# Solved: Irrigation System - Electrical!



## StumpedTechy (Jul 7, 2004)

Okay this is part of my other project but since its electrical I decided to spin it off.

I have all the piping laid and manually the anti-syphon pumps work just as they should. Wooohoo yay me!

Now I have hit a snag with the electrical system. Hopefully people can tell me what I think I need to do is right or not so I can ensure this is setup right and I don't burn down my house or blow up my new timer.

This is a picture of the main panel into my house this is outside and feeds through my attic to the panel in my garage that supplies most everything else in my house. However on the right hand side of this panel is the feed to the panel that supplies power for my irrigation timer.










The parts that I have circled are the wires going to the subpanel there is a baby blue from the right and there is a white and a green connected to a single bolt on the left hand side of the picture that feeds to the sub panel box.

Now the next picture below is the box that the original timer was wired to. It was just wired with 2 wires (not a 3 wire connection). This connects to the box at the pink circles.

The purpleish circles are where the three wires mentioned above come from the main box to this sub box. Baby blue to the breaker, white to the bar, and green to the screw.

Lastly in blue is the cord from the New timer I just pulled through and got the (shiney) new conduit for.










Now the timer instructions said to cut off the plug (which I did to feed the wire through the conduit and into the box) but then of course I have to hook up the positive, neutral, and ground to the breaker box.

Is it as simple as hooking the Black wire to the breaker, the White wire to the bar, and the ground (green) to the screw with the green wire? I am a little concerned because why is neutral/white wire and ground (green wire) connected to the same screw in the main panel?


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## leroys1000 (Aug 16, 2007)

Years ago,they used to use 2 wire systems with a hot and a neutral.
The neutral was grounded at the pole.
Still is for safety,but it left that long span between the house and
the pole.
Could cause a higher chance of electrocution and wires heating
up and causing fires.
Now the boxes are grounded with a strap to a grounding stake in
the ground next to the house.
If you check the box you will see that the neutral terminal is tied
to the box and ground by the screw in the center.
So both circuits are the same electrically.

You are using the blue as a replacement for black and have it tied
to the top of the breaker.
Looks good there.
Looks like the incoming neutral and ground are connected correctly too.
So,yes,the black to the bottom of the breaker,the white to the 
neutral bus and green to ground.
You can use the neutral bus strip for the ground wire also if you want.
Probably better there as you will get better contact than wrapping 2
wires around a screw.

Might want to clean up that ground wire so there isn't any insulation 
under that screw.


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## StumpedTechy (Jul 7, 2004)

Thanks alot for the info I'll make sure to do the ground wire cleanup that looked a little off as I saw a part of a wire sticking up as well and wanted to make sure that was tight.


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## Drabdr (Nov 26, 2007)

leroys1000 said:


> Years ago,they used to use 2 wire systems with a hot and a neutral.
> The neutral was grounded at the pole.
> Still is for safety,but it left that long span between the house and
> the pole.
> ...


Good post. :up: I agree, but add a few thoughts. I might put the circuit on a ground fault breaker, feeding the sprinkler system.

FWIW... that blue wire under the big terminal on the main panel is a no-no. It's worked this long like that, so you may be OK. But... I would discourage anyone else from doing that. You don't ever want a sufficiently small gauge wire going into a sufficiently large lug with a large wire.


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## Drabdr (Nov 26, 2007)

StumpedTechy said:


> Thanks alot for the info I'll make sure to do the ground wire cleanup that looked a little off as I saw a part of a wire sticking up as well and wanted to make sure that was tight.


Also, Leroy made good points about having to wrap two wires around a screw. You can always buy some fork/ring terminals and crimp them to the ground wires. That should give you a good connection.


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## leroys1000 (Aug 16, 2007)

Yeah,that blue wire hooked to the main is not up to code,
but that aluminum wiring is probably more dangreous.
Might want to turn off the main breaker and make sure all
those connections are tight.


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## StumpedTechy (Jul 7, 2004)

Well the interesting thing is the panel stated it was up to code and passed inspection..... in 1972!

I was pretty much figuring that someone rigged this little side breaked from the things I saw. But since I am no electrician I won't comment 

It is all hooked up to the sub panel and I did the work just as leroys suggested and it worked.

We have known about the aluminum wiring for awhile now but the cost to replace it is something we can't afford. For saftey sake we did have all the internal wiring pigtailed and crimped and all that.


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## StumpedTechy (Jul 7, 2004)

Oh and the best part about it... All 3 zones worked first shot! I love fixing things and having them work right.


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