# Silocone filled wirenuts trip GFCI



## sparky105 (Sep 29, 2009)

A pipe fitter friend of mine asked for help with his hot tub hook up so He dug the trench and ran the pipe and hooked everything up. I dropped by after work and tied in the breaker for him and checked his work.
It was a good job until we turned it on and the gfci tripped. So I started digging and pulled out the megger and found a phase to ground.
Started to pull the wiring apart thinking he damaged something pulling in the wiring and noticed these Ideal wire nuts that he had used pre-filled with silicone. Took them off and redid the connections no more problem.
The supply house told him this is what everyone is using for wet locations lol I guess there is a bunch of these things out there and a bunch of hot tubs not working :laughing:


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## Toronto Sparky (Apr 12, 2009)

Silicone conducts until it's FULLY cured.


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

sparky105 said:


> A pipe fitter friend of mine asked for help with his hot tub hook up so He dug the trench and ran the pipe and hooked everything up. I dropped by after work and tied in the breaker for him and checked his work.
> It was a good job until we turned it on and the gfci tripped. So I started digging and pulled out the megger and found a phase to ground.
> Started to pull the wiring apart thinking he damaged something pulling in the wiring and noticed these Ideal wire nuts that he had used pre-filled with silicone. Took them off and redid the connections no more problem.
> The supply house told him this is what everyone is using for wet locations lol I guess there is a bunch of these things out there and a bunch of hot tubs not working :laughing:


 
I suspect there's more to the story.


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## B4T (Feb 10, 2009)

Toronto Sparky said:


> Silicone conducts until it's FULLY cured.


100% silicone rubber does not, if it is the same stuff.

I use it to fasten LV boards to parts boxes and never had a problem of the relay shorting out.


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2007)

Silly you! You don't use silicon.... you use 3M Scotchkote! :laughing:


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## B4T (Feb 10, 2009)

480sparky said:


> Silly you! You don't use silicon.... you use 3M Scotchkote! :laughing:


Not for fastening LV boards to parts boxes.. would never work.. :no:


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2007)

Black4Truck said:


> Not for fastening LV boards to parts boxes.. would never work.. :no:



No, you use Scotchkote for.. e v e r y t h i n g.............:jester:


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## sparky105 (Sep 29, 2009)

mcclary's electrical said:


> I suspect there's more to the story.


no there isn't I cleaned the crap off and put big reds on the joints and it held


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## electricmanscott (Feb 11, 2010)

mcclary's electrical said:


> I suspect there's more to the story.


Me too..........


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

sparky105 said:


> no there isn't I cleaned the crap off and put big reds on the joints and it held


 
I'm telling you, you missed something. There was a bad joint,knicked wire and you moved it, grounded condutor touching a grounding conductor most likely, or something else. 


You could fill the individual wirenuts with WATER and still would not cause your problem. There's more to the story.


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## sparky105 (Sep 29, 2009)

I meggered the conductors and the only thing touching any thing conductive like metal was the goo filled nuts. The pipe was pvc the jb is pvc and the connection box in the tub is metal. the goo was sqeazed out and all over the metal box. Where else can the ground be.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Sparky105,

I don't know for certain, but I would expect a low megger reading on skinned wires even inside a PVC pipe. I'd think there could be enough condensation and dirt in the pipe to show a ground fault. What were your readings at what voltage?

Apparently depending what they put in it, silicone can either conduct or insulate. I wonder what the stuff in those wirenuts is? Somebody oughta grab one of these and perform a test!

-John


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

Big John said:


> Sparky105,
> 
> I don't know for certain, but I would expect a low megger reading on skinned wires even inside a PVC pipe. I'd think there could be enough condensation and dirt in the pipe to show a ground fault. What were your readings at what voltage?
> 
> ...


 

Maybe the stuff was still wet?


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## sparky105 (Sep 29, 2009)

I had 25 k at 1000v 
I thought he skinned it for sure so i took the wire out of the lb at the pnl and I looked real close at the conductors to make sure he didn't have stray strands and I meggered every thing to ground and to the 2 phases. 
The only thing that was obveous was silocone of some kind ozing out.It was on the wire nuts and the steel steel junction


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

sparky105 said:


> I had 25 k at 1000v
> I thought he skinned it for sure so i took the wire out of the lb at the pnl and I looked real close at the conductors to make sure he didn't have stray strands and I meggered every thing to ground and to the 2 phases.
> The only thing that was obveous was silocone of some kind ozing out.It was on the wire nuts and the steel steel junction


 

maybe it was not silicone? was it dry? gooey? conductive?


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

mcclary's electrical said:


> maybe it was not silicone?


100% silicone adhesive is not conductive, the blob of it I just meggered @1,000 VDC tells me so.


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## nitro71 (Sep 17, 2009)

I always blame my wirenuts before anything else if i have a fault. That plastic really conducts! If it was the silocone wirenuts all you had to do was wipe them off.


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## B4T (Feb 10, 2009)

Jlarson said:


> 100% silicone adhesive is not conductive, the blob of it I just meggered @1,000 VDC tells me so.


Well.. finally something useful..  :laughing:


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

Black4Truck said:


> Well.. finally something useful..


Hey, it's one more useful thing then you've posted.  :laughing:


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## B4T (Feb 10, 2009)

Jlarson said:


> Hey, it's one more useful thing then you've posted.  :laughing:


:laughing::laughing:


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

Ok, I just scooped the stuff out of an Ideal waterproof nut and meggered that at 1,000 VDC. It is also appears non conductive.


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

Jlarson said:


> Ok, I just scooped the stuff out of an Ideal waterproof nut and meggered that at 1,000 VDC. It is also appears non conductive.


 

I just meggered one lead on the cat's tail and the other clipped to it's hind leg:blink: He didn't seem to like it.:whistling2:


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## B4T (Feb 10, 2009)

Jlarson said:


> Ok, I just scooped the stuff out of an Ideal waterproof nut and meggered that at 1,000 VDC. It is also appears non conductive.


Put it someplace and see if it dries hard like silicone rubber does or if it stays soft like toothpaste..


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

mcclary's electrical said:


> I just meggered between the cat's tail and it's hind leg


I nailed _myself_ at 250 on the wrist the other day _on purpose_ as a demo while teaching about megger usage. 


Yes, you guys read that right. :laughing::laughing:


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

Jlarson said:


> I nailed _myself_ at 250 on the wrist the other day _on purpose_ as a demo while teaching about megger usage.
> 
> 
> Yes, you guys read that right. :laughing::laughing:


 

How did you present that to the class? 


DON"T DO THIS: and then proceed?


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

Black4Truck said:


> Put it someplace and see if it dries hard like silicone rubber does or if it stays soft like toothpaste..


It's non-hardening, the one I cleaned out was sitting in my bag for god knows how long. Plus if it was hardening there would be like an expiration date on the packages probably and/or they would be in a air tight bag.


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

mcclary's electrical said:


> How did you present that to the class?
> 
> 
> DON"T DO THIS: and then proceed?


No, the help was like 'if it's 250 volts why isn't it deadly?' So just for kicks, well... then I explained how it's only 1mA of current. :laughing:


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Jlarson said:


> It's non-hardening, the one I cleaned out was sitting in my bag for god knows how long. Plus if it was hardening there would be like an expiration date on the packages probably and/or they would be in a air tight bag.


 Yeah, I learned that the hard way. I thought I was being slick by just filling regular wirenuts with silicone caulk. It definitely isn't the same thing, because my idea failed horribly, and _LJSMITH1_ explained why:


LJSMITH1 said:


> Assuming it was a solid 'potting' of typical silicone caulk, it wasn't the water causing the corrosion, it was the ammonia outgassing which is a byproduct of silicone-based caulk curing. This will certainly corrode the zinc plating on the steel spring inside the wire nut.
> 
> There are so-called "neutral-cure' silicone adhesive caulks used in electronics, which do not induce corrosion. They typically are formulated with acetone or acetic acid curing agents instead of ammonia.
> 
> ...


-John


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## Electric_Light (Apr 6, 2010)

480sparky said:


> Silly you! You don't use silicon.... you use 3M Scotchkote! :laughing:



Silicon and Silicone have about as much difference as ship vs sh*t


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## wayne g (Nov 28, 2010)

The wire nuts maybe were not filled with silicone. Could they be the ones that have the inhibitor for AL conductor to copper pig-tail to ensure good mechnical connection to plugs, switches, lts, etc ?


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## wayne g (Nov 28, 2010)

Jlarson said:


> I nailed _myself_ at 250 on the wrist the other day _on purpose_ as a demo while teaching about megger usage.
> 
> 
> Yes, you guys read that right. :laughing::laughing:


 Did that hurt ????


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## bobelectric (Feb 24, 2007)

I don't see why there was wire connectors in this install,anyway.


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## Mike_586 (Mar 24, 2009)

mcclary's electrical said:


> I'm telling you, you missed something. There was a bad joint,knicked wire and you moved it, grounded condutor touching a grounding conductor most likely, or something else.
> 
> 
> You could fill the individual wirenuts with WATER and still would not cause your problem. There's more to the story.


Yeah I agree with that something definitely got missed....

There's just no way a wire nut over a proper joint can trip a GFCI no matter what its filled with be it silicone, rubber, jelly or peanut butter.


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