Emergency lights did not work... ?

[Buck Parrish]

The power went off at my lake home. The five emergency battery back up surface mounted wall pack dual lights. They did not work. (come on)
They have the little red test button on the bottom.
My neighbors ATS worked fine and his Generac generator came on.
I was not there or I would have checked for voltage.
When I did go to the house. The lights worked fine when tested.
The lights were installed at different times and on different circuits.
They're Lithonia for the most part. LED and incandescent.

 

[GoldDigger]

Sounds like for some reason the batteries in your emergency lights did not have a full charge. Is is possible that the circuit that they were connected to was turned off at the breaker?
Most have an orange or red neon or LED that shows that the unit is getting power. This is also sometimes a lighted test button.
If they are not getting power and the batteries ran down at some time when you were not around to see it, then the test button would not work and the lights would not light under any circumstances.

 

[qcroanoke]

The power went off at my lake home. The five emergency battery back up surface mounted wall pack dual lights. They did not work. (come on)
They have the little red test button on the bottom.
My neighbors ATS worked fine and his Generac generator came on.
I was not there or I would have checked for voltage.
When I did go to the house. The lights worked fine when tested.
The lights were installed at different times and on different circuits.
They're Lithonia for the most part. LED and incandescent.

Your batteries may be bad and not able to hold a charge for long. So if power goes off or you test it they may work for a few seconds or minutes.

 

[charlie b]

Perhaps I just need more coffee, and am not yet fully alert, but I need to ask: If you were not there when power was lost, how do you know that the emergency lights did not work? :?

 

[Buck Parrish]

I turned the main breaker off and the lights worked just fine.
I was thinking that maybe enough power was coming through to hold the contactors shut.


But since my neighbors generator turned on automatically. Is it possible that the contactor in the 200 Amp ATS would need the full 120/240 to hold the contactor. And the emergency light contactor may be held with say 20 volts. I'm just theorizing...

 

[charlie b]

The utility is either on or it is not on. There really isn't much of an in between. But let me ask again, was someone at the house when power was lost? If so, what did they observe? If not, why are you saying that the lights did not work?

 

[Buck Parrish]

Yes some one was their . They observed no power, no lights and no emergency lights,
I thought maybe a tree might have caused one phase to go out and almost all of the other. I'm not sure why it went off. But it was during a storm.

That's why I was thinking the contactors may have been held in place by a smaller amount of voltage.