-GFCI-Outlet-Circuit-Tester-CE-HGT6120/204501748 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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