Revo2Maxx wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 3:36 pm
I don't think there is going to be any type of Wear over the Transformer..
Problem I want to double check with you that your Wire isn't 20awg.. Problem is that 20awg Bell wire can and does look like a good sized wire sadly while it will work for a Doorbell that is only 10va and sorry I have to use 10va as when working with the Transformer and Doorbell that is what they talk about.. However to be fair 20awg can also work with 16vac 30va if (no more then 30 total path is used) Here is the issue.. Transformer is 100% raw power there is no protection outside what the Transformer can do. So with that said if your Transformer is a 16vac 30va that means that transformer was wound to be able to produce 1.875amps at 16vac..
However what isn't understood is that sadly it can have an under voltage moment and cause a 2vac with 15amps of current and that can melt down loads of things.. (Going off the Formula Watts = Amps X Volts)
So to have better understand of things
16vac 10va is only .625amps aka 625 milliamps
16vac 30va is 1.875amps aka 1875 milliamps
30ft' of 20awg of non damaged wire will be fine however say 60 ft of 20awg would be over 10% voltage drop and that isn't good...
How should I measure the wire to confirm the gauge? Or would a picture suffice? The wire to both the doorbell outside and inside appear to be the same, and are very stiff and difficult to bend (I can't shove the wires back into the wall, unfortunately). I certainly can't curve the exposed wire around the screw terminal, so I have to use needle nose pliers for those.
Well it seems that it is 20awg and measure wire distance isn't easy within a wall unless the Framing is exposed do to being New Construction or Repairs... Total distance from Doorbell Button to doorbell and transformer is what the info is about not just wire from switch to trans or switch to bell..
One of the things you could do, Test with a Multi Meter what your Voltage at the Transformer is over the 2 output terminals then measure what the voltage is at the doorbell when the button is pushed.. Most people don't understand normally there wouldn't be any voltage at the Doorbell until the button is pushed. While this can be hard without having 2 people I have in the past had to setup a Camera at my meter to record the voltage when doing this test seeing I couldn't be 2 places at once.. A fast push of the button isn't going to help much,, It needs to be a full push for a good count to 5 or 10... To be good at all points of knowing a Amp Clamp would be good for testing what the current is during testing but not many people have them either and not a tool one should go buy for using only 1 time... But if you had one.. However without one lets say you tested your voltage at the Transformer and it was 17.2vac and when you tested your voltage at the doorbell it stabled at 16.59vac that would be 0.61 voltage drop and while in my own thoughts under what I would personally like to see, seeing I always want to keep my Voltage drop at or under 3% however the Standard is 10% and that would be for these numbers 3.53% voltage drop and that would be fine. However if you did this test and the voltage was as before 17.2 yet at the doorbell when you measured it was 13.15 that would be a 23.57% voltage drop 4.05v difference, and that is going to cause a few problems or could..
To a question you asked while back about only taking the current that it needs under normal conditions that is true.. You could have a 3amp supply that is going to a device that only needs 1.2amps and it shouldn't have an over current event.
What would cause an overcurrent event could be Arc fault, Short, Excessive load and some others.. However normally devices that would have issues with such things would normally require a OCP circuit aka Over Current Protection Circuit however these don't and shouldn't have melted down..
However I would double check your connections in the Wire Caps as well.. Also keep in mind that the 1 Wago clip is only a 1 wire pair.. Lets say so I am understood, 4 wires 2 white and 2 red, you would take the 2 red and put them into the Wago Clip as a way to make the connection open one side put in 1 red wire, then open other side put in 1 red wire and make them connect.. It is the same thing as 1 Wire Nut.. Just so I was clear.. I had a friend that thought it was red wires twisted together in right side and white wires twisted in the other side and he had his doorbell full time ringing because in a since it was like someone was pressing and holding the dooebell button...
Also wanted to mention that after seeing that your bell was indeed a 16vac unit to be fair it really shouldn't matter that your using a 30va transformer seeing that is what is needed for things to work right for extra power to the camera.. If this was my system I would look over a few things..
Double Check that the wires in the wire nuts are correctly connected.. At times people can put these on and the wire was bad and it is making a Bad Connection this could be causing an Arc Fault, I would double check all wires that I connected new from the Doorbell camera to make sure there was no shorts, no wires on the back of the camera that turned while installing or touching the metal back plate causing a Short... I would even if nothing else for a moment if the doorbell isn't currently installed.. I would take the Chime kit, Doorbell camera, connect the Chime Kit to the Transformer, and connect the Transformer to the doorbell camera and test that it starts up.. Please note that if you don't know it will or can take a good Minute + for the Doorbell camera to come to life.. There is 2 large Caps in the camera that will need to charge up before Life will come into the camera...
Revo2Maxx wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 6:46 pm
Also wanted to mention that after seeing that your bell was indeed a 16vac unit to be fair it really shouldn't matter that your using a 30va transformer seeing that is what is needed for things to work right for extra power to the camera.. If this was my system I would look over a few things..
Double Check that the wires in the wire nuts are correctly connected.. At times people can put these on and the wire was bad and it is making a Bad Connection this could be causing an Arc Fault, I would double check all wires that I connected new from the Doorbell camera to make sure there was no shorts, no wires on the back of the camera that turned while installing or touching the metal back plate causing a Short... I would even if nothing else for a moment if the doorbell isn't currently installed.. I would take the Chime kit, Doorbell camera, connect the Chime Kit to the Transformer, and connect the Transformer to the doorbell camera and test that it starts up.. Please note that if you don't know it will or can take a good Minute + for the Doorbell camera to come to life.. There is 2 large Caps in the camera that will need to charge up before Life will come into the camera...
That's good insight there, appreciate it. I was tempted to test simply the indoor doorbell and the chime kit together, but no Amcrest, just to eliminate the possibility of loose or shorting wires there. While the doorbell won't work, I will at least see if it starts to hum and heat up again, then quickly shut it off.
Regarding tightening of wires and whatnot, shouldn't the connection to the transformer be considered stable since the doorbell alone works fine as of now? I'll also test that it is grounded as well, just in case it was loose in the twist cap.
Sadly no that isn't the case.. When you take your doorbell and connect it to your Button there is no power flowing until the button is pushed.. This most times that push is for a VERY short order of time and the current wouldn't even be able to ramp up to the max.. Now for testing to test you could test that your connection is ok to the point of pressing and holding the button on the house and this would then cause a FLOW OF CURRENT.. Here is why..
Before Amcrest Doorbell.
There was a Transformer, Button, wires and a Chime. Transformer is powered on but there is no Flow of current until the Button is pressed... (No Current flows until button is pressed and this normally is very short time)
After Amcrest Camera Doorbell.
New Transformer (Might be bad) Camera (Might be Bad) Chime Kit (More in likely bad now that there was Over Current event) Wires and Chime (Part went bad in over Current event) However after installed and when power was turned on something happen that caused the CHIME to Melt down (Over Current event)
However how it should work is that there is a Doorbell camera, Chime kit, wires, chime and new Transformer, Install turn power on and now wires that didn't have current flowing until button is pushed now has Constant Current flowing from normal Charge of the Caps in the Camera of around 500ma and once charged it then will lower down to 120 to 200ma of current.. However once you put a load these number change again.. With you having a Mech Chime and around a 3 second output of power will flow to the chime your system will see very little spike in the charging of the caps after a button push where someone with a Digital doorbell like mine where I have it set to latch power to the chime for 7 seconds it takes about 30 to 45 seconds where I will have a higher amount of current flow after my chime goes off..
Here is a Question! IS your transformer a 3 leg setup with 8vac, 16vac and 24vac or is it only a 16vac transformer? Because if it was accidently connected to the 24vac pegs of the new transformer the camera would be ok, Chime Kit will be dead, and that could have caused a Melt down... However if this is only a 16vac transformer..
If this was my problem here is some steps I would take for testing as I said before...
Take camera and chime kit to the Transformer, Remove the doorbell wires that are there now and connect the camera to the Transformer and the Chime Kit, You can connect chime kit 2 the 2 pegs of the Transformer, or the camera the point of this is that you have it connected at 1 place or the other personally I would make connection at Transformer. Then with only that and the camera doorbell connected I would turn on power and wait for the Camera to come online and even set it up to the Smart Home app and your router.. Once setup press the button and see that it calls your phone and that you can see a picture.. Please note that if your Transformer is in a Dark place it might turn on the IR and this will cause the camera to use a Constant current of around 320ma I think in testing I was able to get it to draw more power but I think that was only with CGI commands that I sent and not able to do it over the App.. However with new FW you can tell the camera not to use IR..
Anyway I have a few Transformers and looking at one of my last videos I made about the doorbells I see the one Transformer I was using for Testing was a 3 peg 8, 16, 24vac setup and thought humm maybe if you had one like this it might have been connected wrong and sadly if that is the case I can tell you that the Chime Kit is most likely now dead as well.. While it will still make it so your Transformer don't hum when you press the button sadly the function of working with a indoor Chime will be dead.. I have personally Repaired 7 of them so far 5 of my Friends and 2 of my own all of us had dead Chime Kits because we used 24vac as stand alone supplies and sadly that has issues that cause under voltage and over current event to happen and fries the Chime Kit...
Well, this is only a 16V transformer, and it reads right now as 17.6. So thankfully, it was not hooked up incorrectly in that regard at least. I was considering hooking it up, bypassing the doorbell completely just to confirm that the device worked.
By the way, I got it all working. While I was mounting the AD110 to the wall, the wires must've touched each other and shorted. Everything seems to be fine now on that front.
Very awesome to hear that you have things up and running.. At times things like this can happen and can be hard at times to even figure out what the issue was because maybe something done without seeing it first hand.. That is why most times when I install something I make sure I am the last one out and first one in so I can see and know if there was some type of issue that was caused by me..
When it comes to the Doorbell camera itself I found it to be little tricky when it came to the back plate and the mounting area for the wiring. I think if memory serves me right I might have pinched the wiring or something the first time I tried to install the camera myself and I had to take it out and install in a different fashion to get it to work. That had something to do with my Siding being Dutch lap and not having a flat space to make the install.. So I since made the space work.
