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Current in Water(continued)



>At 03:48 PM 9/13/98 -0400,  Neil Frank asked:
>>I have a small current in all of the tanks on one iron rack. 
>>Your expert advice is appreciated. Has anyone else experienced this?
>
>Well, Neil, I am a tinker, not a techie where electricity is concerned,
but here:

Dave, thanks for taking the time to respond.

>
>1.   An ammeter is a very low resistance device.  So if you only draw uAs,
>the voltage drop must be VERY small.   Can you measure it???  See if you
>can get a VTVM with a uV scale.
>

Dave, I must be much less of a techie than you. what is a VTVM?

If this helps,I mentioned earlier that I measured .07DC volts and 3.5 V AC
[between the water and ground, with the grounding probe connected].

>
>2.  I have had some pretty weird results with electronic ballasts.   First
>of all, the one I got from Grainger (Advance Transformer) runs very cool,
>especially for a 4 tube ballast, but it trips GFIs and creates a bunch of
>TV interference.  The first problem appears insoluble, the second I am
>trying to work but Advance has not been very cooperative so far.
>
>

I now remember that this tank used to cause my GFI's to trip (this is an
acronym that I DO know <g>). This happened when my hand was in the tank,
and I touched the metal reflector that sits on top of the bulbs!!!  I was
obviously concerned, so I tested for the amount of current, and it was
uA's. Interestingly, it ONLY happened when the grounding probe was
connected. For a while, when I was playing in the tank, I would disconnect
the grounding probe, so I wouldn't have to continually reset the GFI. This
was over a year ago, and it no longer happens.

I also got an comment from another reader of this list regarding the
wiring, so here is an ascii drawing in case it is meaningful to any future
commenter.


|=========================55w bulb======================|--d---
|                                                              \
|  |=========================55w bulb======================|   |
|  |                                                       |   |      
a  b                                                       c   d
|  |                      __________                       |___|
|  |__________b___________|          |__________e___________|
                    |_____________a___________|NO Ballast|_____________
                   
                          |_________ |___________  |
                                     |_____      | |
                                           |     | |
                                           |     | |
                                           G     H N
                                                (120V)


(a,b, c, d and e attach to the bulbs; H,N connect to the wall socket, G to
ground).  The Ballast is VALMONT, #E296P1120G11


Neil