Electrician Advise

[RMS18]

Hey everyone,

I'm in need of some electrician experience, because I'm at a loss. The problem I'm facing is low voltage into my apex during the day when my ati 8 bulb t5 are on. They only ramp to a peak of 65% power. When they turn on my volts into the apex drop, underperforming my other equipment.

For example take my skimmer, with the lights on if I shut the skimmer off and turn it on I will have to blow through the air line to get it to kick on. If I have the t5 off and turn the skimmer on it has enough juice to kick on.

Same with my return pump, my overflow will gurgle during the day vs night. Apex flow meter validates my gph will drop by 40-50gph when t5 are on.

I have had the electric company out 4 times now, they have changed wires to the house to aluminum, clamps were changes and did something else on the transformer connections. Made no difference. They state everything on their ends is good and it's something inside the house.

FYI out side of the tank there is nothing else on the circuit and I never pop the breaker.

Volts at the circuit box into the house are 120 on every post.

I contacted Neptune asking if the apex can't handle a t5 system plugged into it, they said it's not the apex rather the breaker. They recommended I increase the size of the breaker to next size up.

My cousin who just started as an apprentice for New York City electrician Union said not to do that as the wire may not be gauge properly for the increased breaker size and the wire could burn up setting a fire.

My cousin showed the below Apex screenshots to his foreman who is baffled. His foreman said to make sure all the grounds and neutrals are tightened down properly. I left message for the electrician who installed the outlet for the tank haven't heard back yet.

Outside of the tank there is a TV and a dining room light that is on the same breaker. The light is used once a month for a couple hours and it's just LED bulbs and the TV is on once a week for about an hour and it's an LED TV.

Below are three Apex screenshots of the volt reading with the t5 off the t5s halfway ramped up and then the t5's fully ramped up it's only 65% of what the ATI fixture is capable of.

Any ideas?

 

[Biglew11]

maybe someone else with more experience will chime in, but an outlet should put out between 110-120v ac. it sounds to me like you may have too much already on the circuit. or too small a wire going to the outlet, your cousin is right, changing the breaker can be dangerous. plus a bigger breaker won't supply more current, it will only let more current through before blowing.

 

[K7BMG]

I am an electrician.

Yes dropping to 111V is a tad low.
Todays sensitive electronics can be a challenge.

Resistance and or other loads will bring down voltage.
Resistance being the gauge of wire is to small for the distance, or the overall load on the circuit is to great.

The tank circuit as you said is not dedicated, as you have a light and TV on that same circuit. Who knows what else could be on the circuit.

So I have a feeling you are using an existing lighting circuit that is on a 15A breaker using #14 gauge wire.

I would recommend you bring your electrician out and have him install a dedicated circuit for the tank.

It should be a dedicated 20A circuit, the wire should be #12 copper for distance up to 60 feet in length, or #10 from 60 to 130 feet or so. this will be less than the allowable 3% voltage drop, and your equipment should be fine from there.

While he is there he can check the current draw on the light fixture.
It could have an issue and not operating properly.

 

[RMS18]

maybe someone else with more experience will chime in, but an outlet should put out between 110-120v ac. it sounds to me like you may have too much already on the circuit. or too small a wire going to the outlet, your cousin is right, changing the breaker can be dangerous. plus a bigger breaker won't supply more current, it will only let more current through before blowing.

Thanks for the input. I'm having a hard time accepting that this circuit can't handle the tank equipment. Outside of the t5s there's a UV, return pump, reactor pump couple power heads and one heater.

 

[RMS18]

I am an electrician.

Yes dropping to 111V is a tad low.
Todays sensitive electronics can be a challenge.

Resistance and or other loads will bring down voltage.
Resistance being the gauge of wire is to small for the distance, or the overall load on the circuit is to great.

The tank circuit as you said is not dedicated, as you have a light and TV on that same circuit. Who knows what else could be on the circuit.

So I have a feeling you are using an existing lighting circuit that is on a 15A breaker using #14 gauge wire.

I would recommend you bring your electrician out and have him install a dedicated circuit for the tank.

It should be a dedicated 20A circuit, the wire should be #12 copper for distance up to 60 feet in length, or #10 from 60 to 130 feet or so. this will be less than the allowable 3% voltage drop, and your equipment should be fine from there.

While he is there he can check the current draw on the light fixture.
It could have an issue and not operating properly.

Thank you for the advise, this is probably what I'll have to do. Good thing I didn't listen to Neptune lol, I was close to going out and buying a bigger breaker.

 

[RobB'z Reef]

Thank you for the advise, this is probably what I'll have to do. Good thing I didn't listen to Neptune lol, I was close to going out and buying a bigger breaker.

good call, bigger breakers just let bigger problems happen!

 

[RMS18]

I am an electrician.

Yes dropping to 111V is a tad low.
Todays sensitive electronics can be a challenge.

Resistance and or other loads will bring down voltage.
Resistance being the gauge of wire is to small for the distance, or the overall load on the circuit is to great.

The tank circuit as you said is not dedicated, as you have a light and TV on that same circuit. Who knows what else could be on the circuit.

So I have a feeling you are using an existing lighting circuit that is on a 15A breaker using #14 gauge wire.

I would recommend you bring your electrician out and have him install a dedicated circuit for the tank.

It should be a dedicated 20A circuit, the wire should be #12 copper for distance up to 60 feet in length, or #10 from 60 to 130 feet or so. this will be less than the allowable 3% voltage drop, and your equipment should be fine from there.

While he is there he can check the current draw on the light fixture.
It could have an issue and not operating properly.

Bad news... So we ran a dedicated line using 12 wire 48 feet and a 20amp breaker. No change at all. Volts drop 110-112 during day and back up to 117 at night. I'm at a loss. Electrician is thinking bad ballast in the ATI light but that would mean they have been bad for 1.8 years or since new.

 

[MastaMind82]

Try running the system for a day without the lights plugged in. If all is stable then you might be on the right track of determining which part of the system is causing the issues.

 

[Dahas]

I am an electrician.

Yes dropping to 111V is a tad low.
Todays sensitive electronics can be a challenge.

Resistance and or other loads will bring down voltage.
Resistance being the gauge of wire is to small for the distance, or the overall load on the circuit is to great.

The tank circuit as you said is not dedicated, as you have a light and TV on that same circuit. Who knows what else could be on the circuit.

So I have a feeling you are using an existing lighting circuit that is on a 15A breaker using #14 gauge wire.

I would recommend you bring your electrician out and have him install a dedicated circuit for the tank.

It should be a dedicated 20A circuit, the wire should be #12 copper for distance up to 60 feet in length, or #10 from 60 to 130 feet or so. this will be less than the allowable 3% voltage drop, and your equipment should be fine from there.

While he is there he can check the current draw on the light fixture.
It could have an issue and not operating properly.

I am an electrician.

Yes dropping to 111V is a tad low.
Todays sensitive electronics can be a challenge.

Resistance and or other loads will bring down voltage.
Resistance being the gauge of wire is to small for the distance, or the overall load on the circuit is to great.

The tank circuit as you said is not dedicated, as you have a light and TV on that same circuit. Who knows what else could be on the circuit.

So I have a feeling you are using an existing lighting circuit that is on a 15A breaker using #14 gauge wire.

I would recommend you bring your electrician out and have him install a dedicated circuit for the tank.

It should be a dedicated 20A circuit, the wire should be #12 copper for distance up to 60 feet in length, or #10 from 60 to 130 feet or so. this will be less than the allowable 3% voltage drop, and your equipment should be fine from there.

While he is there he can check the current draw on the light fixture.
It could have an issue and not operating properly.

Hi,
I am the cousin that went and tested the circuit. You were correct He was running a 15 amp breaker with #14 wire. He was sharing light and power on the existing ckt.

my initial thoyght was there was a vomtage drop because of the #14 wire. the receptacke was almost end of line and around 120 feet in distance

I pipednout of the panel across the garage and ran romex the rest of the run. Total footage was about 60-70 feet. Filled the pipe with #12 thhn and romex was 12/2 and landed it on a 20a breaker

i tested the phases in his panel. Single phase panel with phase a running at 119 volts and phase b running at 117. After tapping off of phase b i tested thereceptacle at the tank and was the full 117. Amperage when t5s are on 100% is at 11 amps so it is not the size of the breaker that we have to worry anout necause we are no where near the 80% mark for 20 amps.

when his t5 lights are not on he has the full voltage but when the lights go on thevoltage drops.
Neutrals and grounds are all tightened down and so were the phases. I cant imagine why the lights would be dropping the voltage.

my only suggestion was to checj the ballasts or if there was any internal components in the fixture that could be on its way out.

please help because i have been rattling my brain iver this all day

 

[HuduVudu]

Hey everyone,

I'm in need of some electrician experience, because I'm at a loss. The problem I'm facing is low voltage into my apex during the day when my ati 8 bulb t5 are on. They only ramp to a peak of 65% power. When they turn on my volts into the apex drop, underperforming my other equipment.

For example take my skimmer, with the lights on if I shut the skimmer off and turn it on I will have to blow through the air line to get it to kick on. If I have the t5 off and turn the skimmer on it has enough juice to kick on.

Same with my return pump, my overflow will gurgle during the day vs night. Apex flow meter validates my gph will drop by 40-50gph when t5 are on.

I have had the electric company out 4 times now, they have changed wires to the house to aluminum, clamps were changes and did something else on the transformer connections. Made no difference. They state everything on their ends is good and it's something inside the house.

FYI out side of the tank there is nothing else on the circuit and I never pop the breaker.

Volts at the circuit box into the house are 120 on every post.

I contacted Neptune asking if the apex can't handle a t5 system plugged into it, they said it's not the apex rather the breaker. They recommended I increase the size of the breaker to next size up.

My cousin who just started as an apprentice for New York City electrician Union said not to do that as the wire may not be gauge properly for the increased breaker size and the wire could burn up setting a fire.

My cousin showed the below Apex screenshots to his foreman who is baffled. His foreman said to make sure all the grounds and neutrals are tightened down properly. I left message for the electrician who installed the outlet for the tank haven't heard back yet.

Outside of the tank there is a TV and a dining room light that is on the same breaker. The light is used once a month for a couple hours and it's just LED bulbs and the TV is on once a week for about an hour and it's an LED TV.

Below are three Apex screenshots of the volt reading with the t5 off the t5s halfway ramped up and then the t5's fully ramped up it's only 65% of what the ATI fixture is capable of.

Any ideas?

You are running 5.6 amps through the energy bar, it is only rated for 7 amps

https://www.neptunesystems.com/products/expansion-modules/energy-bars/

If you want to truly test unplug everything from the energy bar and put it on a power strip and then test there.

Edit: The energy bar total is 15A not 7A thank you @Sparkymarc

 

[Sparkymarc]

Another electrician here. Most electronics should run fine with 110-120v. You could be on to something with the ballast. I would maybe try to plug the light into the same receptacle, but not to the EB832, to see if it does the same. Possibly something in the ballast is causing the problem. Each plug on the EB832 can handle 7 amps, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Max load on entire EB832 is 15 amps

 

[K7BMG]

Hi,
I am the cousin that went and tested the circuit. You were correct He was running a 15 amp breaker with #14 wire. He was sharing light and power on the existing ckt.

my initial thoyght was there was a vomtage drop because of the #14 wire. the receptacke was almost end of line and around 120 feet in distance

I pipednout of the panel across the garage and ran romex the rest of the run. Total footage was about 60-70 feet. Filled the pipe with #12 thhn and romex was 12/2 and landed it on a 20a breaker

i tested the phases in his panel. Single phase panel with phase a running at 119 volts and phase b running at 117. After tapping off of phase b i tested thereceptacle at the tank and was the full 117. Amperage when t5s are on 100% is at 11 amps so it is not the size of the breaker that we have to worry anout necause we are no where near the 80% mark for 20 amps.

when his t5 lights are not on he has the full voltage but when the lights go on thevoltage drops.
Neutrals and grounds are all tightened down and so were the phases. I cant imagine why the lights would be dropping the voltage.

my only suggestion was to checj the ballasts or if there was any internal components in the fixture that could be on its way out.

please help because i have been rattling my brain iver this all day

The circuit voltage will drop when under load as you know, but what is the voltage on the circuit when everything is running now? You did not say.

The fixture (Circuit) is drawing 11A and if you have it on the lower 117V B phase the voltage drop should be less than 3% and if my calculation is correct the voltage will be around, 114.3V, under the 11A load, this is well within the operating standard, and around a 2.3% voltage drop.

There also needs to be an understanding that the total load of the home will also play a part on the voltage drop overall.

The individual circuit does not reflect the entire load and voltage drop on the system load.
To see a real reflection of an individual circuits performance every other load in the home should be deenergized first, then the individual circuit can be tested.

To me this is just something to understand and not a practical or reasonable test to do, as the full system will be in operation and real time information is needed. However its interesting to see the result.

It must be known that if the current system phases are are 119V and 117V respectfully and a heavy load is introduced, such as an electric range, AC, or other high current device the whole system will see a voltage drop.

I am curious to know the receptacle(s) your using and how they were wired.
Did you pig tale?
Did you use stab in receptacles?
IMO stab in receps should have never been produced and should never be used EVER.
IMO every recep should be pigtailed out and the wire should be set to the recep by a screw.

 

[Dahas]

The circuit voltage will drop when under load as you know, but what is the voltage on the circuit when everything is running now? You did not say.

The fixture (Circuit) is drawing 11A and if you have it on the lower 117V B phase the voltage drop should be less than 3% and if my calculation is correct the voltage will be around, 114.3V, under the 11A load, this is well within the operating standard, and around a 2.3% voltage drop.

There also needs to be an understanding that the total load of the home will also play a part on the voltage drop overall.

The individual circuit does not reflect the entire load and voltage drop on the system load.
To see a real reflection of an individual circuits performance every other load in the home should be deenergized first, then the individual circuit can be tested.

To me this is just something to understand and not a practical or reasonable test to do, as the full system will be in operation and real time information is needed. However its interesting to see the result.

It must be known that if the current system phases are are 119V and 117V respectfully and a heavy load is introduced, such as an electric range, AC, or other high current device the whole system will see a voltage drop.

I am curious to know the receptacle(s) your using and how they were wired.
Did you pig tale?
Did you use stab in receptacles?
IMO stab in receps should have never been produced and should never be used EVER.
IMO every recep should be pigtailed out and the wire should be set to the recep by a screw.

I agree with you completely about the stab ins lol They are useless and for an electrician that has no care about his job and is only worried about speed. When i dscinnected the existing receptacles they were jumped between each other and not tailed off. When i installed them i tailed off on both and hooked under the screw as you are suppsed to

i understand what your saying aboutdeenergizing the whole system but is that really practical. The system is going tk be running while the rest of the residence is energized so a real time test would be more accurate. He has 1 2 pole 20 for his ac unit and another 2 pole 20 for a twist lock receptacle that is not in use.
Im thinking that the during the day the load is higher because there is more being drawn from the units in the house such as ac and other devices that would not he in use at night. He unplugged the lighting fixture and plugged it into a separate ckt and the apex is now reading the ohase voltage.
im still unsure how flourescent fixtures can be affecting the boltage this drastically. I would like to get back and test other ckts during daytime hrs when everything is running to get a better understanding if it is every ckt that is losing viltage during the day or if it is just the ckt that is running the lights

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

FYI out side of the tank there is nothing else on the circuit and I never pop the breaker.
...
Outside of the tank there is a TV and a dining room light that is on the same breaker.

One of these cannot be true. TVs and lights can use a lot of electricity depending on the type.

 

[MD84]

If I have a voltage drop on a well engineered circuit, I like to take voltage drop measurements at all the connection points within the circuit.

All of the voltages should sum to equal the source voltage.

All of the parallel intended loads should be dropping most of the voltage. If you have a bad series connection somewhere it will drop voltage, creating heat, and robbing power from your loads.

Another consideration is if the light uses a magnetic ballast. A magnetic ballast is an inductive load whereas the fluorescent tubes are a constant wattage device. Therefore if voltage drops, the ballast will draw more current to meet the required wattage. This additional current could cause increased voltage drop assuming a bad connection somewhere. And here you can see the loop....

I would recommend isolating and verifying components of the circuit. Perhaps check connections within the light/ballast.

Edit to add: what is the total calculated or measured load on this circuit? It seems that with the lights at 11A plus all the other loads, you would be very close to 16A limit of a 20A circuit. At 70' you are looking at about 3.5% or 4 volts drop. I think I would have gone with 10 gauge.

When the circuit was run with #14, if you were pulling 15A for 120 feet, the voltage drop would be almost 9% or 10volts.

Before you look for a problem with your equipment, do the math and make sure your circuit is designed properly.

 

[block134]

Just my .02. I would take the neptune power strip out the equation and see what happens with a normal power strip. Maybe it is bad. I always like to start with the easy things first.

On a side note, I had a problem I found this past weekend that could have burned my house down.

I was having problems with electronics that were plugged into outlets on the same circuit not working right. Low power draw items workes but higher draw items didn't. I was also told it was a bad circuit breaker so I changed it and an outlet in the circuit that wouldn't hold a plug in it any more. I used my outlet tester on the new outlet and got a indication of ground and hot being swapped. I checked a few of the other outlets and all the ones before it checked fine and the ones after it were the same bad indication.

What I found after I realized I forgot about one outlet I misses when testing that was behind some furniture is what you see in the picture. There was nothing plugged into it and it wasn't wet. It had somehow shorted to ground in the past month or so.

Please check and double check everything. This could have been much worse

 

[Dahas]

Just my .02. I would take the neptune power strip out the equation and see what happens with a normal power strip. Maybe it is bad. I always like to start with the easy things first.

On a side note, I had a problem I found this past weekend that could have burned my house down.

I was having problems with electronics that were plugged into outlets on the same circuit not working right. Low power draw items workes but higher draw items didn't. I was also told it was a bad circuit breaker so I changed it and an outlet in the circuit that wouldn't hold a plug in it any more. I used my outlet tester on the new outlet and got a indication of ground and hot being swapped. I checked a few of the other outlets and all the ones before it checked fine and the ones after it were the same bad indication.

What I found after I realized I forgot about one outlet I misses when testing that was behind some furniture is what you see in the picture. There was nothing plugged into it and it wasn't wet. It had somehow shorted to ground in the past month or so.

Please check and double check everything. This could have been much worse

How many diff wires do you have going to the neutral side of that outlet????? Lmaoo

 

[Dahas]

If I have a voltage drop on a well engineered circuit, I like to take voltage drop measurements at all the connection points within the circuit.

All of the voltages should sum to equal the source voltage.

All of the parallel intended loads should be dropping most of the voltage. If you have a bad series connection somewhere it will drop voltage, creating heat, and robbing power from your loads.

Another consideration is if the light uses a magnetic ballast. A magnetic ballast is an inductive load whereas the fluorescent tubes are a constant wattage device. Therefore if voltage drops, the ballast will draw more current to meet the required wattage. This additional current could cause increased voltage drop assuming a bad connection somewhere. And here you can see the loop....

I would recommend isolating and verifying components of the circuit. Perhaps check connections within the light/ballast.

Edit to add: what is the total calculated or measured load on this circuit? It seems that with the lights at 11A plus all the other loads, you would be very close to 16A limit of a 20A circuit. At 70' you are looking at about 3.5% or 4 volts drop. I think I would have gone with 10 gauge.

When the circuit was run with #14, if you were pulling 15A for 120 feet, the voltage drop would be almost 9% or 10volts.

Before you look for a problem with your equipment, do the math and make sure your circuit is designed properly.

There is an 11 amp load on the ckt as i just ran a dedicated line

 

[K7BMG]

Have the original problems, of the lighting not fully coming on and other equipment like the pump slowing down.
Have these problems remained after the new circuit was installed?
Have they reduced since the new install?

One thing to consider is the fact that we do not know how accurate the Neptune Apex is at reporting the voltage, Amperage, and wattage.

What would a more reliable meter show?
Say a Fluke or Simpson meter I am sure will reveal different results.
Did you test the voltage and amperage against the Apex readings, and did it match?

As others have said the EB832's individual outlets are only rated at 7 amps each. and if the lights are drawing 11 amps well this is an issue as the draw is 4 amps higher than the rating of the individual EB832 receptacle.

So it could very well be an internal issue of the EB832.

I would recommend the following possible solutions.
From easiest to hardest.

#1
Use a time clock rated for 15-20A to run the lighting outside of the Apex EB832.

#2
You could build a separate relay box with a relay rated for the amperage of the lights, 15-20A and have the Apex EB832 outlet 120V control the relays coil. This way the Apex can still control the lighting period through the software.

So there would be two cords out of the relay box. one attached to the relays line side contacts, and plugged into a wall outlet, (Not the EB832) the load side could go to a receptacle or you could directly terminate the lighting cord to the load side contacts.
The second cord would be connected only to the relays coil and plugged into the Apex outlet.

#3
The 8 lamp ATI fixture I have to assume it has two 4 lamp ballasts into one power cord.
I would add an additional cord and separate them, this way each cord could be put into a separate EB832 outlet, basically drawing 5.5 amps per outlet. thus not overloading the individual outlet rated at 7.

 

[Dahas]

Tested with a digital klein multimeter and apex was accurate