help with 818

[coldgyn]

Thanks Brian

[Natureboy]

I had two electricians TRY to put in 80 amp breakers telling me they cannot put in 100 amp ones because it was not code based on the spec's on the side of the 818? Weird.

I have never had any problem with the 100 slow blow shotgun style (other than one going every couple of years).

Personally I would think 125's would be too much. But who knows?

[Rob]

there are no "upgrade capacitors" for the 818

I never said there was "upgraded Capacitors". Just that they do go bad over time and to replace them.

[Drew]

amp draw goes up as capacitors fail. So that can be a part of the problem. Capacitor testers will help you see if this is a problem.

Once a breaker trips however, it is weaker, and it will trip more and more often..change that out first.

[Island Cove]

amp draw goes up as capacitors fail.

That was my problem, so that is why my breaker kept tripping. Replaced the caps and the breaker....No more problems.

[Brian Oshman]

An amprobe can be used to see if the cap is dead or not. A dead cap will have zero draw. The cap is still a load and will show current if it is working properly.

Caps create a phase shift in the voltage vs. the current. The two waveforms run 90° out of phase of each other instead of simultaniously. This is how it tricks the line voltage into seeing less load.

Dead caps will not create this shift and both waveforms will occur at the same time and create more overall load, thus the current draw goes up.

L/C circuits.

[solarmeter®]

There are about 8 capacitors on my meter circuit board. I'm still not sure what they all do. Some EE at GM designed it for me way back in 1992. For us ME's most EE stuff remains Greek - dammit.

Two of them, along with 2 resistors, act as a dual pole filter so UV lamps frequency flips don't make the LCD readings flash/cycle too much. Beyond those I have no idea.

The EE at GM unfortunately designed the boards to last forever (or 200000 miles worth on a Corvette ECM/BCM).... he forgot to add a component that fails after say 300 button pushes like consumer grade electronics do!