One of my lock down jobs has been attending to some home jobs that have way on the back burner.
One job was to try to tidy up the house main breaker panel. There were a few issues that I wanted to get cleared up. (I am not an electrician I just try to be careful)
When I built the house 30+ years ago the main panel had the strap between the ground and neutral removed as per the power company. It was possible the Power company guy did not realize my my main panel was the first panel after the meter. He should have because he checked the ground wire and made us change it for a solid conductor. When I was checking on adding a sub panel I came across the instruction to not have Ground and neutral connected in the sub but it Must be connected in the Main panel.
So I replaced the strap between the ground and neutral bars. I could follow the explanation as to why it was connected like that but it was not very clear to me.
I came across a you tube video this morning that gave a great explanation as to why it was connected like that. Showed the effect of adding a ground neutral connection at a sub panel. He had some return power on the ground wire when he added the connection.
So this evening I went outside to my ground rod with an Amp clamp meter and checked it. 0.00 on the ground wire. Good. But when I clamped on ground from the cable box I got 0.10 to 0.50 amps. Clamping the meter above the cable connection I got the same reading. I also got the same reading if I clamped around the incoming cable wire but nothing on the cable wire after the ground connection.
In my investigation I did find to my horror the ground wire was not connected to the the ground rod. Not sure when that happened but the Phone box ground wire was just stuck along side the main ground. I have vice grips clamping the ground rod and wire and will be getting a new clamp in the morning.
Any thoughts on the cable amps???
David
The green line comes from the main panel. The Blue line is the TV cable line and there is a connector in the cable line with a ground connection.
One job was to try to tidy up the house main breaker panel. There were a few issues that I wanted to get cleared up. (I am not an electrician I just try to be careful)
When I built the house 30+ years ago the main panel had the strap between the ground and neutral removed as per the power company. It was possible the Power company guy did not realize my my main panel was the first panel after the meter. He should have because he checked the ground wire and made us change it for a solid conductor. When I was checking on adding a sub panel I came across the instruction to not have Ground and neutral connected in the sub but it Must be connected in the Main panel.
So I replaced the strap between the ground and neutral bars. I could follow the explanation as to why it was connected like that but it was not very clear to me.
I came across a you tube video this morning that gave a great explanation as to why it was connected like that. Showed the effect of adding a ground neutral connection at a sub panel. He had some return power on the ground wire when he added the connection.
So this evening I went outside to my ground rod with an Amp clamp meter and checked it. 0.00 on the ground wire. Good. But when I clamped on ground from the cable box I got 0.10 to 0.50 amps. Clamping the meter above the cable connection I got the same reading. I also got the same reading if I clamped around the incoming cable wire but nothing on the cable wire after the ground connection.
In my investigation I did find to my horror the ground wire was not connected to the the ground rod. Not sure when that happened but the Phone box ground wire was just stuck along side the main ground. I have vice grips clamping the ground rod and wire and will be getting a new clamp in the morning.
Any thoughts on the cable amps???
David