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dusted73

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First year with a 32 channel show runs great looks great . But the panel in my house 200 amp is humming to my lights outside . It makes my led high hats blink to the light to . Had a electrician come check everything out . Everything is tight all the breakers seem fine . It seem to be some kind of interfernce of some sort . Has anyone has have this problem and whats the fix ? I run all led lights on my house and only pulling 6 to 9 amps . I fix the high hat problem by replacing one  bulb thats on a switch with a regular bulb and they stop blinking .  But my panel is still humming away

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It sounds like you've already taken the most logical first step in diagnostic.  I would've started with a search for a loose wire in the panel as well.  I would double-check to ensure that the electrician checked all of the ground and neutral connections for tightness as well.  I would focus on these connections more than the breaker connections quite honestly.  My next step would be to turn off one circuit at a time at the breaker panel while leaving any breakers to the LOR control boxes on.  The hum may be originating elsewhere while being amplified by the show controls. If the hum stops, this may be the case.  If all else fails, I would focus on the breakers by changing them out one at a time.  Most breakers are only about $5 each, so it is not overly expensive to do this unless your comfort level requires the hiring of an electrician. Keep in mind that a hum can oftentimes indicate the impending end of normal life cycle for a breaker rather than an actual problem.  They rarely give any indication before failing.  When all is said and done, it may still hum and be perfectly safe.  Harmonics can be funny like that.  With any luck, you may be able to resolve the issue or have been able to eliminate enough other things to be able to reach that conclusion.

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I have been leaving some of my display as static during the nights I don't run the show.. I found that my LED mega tree, which I leave on at about 20% flashes randomly.  Turns out my Insteon system is "talking" to the LOR controller and causing the flashing.  100% repeatable for me.

 

Perhaps you have some sort of power line carrier system in your house causing the issue.. However.. with all that said, it should not cause a buzzing or humming.  Dimmers will do that if you have one or more that are on but turned down a bit.  A breaker on the way out can sometimes cause this..

 

If the electrician was any good he would have smelled if there was any sort of arcing between breakers and the buss, so assuming he knew what he was doing...... you just need to look for something to turn off that could be the cause. 

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We had a loose neutral in our meter base. It caused the interior lights to blink pretty strongly with only 15 amps of animated Christmas lights. I found it by switching a hair dryer on and off and monitoring the two 120V legs at the panel. The neutral was moving back and forth 5 to 10 volts (one side increased when the other side decreased).

But having said all that, I'm not sure that would cause the panel box to hum.

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I agree with SparkDr. Make sure you are comfortable going into the load center when troubleshooting though. I have amp probes and other testing gear so I look for loading issues as well as make sure if you have only one load center that it is bonded to ground. I don't want to get into this too deep but your electrician should have checked for this as well. Breakers when they get old will buzz but an overload will do it also. If the breakers are not warm to the touch or if they are, check load balance on each breaker. Or have someone do that for you. 

 

Merry Christmas folks!

Marty

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The best thing you might try is turning off the breakers one at a time until you fine which one stops the buzzing.. then track it down from there by unplugging things on the circuit..   If it turns out that there is no specific breaker causing the issue, it could be your main.  or the combination of several loads.. 

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The best thing you might try is turning off the breakers one at a time until you fine which one stops the buzzing.. then track it down from there by unplugging things on the circuit.. If it turns out that there is no specific breaker causing the issue, it could be your main. or the combination of several loads..

I second that it sounds like a solid way to track down the problem. Over the years I've dealt with a few breakers that have had a meltdown and failed completely. Most of the time they don't give you any forewarning. I think the noise you're hearing is one of them trying to tell you something. The only other time I hear a breaker buzz if it's running something with heavy start up load like the motor on a jacuzzi tub for instance. So if your breaker already has a 10 amp load on a 15 amp breaker then you throw another six amps at it that'll make it buzz Edited by Ebuechner
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Thank you everyone for the replies . All that stuff was done . outside meter was pulled off and check, all neturals were check , breakers check and moved around . last night my crock pot on warm was going to the music . I am thinking it might be this [ Dirty electricity is a form of electromagnetic pollution or radiation. It is also called electromagnetic interference (EMI) or electrical “noise.” It refers to powerful, high frequency electrical energy traveling along the wiring in buildings where only standard 60-Hertz AC electricity should be.]  I don't know much about it .I do know if you Google it my body should be glowing like the xmas lights . lol But it has been suggested to me and does make sense this house is all led lights and electronics . Has anyone heard of this problem before ? I see there are filters for this kind of problems just don't which one would be a good one . thanks 

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Turns out my Insteon system is "talking" to the LOR controller and causing the flashing.  100% repeatable for me.

 

I also have this issue with Insteon and (half-wave) LED strings when they are dimmed.

My solution is simply to not send Insteon commands that often.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Same Insteon problem here.  Identified it 100% last year, had a couple filterlincs which solved the problem on the circuits with filterlincs.  Forgot about the problem until catching my static dimmed lights spazzing this morning and didn't get more filterlincs during the sales.  Have not checked to see if the CCPs / CCRs are affected, but the CTB16s all get whammied.

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