+3v out of the ground wire??

[flatcat]

Hi there
An oddity, here.
My horses and goats were dodging the water trough, which has a floating deicer.
Long story short, turned out the ground was putting out a little current. A tech guy from the deicer manufacturer said it could be a poor ground [this is in the barn, whose panel runs off a 30A line from the house a hundred feet away and is grounded by a rod], or could actually be coming from the power company. Some remark on the web said the latter also.
This was not happening last year.

Solution was a pigtail into the extension cord, with a separate ground rod.

But what the heck is this, and do I need to do anything about it generally?

Mostly curious.

Flatcat

 

[Marvo]

I like interesting problems and this one certainly isn't run of the mill. Reminds me of a great thread we had on the forum about an automatic cow-scratcher a while ago

To hazard any opinions I'd need some more info. Can you post a picture of the following please;
1 The floating deicer
2 The power connection for the deicer.
3 The water trough and surrounds
4 The barn electrical panel (preferrably with the cover off) that supplies the deicer.
5 The incoming supply for the property along with any grounding terminals and wiring.

What electrical testers have you got access to?

Do the animals avoid the entire vicinity of the trough or is it just the trough itself they won't drink from?

How did you measure the +3V and on which ground wire was it measured?

 

[flatcat]

Just the water.
Multitester.
More tomorrow. It's dark and cold here.

Sounds like fun!

 

[GLENNSPARK]

Just the water.
Multitester.
More tomorrow. It's dark and cold here.

Sounds like fun!

`fun` is it?

so what do you really know?...about electricity?...and how it works?

4 points of contact....

 

[flatcat]

Hah! What do I REALLY know?
How to connect wires. Slowly.
What a circuit is, more-or-less.
That the 15A circuit in my weirdly wired house that runs about half the kitchen, living room, and dining room, won't handle the microwave, toaster, coffeemaker, and sump pump simultaneously. (!)
Bigger wire = less resistance.
Theory......makes my head swim.
Took a couple of hours to figure out my first 3-way switch. Later managed a 4-way.
I mostly work out of the Time-Life DIY book.
Problems can be fun to explore.

 

[Marvo]

If you have a crawlspace under the house it will be easy to split the overloaded circuit and install an extra 15A circuit to stop it overloading.

 

[Engineer54]

If you have a crawlspace under the house it will be easy to split the overloaded circuit and install an extra 15A circuit to stop it overloading.

Not if he's a 400lb cat, it won't!! Which seems to be the way of things in the States these days!! lol!!

 

[flatcat]

207 and shrinking. With difficulty. On TV they are telling me how FUN it is for me and my friends to eat chocolate bars; meanwhile my wife is a REALLY good cook and baker.

Problem is more @ being just shy of 67 and not as limber as I was at 1/3 my age, and WHY does everything I work on have to be over my head while I am lying on my back???

It's really only a potential crawl space. The first crawling will have to be with a bucket and shovel, removing a lot of dirt. And then carrying same upstairs and out somewhere.

Yeah, though, I was figuring that if I could get in there (and first work is only just in, not all the way across) maybe I could get a second wire into one of the receptacles and link that to the wire that goes on around the room the one way. Hmm. Or---here-we go---run a 12ga wire into that first receptacle, which is the one we use most often for kitchen appliances, and have a 20A "small appliance circuit" that won't pop.

I shall be consulting about getting wires up from below floor, behind cabinets, and like that. I notice Marvo used the word "easy."

Hey, maybe I can even get some heat on the cold water pipe under the kitchen sink, the only thing that ever freezes. Which it just did. It's a beautiful blue sky morning and still -8 F @ 9AM.

 

[Darkwood]

I like interesting problems and this one certainly isn't run of the mill. Reminds me of a great thread we had on the forum about an automatic cow-scratcher a while ago..

Can you elaborate on this our lass has a point on her back she can't reach and i sick of been the mug scratching it!

 

[Spoon]

Can you elaborate on this our lass has a point on her back she can't reach and i sick of been the mug scratching it!

And I thought you was an intelligent bloke DW. You can get out of scratching her back my one of the below.

1. Do a rubbish job next time she asks. Really dig your fingers in.
2. When she asks again, get her to sit down. You go behind her and start humping her back... like a dog does against a postman's leg.

I prefer the latter. You get b*llocked the same as number 1.... but you get to have a bit of fun

 

[MDJ]

Hi there
An oddity, here.
My horses and goats were dodging the water trough, which has a floating deicer.
Long story short, turned out the ground was putting out a little current. A tech guy from the deicer manufacturer said it could be a poor ground [this is in the barn, whose panel runs off a 30A line from the house a hundred feet away and is grounded by a rod], or could actually be coming from the power company. Some remark on the web said the latter also.
This was not happening last year.

Solution was a pigtail into the extension cord, with a separate ground rod.

But what the heck is this, and do I need to do anything about it generally?

Mostly curious.

Flatcat

Did you zero your multi meter before testing the voltage Cat?

 

[flatcat]

I dunno what that means, much less how to do it!
It's a digital one, just little handheld.
I can report that once I had got the deicer separated from the system ground, it read zero and the animals were no longer getting shocked, or else they had been reading Epictetus.

 

[MDJ]

Well basically it could show volts if not zero ed, there should be a zero button on it somewhere, you hold the leads together and press it then the scale should show nought.

 

[MDJ]

If this is a picture of you and your horse then I don't doubt something shocked him

 

[Engineer54]

Hi there
An oddity, here.
My horses and goats were dodging the water trough, which has a floating deicer.
Long story short, turned out the ground was putting out a little current. A tech guy from the deicer manufacturer said it could be a poor ground [this is in the barn, whose panel runs off a 30A line from the house a hundred feet away and is grounded by a rod], or could actually be coming from the power company. Some remark on the web said the latter also.
This was not happening last year.

Solution was a pigtail into the extension cord, with a separate ground rod.

But what the heck is this, and do I need to do anything about it generally?

Mostly curious.

Flatcat

As were talking about the safety of livestock here, you really need to get a master electrician in with the correct test equipment to thoroughly check out your electrical system to and within the barn. You're not going to be able to check out anything much with just a multimeter i'm afraid!!