240 V elec relay info required

philip j · 01-22-2018, 12:33 PM

I'm looking for someone with home electrical knowledge... I'm having a pissing contest with the gated community management about who should pay for the replacement of the relays for the backup/generator power supplied by the gated community in our home in the Dominican Republic.

We pay a monthly maintenance fee, on top of the metered elec. power we receive from the community for generator repairs. I am told our relay is no longer in working condition, and we are required to pay $98 US for the replacement relay...

I have included a few pics. of the panel on our street which house the relays, it appears mine is not there (removed from panel) as they are all numbered.

It looks like 2 are required per house as they are numbered in pairs.
Are these installed typically before the meter? As part of the infrastructure?

Is $98 US reasonable cost to cover the part if it is my responsibility?

Our villa is also supplied by Edenorte who is the local power company/supplier.

T77911S · 01-23-2018, 03:37 AM

is ALL the power going to your house going thru one of those contactors?

just a guess
just looking at it it looks like they are using the contactors as a transfer switch,.
IE, one contactor is for commercial power and the other is for gen power.
when commercial power is lost, that contactor opens and when the gen comes up, it closes the gen contactor. just a guess based on it looks like one of each pair is energized.

just search the part number for the contactor to get a price.

the 2 cut red wires does not look very safe.

philip j · 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T77911S

is ALL the power going to your house going thru one of those contactors?

just a guess
just looking at it it looks like they are using the contactors as a transfer switch,.
IE, one contactor is for commercial power and the other is for gen power.
when commercial power is lost, that contactor opens and when the gen comes up, it closes the gen contactor. just a guess based on it looks like one of each pair is energized.

just search the part number for the contactor to get a price.

the 2 cut red wires does not look very safe.

Yes, that's the way I was thinking this setup works... Do you think these contacts are before the meters? I would assume this. I think the cut red wires are for the contactors which would feed our villa. Your right, the red wires do not look very safe, but that's par for the country, lots of amputees here. I should also mention, currently we do not have backup/generator power when the commercial power is out...

dad911 · 01-23-2018, 06:20 AM

Considering all the different brands, some are not mounted, and spaghetti wiring, I'd say it's not a reliable system. Also easy for someone to 'swap relays' or steal power. Hard to read the others, but the black one is only rated for 60 amps. My instant HW draws more. Likely overloaded leading to failures.

Paging Red-beard..... a prime candidate for solar-hybrid??

T77911S · 01-23-2018, 07:18 AM

if you are referring to a meter base as far as a meter for how much electricity you use, this would be after the meter base.
well I take that back. if they are charging you for power when you are ON EG then this would before the meter base.

if you say it works the way I think it does and you have commercial power then one of the contactors there is yours. you should be able to follow the larger wires to your EG contactor. the load sides will be common. if yours is missing and was where the red wires are, I would not be surprised if someone removed yours and put it in their space when theirs went bad. just a guess.
if the contact next to the missing one is yours it looks like one of the wires has gotton hot. check the connection.
I would also mark yours or scribe on them your ID so no one can steal them.

look at the lower pic. contactors 9La. looks like the top is input from commercial and EG. then the bottom is tied together with the load side coming off of the left one.
you can also see one is pulled in and the other is not.

908/930 · 908/930's Garage

Hey Philip,

If you do have to replace it check what your amperage rating is for main breaker in the house, if it is 100a then the contactor needs to be at least that. Some of the contactors have replaceable points but probably better to just replace the unit.

They say it is now longer working or no longer there? they probably sold it to someone else.

philip j · 01-23-2018, 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T77911S

if you are referring to a meter base as far as a meter for how much electricity you use, this would be after the meter base.
well I take that back. if they are charging you for power when you are ON EG then this would before the meter base.

if you say it works the way I think it does and you have commercial power then one of the contactors there is yours. you should be able to follow the larger wires to your EG contactor. the load sides will be common. if yours is missing and was where the red wires are, I would not be surprised if someone removed yours and put it in their space when theirs went bad. just a guess.
if the contact next to the missing one is yours it looks like one of the wires has gotton hot. check the connection.
I would also mark yours or scribe on them your ID so no one can steal them.

look at the lower pic. contactors 9La. looks like the top is input from commercial and EG. then the bottom is tied together with the load side coming off of the left one.
you can also see one is pulled in and the other is not.

Well, they have me over a barrel here... and are telling me the infrastructure is not covered by the maintenance fee's, only the generator. It's hard to tell which wires go where, as you can imagine, and the meters are in a adjacent panel/cabinet, so I'm not going to trace them out. This is a 3rd world country, and our villa is in a premiere gated community, so you can only imagine what the other run of the mill communities have/have to put up with... Philip

T77911S · 01-23-2018, 08:59 AM

do you know which contactor is yours?

this is just an assumption but I would bet the 2 red wires are from the EG.

not sure how much power your villa pulls but with that size wire I am guessing its about a 50amp service?
I looked up the lc1-d4011. its not a cheap contactor and 98 is a good price. 40amp. 120v coil

if I had to wire something up with these parts I would run the EG coil wire thru all the NC contacts of the commercial contactor and the commercial coil wire thru the NC of the EG contactor. that way you can never have both commercial and EG connected together.
just something to consider as far as how it might be wired,.

philip j · 11:58 AM

Actually, my bad, I now see the contactor with the faint Villa # 63 0n it.... I just bit the bullet and had the maintenance electrician replace it. I looked at the price on E Bay, and it is comparable to what they charge.

the 2 contactors on the right are for my villa...