Need electrical help!

[jimnyc]

I hear ya. If I'm troubleshooting wiring, EVERYONE stays away from me.

So it's not just me? You should have seen me when I used to have to build our own Cat-5 cables. Yes, they were that cheap back in the day and I had to make lengths of cable, and then crimp on the heads. Granted I wasn't getting electrocuted, but there were a few times, trying to line up 8 fucking colors in that little tiny head, where an innocent person walking by almost got choked out with my cable. And then we would run old shit cable and make our own RS-232 connections, the old dumb monitor connections, where there were pins on the cable like on a VGA cable. We would have to crimp on all of those little gold heads... Nevermind, I'm getting nightmares thinking of it. It was just tedious shit, and one little screwup and that was the end of the cable. I hate all wiring/cabling - but at least I never had to fiddle much with live crap and fall off ladders!

[Gunny]

So it's not just me? You should have seen me when I used to have to build our own Cat-5 cables. Yes, they were that cheap back in the day and I had to make lengths of cable, and then crimp on the heads. Granted I wasn't getting electrocuted, but there were a few times, trying to line up 8 fucking colors in that little tiny head, where an innocent person walking by almost got choked out with my cable. And then we would run old shit cable and make our own RS-232 connections, the old dumb monitor connections, where there were pins on the cable like on a VGA cable. We would have to crimp on all of those little gold heads... Nevermind, I'm getting nightmares thinking of it. It was just tedious shit, and one little screwup and that was the end of the cable. I hate all wiring/cabling - but at least I never had to fiddle much with live crap and fall off ladders!

And one little screw-up in a 3 way is the same.

And yes, I've fallen off and/or been knocked the f- off by a 277v neutral more than once.

[jimnyc]

I'm only posting the following so that everyone can see that I own up to my mistakes!

I stand by my original assessments though:

1- Wife hit one side of 3 way switch and the fan/light went off and switches wouldn't turn them back on again.
2- The switches worked for 15 years, those weren't my installs
3- As I pulled down the motor housing on the old one, the light came back on (lead me to believe a short)
4- Disconnected rest of fan/light
5- Bought 2 new switches
6- Bought new fan/light

This is where I screwed up somewhere.

1- I replaced switch at bottom of stairwell
2- I replaced switch at top, where the fan/light was
3- Installed new fan/light and left hanging from bracket, can't get either to power on. Give up and wait for electrician

4- Dwell on it at night
5- Dwell on it in morning
6- Got to Home Depot again and get some wire & a new meter
7- Still nothing

8- I notice the one switch has RED wire on top right of switch. RED wire was on bottom of other switch. WTF?
9- I put the RED the same on both switches, and move the other to the red position
10- Yay! Now I have light!!!
11- Waste my time putting everything back together. Light goes and no fan!! WTF??
12- Spend hours troubleshooting
13- After checking with meters 1000x to make sure I'm right, I swap the 2 blacks - one is in upper left, other on lower right.

Voila! Fan and light work. Put everything back together, put switch plates on and put all tools away.

14- Play with both switches 80x to make sure it stays working. And it does.

Ya know, I don't even know if that's the damn order. All I know is that even when I "thought" it was all working another time, both fan and light working, it wasn't. That's when wife went to bottom switch and turned off. When that one was off, the upper wouldn't do anything no matter if the switch was up or down. When the bottom was in UP position, the upper worked fine. Cables were backwards.

I fucked up with the damn wires 6 inches from my face. Thank God I didn't blow out a socket/switch or start a fire. I should have used tape on every single wire, marked them, took a picture - so that it was impossible to get it wrong.

I still have no idea what started the whole issue, that she turned the unit off at the switch and it never came back on again. And of course I compounded the issue by getting the wires on the switch wrong. Basically, picture the 3 wires (upper left, upper right, bottom right) they all went in clockwise position to the next lead. To fix it, they needed to go back counter clockwise to their original positions.

AT and Gunny were right, should have waited and got an electrician. And I highly recommend that to anyone else that isn't 1000000% sure of what they are doing. I was 99% sure and the 1% got me! I figured it out because I couldn't seem to let it go - but I was only lucky I suppose that I didn't harm anything.

Those in the know - could having these wires wrong like that between the 3 way switches cause anything more than a blown switch, or killed fan?

[jimnyc]

And one little screw-up in a 3 way is the same

This is unfortunately what I just found out the hard way with these switches too!

[jimnyc]

I spoke to soon.

All still works, all wiring still fine, nothing like that. But I think crossing wires and such damaged the fan itself. Inside the motors of ceiling fans there is a square capacitor. The sole job of this capacitor is to engage and speed up the fan when you turn it on, that's it, it's only job.

Well, I turn the fan off, wait for it to stop, and turn it back on and it doesn't move. I feel it humming as I pull the cord, all 3 speeds, then off again. I switch it back to high and turn it manually like a propeller and it then speeds up and stays on. I repeated the process with the same results. I found out about this issue online. Another guy told someone about this, and told the guy to simply "lower the fan casing and find the capacitor, not whether it's marked, and then bring it to hardware store and replace it." The guy at the hardware store told him it would be better to just replace.

And I don't care how easy it is to replace this supposed capacitor, my ass ain't ever touching one of those suckers again. I have no idea how much energy is stored in this particular one, and I don't want to find out.

Gonna have the electrician verify the 3 way switches are in good working order. If all is well electrically, then I guess my cost for trying to do this myself will be the cost of another fan!

[Gunny]

I'm only posting the following so that everyone can see that I own up to my mistakes!

I stand by my original assessments though:

1- Wife hit one side of 3 way switch and the fan/light went off and switches wouldn't turn them back on again.
2- The switches worked for 15 years, those weren't my installs
3- As I pulled down the motor housing on the old one, the light came back on (lead me to believe a short)
4- Disconnected rest of fan/light
5- Bought 2 new switches
6- Bought new fan/light

This is where I screwed up somewhere.

1- I replaced switch at bottom of stairwell
2- I replaced switch at top, where the fan/light was
3- Installed new fan/light and left hanging from bracket, can't get either to power on. Give up and wait for electrician

4- Dwell on it at night
5- Dwell on it in morning
6- Got to Home Depot again and get some wire & a new meter
7- Still nothing

8- I notice the one switch has RED wire on top right of switch. RED wire was on bottom of other switch. WTF?
9- I put the RED the same on both switches, and move the other to the red position
10- Yay! Now I have light!!!
11- Waste my time putting everything back together. Light goes and no fan!! WTF??
12- Spend hours troubleshooting
13- After checking with meters 1000x to make sure I'm right, I swap the 2 blacks - one is in upper left, other on lower right.

Voila! Fan and light work. Put everything back together, put switch plates on and put all tools away.

14- Play with both switches 80x to make sure it stays working. And it does.

Ya know, I don't even know if that's the damn order. All I know is that even when I "thought" it was all working another time, both fan and light working, it wasn't. That's when wife went to bottom switch and turned off. When that one was off, the upper wouldn't do anything no matter if the switch was up or down. When the bottom was in UP position, the upper worked fine. Cables were backwards.

I fucked up with the damn wires 6 inches from my face. Thank God I didn't blow out a socket/switch or start a fire. I should have used tape on every single wire, marked them, took a picture - so that it was impossible to get it wrong.

I still have no idea what started the whole issue, that she turned the unit off at the switch and it never came back on again. And of course I compounded the issue by getting the wires on the switch wrong. Basically, picture the 3 wires (upper left, upper right, bottom right) they all went in clockwise position to the next lead. To fix it, they needed to go back counter clockwise to their original positions.

AT and Gunny were right, should have waited and got an electrician. And I highly recommend that to anyone else that isn't 1000000% sure of what they are doing. I was 99% sure and the 1% got me! I figured it out because I couldn't seem to let it go - but I was only lucky I suppose that I didn't harm anything.

Those in the know - could having these wires wrong like that between the 3 way switches cause anything more than a blown switch, or killed fan?

You crossed your travellers. That's what I suspected. That's the two wires at the top of each switch. The bottom of of one switch will have your hot, and the bottom of the other switch your switch leg. And yes, you mix those with the hot or switch leg the wrong way and you're pretty much done.

In commercial wiring, we mark all the wires so we know which one goes where at each end. We're also using conduit we can put the number of wires in that we need. Romex drives me insane.

[jimnyc]

You crossed your travellers. That's what I suspected. That's the two wires at the top of each switch. The bottom of of one switch will have your hot, and the bottom of the other switch your switch leg. And yes, you mix those with the hot or switch leg the wrong way and you're pretty much done.

In commercial wiring, we mark all the wires so we know which one goes where at each end. We're also using conduit we can put the number of wires in that we need. Romex drives me insane.

On my switches, based in the schematic that came with them...

Hey, wait a minute...

Yep, on mine the bottom right is the hot on both (as per schematic that came with switches). The top 2 are the travellers.

Now, I swear when I removed from the old one, it was different. I admit to never looking at the schematic on the new switch, just assumed they were all the same. Is it possible that putting them back in the identical order as before, still screwed it up because these are different manufacture switches?

[Gunny]

On my switches, based in the schematic that came with them...

Hey, wait a minute...

Yep, on mine the bottom right is the hot on both (as per schematic that came with switches). The top 2 are the travellers.

Now, I swear when I removed from the old one, it was different. I admit to never looking at the schematic on the new switch, just assumed they were all the same. Is it possible that putting them back in the identical order as before, still screwed it up because these are different manufacture switches?

Here's a trick next time you play electrician. You can get a number book in the electrical section at most hardware stores. Or, different color tape. Mark each wire and write down which one was where BEFORE disconnecting. Save you a couple of days of

[jimnyc]

Here's a trick next time you play electrician. You can get a number book in the electrical section at most hardware stores. Or, different color tape. Mark each wire and write down which one was where BEFORE disconnecting. Save you a couple of days of

That's what my Dad said, or take a picture. But these damn wires are so old that they all look alike!!! It's some old sheathing, almost hairy like at the frayed edges.

As to the bold - You can get a number of a good electrician.... would be better!!

[jimnyc]

Here's a trick next time you play electrician. You can get a number book in the electrical section at most hardware stores. Or, different color tape. Mark each wire and write down which one was where BEFORE disconnecting. Save you a couple of days of

IS it possible though, for the hot to be the bottom right on one manufacturer switch, but say on the top right on another manufacturer?

[Gunny]

That's what my Dad said, or take a picture. But these damn wires are so old that they all look alike!!! It's some old sheathing, almost hairy like at the frayed edges.

As to the bold - You can get a number of a good electrician.... would be better!!

Yeah, forget the picture. Use the numbers or different colored tape. Those don't look the same. I HATE doing service calls on old houses. You'd think the romex rockets paid for it themselves they make it so short in the box. Sounds to me like you've got that REALLY old cotton sheating over lead with wire inside. If I'd have been working on THAT, y'all'd have cleared the house because you'd be learning new words.

[jimnyc]

Yeah, forget the picture. Use the numbers or different colored tape. Those don't look the same. I HATE doing service calls on old houses. You'd think the romex rockets paid for it themselves they make it so short in the box. Sounds to me like you've got that REALLY old cotton sheating over lead with wire inside. If I'd have been working on THAT, y'all'd have cleared the house because you'd be learning new words.

Yeah, where it hasn't blackened totally, the "hairy" stuff I refer to looks like it WAS whitey cotton looking at one time. I put electrical tape on everything from where the wires came out of the walls all the way to the stripped end, just left a tad to see the colors. I did the same with the fan connections to the ceiling, and also put electrical tape on the plastic wire screws just in case.

When it gets even more frail, I guess the wiring altogether will have to be replaced? Shit, if it's like that up there, I'm sure it'll be the same throughout the house. I suppose it costs a lot to rewire an entire home?

[Gunny]

Yeah, where it hasn't blackened totally, the "hairy" stuff I refer to looks like it WAS whitey cotton looking at one time. I put electrical tape on everything from where the wires came out of the walls all the way to the stripped end, just left a tad to see the colors. I did the same with the fan connections to the ceiling, and also put electrical tape on the plastic wire screws just in case.

When it gets even more frail, I guess the wiring altogether will have to be replaced? Shit, if it's like that up there, I'm sure it'll be the same throughout the house. I suppose it costs a lot to rewire an entire home?

I have no idea what it costs where you live, Y'all's economy is a foreign notion compared to ours down here. It's expensive here. Your housing and stuff is also a different style and a lot older than ours from what I have seen. The type wire you are describing hasn't been used since the 40s. I haven't been around it a lot (thank you, Lord). What I've seen of it though, it's pretty sturdy. The frayed ends on the sheathing is where they cut it, that's all.

[jimnyc]

I have no idea what it costs where you live, Y'all's economy is a foreign notion compared to ours down here. It's expensive here. Your housing and stuff is also a different style and a lot older than ours from what I have seen. The type wire you are describing hasn't been used since the 40s. I haven't been around it a lot (thank you, Lord). What I've seen of it though, it's pretty sturdy. The frayed ends on the sheathing is where they cut it, that's all.

The house was built in 1941, so it makes sense, probably the original wiring most of the way around. Does wire in itself "go bad"? What I mean is, if everything works, and a dummy like me doesn't fuck with things, how long is such cable rated for?

[Gunny]

The house was built in 1941, so it makes sense, probably the original wiring most of the way around. Does wire in itself "go bad"? What I mean is, if everything works, and a dummy like me doesn't fuck with things, how long is such cable rated for?

It isn't rated for a specific time that I am aware of. Best I can tell, it outlasts the house. The older stuff I don't know. Current code doesn't cover it. There are houses over a hundred years old still standing though. Faulty electrical is usually due to -- you guessed it --- a dummy like you fucking with it.

Actually, almost all electrical fires are caused by misuse of appliances, not the electrical wiring. However, if you overload a circuit and the breaker doesn't trip, that could start a fire. And breakers DO go bad. But will STILL start the fire at the overlaod -- the user's end. There's a reason for the rating on the panel, the wiring, and the device (appliance). Just changing out your switches and fan isn't going to do anything as long as you over-taped everything like you said, and since I know you work with electronics, you're a step up on most. Only difference is the wires and devices are bigger.