gar
Senior Member
- Location
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Occupation
- EE
100525-0851 EST
A week ago about 7:10 AM EDT i was eating breakfast and watching TV. Voltage probably went to 0 for a second or so, came back to some level. Occurred once or twice more, then settled at about 93 V.
My normal line voltage is in the range of 121 to 125. Presently I am at 123.7 at the main panel on both sides and present load is 1.73 KW.
After discovering the 93 V level and it was fairly constant I disabled the refrigerators. I really do not know whether they can tolerate this low a voltage for a long time.
Most of my fluorescents were working. However, one group would not light. Virtually all are magnetic ballast.
My power company contact, first a dumb automated system, then an ignorant person that was most interested in not listening to me but most interested in informing me that I would be charged for a service call if they found no problem when there service truck arrived. It was very clearly my pole transformer or a system problem.
As an aside. Research has shown that a business that has a person that is knowledgeable that makes first contact with an incoming call provides the best customer relationship.
I had an appointment and could not stay at home to further investigate the problem.
Later in the morning I learned from neighbors that about 2 hours after the first incident power returned to normal. No service trucks were around. Obviously there was no real time monitoring information from the power system to the phone operators even if it exists at all.
At another point in town voltage was good. Thus, most likely a problem at our substation.
Other background. From my perspective our primary is a delta. I believe one or two adjacent neighbors are on a different phase than I am. One adjacent neighbor shares my transformer. A posteriori my neighbor that does not share my transformer also lost full voltage. No service truck and this neighbor's information confirmed that it was a primary system problem.
Now my question. What type of equipment failure at a substation would cause a sustained 2 hour 93 V condition? My guess is a voltage regulator. I have no knowledge relating to substations, or the range of voltage regulators.
.
A week ago about 7:10 AM EDT i was eating breakfast and watching TV. Voltage probably went to 0 for a second or so, came back to some level. Occurred once or twice more, then settled at about 93 V.
My normal line voltage is in the range of 121 to 125. Presently I am at 123.7 at the main panel on both sides and present load is 1.73 KW.
After discovering the 93 V level and it was fairly constant I disabled the refrigerators. I really do not know whether they can tolerate this low a voltage for a long time.
Most of my fluorescents were working. However, one group would not light. Virtually all are magnetic ballast.
My power company contact, first a dumb automated system, then an ignorant person that was most interested in not listening to me but most interested in informing me that I would be charged for a service call if they found no problem when there service truck arrived. It was very clearly my pole transformer or a system problem.
As an aside. Research has shown that a business that has a person that is knowledgeable that makes first contact with an incoming call provides the best customer relationship.
I had an appointment and could not stay at home to further investigate the problem.
Later in the morning I learned from neighbors that about 2 hours after the first incident power returned to normal. No service trucks were around. Obviously there was no real time monitoring information from the power system to the phone operators even if it exists at all.
At another point in town voltage was good. Thus, most likely a problem at our substation.
Other background. From my perspective our primary is a delta. I believe one or two adjacent neighbors are on a different phase than I am. One adjacent neighbor shares my transformer. A posteriori my neighbor that does not share my transformer also lost full voltage. No service truck and this neighbor's information confirmed that it was a primary system problem.
Now my question. What type of equipment failure at a substation would cause a sustained 2 hour 93 V condition? My guess is a voltage regulator. I have no knowledge relating to substations, or the range of voltage regulators.
.