The lights went out in Georgia! But the breaker's still hot!


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Old 02-16-16, 11:45 AM
J
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The lights went out in Georgia! But the breaker's still hot!

I went to replace a bulb in a standard drop ceiling fixture in our office, and have hit a problem. There are 23 fixtures in the ceiling, each with 4 40 watt bulbs. That's 3680 watts. It's run by two three way wall switches, so there's obviously more circuitry involved-those switches probably aren't carrying that much power.

The last guy had wedged the bulb in, and as soon as I touched it, it moved enough to hit the fixture and there was a small arc. Not big, just a small pop-left a small mark on the fixture, maybe half the size of a dime.

The lights on that side of the room went dark. No breakers tripped, those lights just went out. The other half of the room stayed lit. The breakers are not labeled correctly so I don't know which breaker it is, and I can't power cycle the breakers right now-there are people working on deadline-I can't risk shutting down their PC's.

When I flipped the switch to see if it would reset or change anything, the other side went dark and has stayed out. I've tried both switches in all possible positions, with no change.

Is there a chance that power cycling things tonight will put whatever relays or whatever they've got switching these back right, or should I just get on the list to get some real help.

I'm not incompetent when it comes to this stuff, but when it comes to a pair of switches running that many lights, I know I'm out of my league.

Thanks!
 
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Old 02-16-16, 11:50 AM
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Welcome to the forums.

My first concern is you say 'office' and that means you probably should not be doing anything more than flipping breakers for fear of opening yourself to liability.
 
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Old 02-16-16, 12:00 PM
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Thanks for the welcome. It's a small office and we're a pretty small business-we wired our TV studio ourselves-mostly me-I've done construction, it's done to code, and we had an electrician involved-I won't do anything that's unsafe or going to be a problem. That's why I'm here-I know when I'm in over my head. I'm not going to go up there and start probing for relays. I'm just wondering if there's even a shot that a power cycle (when I can do it) will change a thing.
 
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Old 02-16-16, 01:13 PM
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Found it!

Found a second breaker panel that no one knew about that feeds a set of upper offices and ONE THING in this lower area-these lights. That breaker had tripped out. Reset the breaker, it all went to working.
 
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Old 02-16-16, 02:35 PM
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Got'a luv those hidden breaker panels, doncha! Thanks for letting us know the solution. It may help someone else.
 
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Old 02-17-16, 11:11 AM
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Twenty three light fixtures altogether drawing 3680 watts cannot exist safely on one branch circuit.

That is 30 amps. Standard building light fixtures may be wired into circuits of at most 20 amps.
 
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Old 02-18-16, 04:34 AM
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Quite possible if the the lighting in the office is 277 volts.
 
 

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