1602w on 2 dedicated circuits - the inside house lights dim when using

[imacericg]

I have a 1602w and I installed two dedicated circuits for it. When the show is running, the inside lights dim off and on. Kind of like when the vacuum is first turned on.

I thought with dedicated circuits, I would have any power problems like this.

Do you know why?

[JBullard]

Have you asked the electrician that installed the circuits to come back out and check his work ?

[imacericg]

You are talking to the electrician ...amateur electrician

[Gary Levelius]

I'm assuming that these dedicated circuits were installed on their own circuit breakers? Or were they piggybacked onto two other existing breakers? I'd be checking for loose connections, either at the breaker or on the service panel itself. If in doubt, call a professional and have him check ALL connections in the panel as they DO come loose over time. I check our main panel about once a year for just such things. This is especially true for aluminum wiring as it can corrode and cause a high resistance connection and more heating than with copper. Better to be safe than sorry as loose connections can result in fires.

-Gary-

[rwertz]

Are you sure they did install dedicated circuits from the breaker box? If so and it's dimming other lights in the house, it pretty much indicates the cause of the dimming is related to your main power feed. Lights flickering inside the house is a common (and at times an expected issue) with animated lighting. But it can also be an indicator of a more serious issue. When I started animating I had a similar experience. The cause ended up being a loose neutral connection in my meter base that was there from the day the house was built.

Whether the flicker is normal depends on several things. Here are a few:
The wire size used for your main feed (an indicator of that would be your main service rating)
How much load you are running (100s of C9 lights vs LED strings)
How severe the flicker is (the best indicator would be an actual voltage measurement)

If your main service is around 100 amps or less, you are running hundreds of C9s and the lights are noticeable but not annoying, it could be natural. But if your service is >100 amps, your load is much lighter, and the lights are driving you crazy, it could be more serious.

As John indicated, a licensed professional is the best source of info.

[JBullard]

imacericg wrote:

You are talking to the electrician ...amateur electrician

Really, what you are experiencing is serious. As the others indicated.

In my opinion, this is not a task for an amateur electrician.

You need professional assistance.

[Greg Young]

I agree with Reg, John, Gary and others.

We don't have enough information to know if you have the potential for a serious problem, or not. I approach things conservatively (based on the experiences of myself and others), so I would say you should assume you do, until proven otherwise!

I had my panel inspected when I got into heavy lighting (static) loads back around 1981 or so, a year after moving into to our home The electrician found a ground related problem similar to what Reg identified. Additionally the breakers really didn't have a good balancing of load between the 2 legs.

Bottom line I had that fixed, and eventually the panel completely redone, which avoided any future issues with potential overheating/fires, and cleared up all of the intermittent X-10 issues I was having.

A house fire, due to improper panel work is not worth it. Contact a professional. I would take the dimming of your home's lights as a potentially serious issue that needs attention, before your decorating season starts!

Greg

[imacericg]

Thanks everyone for their suggestions. I have an electrician coming out tomorrow at 10am to look at the situation.

I will follow up with the diagnosis.

[imacericg]

It turned out that the many C9 bulbs on the roof were the culprit.

My house runs a steady 7 amps, and when the C9s were flashing it was spiking up to 30-40amps.

The electrician told me that the cure was a capacitor bank $250 installed. I am not going to do that and live with it for a year and use the $30 savings switching to LED.

[Guest guest]

A capacitor bank? :shock::shock:

Honestly, you may want to get a second opinion, and really sort out what you have power wise..how you wired your additional circuits, etc.

[ErnieHorning]

You’re not going to be storing AC in a capacitor. You need to look elsewhere for an Electrician.

It depends on what you’re calling dimming. A very slight and barely detectable dimming is normal, all wires have resistance and will have a voltage drop as the current increases, Including the wires going out to the pole. 40 amps would be enough to start to see it but it would be more of a peripheral vision type thing. Any more than that, you should be looking for the cause.

[imacericg]

I thought a capacitor bank sounded wierd.

So the diming is most noticable in my master bath where I have clear bulbs above the vanity. It is very hard to see on my lamps or frosted bulbs.

I bet the diming is less than 5% of full power. When viewing the bulbs you can detect the beat of my show through the diming.

Since I can only notice it in the bathroom and the capacitor would be $250, I am not going to worry about it. I also have a long-term goal to convert to LED (only bying LED going forward), which should help any power issue.

I am just happy that the electrician didn't find fault in my circuits.

If people are really interested, I can take a quick video of the diming.

[Guest guest]

You said you installed "two dedicated circuits"...does that mean you added two breakers into the panel, and the only thing on those breakers are your christmas lights?

Or..did you simply add a couple outlets, and, likely, they are on the same circuit as your bathroom lights?

I'd definitely have another electrician take a look...you may have something that is easily fixed, and, could be dangerous if not.

This is not something where you should have an electrician wanting to sell you something, i.e., a capacitor bank, but rather, either repairing your problem, or recommending the fix to resolve it.

[JBullard]

Actually, I have never heard of a capacitor bank in a residential setting.

[imacericg]

DonFL wrote:

You said you installed "two dedicated circuits"...does that mean you added two breakers into the panel, and the only thing on those breakers are your christmas lights?

Dedicated circuits = I installed two new breakers, ran two lines and have two sets of outlets. With the 1602 plugged into both outlets (one 15amp cord into one, the other 15am cord plugged into the other).

I do believe him that its my C9 causing the drain. I have a lot of them and they are bright:

[DownTown]

I have 280 amps of circuits just for my Christmas lights. Maximum draw is only 150 amps. When my twin megatrees are flashing to the beat (144x100 bulb mini strings on each tree), I can tell what song is playing by watching the house lights dim to the beat.

Depending on your setup and circumstances, you may or may not have a problem. Why risk it? Get a professional to check it out.

D.T.

[rwertz]

DonFL wrote:

...you may have something that is easily fixed, and, could be dangerous if not.

That was definitely the case for me. The bad connection on my neutral could have gotten pretty hot if my load ever got too unbalanced.

imacericg, what kind of main feed is this? Is this is an older house with a 60 amp panel? Or is it a newer 200+ amp service?

I'm trying to remember some of the numbers I found when I researched my issue. I believe it went something like this:
A load change of 5% of the main feed rating would typically cause up to a 5% change in voltage
A 5% change in voltage typically creates annoying light flicker (depending on the speed of the flicker)

In my case I was right at those numbers. I was blinking 20 amps on a 200 amp service. It caused a 6V change at my dining room light. I was in the process of trying to convince myself it was normal. Then one day I noticed that the dining room light got brighter when our microwave was running (Ruh-Roh).

Once we identified the loose connection and replaced the meter base, my voltage change was <0.5V. Now I'm around 50 Amps and I don't even notice it in the house.

[chris waller]

I'm having dimming on my 200 amp service had pacific gas and extortion out they say my feeds are good so if the block goes dark this week owell my back up gen will kick in my dimming is bad and I have a 100 amp sub just for lights o and as far as a capacitor bank I have one installed helps for a few songs then they can't keep up

[chris waller]

Also have a buck boost transformer 25kv

[Dave Pursel]

Chris, I've been around the block a few times and this capacitor bank thing has me puzzled. As someone else said this is AC we're talking about. Could you enlighten us with any details / specifics of what you had installed? Tx.
PS.
When I built my house, I installed a 200 amp service with no 14 ga wire what so ever. I had a lot (400) of C9's and was also seeing some flickering. I have been slowly replacing them with LED C9's and I think the flickering has been decreasing if it's not my imagination.