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Flickering lights on one circuit James 04-11-2008
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Posted by James on April 12, 2008, 8:57 pm
Craig, I think that you are exactly right. I think that when the laser fax
is in "sleep" mode, it doesn't use much power....... but in just Standby,
I bet that lamp does come on and off, as you said.

I did an experiment this evening. I watched the fax, to see when it went
into sleep mode. AFter it does go into sleep, my lights don't flicker. I
had not noted that before. I think this is the cure (or answer) to this
problem.

Thanks to Craig and to all others ! I think all of the points made were
good points, and things to think about.

James



Posted by RBM on April 13, 2008, 8:17 am

> Craig, I think that you are exactly right. I think that when the laser
> fax
> is in "sleep" mode, it doesn't use much power....... but in just
> Standby,
> I bet that lamp does come on and off, as you said.
>
> I did an experiment this evening. I watched the fax, to see when it went
> into sleep mode. AFter it does go into sleep, my lights don't flicker. I
> had not noted that before. I think this is the cure (or answer) to this
> problem.
>
> Thanks to Craig and to all others ! I think all of the points made were
> good points, and things to think about.
>
> James
>
Any heavy load on that circuit, or depending upon your electric service size
and demand, a heavy load anywhere in the house should cause "dimming" on
lighting circuits, but "flickering" is a different animal, it's caused by
loose connections. Loose connections over time will invariably get worse.
Even if you install a dedicated circuit for the printer, you still may
experience the flickering until the bad connection is located and corrected
>



Posted by Craig M on April 13, 2008, 11:21 pm
I have seen same thing happen in offices and other places where copiers are
used, its funny how many power drawing devices some people plug into the
same line the copier is on, have seen once a HP laser printer, and a copier
on the same circuit, the copier draws 12 amps, plate on the back shows that,
laser printer draws 11.2 amps as I recalled, tried to tell the people in the
office this was not good,
they did not belive me till I hit the copy button while the printer was
printing, yepp...tripped the breaker, they re-located the printer next day.
:)
If you can get it to a line by its self it will help.

> Craig, I think that you are exactly right. I think that when the laser
> fax
> is in "sleep" mode, it doesn't use much power....... but in just
> Standby,
> I bet that lamp does come on and off, as you said.
>
> I did an experiment this evening. I watched the fax, to see when it went
> into sleep mode. AFter it does go into sleep, my lights don't flicker. I
> had not noted that before. I think this is the cure (or answer) to this
> problem.
>
> Thanks to Craig and to all others ! I think all of the points made were
> good points, and things to think about.
>
> James
>
>



Posted by Matt W. Barrow on April 11, 2008, 6:52 pm

> Only the lights on this circuit do this. And, it is not a huge
> flicker....... just a detectable flicker, and not all the time.
>
> Lights that are plugged into more than one outlet on this circuit do this,
> so I know it isn't just one bad outlet. These are ordinary lamps, with
> 100
> watt bulbs. These are not ceiling lights.
>
>
> Thanks for all the helpful replies !! I will keep monitoring this and
> see
> if I can narrow it down some more.

What other items are on that circuit? Since you can have multiple outlets,
in multiple rooms, on one circuit, you may have a load/usage problem on that
circuit.

Work backwards and isolate. :~)



Posted by PeterD on April 11, 2008, 7:05 pm
wrote:

>In my study, my lamps will flicker every few minutes or so. I assume that
>I have some defect in the wiring on this circuit, or that there is a problem
>with my circuit breaker connection, or the breaker itself.
>
>So, today I went to the breaker box and made sure that the wire connecting
>to the breaker were screwed down as tight as possible. I was able to turn
>the screw a full 1/2 turn, so I thought this might have cured the problem.
>But, it didn't.
>
>This is a 15 amp, 120 volt circuit, and breaker. Is it very likely that
>the breaker itself is bad, or may I have a wiring problem somewhere in this
>circuit ? As far as I know, it provides power to just my one room study.
>
>I can tell that when I turn on a heavy-current device such as my fax
>machine, these lights will flicker when the machine operates.

Most fax machines are not high current devices.

>So, the
>flicker can be triggered with a heavy load. I have never noticed this
>before. But be aware that I get frequent flickering even when there is no
>extra heavy load.
>
>The house is 30 years old, and most likely, it is the original breaker.
>
>Any advice would be appreciated.

Yes, turn the curcuit off and have it checked by an electrican. The
sitation is mostlikely very dangerous and could result in a fire.


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