Breakers Popping
#1
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Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: Canada
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Breakers Popping
Greetings!
Hoping someone can give me some possible insight into a problem that I've recently encountered.
I have a detached garage that is feed from a 50amp breaker in the main panel in my house. This feeds a sub panel in my garage. Everything has been fine for years. Today I go into the shop after lunch and find that two separate breakers have tripped in this panel in my shop. One has a 120v compressor hooked up to it and a TV and cable box. The other has a fridge and a couple of tool battery chargers hooked up to it. Breakers are both 15A. The breakers on that side of the panel seem to be warm to the touch, can't say I've ever really checked them for how hot they are before so not sure if this is normal. When I reset the breakers the one with the compressor on it immediately trips when I turn the compressor back on. The one with the fridge seems to be ok for a few minutes and then it trips.
I moved the fridge to another outlet on the opposite side of the panel and it seems to be fine. Is this likely to be an issue with the incoming hot for the one side of the panel being loose? Or is it possible that these two breakers are faulty, seems weird to me that two breakers would be faulty at the exact same time.
Again there has been no issues for as long as I've owned the house. It would seem odd to me that a loose connection would arise all of a sudden.
Any help is appreciated!
thx
Mike
Hoping someone can give me some possible insight into a problem that I've recently encountered.
I have a detached garage that is feed from a 50amp breaker in the main panel in my house. This feeds a sub panel in my garage. Everything has been fine for years. Today I go into the shop after lunch and find that two separate breakers have tripped in this panel in my shop. One has a 120v compressor hooked up to it and a TV and cable box. The other has a fridge and a couple of tool battery chargers hooked up to it. Breakers are both 15A. The breakers on that side of the panel seem to be warm to the touch, can't say I've ever really checked them for how hot they are before so not sure if this is normal. When I reset the breakers the one with the compressor on it immediately trips when I turn the compressor back on. The one with the fridge seems to be ok for a few minutes and then it trips.
I moved the fridge to another outlet on the opposite side of the panel and it seems to be fine. Is this likely to be an issue with the incoming hot for the one side of the panel being loose? Or is it possible that these two breakers are faulty, seems weird to me that two breakers would be faulty at the exact same time.
Again there has been no issues for as long as I've owned the house. It would seem odd to me that a loose connection would arise all of a sudden.
Any help is appreciated!
thx
Mike
#3
Member
Check the voltage at the suspect breakers. It should be 120/240 vac. If voltage is low, this reduces flux in motor and it requires more time to get up to speed. This means the start windings (high current) are connected for a longer time possibly tripping suspect breakers. Both the compressor and refrigerator start under load.