BP wrote:
"Jeff Wisnia" wrote in message
et...
BP wrote:
"Jeff Wisnia" wrote in message
...
helpme wrote:
Please help. I just installed two 2 pole light switches in the bedroom
(they should have been 3 pole). When I went to turn on the power it
tripped a breaker so I knew it was not right. I looked online and
found I should have bought two 3 pole switches, so I went to HD and got
2 of them. Now they are both installed, but I am unable to turn on the
light. When I tested with a multimeter I found only one switch has
power going to it while the other has none. Anyone have a clue what
happened? Did I 'fry' the wires? What do I do now?
Assuming there were 3-way switches and the proper number of wires there
already, installing new 3-way switches correctly should get it working
again.
The breaker will have protected the wiring, so it is very unlikely you
damaged anything.
Go back to Home Depot and buy a book on basic electrical wiring.
You don't know what you are doing now, but your post is intelligible
enough so that I'd guess with a book to guide you you'll come up to speed
fast.
HTH,
Jeff
"The breaker will have protected the wiring"
Actually, the breaker is there to protect the humans. Though rare, the
devices can be damaged in a hard short.
Oh???
Would you be willing to try clenching your right hand around a bare hot
feed wire and your left hand around its bare neutral wire and depend on
the upstream 15 amp breaker to "protect" you?
I suspect not.
The breaker "protects" the wiring and devices to the best of its ability,
and the relatively new arc fault detecting breakers add another dimension
of protection.
Breakers are there to limit heating caused by overcurrents and by so doing
prevent fires. Thus, they only indirectly "protect" humans.
I stand by what I wrote, the OPs "wiring" wouldn't have much chance of
being damaged because the breaker (which popped) would have protected
them.
Jeff
You are, of course, technically correct. I didn't mean to say your entire
point was wromg. It is not. And I should have said "protect the humans from
fire".
But...
In a "hard short", when the hot lead is inadvertantly connected to the
nuetral lead on a connected device, the breaker does not cut the current
fast enough to protect *every* device. This applies far more to electronic
devices connected to the circuits ( see http://www.bcae1.com/cirbrakr.htm)
than dumb devices like wall switches, and this is the point I was trying to
alert people to. But even a wall switch can be damaged in a hard short
("though rare") particularly if it had a slight defect to begin with. With
all of the microelectronic circuitry built into so many devices used in
homes today, in addition to the big ones like computers, TVs, and sound
equipment, it would be less than accurate for people to believe that the
circuit breaker will protect those devices from damage. It will not.
And, "while rare", the OP *could* have damaged the switch if he hard shorted
it.
Agreed, and for my part I should have been even more specific by
defining "wiring" as being just the conductors and nothing else. I was
trying to reassure the OP that there was little chance that he would be
facing tearing down wall and ceiling plasterboard to replace his Romex
or whatever was in place.
And yes, I agree that the extent of the damage to electronic equipment
stemming by internal faults in the equipment itself can be less if a
fast acting overload device interrupts the power feeding that equipment.
But the realities are that in most cases whatever fault occurred in that
equipment to cause the overcurrent condition isn't going to go away by
itself and probably the cost of a professional repair will make the
owner junk the equipment in favor of replacing it anyway. G
Jeff
--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
"Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented."