Help from Electrician

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echlectica

Well-Known Member
My brother who is an elctrical contractor with a Masters License looked at this and said he couldn't figured it out ttonight but he would come back tomorow but I would like to have it figured out before then.

Problem: I have both my rooms powered through a subpanel there is 8 guage running into the subpanel. I have 4 400's and 1 1000 watter and a few other things all on outdoor digital timer from Home depot. My neutrals were getting hot and a found that the neutral lug in the sub was loose. But now there is a 40% amperage drop from hot to neutral, in other words theres 25.6 amps going in on the hotleg and only 15.1 amp coming out on the Neutral. I found this becasue I'm in the process of installing new 30amp digital time clocks for the light so I;m going to do away with all the little timers on the lights which are all overloaded.

So would you say its the timers or maybe the cooked neutral or something in one of the light ballasts.
Like I said my brother holds a Masters license and he's coming to help me fix it tomorow but I'd like to one up him by figuring it out. Our dad was an electrical contractor too so I grew up doing electrical work but this is over my head.
 
yeah mag ballasts, all on those little plugin "heavy duty" digital timers. Actually all the 400 ballasts I built except the 1000 thats a store bought ballast. I'm inclined to think its the cheap timers. the subpanel is fed from a 50 amp single pole in the main panel.
 
echlectica said:
yeah mag ballasts, all on those little plugin "heavy duty" digital timers. Actually all the 400 ballasts I built except the 1000 thats a store bought ballast. I'm inclined to think its the cheap timers. the subpanel is fed from a 50 amp single pole in the main panel.
Click to expand...

You have 100amp service to your main then? And a 50 sub off that?
 
I have a 200 amp sevice and I have a 50 amp breaker in that panel that feeds the subpanel. in the subpanel I have the ground bonded to the neutral bar, so they are not isolated in the subpanel.
 
You cooked something most def bro. If you guys already checked and ampd out your feed's..and you said your N was warm or hot..ya know? Sorry for the delay, on my way to bed.
 
You sound like you know what your doing..just curious how much other shit your pulling off that one leg in your main, if its loaded pretty good and you have a 50amp sub off that same leg you can have problems.
 
A lot. Too much. Thats something my brother said he was going to do tomorow ws redo my main panel a little. He actually owned this house before I did and did a service change on it so the house panel is his work I added the sub when I bought it. regrdless of anything the whole sub and both rooms need to be rewired and the ballasts now need to be opened and tested. and everything needs to go on the industrial timeclocks I bought. So its all getting redone tomorow. thanx.
 
How did u make out with that? I don't see anything you have going on as a major issue, or you frying something. Everything is doing what it is suppose to, A ballast has an issue and it grounding itself to protect you.
 
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