On 11/20/2012 10:40 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 11/19/2012 1:56 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
I've got a flickering light problem to track down.

The circuit has a few living room outlets on it with 2 incandescent
lamps plugged in and a couple of 4' florescent shop-light style
fixtures in the basement. Three times in the past week or so, all 4 of
these fixtures started flickering for few minutes and then stopped.

I plan to remove the breaker box cover and check the connections at
the breaker and neutral bus, but I'm looking for other suggestions in
case everything in the box is tight.

Could a bad florescent bulb or fixture cause all four lamps to
flicker? How about a bad breaker?

Any other thoughts?

I wish it wasn't so intermittent so that I could track it down easier.
A couple of days between each episode is a real pain.


Look at the ballasts and see what the environment operating temperature
is. Most indoor ballasts are designed to reliably start the lamps at
40°F. For outdoor or unheated shed applications you can get 0°F ballasts.
One thing that is often overlooked is grounding the metal fixture
housing. Believe it or not, in cooler temperatures above 40°F
a fluorescent tube fixture may not light if the metal housing is not grounded. O_o

TDD

The fluorescents have been working fine in their current location for over
15 years with just the normal bulb changes. They are also grounded. Plus
the flickering isn't on startup, when it happens, it happens after they are
warmed up.

Besides, I don't think a cold starting problem with a fluorescent fixture
would cause 2 incandescent fixtures to flicker, would it?


Oh no, I didn't realize that your incandescent lights were flickering
too. My mistake for failure to grok your situation. If the power is
daisy chained through other devices, you may have a bad wire nut or
wiring device with a bad internal or external connection. Hopefully
there is no (shudder) aluminum Romex in your home. I often use The
Jesus Method to find breakers and the smoke test to find bad connections
but you really need to have experience and spotters on hand to use the
smoke test. It would surprise you to know that many bad connections can
be found by listening to the various junctions when a circuit is loaded
to maximum capacity just short of tripping the circuit breaker. I have
an ultrasonic leak detector and infrared thermometer I've used to find
bad connections or malfunctioning breakers. Years ago, I worked for an
electrical contracting company that started using real time thermal
imaging to detect malfunctioning equipment and bad connections. A good
infrared thermometer is cost effective for a home owner to purchase
these days with the ultrasonic detectors being a bit expensive and
thermal imagers being too costly for a do-it-yourselfer to justify the
expense with even the least costly commercially available units. There
is a fellow who came up with a home-brew add on for an iPhone. ^_^

http://www.techhive.com/article/2000...ng-camera.html

http://tinyurl.com/dy8c9lt

http://www.instructables.com/id/Ther...-Phone-Camera/

http://tinyurl.com/d28o8fj

TDD