Lost a leg

I am not sure how common it is, but I lost a leg on a breaker for my welder. I lost one last on the wives kiln about a year ago. I never thought of it being a common thing. I thought it was the on/off switch on the welder. It started to run and shut off before I started to weld. I flipped the switch off and back on and it started again. I turned around and it shut off. I ordered a new switch and nothing. After a weeks worth of cussing and hating the idea of buying a new welder, I put a malti metter to the breaker and it has a dead leg.

Do you have underground wiring going into your shop? I would check in the breaker nox.

breakers go bad more often than ya would think

Yes, it has underground. Going to the shop. Being that it is a single phase welder and 2 pole breaker with no power to one pole. It pretty much has to be the breaker.

especially if the normal load is close to the rating.

Am I the only one that was thinking we were about to see how a trapper traps with just one leg.

Not after breaking my hand last october.. Figured i should get preparred for the inevitable.

It could easily be a break in the wire underground, do you have 120 on each leg coming into the breaker? Even a partial nick from a rock or something can cause problems, especially if it’s aluminum wire. It will corrode quickly and can really throw of the voltage. It happened to me going into my garage, it wasn’t easy to detect, one time i would check a leg and it would be 120v the next time it would be 90. I just started digging and sure enough i found the cut, luckily it was only about 5 ft from the garage.

Does the underground cable, come from the service pole, or from another building. You can test the voltage on the legs at the other end , of the cable run. I would shut off all double pole breakers , in your shop , while doing this,,including, the main breaker as you can get feedback through 240 volt loads, that might affect the result.. If there is a burned off leg or a failing leg, it will have no, or a strange reading. Hope this helps. I played with this kind of stuff, in my former life old243.

"Yes, it has underground. Going to the shop. Being that it is a single phase welder and 2 pole breaker with no power to one pole. It pretty much has to be the breaker."

Single phase service still has 2 hots. One could be broken or failing as said underground. Breakers also fail as well.

I got a new breaker and put it in and still only have power to one leg. I checkethe the two lines coming in and one read 120 and the other 122. So it is the main breaker or the bar. I have to pull the new breaker back out to check the bar and main will check the main then too.

I know a guy that traps with one arm....he gets it done too. And he has to drink beer out of a long neck bottle ...to reach his lips ,with his good arm.

If its the main breaker failing any other circuts on that phase would also not work as well

Make sure that you are using a double breaker because if you are using 2 singles if they are not consecutive they will not power a motor ( same sine wave)

I think the box has 3 breakers in it plus the main. There were no lights and a single 110 outlet when I bought the place. One 20 amp breaker in the box. I put in a couple outlets and some lights and the 220 outlet for the welder adding a couple breakers. All the 110 outlets and light may be on one phase by dumb luck. I have ran about 40 lbs of wire through the welder over 6-7 years so its not a new add on. H20 It is a two pole breaker not two singles. I had 4 grandkids show up just about the time I was testing the main lines coming in and saw they both had 120. I figured it was a good time to stop as have them in the middle of it.

Do you have a panel in the shop or does it go straight to the plug from the house( not code) . If you have a panel just check each lug at the end (top or bottom) . If they are hot then buss bar in breaker box could be bad. In that case either new panel or change the guts in box.

The line comes from a box on the pole to a panel in the shop. I am not sure how the house got in here. There is a line that goes from the pole to the house too, and a panel in the house. It will get a new panel if it is the main or the buss bar are bad. I have a new Square D QO panel that will work fine in the shop.

Geez, thought you were a cripple! 😂

cpl years ago I lost partial power at the farm. Checked the breakers,,,,ok. Checked power coming in ,,,, ok. So I thought. If I checked each leg individually I had 120 on each. But when I checked them together I still only had 120. Made me scratch my head. Called the power comp. they brought out some rig looked like a metal detector and found a "Leak" down the hill toward the pole. They had to replace the entire run, but I was good to go.

I've been trapping 54 years, the last 15 on one leg due to fall at work.

I got my power back the way it should be. The main screw that clamps down on the buss bar was loose. I was looking at it with my glasses on and a flash light and I could see one was baked out way more than the other. So I shut the main off and tightened it and checked the other one. Turned the main on, the welder breaker and when I hit the switch to the welder it started up. It is a good deal to have it going. My one grandson placed an order for a sleigh yesterday. Thanks for the replies. It helped give me an idea where to look and what to check.