On Thu, 21 Jan 2016 20:18:33 -0000 (UTC), "E. Robinson"
wrote:

On Thu, 21 Jan 2016 15:14:52 -0500, Stormin Mormon wrote:

Ah, so you had a loose neutral, then? Or was it
some other problem?

Here's the somewhat hard to fathom explanation I gave in another post.


On Thu, 21 Jan 2016 05:40:15 -0800, TimR wrote:

You can trythis to confirm it..... without even removing the panel.......

Turn off the main breaker.

Now try to turn on the bad breaker.

If it still does not catch even with the main off, the breaker is definilty bad.


Ingenious. Simple and workable.

If the breaker is bad, there can still be something else wrong too. Sometimes breakers wear out, sometimes they go bad for a reason.

That is the kind of a.h.r advice I was looking for!

It worked perfectly!

In fact, your approach worked so perfectly, that it, um, uh, er.... it SOLVED the problem!

Well, not exactly (it couldn't have solved the problem), but this is what happened!

1. The "bad" breaker was in the off position.
2. Unfortunately, I didn't think to test it today (last tested 2 days ago).
3. I went outside and turned the mains off.
4. I went to the breaker panel, and turned the "bad" breaker on.
5. It stayed in the on position!
6. I flipped it back and forth a few times.
7. It stayed in the on position!
8. I left it in the on position.
9. I went outside, and flipped the mains back on.
10. I had expected the "bad" circuit to trip.
11. Huh? It was still in the on position.
12. I flipped it back and forth a few times.
13. It worked perfectly fine.
14. I went upstairs, and turned each affected light on (one by one).
15. They *all* worked (one multi-bulb light had 1 of 5 bulbs burnt out).
16. Maybe that one bulb caused the circuit to blow? Naaah.

I removed the one bad bulb, but, other than that, nothing (that I know of)
has changed between now and two days ago (other than the rain stopped, which
has been constant here in California the past few weeks).

I don't understand, but, somehow, that ingenious trick showed not only
that the circuit breaker was good, but, that the circuit, somehow,
is (at least now) also good.

Makes no sense, I agree.
But that's the data.
I will let you know if it trips again.

I'd be replacing that breaker - for sure. Real cheap insurance.
Turning off the power didn't "fix" it, it just allowed you to manually
operate the breaker several times, which shifted something in the
breaker, temporarily allowing it to stay on. Might not trip now with a
fault.

DON"T TAKE A CHANCE.