Question for the Experts: Any experience neon bulbs?

Tue Aug 3 09:42:48 EDT 2010

That's my guess also, Bob!  That last bulb brings the hot/ground current up to the GFI trip point. 

William, take a close look at the wiring, especially the neutral and ground as Bob suggests.

Tom/W4OKW

Tom Clarke
Wyle, Inc  Aeronautics
P3 Product Lead, PEO(A)
USN/USMC National Airworthiness Office
Naval Air Systems Command, AIR-4.0P
(301) 995-3793/DSN 995-3793
Fax: (301) 342-3776
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frederic.clarke at navy.mil

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-----Original Message-----
From: Bob W5UQ [mailto:W5UQ at ATT.NET] 
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2010 11:45 AM
Subject: Re: Question for the Experts: Any experience neon bulbs?

  My first inclination is that the neutral wire is not the neutral but 
the ground wire...  or that the neutral and ground  wires have been 
reversed.

I'm sure there will be several who have other ideas too... this will be 
interesting to see what they are.

Bob W5UQ

On 8/2/2010 10:29 AM, William Morton wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I have a box which has a total of 5 Type 48 neon bulbs in parallel.  The first bulb is always on as long as the master power is on.  The remaining 4 are all individually switched within their parallel connections.  My problem arises when I turn on the master power (1 bulb lights up) and then begin turning on the remaining 4:  the GFI wall socket trips when the last bulb is turned on.  The frustrating part of this problem is I can turn on 3 of the remaining 4 bulbs in any order or combination.  I can have the master power bulb on with any 3 of the remaining 4 working fine, but it's just the last one that trips the GFI.  All bulbs have the required 30k ohm resistor in series and the entire circuit is protected by a small 1.5 amp fuse.  The fuse itself has never blown - only the GFI trips.
>
> Can anyone comment on potential issues or fixes?  Anyone else experience such a thing?  Luckily this contraption will only use 2 of the remaining 4 bulbs at any one time, but I would still like to fix the root cause of the problem.
>
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> William
>   		 	   		
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