Breaker instantly trips for my Well Pump

[Brandon M Anderson]

If the ohm meter beeps when you touch the two probes together, and it beeps when you touch one probe to ground and one to a motor wire, then the motor is shorted.

doesn't beep with ground, only beeps with red to red black to black

 

[Brandon M Anderson]

Hmmm. No red flag there. When you said immediately, was it less than a second, or could it have been say 7 seconds?

I think what I would do next is to put an insulator between the left side contacts. A plastic bread clip would be good. Wire up the pump as normal. Turn on the power. Pump will not start. Does the breaker blow?

Turn off the power. Move the bread clip. Try again.

No blow? Turn off the power. Remove the bread clip. How long does the breaker take to blow?

it is less than a second, sparks sometimes out of breaker. In regard to the left side contacts, are you talking about the pressure control? That is brand new today.

 

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[Reach4]

it is less than a second, sparks sometimes out of breaker. In regard to the left side contacts, are you talking about the pressure control? That is brand new today.

Yes. My proposed test is to feed power to only one power line at a time. If there is an almost-short to ground, the breaker could blow.

OK... before any of that, with the wires off the pump for testing as they are right now, and not touching anything. Turn on the breaker. Does it blow? If so, great. That would probably mean you mis-wired or there is a wiring fault. That would be the happy discovery.

 

[Brandon M Anderson]

I've done that already. I turned breaker on with pressure control discoed, didn't trip. Then with pressure control wired in and pump disconnected, didn't trip. But with pump wired in it trips. Out of curiosity, the breaker being a 2 pole, I have no idea what the 2nd wire goes to in the breaker. Both wires are black so can't be same cable, but I can't find anything else that isn't working with breaker off.

 

[Brandon M Anderson]

Also, the ground wire from the pump doesn't splice into anything, just sitting dead at top of 4 in pipe.

 

[Reach4]

I've done that already. I turned breaker on with pressure control discoed, didn't trip. Then with pressure control wired in and pump disconnected, didn't trip. But with pump wired in it trips. Out of curiosity, the breaker being a 2 pole, I have no idea what the 2nd wire goes to in the breaker. Both wires are black so can't be same cable, but I can't find anything else that isn't working with breaker off.

Two-pole breaker has two hots. One black wire to each part. Each wire current is being monitored, and when one side trips, the interconnection also shuts off the other side.

 

[Brandon M Anderson]

Two-pole breaker has two hots. One black wire to each part. Each wire current is being monitored, and when one side trips, the interconnection also shuts off the other side.

so where is the second black wire going? It's not going into the pressure control

 

[Reach4]

so where is the second black wire going? It's not going into the pressure control

It's supposed to. What is going to the pressure switch? Four wires is the norm for a 230 volt pump. Two connect to the breaker, and two connect to the pump.

 

[Brandon M Anderson]

It's supposed to. What is going to the pressure switch? Four wires is the norm for a 230 volt pump. Two connect to the breaker, and two connect to the pump.

Well, they aren't both black for the Line 1 and 4 positions. 1 is black and 4 is white and that is the line going back to the breaker. 2 and 3 are heading out to the pump.

 

[Reach4]

Well, they aren't both black for the Line 1 and 4 positions. 1 is black and 4 is white and that is the line going back to the breaker. 2 and 3 are heading out to the pump.

That is fine if the black and white are in the same nonmetallic cable. The white wire is supposed to have both ends marked. A black Sharpie marker is often used. So the two-pole breaker will have a black on one pole, and a marked white on the other.

 

[Brandon M Anderson]

That is fine if the black and white are in the same nonmetallic cable. The white wire is supposed to have both ends marked. A black Sharpie marker is often used.

so why would it change from black and white at the control and end up being black and black at the breaker panel

 

[Brandon M Anderson]

my bad the top one is white, so many wires didn't notice it has electric tape to mark it

 

[Reach4]

so why would it change from black and white at the control and end up being black and black at the breaker panel

In a perfect world, you would have two non-white wires running from the breaker to the switch. They could be red and blue. So in the diagram above, terminal 1 might have a red, and terminal 4 would be blue. They could both be black.

But to keep people from having to run new wires when they change things over, they allow the use of the white as a hot when part of the non-metallic cable that is run. If you had conduit, they would officially want you to run a new not-white wire, I think.

Incidentally, some may be thinking that blue is for a different purpose. I think it would be fine.

 

[Brandon M Anderson]

So if this was all working fine yesterday, and this is only a 2 wire (not counting the ground) pump. And I replaced the breaker and pressure control, do you think the pump is shot considering there really isn't anything else involved compared to some of the 3 wire pump set ups i have read about?

 

[Reach4]

The deal is that you like to exhaust other possiblities before pulling the pump.
The 5 ohm number does not seem to point to the pump.

However I think you may have done your due diligence before replacing the pump.

 

[Brandon M Anderson]

We do have rusty water, and it was a pump from menards so I'm not even sure what brand it is. Home Depot and Lowes didn't sell pumps. So I'm starting to think it may be a crappy pump sitting in rusty water and seized up or something. I did switch the water piping in the well from galvanized to PVC to be able to pull it up easier.

 

[Brandon M Anderson]

I really do appreciate all your help and time. I don't want to take up anymore of your time. Probly just need to pull it up and replace pump. Wife and kids really need water lol.