Mains power voltage drop to reduce usage?...

[Sylvia Else]

On 08-Nov-22 12:43 am, Anthony William Sloman wrote:

On Monday, November 7, 2022 at 8:48:13 PM UTC+11, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2022-11-07 10:00, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 07-Nov-22 8:47 am, David Wade wrote:
On 06/11/2022 20:55, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 20:23:04 -0000, Mark Lloyd <not....@all.invalid> wrote:
On 11/6/22 09:06, Commander Kinsey wrote:

[snip]


The thing is, the rate of heat loss is proportional to the temperature. \\

Not always.

Heat loss by conduction is proportional to the temperature difference.

Heat loss by natural convection is proportional to the temperature difference squared, and the rate goes up quite a bit when the convection currents become turbulent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh_number

Heat loss by radiation rises as the fourth power of the absolute temperature of the radiator, which is even worse.

In any case, it\'s definitely proportional to time.

One could take this to an extreme and provide so little power that by
the time the kettle reaches half-way to boiling, its losing all the
input power to the surroundings. The water will then never boil no
matter how long one waits.

Sylvia.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

Surely now we\'re digital the standards are the same?

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 18:04:21 -0000, Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> wrote:

(top posted for Brian)

I\'ve got a bunch of devices intended for the US market which will run on
100-250 volts. The recent one I have which won\'t run on 100 is the TV.

Which won\'t work in the US anyway because the standards are different.

Andy

On 07/11/2022 09:03, Brian Gaff wrote:
If the switch mode supplies are designed with the right disidisipation, I
see no reason why anything from 110v ac 60 hz and 250v ac 50 hz not to be
possible. I\'m sure Samsung TVs can do this, or at least most of them can.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2022-11-08 00:53, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:56:41 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 02:54, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 01:44:28 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 00:57, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electric cooker is 8kW.

Mine is 1.8 Kw, induction. Very fast.

Induction doesn\'t make it more than 100% efficient.

You are badly informed

Only a heatpump can give you more out than you put in.  Just think about
it.

Does everyone in
your country have cold food and cold showers or use gas?

Nope, nope, and maybe.

Sissies, sissies, and I thought the EU was banning gas?

We have so much gas that we have to tell gas ships to wait for days to
be unloaded while we burn some gas to make free space to get more gas :-D

Not what I heard - refusing to buy from Russia and Russia refusing to
sell it, etc.

We never bought it from Russia, anyway. Just a testimonial 5% or so.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2022-11-08 00:54, Commander Kinsey wrote:

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:57:25 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 02:59, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 01:45:14 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 00:58, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 23:45:03 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 00:29, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 23:06:29 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-06 22:37, Commander Kinsey wrote:
Do you really want a meter which can overread by a factor of 5, in
particular on eco-stuff like LED lights!

Where do you get that idea?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4288180/Smart-meters-readings-SEVEN-times-high.html

\"smart meters can give readings that are SEVEN times too high
because
dimmer switches and LED bulbs confuse the devices
Smart meters can be confused by modern dimmer switches and LED bulbs
Meters come up with readings that are 582 per cent higher than they
should be
It comes after an SSE had to apologise to customers earlier this
week
after malfunctioning smart meters handed them bills for as much as
£44,000 a day
The Government wants them installed in all 26million homes by 2020\"

That last line, ROFL!  It\'s now 2022 and only half of us have one.


Well, no such thing here. This is a modern country :-D

Didn\'t you recently have a terrible poverty?  About a decade ago?

Nope.

Spain, right?  I watched a Top Gear episode about 10 years ago which
showed completely empty areas of Spain where you\'d all moved out.

LOL.

Are you telling me that never happened?

Never heard of it.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

The frequency I\'ve seen drop by about 0.2Hz regularly, and sometimes about 0.5Hz. That would be a change in turntable speed of 1 in 250 to 1 in 100. I wonder if that would be noticeable by ear? I guess it would when it happens, but not if it was gradual.

They have to average the frequency at 50 for the sake of clocks (my mother has a very old wall clock using it, and I think the timers in meter boxes to switch to economy 7 use it?). But I don\'t know what the limits are for a short period.


On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:03:08 -0000, Brian Gaff <brian1gaff@gmail.com> wrote:

Don\'t be daft, most modern gear has switch mode psus and they usually have a
very vvery wide range of voltages, so they can build one model for the
world.
Older gear, like I use for hi if etc, as they still have tactile controls
will be hit most and older turntables that use the 50 hz in the uk to make
them run at the right speed would be unusable. However few of these about.
If the switch mode supplies are designed with the right disidisipation, I
see no reason why anything from 110v ac 60 hz and 250v ac 50 hz not to be
possible. I\'m sure Samsung TVs can do this, or at least most of them can.

Most chargers do this and things like shavers and toothbrushes do, cos it
says so on the bottom I\'m told.
Brian

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Tue, 08 Nov 2022 00:22:02 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-08 00:54, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:57:25 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 02:59, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 01:45:14 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 00:58, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 23:45:03 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 00:29, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 23:06:29 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-06 22:37, Commander Kinsey wrote:
Do you really want a meter which can overread by a factor of 5, in
particular on eco-stuff like LED lights!

Where do you get that idea?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4288180/Smart-meters-readings-SEVEN-times-high.html

\"smart meters can give readings that are SEVEN times too high
because
dimmer switches and LED bulbs confuse the devices
Smart meters can be confused by modern dimmer switches and LED bulbs
Meters come up with readings that are 582 per cent higher than they
should be
It comes after an SSE had to apologise to customers earlier this
week
after malfunctioning smart meters handed them bills for as much as
£44,000 a day
The Government wants them installed in all 26million homes by 2020\"

That last line, ROFL! It\'s now 2022 and only half of us have one.


Well, no such thing here. This is a modern country :-D

Didn\'t you recently have a terrible poverty? About a decade ago?

Nope.

Spain, right? I watched a Top Gear episode about 10 years ago which
showed completely empty areas of Spain where you\'d all moved out.

LOL.

Are you telling me that never happened?

Never heard of it.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=spain+poverty&t=opera&ia=web

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Tue, 08 Nov 2022 00:20:33 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-08 00:53, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:56:41 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 02:54, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 01:44:28 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 00:57, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electric cooker is 8kW.

Mine is 1.8 Kw, induction. Very fast.

Induction doesn\'t make it more than 100% efficient.

You are badly informed

Only a heatpump can give you more out than you put in. Just think about
it.

Does everyone in
your country have cold food and cold showers or use gas?

Nope, nope, and maybe.

Sissies, sissies, and I thought the EU was banning gas?

We have so much gas that we have to tell gas ships to wait for days to
be unloaded while we burn some gas to make free space to get more gas :-D

Not what I heard - refusing to buy from Russia and Russia refusing to
sell it, etc.

We never bought it from Russia, anyway. Just a testimonial 5% or so.

Are you telling me the media used hype, exaggeration, and possibly even downright lies?

so what is the current shortage about then?

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 15:39:39 -0000, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:

upsidedown@downunder.com writes:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 22:30:36 GMT, Cindy Hamilton
hamilton@invalid.com> wrote:

On 2022-11-06, Ralph Mowery <rmowery42@charter.net> wrote:
In article <op.1u73hbz8mvhs6z@ryzen.home>, CK1@nospam.com says...

Not necessarily. We have a \"guaranteed\" minimum and maximum supply
voltage. Why should a company spend extra designing and installing
protection against supplies (not temporary aberrations) outside them?

Because other things could cause lower voltage, like a wiring fault in the device or the building. Especially in dual voltage countries like the US where you can lose one live.




If the neutral line is lost or a bad connection the line voltage in a
house could have one side to be very low and the other side very high in
the US system.

Funny you should mention that. Our neutral broke in high winds
yesterday. Both remaining legs seem to be well balanced.

Was this in the US with \"pigs\" in the poles ?

To my understanding the medium voltage feed is three phase open wire
in delta configuration (no neutral). The \"pig\" is a single phase
transformer with the primary connected between two phase wires in the
medium voltage feed. The third phase wire is not used by this
transformer, but most likely in the next pig. The secondary is center
tapped with 2 x 120 V. The cent re tap is connected to neutral and
ground.

Are you sure that the wire between pig secondary CT to your house
neutral was broken ?

Note that the neutral is also known as the \"Grounded Conductor\",
and it is tied to earth at the service entrance. This would explain
why the two 120VAC legs in the home would still look balanced as they\'ll
use the earth directly rather than indirectly through the grounded
conductor from the pig to the service entrance.

I\'m in the UK, but mine isn\'t grounded at my house, I rely on the ground at the transformer. But it would be difficult to lose as it\'s the same armoured cable as the live.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 15:53:05 -0000, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandsnipmetechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 15:08:29 GMT, Cindy Hamilton
hamilton@invalid.com> wrote:

On 2022-11-07, upsidedown@downunder.com <upsidedown@downunder.com> wrote:

Funny you should mention that. Our neutral broke in high winds
yesterday. Both remaining legs seem to be well balanced.

Was this in the US with \"pigs\" in the poles ?

It\'s in the U.S.

To my understanding the medium voltage feed is three phase open wire
in delta configuration (no neutral). The \"pig\" is a single phase
transformer with the primary connected between two phase wires in the
medium voltage feed. The third phase wire is not used by this
transformer, but most likely in the next pig. The secondary is center
tapped with 2 x 120 V. The cent re tap is connected to neutral and
ground.

Are you sure that the wire between pig secondary CT to your house
neutral was broken ?

I could see both ends of the break. The entire bundle of wires
is one of these:

https://www.prioritywire.com/specs/Triplex%20Service%20Drop.pdf

The uninsulated \"messenger\" line was broken. The power company
came by yesterday evening and repaired the break.

I\'m working on a photo album of hideous poles and wiring in San
Francisco. I\'ll post a link eventually.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/y2rru9af75rr4dw/P4.jpg?raw=1

Is that pole actually in someone\'s driveway?!

Some new (about 10 year old) houses were built near me. They have everything underground except the phone wires. Did they forget or what? https://goo.gl/maps/GiWUy1MmMdaevnfr9

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 17:34:05 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 16:08, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On 2022-11-07, upsidedown@downunder.com <upsidedown@downunder.com> wrote:

Funny you should mention that. Our neutral broke in high winds
yesterday. Both remaining legs seem to be well balanced.

Was this in the US with \"pigs\" in the poles ?

It\'s in the U.S.

To my understanding the medium voltage feed is three phase open wire
in delta configuration (no neutral). The \"pig\" is a single phase
transformer with the primary connected between two phase wires in the
medium voltage feed. The third phase wire is not used by this
transformer, but most likely in the next pig. The secondary is center
tapped with 2 x 120 V. The cent re tap is connected to neutral and
ground.

Are you sure that the wire between pig secondary CT to your house
neutral was broken ?

I could see both ends of the break. The entire bundle of wires
is one of these:

https://www.prioritywire.com/specs/Triplex%20Service%20Drop.pdf

www.prioritywire.com uses an invalid security certificate.

The certificate is not trusted because it is self-signed.

Error code: MOZILLA_PKIX_ERROR_SELF_SIGNED_CERT

Use a less fussy browser.

If I try http instead of https:



Connection denied by Geolocation Setting.

Reason: Blocked country:

The connection was denied because this country is blocked in the
Geolocation settings.

Please contact your administrator for assistance.
WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.

Works fine for me in the UK without any VPN active. I wonder why they block Spain and not UK?

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 22:06:59 -0000, Cindy Hamilton <hamilton@invalid.com> wrote:

On 2022-11-07, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2022-11-07 16:08, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On 2022-11-07, upsidedown@downunder.com <upsidedown@downunder.com> wrote:

Funny you should mention that. Our neutral broke in high winds
yesterday. Both remaining legs seem to be well balanced.

Was this in the US with \"pigs\" in the poles ?

It\'s in the U.S.

To my understanding the medium voltage feed is three phase open wire
in delta configuration (no neutral). The \"pig\" is a single phase
transformer with the primary connected between two phase wires in the
medium voltage feed. The third phase wire is not used by this
transformer, but most likely in the next pig. The secondary is center
tapped with 2 x 120 V. The cent re tap is connected to neutral and
ground.

Are you sure that the wire between pig secondary CT to your house
neutral was broken ?

I could see both ends of the break. The entire bundle of wires
is one of these:

https://www.prioritywire.com/specs/Triplex%20Service%20Drop.pdf

Sorry. I picked the first link that had triplex. No way for me to know
it was geoblocked, but I probably should check my browser\'s security
settings.

Security is overrated. I prefer things to work.

 

[DJ Delorie]

Lasse Langwadt Christensen <langwadt@fonz.dk> writes:

mandag den 7. november 2022 kl. 20.49.34 UTC+1 skrev John Larkin:
We have two phases 120-N-120

Ackchyually ..

if they 180 degrees apart (240V between two hots) it is it is split
phase and doesn\'t count as different phases

if they are 120 degrees apart (208V between two hots) they are two out
of three phases

If they\'re 90 degrees apart, it\'s real two-phase power and they\'re
running a house-sized stepper motor.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:00:53 -0000, Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote:

On 07-Nov-22 8:47 am, David Wade wrote:
On 06/11/2022 20:55, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 20:23:04 -0000, Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid
wrote:

On 11/6/22 09:06, Commander Kinsey wrote:

[snip]

The other answers disagree, some loads would reduce, resistive heating
for example (including washing machine heaters).

The heaters are often temperature controlled, and will run longer to
make up for the reduced power.

But the idea is to reduce peak load. Spreading that out for longer is
exactly what they\'re after.

If the peak load reduction is needed over say an hour, then as it only
takes a few minutes to boil a kettle or heat up a washing machine it
will make no difference. You will simply have more kettles on at the
same time. In fact it could make the peak load higher.

Assuming it takes five minutes when the voltage is full, and folks put
their kettles on sequentially, you load is one kettle.

If it goes up to 6 minutes but we still want 12 kettles per hour then
you need to start the second kettle while the first is still boiling, so
the load goes up to two kettles for one minute...


It\'s worse than that. All the time that the kettle is heating, it\'s
losing heat to the environment. So reduce the voltage, and thus power,
and it takes more energy to boil a kettleful, since more is wasted in
the process.

That would be insignificant. And we\'re talking about PEAK usage remember.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:27:33 -0000, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandsnipmetechnology.com> wrote:

On Mon, 7 Nov 2022 20:00:53 +1100, Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid
wrote:

On 07-Nov-22 8:47 am, David Wade wrote:
On 06/11/2022 20:55, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 20:23:04 -0000, Mark Lloyd <not.email@all.invalid
wrote:

On 11/6/22 09:06, Commander Kinsey wrote:

[snip]

The other answers disagree, some loads would reduce, resistive heating
for example (including washing machine heaters).

The heaters are often temperature controlled, and will run longer to
make up for the reduced power.

But the idea is to reduce peak load. Spreading that out for longer is
exactly what they\'re after.

If the peak load reduction is needed over say an hour, then as it only
takes a few minutes to boil a kettle or heat up a washing machine it
will make no difference. You will simply have more kettles on at the
same time. In fact it could make the peak load higher.

Assuming it takes five minutes when the voltage is full, and folks put
their kettles on sequentially, you load is one kettle.

If it goes up to 6 minutes but we still want 12 kettles per hour then
you need to start the second kettle while the first is still boiling, so
the load goes up to two kettles for one minute...


It\'s worse than that. All the time that the kettle is heating, it\'s
losing heat to the environment. So reduce the voltage, and thus power,
and it takes more energy to boil a kettleful, since more is wasted in
the process.

Right. It\'s inefficient to take an hour to heat a kettle to boiling.

They don\'t lower the voltage that much.

Sylvia.

Mandatory staggering of tea times would help.

Communism! ARGH!

We heat our kettle with gas. All that heat winds up in the house,
which usually needs it. An open flame is a more efficient heater than
a gas furnace; no heat is vented.

Even resistive heating is better than a furnace. Except for gas being cheaper for some reason.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 12:13:46 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 13:02, Max Demian wrote:
On 07/11/2022 11:27, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 7 Nov 2022 20:00:53 +1100, Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid
wrote:

...


Mandatory staggering of tea times would help.

Do you really want Big Brother telling you when you can eat? I suppose
we could all eat in communal dining halls and drink Victory (ersatz)
Coffee.

They could ban adverts on TV to stop everyone from switching the kettle
on at the same time.

LOL :-DDD

Or they could stagger the adverts on different stations

No they won\'t do that, that would allow us to channel flick to a station without ads.

I record or download everything anyway, no ads or fast forward ads.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

tirsdag den 8. november 2022 kl. 02.12.40 UTC+1 skrev DJ Delorie:

Lasse Langwadt Christensen <lang...@fonz.dk> writes:
mandag den 7. november 2022 kl. 20.49.34 UTC+1 skrev John Larkin:
We have two phases 120-N-120

Ackchyually ..

if they 180 degrees apart (240V between two hots) it is it is split
phase and doesn\'t count as different phases

if they are 120 degrees apart (208V between two hots) they are two out
of three phases

If they\'re 90 degrees apart, it\'s real two-phase power and they\'re
running a house-sized stepper motor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-phase_electric_power

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 22:14:31 -0000, Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 20:49, John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 20:24:54 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 16:47, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 22:30:36 GMT, Cindy Hamilton
hamilton@invalid.com> wrote:

On 2022-11-06, Ralph Mowery <rmowery42@charter.net> wrote:
In article <op.1u73hbz8mvhs6z@ryzen.home>, CK1@nospam.com says...

Not necessarily. We have a \"guaranteed\" minimum and maximum supply
voltage. Why should a company spend extra designing and installing
protection against supplies (not temporary aberrations) outside them?

Because other things could cause lower voltage, like a wiring fault in the device or the building. Especially in dual voltage countries like the US where you can lose one live.




If the neutral line is lost or a bad connection the line voltage in a
house could have one side to be very low and the other side very high in
the US system.

Funny you should mention that. Our neutral broke in high winds
yesterday. Both remaining legs seem to be well balanced.

That happened to me once. We had 90 and 135 vrms on various outlets.
The PG&E guys didn\'t want to believe me but I finally convenced them
(some of the lights were BRIGHT) and they fixed a splice on the wires
outside.
[...]


Me too! I have three-phase at home. I had a world of difficulty convincing
the supplier that his neutral was broken. I ended up with several low power
devices broken by overvoltage. No smoke, no fires, fortunately.

This seems to happen much more often than it should. In France, it\'s
common to have aluminium cabling between the power pole and the customer\'s
main breaker. Bad idea. A bad crimp turned out to be the cause.

Jeroen Belleman

My case was an old Victorian built in 1892. The neutral was grounded
to an old gas pipe that was pretty rusted out, so maybe I didn\'t have
a local, redundant neutral connection.

Shocking that the whole thing didn\'t blow up. I eventually bought the
special tool to shut off the gas under the sidewalk and replaced the
gas entry pipes.

We have two phases 120-N-120 with, ideally, N connected to a good
ground at our breaker panel, and the neighborhood N grounded multiple
places. Our new house has a serious ground rod.

Does your system have a local N-G connection? That should prevent the
imbalance.

No, it doesn\'t. I believe the star point of three-phase pole pigs
is grounded, but that, of course, did not help me here.

Ground fault interrupters here work by summing the currents in the
hot and neutral lines and are combined with the main breaker. The
neutral must be grounded upstream w.r.t. the GFI for that to work,
so it\'s out of my hands.

I can\'t begin to imagine how complicated GFIs are in the US. In the UK, the live should equal the neutral. If it doesn\'t, it cuts out. But I don\'t use them anyway. Safety third! I hate false trips.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 15:47:13 -0000, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandsnipmetechnology.com> wrote:

On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 22:30:36 GMT, Cindy Hamilton
hamilton@invalid.com> wrote:

On 2022-11-06, Ralph Mowery <rmowery42@charter.net> wrote:
In article <op.1u73hbz8mvhs6z@ryzen.home>, CK1@nospam.com says...

Not necessarily. We have a \"guaranteed\" minimum and maximum supply
voltage. Why should a company spend extra designing and installing
protection against supplies (not temporary aberrations) outside them?

Because other things could cause lower voltage, like a wiring fault in the device or the building. Especially in dual voltage countries like the US where you can lose one live.




If the neutral line is lost or a bad connection the line voltage in a
house could have one side to be very low and the other side very high in
the US system.

Funny you should mention that. Our neutral broke in high winds
yesterday. Both remaining legs seem to be well balanced.

That happened to me once. We had 90 and 135 vrms on various outlets.
The PG&E guys didn\'t want to believe me but I finally convenced them
(some of the lights were BRIGHT)

Incandescent?!

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 19:24:54 -0000, Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 16:47, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 22:30:36 GMT, Cindy Hamilton
hamilton@invalid.com> wrote:

On 2022-11-06, Ralph Mowery <rmowery42@charter.net> wrote:
In article <op.1u73hbz8mvhs6z@ryzen.home>, CK1@nospam.com says...

Not necessarily. We have a \"guaranteed\" minimum and maximum supply
voltage. Why should a company spend extra designing and installing
protection against supplies (not temporary aberrations) outside them?

Because other things could cause lower voltage, like a wiring fault in the device or the building. Especially in dual voltage countries like the US where you can lose one live.




If the neutral line is lost or a bad connection the line voltage in a
house could have one side to be very low and the other side very high in
the US system.

Funny you should mention that. Our neutral broke in high winds
yesterday. Both remaining legs seem to be well balanced.

That happened to me once. We had 90 and 135 vrms on various outlets.
The PG&E guys didn\'t want to believe me but I finally convenced them
(some of the lights were BRIGHT) and they fixed a splice on the wires
outside.
[...]


Me too! I have three-phase at home. I had a world of difficulty convincing
the supplier that his neutral was broken. I ended up with several low power
devices broken by overvoltage. No smoke, no fires, fortunately.

This seems to happen much more often than it should. In France, it\'s
common to have aluminium cabling between the power pole and the customer\'s
main breaker. Bad idea. A bad crimp turned out to be the cause.

Ouch, I have enough trouble with my aluminium internet line. Apparently in 1979 aluminium was a lot cheaper than copper.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 22:54:25 -0000, Lasse Langwadt Christensen <langwadt@fonz.dk> wrote:

mandag den 7. november 2022 kl. 20.49.34 UTC+1 skrev John Larkin:
We have two phases 120-N-120

Ackchyually ..

if they 180 degrees apart (240V between two hots) it is it is split phase and doesn\'t count as different phases

Americans just like to boast. Y\'all got 2 phases here! British folk don\'t do that!