Electric Shocks from a Lee Production Pot IV?

[birch]

I've had this ol' girl for a few years, and bought it new. It has been a very good pot, until this evening. The wife and kids wanted to catch some bullheads, and I fired up the pot to make a few bell sinkers for bottom feeding. I let it warm up for about 20 minuts, grabbed the mold, and----Ouch! I grabbed onto the metal handle like I always do, and it really let me have a good one. I quickly tapped the handle, and it was still catching a charge.

I assume there is some insulation that has worn through somewhere in the circuit. I am hoping someone out there has had a similar situation and might have an easy fix. I like the pot, but have been toying around with getting a bigger rcbs pot that doesnt drain so quickly.

I am no electrician, but if someone can offer some insight into what might be the problem, I would appreciate it. I can never let something go until I know it is truly dead with no hope for redemption.

[dragon813gt]

Pull it apart and find where the wire is shorted. There isn't much to them. There is no way I would use the pot until it's fixed. And as stupid as it sounds. Make sure it's unplugged when you pull it apart.

[Dale in Louisiana]

Get yourself a multimeter, unplug the pot and start isolating circuit components. My Lee pot has a two-prong plug and that means a short to the case will not have a path to ground to trip the circuit breaker, so the path is through YOU.

A common failure is for the resistance element inside the heater to ground out. You can easily find this with a multimeter. With the conductors disconnected from the element, check between on of the terminals and the case. If you get a reading near zero between a terminal and the case, then the element is in need of replacement.

You can also inspect the cord, especially where it enters the back of the unit. Also look at the thermal switch.

If you're not familiar with the use of a multimeter, hunt down somebody who is. 120 volts kills a lot of people every year.

Incidentally, my RCBS pot has a three-pronged plug. A bad element shorting to ground would have tripped the circuit breaker here.

dale in Louisiana

[ubetcha]

Come to think about it,having an electrician install a three wire cord would not be a bad idea with any two wire appliance. I may rewire mine just to prevent such a situation. Should not be a hard thing to do

[Idz]

You should run the pot off a GFCI outlet. They trip on a ground fault whether you are using a two or three wire cord. I suspect you have a failing heater element in the pot.

[40-82 hiker]

Come to think about it,having an electrician install a three wire cord would not be a bad idea with any two wire appliance. I may rewire mine just to prevent such a situation. Should not be a hard thing to do

You may or may not need a three prong plug on your casting pot, as I am sure it has a wide prong on the plug, which means you have to have modern outlets to match. The question then becomes whether or not your electric box is "modern".

I hope an electrician responds to this for some clarification, but it is my understanding, if your house is older than a certain year, your electric service box has the neutral (white) and ground (bare wire or green) tied together. This is the case in all electrical work I have done for many years in my own homes and others in assisting with projects. This is the reason for the wide blades on our plugs these days (make sure the wide blade connects with the white wire). This keeps the white neutral wire that grounds your appliance (as well as carries current) connected with the white wire that is tied to the ground in the electric service panel. What this means is that two-wire appliances are grounded. However, the ground is not a ground fault grounding with a 500 mA interrupt (a GFCI breaker) unless the circuit has a GFCI breaker, or it has a GFCI outlet downstream.

I hope this helps, at least to a small extent. The long and short of it is that your pot probably is grounded, even though it has only two prongs on the plug.

[Dale in Louisiana]

You may or may not need a three prong plug on your casting pot, as I am sure it has a wide prong on the plug, which means you have to have modern outlets to match. The question then becomes whether or not your electric box is "modern".

I hope an electrician responds to this for some clarification, but it is my understanding, if your house is older than a certain year, your electric service box has the neutral (white) and ground (bare wire or green) tied together. This is the case in all electrical work I have done for many years in my own homes and others in assisting with projects. This is the reason for the wide blades on our plugs these days (make sure the wide blade connects with the white wire). This keeps the white neutral wire that grounds your appliance (as well as carries current) connected with the white wire that is tied to the ground in the electric service panel. What this means is that two-wire appliances are grounded. However, the ground is not a ground fault grounding with a 500 mA interrupt (a GFCI breaker) unless the circuit has a GFCI breaker, or it has a GFCI outlet downstream.

I hope this helps, at least to a small extent. The long and short of it is that your pot probably is grounded, even though it has only two prongs on the plug.

You're mostly correct. In most residential installations, the neutral conductor is bonded to ground.

The white 'neutral' wire is actually called the 'grounded' conductor. Under normal circuit operation, it is the return path for current that goes into the device from the 'hot' conductor. Those two are for power.

On much modern equipment there is a third conductor, usually green, that is the 'grounding' ("ing" versus "ed" - it's important) conductor. Under normal circumstances it never sees current.

If you're playing with your voltmeter, you can measure the voltage between the short slot on a wall outlet and the long slot. You should read around 120 volts. Measuring from the short slot to the round hole, you should also read that 120 volts, because the neutral and ground wires are at the same point electrically speaking. If you read between the long slot and the round hole and you see voltage (whole volts, not millivolts) then you have an issue with your power system.

The GFCI breaker or receptacle looks at the currents on the hot and the neutral. On a good circuit, these currents are the same levels: If there's an amp going out, there should be an amp coming back. If there's a problem, as in the original poster's pot zapping him, that means that all the current comes out of the wall on the hot wire, some goes back to the wall through the neutral wire, and some goes to ground through his body. The GFCI would see that difference - everything going out, not everything coming back, and it would trip. On a typical GFCI, that difference only needs to be 4-6 milliamps, right at the bottom threshold of the average person's ability to FEEL the shock. If you're feeling it, the GFCI would be tripping, and it does this instantaneously.

Compare that with the twenty or thirty amp RATING (takes a lot more than that to trip) of the circuit breaker, and you can see how the GFCI will protect YOU. The circuit breaker isn't there to protect you, it's there to protect the system.

Unfortunately, on older homes and homes that have been worked on by less than knowledgeable people, that relationship between hot, neutral and ground may be messed up. If there's any question about it, test it, or have it tested.

Back to the idea of adding a three-wire cord: The ground (green) wire should be fastened securely to the chassis metal. And remember: that green wire depends on a properly installed receptacle. I wish I could tell you how many three-hole receptacles I've opened up and found that the ground terminal was not connected, or it was connected to the old metal box, and there was no ground wire in the box to take the current back to the house ground system.

BTW, Radio Shack and any of the well-stocked hardware and building supply stores sell a little tester that looks like a three-prong plug. It has three indicator lights on it and when you stick it in a receptacle, it will tell you if your receptacle is properly connected.

dale in Louisiana
(who taught this stuff for years)

[40-82 hiker]

You're mostly correct. In most residential installations, the neutral conductor is bonded to ground.

The white 'neutral' wire is actually called the 'grounded' conductor. Under normal circuit operation, it is the return path for current that goes into the device from the 'hot' conductor. Those two are for power.

On much modern equipment there is a third conductor, usually green, that is the 'grounding' ("ing" versus "ed" - it's important) conductor. Under normal circumstances it never sees current.

If you're playing with your voltmeter, you can measure the voltage between the short slot on a wall outlet and the long slot. You should read around 120 volts. Measuring from the short slot to the round hole, you should also read that 120 volts, because the neutral and ground wires are at the same point electrically speaking. If you read between the long slot and the round hole and you see voltage (whole volts, not millivolts) then you have an issue with your power system.

The GFCI breaker or receptacle looks at the currents on the hot and the neutral. On a good circuit, these currents are the same levels: If there's an amp going out, there should be an amp coming back. If there's a problem, as in the original poster's pot zapping him, that means that all the current comes out of the wall on the hot wire, some goes back to the wall through the neutral wire, and some goes to ground through his body. The GFCI would see that difference - everything going out, not everything coming back, and it would trip. On a typical GFCI, that difference only needs to be 4-6 milliamps, right at the bottom threshold of the average person's ability to FEEL the shock. If you're feeling it, the GFCI would be tripping, and it does this instantaneously.

Compare that with the twenty or thirty amp RATING (takes a lot more than that to trip) of the circuit breaker, and you can see how the GFCI will protect YOU. The circuit breaker isn't there to protect you, it's there to protect the system.

Unfortunately, on older homes and homes that have been worked on by less than knowledgeable people, that relationship between hot, neutral and ground may be messed up. If there's any question about it, test it, or have it tested.

Back to the idea of adding a three-wire cord: The ground (green) wire should be fastened securely to the chassis metal. And remember: that green wire depends on a properly installed receptacle. I wish I could tell you how many three-hole receptacles I've opened up and found that the ground terminal was not connected, or it was connected to the old metal box, and there was no ground wire in the box to take the current back to the house ground system.

BTW, Radio Shack and any of the well-stocked hardware and building supply stores sell a little tester that looks like a three-prong plug. It has three indicator lights on it and when you stick it in a receptacle, it will tell you if your receptacle is properly connected.

dale in Louisiana
(who taught this stuff for years)

Thank you for this lengthy reply. It is quite helpful. Looks like I should get one of those testers...

[birch]

I appreciate the advice on the wiring of my garage and the relationship between the ground and what sounds like "feedback" that trips the GFCI, so it does not feed through you to make the ground. I think my wiring is OK as far as that goes. We put this place in 5 years ago and I had a professional electrician wire up my house and run 220 to my garage. Unfortunatly, the garage was put in about 20 years ago and there are no GFCI boxes. However, I think my buddy would have let me know if something was not properly connected in the garage. I do think it would be a good idea to run a GFCI by my workbench as I do a lot of work with small power tools there. I even have one of those old aluminum frame 3/4 inch drills that would would conduct better than a copper wire.

It sounds like the majority feel that the fault is with my pot instead of my wiring. Does anyone have any suggestions for a nice bottom pour pot other than Lee. I have had eyes on the RCBS 25 pounder for a while. I have not been wronged by anything made by RCBS yet, but I am interested in opinions.

Thanks for the responces.

[Zymurgy50]

Quote "The purpose of the ground conductor is to facilitate the operation of the over current device."
Translation the ground conductor is there to ensure that the breaker (or fuse) will trip when there is more current running through the wires than the wires will handle.
GFCI receptacles (and GFCI breakers) will work on an ungrounded circuit. They detect an "unbalanced" condition where there is more current running through the "hot" wire than the neutral wire (indicating that current is "leaking" somewhere) and trips a breaker.

[bulet shotter]

I had mine for over 25 years and started to get shocks. Sent to Lee and got a new coil and I think they call it a reaostat? When I took this all apart,not so easy to put together. Before you take this all apart. Take a marker and draw some lines around the pot. In different areas. I will help you when you have to put it back together. And buy the way,it works fine. You can send it in but it will cost you a lot more money. Mine works great,I cast 100 to 200 probably twice a week. Jerry

[Dale in Louisiana]

I had mine for over 25 years and started to get shocks. Sent to Lee and got a new coil and I think they call it a reaostat? When I took this all apart,not so easy to put together. Before you take this all apart. Take a marker and draw some lines around the pot. In different areas. I will help you when you have to put it back together. And buy the way,it works fine. You can send it in but it will cost you a lot more money. Mine works great,I cast 100 to 200 probably twice a week. Jerry

Neat trick when taking things apart: If you have a smartphone or a digital camera, takes lots of pictures every step of the way (film for those things is cheap) so you don't have to depend totally on memory when you try to put things back together.

I use this trick at work, too.

dale in Louisiana

[Three44s]

Taking pics ..... LOL! That resembles ME!!!

I use my digital camera for recording electrical device disembowlments as well!

I'd also send to lee for a new heating element if that proves what's leaking voltage.

The rheostat is your heat control.

You will need to determine WHAT is leaking before you call them.

Check your frame of your lead pot and read that it's hot with a meter and when you think you have it repaired, check it again. Switch you meter to a lower voltage range and make sure it's REAL "unhot".


Best of luck and STAY SAFE!!

Three 44s