I'm a DIY kind of guy, and was never really fond of household 120V/240V power before, until I had a friend who used to be a journeyman help me understand enough to wire up my house we are completely renovating.
So, after putting some walls and trusses in place, and running conduit all day yesterday, putting the wires inside it, it was time to hook everything back up, 20-something circuits across 2 breaker boxes. All 120V lines are 20A with all relevant devices listed at 20A.
Everything went well, minus some flashlight time and pulled muscles. Until I got to that blasted last circuit. The particular circuit has 4 motion sensor flood lights on it, everything wired in parallel. The way I wired it was what I am told commercial standards are, create basically a horizontal line and drop a seperate wire to each load.
So, tired, I was hooking everything up, and had everything clear, so I thought. Hooking up the ground, it slipped out of the bar and flipped into the main power bus. A little sparking, and I had a 12/2 wire getting fed 200A with zero protection. I learned very quickly the knee jerk of grabbing the wire to pull it off (maybe 1/2 second connected) will create a flesh searing effect rivaling a hot outdoor grill, and the proper idea was to flip the main breaker and walk away.
Once it cooled, I found out the neutral was touching the ground bus, creating the path for the short circuit, but that probably saved me. I cut off the burned sections I could see, finished it, and when I flipped the breaker, now I have a dead short in the circuit. My question is whether or not I should even bother troubleshooting to see how far the damage went, or is everything (the 4 motion floods) likely cooked?
The rest is a basically for laughs and a good reason to not listen to friends who say, "it's just 120V, you don't have to remove the power to install the breaker" and should have listened to my own advice of, "You can be too safe all your life, you'll only be unsafe enough once."
So, after putting some walls and trusses in place, and running conduit all day yesterday, putting the wires inside it, it was time to hook everything back up, 20-something circuits across 2 breaker boxes. All 120V lines are 20A with all relevant devices listed at 20A.
Everything went well, minus some flashlight time and pulled muscles. Until I got to that blasted last circuit. The particular circuit has 4 motion sensor flood lights on it, everything wired in parallel. The way I wired it was what I am told commercial standards are, create basically a horizontal line and drop a seperate wire to each load.
So, tired, I was hooking everything up, and had everything clear, so I thought. Hooking up the ground, it slipped out of the bar and flipped into the main power bus. A little sparking, and I had a 12/2 wire getting fed 200A with zero protection. I learned very quickly the knee jerk of grabbing the wire to pull it off (maybe 1/2 second connected) will create a flesh searing effect rivaling a hot outdoor grill, and the proper idea was to flip the main breaker and walk away.
Once it cooled, I found out the neutral was touching the ground bus, creating the path for the short circuit, but that probably saved me. I cut off the burned sections I could see, finished it, and when I flipped the breaker, now I have a dead short in the circuit. My question is whether or not I should even bother troubleshooting to see how far the damage went, or is everything (the 4 motion floods) likely cooked?
The rest is a basically for laughs and a good reason to not listen to friends who say, "it's just 120V, you don't have to remove the power to install the breaker" and should have listened to my own advice of, "You can be too safe all your life, you'll only be unsafe enough once."
- TL;DR
- Shorted a 20A circuit to 200A main legs w/ 4 motion lights connected in parallel. Wondering if I should even bother troubleshooting or if it likely burned up the wire and electronics inside the lights.