Capt Odyssea

Electrician cleaning up bad wiring, installing new ground well, happened to clamp on the Goodman unit feeders, 11a per leg while running, but 5 a on both when not running. WhAt could that be? Will check if the air handler is supplied from the compressor unit but should be on a separate breaker me thinks?

Edselectric1

Maybe 1 breaker in main panel that feeds a subpanel that feeds both AH and Condenser unit.

99yam40

compressor heater maybe,
should turn on when compressor is off.
not sure if it is controlled by a low temp switch or not

saltyreefer

yup, crankcase heater

Chasinhoo

Don’t think a crankcase heater will pull 5 amps. .5 maybe

99yam40

I never measure the current of one, but I would think the same thing.
5 amps is too high.
I wonder if someone miss read the meter
not hard to miss that decimal

baypro21

Crankcase heater draws up to about .3 amps (300ma).

Stim

Does unit have heat strips?
Did he go leg to leg or leg to neutral?

Mak232

or a mobile home AC Pkg unit, with blower in the outdoor unit also....

99yam40

you do not measure amps line to neutral or line to line

Capt Odyssea

Clamp on ammeter, was not the air handler, some jackass put capacitors across the 240v feeding each compressor trying to correct phase angle.
( a common scam here that has surfaced a number of times over the years, usually coupled with a meter leg bypass to show the Huge savings.......)
AC units were replaced, installer left the caps in place, probably failed long ago. Disconnected them. phantom consumption gone.
13A @240 x 24hrs/day, x 30 days/billing period. @ $.34/Kwh.
The shit i see...........
was 5a on one unit, 8 a on the other.

Flot

Wow. I can't see how that could draw 13A though, unless those caps were sitting at 250 degrees?

haccpguy

Crazy situation.
But if the draw was constant it would be costing $763/month.
I would think the capacitor charges up then the draw stopped.

Corndog38

Capacitors add reactive power. Don't really consume much power. Draw power on the rise of the sine curve, discharge on the downslope of the sine curve. Net consumption near zero except for resistive losses. Amp meters can't tell the difference between reactive power and resistive power, it's still just amps in either case. Not sure if kWh meters can tell the difference, I think they do.

mikefloyd

Only once

99yam40

a good meter should have a fuse that will protect it

round2it

Use clamp-on

99yam40

but how would you measure using that, line to line to or line to neutral as the guy posted we are talking about?
I agree most knowledgeable people would us a clamp on meter to do this measuring

Capt Odyssea

DC Current is measured in line (most meters limit this to 10A max), voltage across, for AC current a clamp on around the hot or neutral indicates AC amps.
Yes, the Capacitor itself indicated 5 A current, the other one 8A, but realized that might have been reactive. Or they are bad/shot. Probably a way to figure out actual watts drawn and it is probably less than the read value.
The 5 and 8 amp reading was when the compressor was not running.
Been reading up, phase angle correction (Power factor correction) can cause issues with surges and spikes if not done right.
Power co does it to balance resistive vs.reactive on substations and transmission lines but over here it's all disconnected no doubt.

round2it

Got ya now. I wouldn't know how to measure between line to line to line with a clamp on ammeter. Certainly the phrase of doing it "only once" would come into play.

Certainly would troubleshoot the unbalanced line. Best method for that would be hiring an experienced electrician.