Electrician question -

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Kookoo

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#1064509 12-Jun-2014 22:22

floydie: youll probably find the lamp holders are stuffed. as they heat, they transfer the heat from the bad contact into the lamp and it blows. as the bad joint is overheated it often looses its tension, so the problem gets worse.

Blowing lots of lamps in one fitting is a sure sign of a bad lamp holder.
also the bad contact onto the lamps can set up a type of harmonic/noise in the system which may have shortened the life of the TIVO. i once saw an instance of noise on an audio system that only happened at night......traced it to a bad lamp holder in the laundry.

my suggestion is replace the light fittings with QUALITY units. and get your sparky to triple check your neutral (get him to do an earth loop impedance test)

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) they are both fairly good quality units, both installed by a sparky. Earth loop impedance test - good idea, will mention it to him.

Hello, Ground!

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Kookoo

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#1064511 12-Jun-2014 22:23

Sidestep: A friend complained her bulbs blew a lot. Esp her 3 bulb kitchen spotlights were blowing in a similar way.
She had the switch replaced (because she could see a occasional flash in there..)
No change.
I took a close look inside the fitting. The copper coated 'tabs' were badly burned and eroded, every time she turned on the lights there was a mini arc.. Two of the 3 bulbs would take turns blowing.
House built in the 80's. Bad rural power supply. Almost all her fittings - bayonet and screw showed some sort of damage.
Local sparky replaced everything, showed us a couple of switches he replaced - also had arcing/burning damage.
Hope this isn't your problem!

Nah, fittings are new, switch is new, all installed by a sparky.

Hello, Ground!

Kookoo

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#1064513 12-Jun-2014 22:24

DarthKermit: What's your voltage reading? Should be +/- 5% of 230 volts I think.

I don't remember the exact reading when the sparky tested it, but it was ok.

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gzt

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#1064554 12-Jun-2014 23:51

Kookoo:
DarthKermit: What's your voltage reading? Should be +/- 5% of 230 volts I think.

I don't remember the exact reading when the sparky tested it, but it was ok.

Needs to be monitored over a long period of time. Not just one test. Talk to your retailer as mentioned earlier.

floydie

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#1065202 13-Jun-2014 21:07

change the fittings...seriously...

the heat transfer into the lamp is killing them. it'll be a "soft" connection to the lamp causing minute arcing between the holder and lamp which sends noise into your house that wont be filtered by a surge protecter. I am a sparky with 20 years experience and advanced trade in lighting systems....

Kookoo

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#1065294 13-Jun-2014 23:41

floydie: change the fittings...seriously...

the heat transfer into the lamp is killing them. it'll be a "soft" connection to the lamp causing minute arcing between the holder and lamp which sends noise into your house that wont be filtered by a surge protecter. I am a sparky with 20 years experience and advanced trade in lighting systems....

But in that case shouldn't it be always the same holder where the bulb burns out?

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Kookoo

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#1072153 22-Jun-2014 18:46

So, having contacted Genesis I'm feeling I'm stuck in a Monty Python sketch.
I first contacted them via their online form, and explained in detail what was going on. Got a call back from a rep a couple of days later, had to explain the whole story from the beginning. Answer - oh, you need to contact the faults team. I get placed in a new queue, after a while a new rep answers "Faults, how can I help you?". Explained the whole story again, the rep goes - "I need to read here to find out how to deal with this fault. Let me put you on hold." Comes back a while later - oh, we can't deal with a fault like that. Here is a new phone number - call them and log your fault with them.
I haven't called that new number yet, but so far it just doesn't look very promising.

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Spyware

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#1072188 22-Jun-2014 19:40

Absurd to call an electricity supplier with issues like this as you'll never get anywhere.

Bulbs blow because they overheat, that simple, replace the fittings. TiVos reboot because they're crap, that simple. Dump the TiVo or like me wait a month until it stops.

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Glassboy

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#1072199 22-Jun-2014 19:56

Kookoo: Something weird going on with electricity in our home. Had 2 electricians over to check it out, both couldn't tell me what was wrong.
Symptoms:
1) 3-bulb lights can't hand more than 2 bulb. After you add a third one, one of the three burns out within a couple of days. We've got a 3-bulb spotlight and a 3-bulb pendant - same story for both. So far tried the following - bought better quality bulbs (that helped a bit, but not for long), replaced the switch (didn't do anything).
2) Tivo keeps rebooting. I had it replaced once, and the new brand new unit has the same problem, so I don't think it's a Tivo issue. It's just that occasionally the Tivo just reboots itself when I try to change channels. Really annoying.
3) Cordless vacuum cleaner seems to take ages to charge - longer than the manual suggests. Had it replaced - same story with the new one.
That aside, nothing strange seems to happen. Fuses don't trip, electrical appliances don't get killed by power surges, all is normal. All this has been going on for 3-4 years now, so it's not a critical issue, just a mind-boggling one.

Am I going nuts? Can all these symptoms be related, or are these just coincidences?

I've had some strange power occurrences when there was a faulty isolator on the pole just outside the property, and then again when something was misspec'ed where the line hit the house. In the first instance the line company fixed the isolator and in the second it was a sparky who replaced something.

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