Electronics > Repair
Question about voltage in U.S. house built in 1890
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BlownUpCapacitor:
So it looks like just a simple break in the ground connection somewhere in the building. I recommend hiring an electrician to do the job for you if you're uncomfortable doing it yourself. The fix is fairly simple. Just run a new ground line to that socket. Why not use the old one? Well, first of all it's gonna be a pain to get it out, fix it, then run it back. Plus if it's a broken conductor, it may not be in good condition to continue being used as a ground.
Stray Electron:

--- Quote from: niemand on May 15, 2024, 04:19:37 am ---
--- Quote from: Stray Electron on May 14, 2024, 03:54:48 pm ---...and the voltage that you're seeing from L1 to Ground is just from leakage.

--- End quote ---
What is "L1"? The hot contact on the outlet?

--- End quote ---

  The hot leg. 

     L1, l2, L3 actually apply to multi-phase power systems that have multiple hot legs 120 degrees out of phase with each other.  But I tend to think of U.S. residential power systems simply as a single phase systems or two phase power system with the phases 180 degrees out of phase with each other so I use the term L1 although it's actually N.A.
Stray Electron:

--- Quote from: niemand on May 16, 2024, 02:24:00 am ---
Compare with probing the plumbing pipe in the bathroom using the ground from the GFCI outlet (like I did yesterday in my reply #17):
I got 0.005 V and a duty cycle of 60 Hz.

--- End quote ---


   Having no, or very low, voltage doesn't necessarily mean that the two points have a good connection. One of them may simply be floating i.e.  not connected.  You would have to put some sort of significant electronic load on the test point to be sure that it actually IS connected to ground.

   BTW your neighbors ground rod looks the way that ground rods should look.  They are required by code to extend above ground and the wire and clamp be clearly visible so that the connection can be verified by an inspector.  Years ago some people did just shove a wire in the ground and sometimes it would ground the system but usually the wire didn't go deep enough in the ground and the ground was very poor so people still got shocked.
CaptDon:
I am living on a rural street in the states and our power situation seems to be very strange. I see one leg of what appears to be a 4160VAC circuit (2400VAC referenced to ground) and I see absolutely no return line what so ever? Only one single feed line crosses the main road to our road and amazingly it doesn't even have the protective lightning protector ground wire run above it!! There are 5 pole pig transformers on our road (25KVA each) with 3 to 5 houses on each one. I see only a 'home use' style ground rod at the bottom of each pole that has a transformer. I suppose the ground rods at each of our homes as well as the connection to our city iron water pipes (how's the electrolysis on those pipes I wonder) is forming the return? Is this typical of the U.S. power grid?? Seems like a poor way to do a power return and I wonder if it also leads to an early demise of the city water pipes?? Obviously, with only one feeder the whole neighborhood goes dark when a significant tree limb falls onto the feeder which seems to happen about three times each year. There is some sort of a fuse device out at the main road for our neigborhood which also seems to fail at least once each year.

niemand:

--- Quote from: Stray Electron on May 17, 2024, 02:52:00 am ---
--- Quote from: niemand on May 16, 2024, 02:24:00 am ---
Compare with probing the plumbing pipe in the bathroom using the ground from the GFCI outlet (like I did yesterday in my reply #17):
I got 0.005 V and a duty cycle of 60 Hz.

--- End quote ---


   Having no, or very low, voltage doesn't necessarily mean that the two points have a good connection. One of them may simply be floating i.e.  not connected.  You would have to put some sort of significant electronic load on the test point to be sure that it actually IS connected to ground.
[...]

--- End quote ---
Is this true even if the meter reads 5 V when I take the probe away from the plumbing pipe?
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