Electrical shock from Receiver box???

[WalksInDarkness]

Hi All,

I had DirecTV installed 2 weeks ago. I got the "standard" 4-room offer. I just noticed that if I touch the outside of the metal housing and touch a different powered device (in this case my computer monitor screen) I get a very painful shock! The weird thing is that it only happens if I touch something that is plugged into a different outlet, so if I touch my Home theater receiver nothing happens. But I can touch my refridgerator in the other room, and I get zapped. I assume that this is NOT normal, and I should get a technician in right away. Any ideas what the cause might be?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.

TIA,
Will

 

[dfergie]

Welcome to SatelliteGuys... Is the Satellite System grounded? look for a ground block outside inline with your coax in from the Dish.

 

[dragontat002]

if it's grounded, then if you have D10 receivers, the grounds on them may be faulty at the outlet......trying putting 3 by 2 electrical adaptors on the D10 power cords and see if that alleviates the problem. if you cant get the electrical adaptors(which should be available at places like walmart or lowes) you can always snap the ground prong off your power cord, but that's a last ditch effort

 

[Newshawk]

... if you cant get the electrical adaptors(which should be available at places like walmart or lowes) you can always snap the ground prong off your power cord, but that's a last ditch effort

PLease, do NOT do that! Ground lifters (AKA grounded plug adapters) are cheap and can be found everywhere. It is always good to have a few on hand. Removing the grould from a grounded plug is a recipie for disaster.

Also, you might have either outlet checked. One of them might have a bad ground. Its best to take care of that ASAP.

 

[PhillyOTA]

I agree it is most likely an electrical problem in the house. I suggest getting an electrician to diagnose the problem.

Eddie

 

[Mike500]

You have a "floating ground" or "bootleg ground." The electrical panel is not grounded or the neutarl and ground wires are improperly connected together at an outlet or somewhere down the line from the panel.

The neutral wire is not a ground wire. It is a live return wire to complete a 120 vac circuit. Uninformed and poorly trained electricians or homeowners often connect the silver screw and the green screw together in a two wire system. This is wrong.

Another problem might be that the outlet is reverse wired. This would also make the chassis live. You complete the retuen circuit via ground, when you touch it.

 

[dragontat002]

PLease, do NOT do that! Ground lifters (AKA grounded plug adapters) are cheap and can be found everywhere. It is always good to have a few on hand. Removing the grould from a grounded plug is a recipie for disaster.

Also, you might have either outlet checked. One of them might have a bad ground. Its best to take care of that ASAP.

I definetly wouldn't recommend it......but at the same time, if you are using adaptors the proper way by grounding it through the wall plates screw.....it's still going to ground out the receiver....in turn, if you use the adaptor without using grounding it through the school...all your doing is terminating the ground of the receiver......in a sense accomplishing the same thing as snapping the prong off.....it's definetly a last ditch effort

 

[boba]

What ever you do stop touching another ground source unless you like the feeling.

 

[fkostyn]

Also remember, in a lot of construction, the ground and neutral are common and often tied (bonded is the proper term) together in an electrical panel. (I am not an electrician, and not 100% familiar with the NEC code on this, but, I know this is done)

Several years ago I had a repair case in which the customer was getting a shock from their printer. Upon diagnosis, it actually turned out to be the power supply in the computer causing the problem. There was a short in the power supply, causing voltage on the neutral side of the wiring, and because of the common neutral / ground, the metal casing on the printer became "hot" (why most of the electronics still worked is beyond me)

I would definatly reccommend checking the wiring at the outlet first (of course the D10 could be the problem)

 

[WalksInDarkness]

UPDATE to my story...

OK, so the plot thickens a bit here.
So when I went home last night, I could not reproduce the problem .
The only theory I can come up with, is possibly something to do with a very heavy rainstorm we had the day before??? For the first 2 weeks I had the system, we had virtually NO rain at all (minor drought conditions). But the day before the problem we had a such a termendous downpour that there was flooding in some parts of the state. Yesterday morning I could still reproduce the problem, but then after a hot sunny day the problem went away. So I am thinking it could be one of two things: (A) Somehow water affected the dish or coax (B) somehow water infiltrated part of house wire [maybe through my external outlet? or through the cracked putty on my main feed into the house?]
Anyhow, since it is covered under the DirecTV 90 policy, I am having them come out to inspect the system {why not, it is for free}.

-Will

 

[PhillyOTA]

You will probably get what you pay for. He will most likely not have the proper tools or knowledge to diagnose the problem. At best he will replace your receiver. If you are concerned, hire a good electrician. Or just don't worry about it.

Eddie

 

[zionzr2]

is it an actuall electric type shock or a bad static type shock??

 

[fkostyn]

Also, to check the outlet - get one of these (which is handy to have anyways)

www.homedepot.com / search Gardner Bender GFCI Circuit Tester

 

[WalksInDarkness]

is it an actuall electric type shock or a bad static type shock??

Oh, it is definitely an continous electric shock (and very painful!!!).

 

[WalksInDarkness]

Another update...

So my co-worker who is an Electrical Engineer (but not an electrician -disclaimer), had a theory about why the shock was not always reproduceable: he asked if there was something putting a heavy load on the circuit like an air conditioner. Well he was right, the adjacent wall outlet has an 8,000 BTU wall unit. Then he got all technical, but basically said when it is running it could somehow load the circuit to cause the problem. I went home and tried it and ZAP!!! So we are guessing it is definitely the 1950s wiring in my house. Is there any easy cheap way to fix this????

TIA,
Will

 

[PhillyOTA]

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but hire a good licensed electrician.

There are some things you just don't want to cut corners on.

Eddie

 

[WalksInDarkness]

Latest Update...

Well the technicians came on Saturday. And the first glaring problem was that there was absolutely no "ground" anywhere on the installation. So they grounded out the "splitter". Also, they said that the first guys put the wrong connectors on the cable (at the splitter junction), so they put on new ones that had some sort of plastic collar on it (does anyone know what these were?). The tech wasn't 100% sure if it would totally eliminate the problem, but he said it would make system safer. I haven't been able to reproduce the shock sine then, so I am hoping it is fixed.

On a similar note: the day the techs came, one of my 4 receiver died. It would just stay stuck on the "Loading info" screen. I wonder if there was some sort of power surge on the cable when they were making the changes. Weird that it happened then, I just hope I am not replacing receivers opnce a month!

 

[donna]

next time they come out ask them if u have rg6 wire if not its rg59 which will definently cause this probelm especially when you have a multiswitch(splitter junction) they might have to rewire your house and you might have to pay if your outlets are on interior wallswhich should fix probelm ask the installer if he could run temp. line too see if that will fix before they rewire then youll know if it dosent work its probaly old wiring in house but my moneys on youve got rg59

 

[WalksInDarkness]

!!!My HORROR Story - Please Read!!!

This is a long one, so please bear with me.
Well it looks like I am a candidate for one of those cable TV ads that use scare tactics to discourage potential Sattelite TV customers.
I had DirecTV installed in my house about 1 month ago. It is the basic 4-Room package deal. It required a totally new install except for the 1 room that already had cable. Everything went smoothly for the first 2 weeks. Then one day I noticed I was getting a shock from the living room reciever if I touched another powered appliance (this was not happening in any other room). So then I had my first service call. The techs said the other crew forgot to ground the system, so they grounded the 4-way splitter to my plumbing. They also said the wrong connectors were on the coax at the splitter, so they put on new ones that had some sort of a black plastic collar. They also added some sort of a junction on the two dish cables, that seemed to have absolutely no purpose whatsoever. Of course the guys didn't even check to make sure the all boxes were revceving, and that evening I discovered one room was not working. It was just staying stuck at one of the first screens where it says "searching for satellite". So I called D* and the tech walked me through trying swapping out the box in another room. So it seemed the box was defective. D* sent me a new box via. When I went to plug in the box (by plugging the elec cord into the back), it got such a violent shock that the circuit breaker tripped. The new box totally fried, and smoke came out of it (and I recieved such a shock my figers smelled like burnt meat!). What did not make sense was that this was not the room where I had the previous shock problem, and I was not making a circuit by touching anything else. When I disconnected the box, the connector on the satellite coax fell completly off (and it looked liked the outer conducter braid was actually making contact with the inner conductor). When I turned the circuit breaker back on, I discovered that 2 more rooms were now had the box stuck on the "searching" screen. Stupidly, I swapped out one box in the room that was still working (to verfiy if it was a box problem), and when I went to put back the last box it stopped working too!
So now I have no idea what the problem is.
What are the odds that I would have 5 bad recievers? (unlikely)
Did all of the boxes get damaged by the first or second "shock" problem by some power surge type thing? (maybe, but why would the last box only stop working when it was unplugged for 10 minutes???).
Is there another defect somewhere like the 4-way splitter? Or maybe a bad dish? Or a water penetration problem in the dish or it's coax connection?(maybe, as both shock problems happened after a heavy rain). Or is the root cause 50 year old inadequate wiring? (but if so, why did I never have the problem with cable TV in the two rooms that had it - the only thing I can think is one room had brand new electrical wiring and maybe allowed the surge in the coax to ground out???)
All I can say is that in 20 years of having cable (in several different houses and apartment - some having new installs done), I never had these type of problems. I think only twice did I have a box fail, and definitely no shocks.
If it wasn't for the fact that D* has my CC#, I would tear the whole system out tonight.
So does anyone have any advice that I can give the techs on Saturday?
Also, has anyone sucessfully canceled thier account with D* due to recurrent problems?

TIA for any advice,
Will

 

[uboatcmdr]

I have run into this problem a few times. It usually always occurs in either newly constructed homes or those that either have recently been remodeled or had additions built on. Most often I have found that a GFI (ground fault interrupt, one of those outlets with a breaker built in to it) has been wired wrong which causes the circuit to blow and damage to the receivers whenever plugged in. Other items such as TV's & stereos are usually not affected because most of them only have two prong plugs whereas the newer DTV receivers have three prong plugs (the GFI's if wired inccorectly will send power to the third prong, ground post, of the plug). Please keep in mind that the receiver does not have to be plugged into the GFI for these types of problems to occur, it simply has to be on the same circuit (i.e. controlled by the same breaker in the utility box). The reason only one receiver was affected in the beginning is because it was the only one on that circuit, but after the DTV system was grounded the problem was passed along to the other receivers via the coax. I would imagine that it you went outside and touched the ground wire you'd get a good shock there as well. The way to fix the problem is to replace the damaged receivers, and put 2 prong adapters on all the receivers' plugs. You may have to un-ground the DTV system as well. After you system is back up and running be sure to call the electrician who did the work in your home recently and let him/her know there is possibly a problem with one of the circuits he worked on.
Hope this has helped.