Can a load center have a breaker as large as its main?

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JWelectric

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Please stop talking about me. I am trying to learn something useful here!
Then open your mind to things that are different than you believe them to be.
My brother will likely not believe that since the work he did at the campground I had mentioned actually did help put an end to campers being shocked at their sites, but that is a matter for another day.
The only thing that your brother did at that campsite was open himself up to some major law suites should someone end up getting hurt by his not knowing what he was doing.
The point here, however, is that bonding the camping sites' panels to ground to send stray current there is how he rightly or wrongly shunted the shocking current.
As has been pointed out many times the current is not shunted to earth and this is nothing more than flawed thinking. He did nothing to make the campsite safer by bonding everything to a ground rod and not even one electron was sent to earth. Every one of those electrons made it back to the transformer.
New question: While that one circuit was shorted to ground a few days ago, why did some current flow "to ground" through me and no current at all flow through my meter between that incoming leg and the panel's neutral bar? And remember, the panel was not bonded at that time. I can now understand why I felt so little current going "to ground" since it really had no place to go, but I cannot understand (or actually, I just do not know) why no current could flow even through my meter and on back to the panel's neutral bar.
As has been pointed out numerous times throughout this thread “there must be a complete path from the source back to the source for current to flow.” With no bonding jumper there is no complete path between the equipment grounding conductor and the neutral therefore no current reading could be made between the equipment grounding conductor and the neutral in the panel. If the bonding screw had been installed you still would not have been able to get a current reading as the breaker would not have held in long enough for a reading to have been made.
 
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JWelectric

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Your self-choking ego and its continual desire to compare yourself to others and then find yourself greater is sickening, at least to me. But of course, I also am human and have some of my own issues in the security department.

I promise you that I have no ego problems. I know that I still after 40 plus years in the trade I have a lot to learn as this trade is an ongoing learning experience. If I seem to know more about this than you do them it might be because I do but instead of it making you sick it should make you eager to listen and soak up some of this knowledge that I offer to you for free.

If you wish I will reframe from posting anything to questions you have and let you go through life as misguided as you are now unless someone else starts to make you sick with their knowledge.

What say you? Do you want me to stop or not?
 

Leejosepho

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Your ground rods are for lightning protection. They will not accept power that has been generated by your power company and magically suck it into the ground. The earth is a lousy conductor of electricity.

Arc faults are conceptually fairly simple devices. They monitor the power going out on the hot wire and returning on the neutral wire. This is why you must connect both wires to the arc fault breaker. The amount of power on each wire should be the same. When it is not the arc fault trips.

Now you said you had a pinched neutral wire in a light fixture. This will cause an arc fault to trip because some of the power can now take a detour around the arc fault via the accidental neutral wire to ground wire connection created by the pinched wire. BUT you did not have the bonding screw installed!! SO the power could not make it back to the service conductor neutral. Your ground wires were essentially a dead end road going nowhere and doing nothing. When you installed the bonding screw you connected all the ground wires to the service conductor neutral and suddenly power on the ground wires had a place to go! Now when you turned on the light the arc fault detected that not all the power was returning on the neutral and tripped!
It has taken me a couple of days to get back to your post here, but I want you to know I had not forgotten about it. I have not tried the AFI breaker since correcting that second short, but yes, what you have said would definitely explain things ... and I thank you.

Well I suppose you are still wondering why you have grounded outlets in the house and are thinking that they must have something to do with the ground rods. Well they don't. The ground wiring protects you from electric shock by (hopefully) tripping the circuit breaker. As an example, if the hot wire in your shop light suddenly broke off inside the fixture and came in contact with the grounded metal frame of the fixture it would cause a dead short. All the power leaving the breaker on hot wire would immediately return on the ground wire which is of course connected to the service conductor neutral via the bonding screw. The current would likely be in excess of 1000 amps. Your 15 or 20 amp breaker will trip and you will not be electrocuted by the damaged fixture. If you remove the bonding screw from your panel the breaker will not trip!! Your ground rods will not magically suck up enough power to trip your circuit breaker. Now if you touch the fixture you will be electrocuted!
Yes, and exactly that is what had once happened to me. I was working in a place where the boss had a metal box on the end of a piece of rubber cord, a big no-no, and he was using a metal goose-neck lamp plugged into that box. Maybe a wire had come loose inside the box or maybe the light's plug needed to be put in the other way (back then in the day of same-sized blades), but I had picked up the box with one hand and the light with the other, and WHAM! Instantly. Both had been on the floor, and now there I was with current holding me in a frozen position and with a loud buzz sounding in my brain while I was trying to holler "Unplug me!" I have no idea whether any of my words actually came out, but the boss at least saw something was wrong and pulled the cord from the wall socket.

Still in relation to the matter of a receptacle's ground, there is yet another purpose beyond lightening and what you have mentioned, at least in one case known to me:

I once had a computer that would not work correctly unless it was connected to a grounded receptacle, and that used to be a big problem for me in any room that did not have grounded outlets. Using a 3-to-2 adapter could get the device plugged in and powered up, but it still needed a ground in place to actually work. So, and while I would no longer do this today, there have been times in the past where I have temporarily added a jumper wire from an outlet's neutral screw to its ground screw in order to make it possible for that particular machine to work.
 

Leejosepho

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... open your mind to things that are different than you believe them to be.
My mind is not closed, and I am continually checking my mere beliefs against actual facts. So again: Please stop talking about me and just stick to the relevant facts!

The only thing that your brother did at that campsite was open himself up to some major law suites ...
You are full of ****. By the time he was done, people were no longer getting shocked ... and that fact is true even if he never understands or believes how that actually happened.

... current is not shunted to earth ...
I now know that ...

... and [believing current is shunted to ground] is nothing more than flawed thinking.
You are wrong. Simple ignorance is one thing, but "flawed thinking" is a judgmental statement having nothing to do with the physical facts at hand.

... “there must be a complete path from the source back to the source for current to flow.” With no bonding jumper there is no complete path between the equipment grounding conductor and the neutral therefore no current reading could be made between the equipment grounding conductor and the neutral in the panel.
You have missed my question. While the panel was not bonded and the hot was shorted, no current appeared between hot and neutral even though the neutral's return path was good and no significant amount of current was being shunted to ground.

Question: Do you have any idea where I can get the breaker retainer you had informed me about being needed in my panel?
 
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JWelectric

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Then open your mind to things that are different than you believe them to be.
My mind is not closed, and I am continually checking my mere beliefs against actual facts. So again: Please stop talking about me and just stick to the relevant facts!
Yes you have a fixation that connecting to a ground rod seems to cure everything. This is evidenced in your next statement.
The only thing that your brother did at that campsite was open himself up to some major law suites should someone end up getting hurt by his not knowing what he was doing.
You are full of ****. By the time he was done, people were no longer getting shocked ... and that fact is true even if he never understands or believes how that actually happened.
So you and him both are convinced that by losing a staple in a cable that is arcing to the bark of a tree fixed the damaged sheathing of the cable? Or was it the connection of the metal boxes to the ground rod that fixed this damaged sheathing of the cable? Come on now Lee we all know that he did nothing to improve the cables. As to no one being shocked proves nothing. Remember the thread where the equipment grounding conductor was lifted and the devices connected to a rod at a pier in order to stop the tingle shock when touching the metal pier. Instead of taking away the shock they removed the safety line that would save a life and did nothing to make the situation safer.
current is not shunted to earth
I now know that ...
Then how did what your brother did solve the problem and everyone quit getting shocked? What about you comment here about the short in the panel and nothing being shunted to the ground rod.
You are wrong. Simple ignorance is one thing, but "flawed thinking" is a judgmental statement having nothing to do with the physical facts at hand.
Call it a judgmental or flawed, either way it is incorrect just as your statement below about “no significant amount of current was being shunted to groundâ€
You have missed my question. While the panel was not bonded and the hot was shorted, no current appeared between hot and neutral even though the neutral's return path was good and no significant amount of current was being shunted to ground.
In order for current to flow there has to be a complete path for current to flow. In order to have current between the hot and neutral conductor and the breaker not open there must be a load of some sort between the two.
If you are saying there was not voltage present between the two then I am going to guess that there was something open between the test points.

Question: Do you have any idea where I can get the breaker retainer you had informed me about being needed in my panel?
From the manufacturer of the panel if that panel is designed to accept one. It may be that the panel has been discontinued and will need to be replaced with a newer model in order to tie the breaker down.
 

BobL43

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Yes you have a fixation that connecting to a ground rod seems to cure everything. This is evidenced in your next statement.
So you and him both are convinced that by losing a staple in a cable that is arcing to the bark of a tree fixed the damaged sheathing of the cable? Or was it the connection of the metal boxes to the ground rod that fixed this damaged sheathing of the cable? Come on now Lee we all know that he did nothing to improve the cables. As to no one being shocked proves nothing. Remember the thread where the equipment grounding conductor was lifted and the devices connected to a rod at a pier in order to stop the tingle shock when touching the metal pier. Instead of taking away the shock they removed the safety line that would save a life and did nothing to make the situation safer.
Then how did what your brother did solve the problem and everyone quit getting shocked? What about you comment here about the short in the panel and nothing being shunted to the ground rod.
Call it a judgmental or flawed, either way it is incorrect just as your statement below about “no significant amount of current was being shunted to ground”
In order for current to flow there has to be a complete path for current to flow. In order to have current between the hot and neutral conductor and the breaker not open there must be a load of some sort between the two.
If you are saying there was not voltage present between the two then I am going to guess that there was something open between the test points.

From the manufacturer of the panel if that panel is designed to accept one. It may be that the panel has been discontinued and will need to be replaced with a newer model in order to tie the breaker down.

Oy, oy oy, oy, oy.
 

LLigetfa

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JW, you seem to hold steadfast to the theory that not a single electron of current flows through the ground which you must know to be wrong. The ground (earth) can and does somtimes provide a current path.

In electrical safety training we were taught that current, not voltage is the killer. In the event of a fallen high voltage line, we were taught to bunny hop and not to run away from the danger. When one runs, there can be a voltage differential between one foot and the other and current can flow through the ground between one foot and the other.

In the example of the dock, the tingles felt were from current flowing through the body to the water (earth ground).
 

JWelectric

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Current can and does flow through earth but a connection to a ground rod does not mitigate the danger of current flow through the body as being discussed in this thread. The current flowing through earth is seeking its source.

The connection to the grounding electrode system does not lessen the danger of electrical shock to someone coming in contact with something energized. As a matter of fact the tingle that Lee felt was due to current flowing through earth or at least the concrete floor he was standing on.

Every electron that is flowing through earth is searching for its source where it must return. This law that states that the current must return to its source is evidenced by the primary and secondary connection of the transformer at the pole. The neutral of both the primary and secondary connects to the grounding electrode at the pole which holds the transformer.
If the laws of current flow were as some think then why doesn’t the current of the primary come in on the neutral of the secondary that is connect to the same point? The answer is simple; every electron is seeking its own source.
 

Ballvalve

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As to Lee' rather un-nice comments on JW's personality [on line, at least] I must say he reminds me of Sister Jerome from the 7th grade, who carried a pointer that must have been hickory, since it never broke on the massive strokes adminstered to me.

But now I remember her fondly as one of the best teachers I ever had. She had eyes in the back of her head and a snicker behind her would get a direct hit in nano second turn around. Plus she was big as a football player, and her boots scared the hell out of us. No electric schocks for her!

Hit a kid now with a wooden spoon and its off to jail and the special child abuse prosecutor paid by production of convictions.

I left my kid in the tool van with a German Shepherd that would go through the closed window if someone even looked at my kid, while entering a store for a few minutes. My wife told me I would have gone to jail for that. Amazing.
 
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JWelectric

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Yes, and exactly that is what had once happened to me. I was working in a place where the boss had a metal box on the end of a piece of rubber cord, a big no-no, ……… plug needed to be put in the other way (back then in the day of same-sized blades), ………. but the boss at least saw something was wrong and pulled the cord from the wall socket.
reversed polarity and grounding is two different things and using a metal box with a rubber cord is an acceptable wiring method.

Still in relation to the matter of a receptacle's ground, there is yet another purpose beyond lightening and what you have mentioned, at least in one case known to me:
Unless you have come across something that all those great minds that writes the NEC and those text books used in our schools today then there is no other reason for the ground rods which has already been pointed out to you in this thread.
I once had a computer that would not work correctly unless it was connected to a grounded receptacle, and that used to be a big problem for me in any room that did not have grounded outlets. Using a 3-to-2 adapter could get the device plugged in and powered up, but it still needed a ground in place to actually work.
If it would come on just what did the grounding conductor do that made it work? I don’t understand how it could come on but not work and by some miracle the equipment grounding conductor made the system work. The equipment grounding conductor does not conduct electricity unless there is a ground fault. Ever wonder why the equipment grounding conductor is bare and not insulated?
So, and while I would no longer do this today, there have been times in the past where I have temporarily added a jumper wire from an outlet's neutral screw to its ground screw in order to make it possible for that particular machine to work.
All you did was make the equipment grounding terminal and anything connected to it at the same potential as the circuit itself. It neither made anything connected to it work nor did it make anything safe. Quite the contrary what you did was very dangerous and could have caused someone to have been hurt very badly. If this was an acceptable wiring method why are the two not connected together instead of requiring two completely different conductors?
 

JWelectric

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This thread was started asking if a 30 amp breaker could be installed in a panel that was supplied by a 30 amp feeder.

The answer to that question was yes.

The thread has turned into something different than what the original post was asking. Although the discussion has covered some very important information concerning grounding it seems that the information is being shunned therefore there is no need to continue the discussion.

I am closing this thread as it seems to have become anything but educational. Should anyone have any questions concerning the information contained in this thread please start another thread.

Should anyone think this thread is being closed prematurely send me a PM and we will discuss the issue.
 
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