Did your city ever have DC?

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K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
Over the years, there have been a couple occasions where I have seen old services marked "Changed to 60 cycle A.C." Inspection stickers indicate the change happened circa 1919-1920 here in Muskegon, Michigan.

It wasn't until I was out in the field a few years before I saw the first signs of our area being served by other than A.C. Not once in our apprenticeship was it mentioned, although it was mentioned that some places used it prior to changing to A.C.

Has anyone else ever run into these relic panels or discos with such markings on them out in the field? I only have about twice, but both were from working services on dwellings, which amazed me.

I wonder how the public handled the change? Did they think the new fangled A.C. was safer, or more dangerous? Or perhaps, did they not even know or care, so long as the lights stayed on?
 

Dennis Alwon

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
When I was a teenager NYC had some old buildings that still had DC voltage. These were commercial places. I did not see any in a dwelling but I am sure they had it.
 

n1ist

Senior Member
Location
Massachusetts
Occupation
Principal Electrical Engineer
At one point, my elementary school in NYC had both AC and DC distribution - one used regular outlets and the other had crowsfoot. I think the DC was crowsfoot since I recall spending time changing cord caps on microscope illuminators and slide viewers when we moved to a newer building.

/mike
 

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
Has anyone else ever run into these relic panels or discos with such markings on them out in the field? I only have about twice, but both were from working services on dwellings, which amazed me.

some stuff in the old parts of LA i believe was DC.
the conductors had wire tags made out of stamped tin wrapping
the wires, which were braided insulation.

the tags weren't a problem on DC, but AC caused the tags
to heat up, and fail the insulation. the tags had to be removed.

i've got photos somewhere from the older substations in LA, that
have been in use for about 100 years, at this point.... i'll see if
i can find them.

switchgear made out of poured concrete, hand built on site, with
1x3 form wood, predating plywood. control boards made of 1/2"
black asbestos, polished to look like ebony.
 

gar

Senior Member
Location
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation
EE
150928-2000 EDT

Detroit had DC power.

"1886 The Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit was established and served its first customers. Seven years later, Edison Illuminating and other electric companies in and around Detroit consolidated which later formed the Detroit Edison Company." from the following first reference.

http://www.iesna-mi.org/DOCUMENTS/pdf_history.pdf

When Henry Ford was young and living on Bagley Ave. in Detroit in1883 he had electricity (DC) in is rented home, and he was chief engineer of the Detroit Electric Illuminiting Co.

This DC power was used to provide the spark ignition of his first gasoline engine.

Ford installed a number of large DC generators in his Highland Park model T factory, and later a hydro powered pair of generators with battery backup at his Fairlane Estate in Dearborn. Ford used DC power in his home until his death in April 1947. At some point in recent years Fairlane was internally changed to AC, but the generators were used to power a motor-generator to feed AC power to DTE.

All of the Ford Village Industries were located on local rivers around the Detroit area with DC hydro power at each of these locations. The generator at Sharon Hollow has been restored to operation. The Sharon Hollow Mill is now a Washtenaw County park. Nankin Mills is now a Wayne County Park property and I don't believe the generator has been run in possible 60 or more years.

The Ford Highland Park plant was probably completely DC, until the Rouge plant was built. The power plant at the Ford Rouge was probably mostly AC. Inadequate information is given at: http://www.fordmotorhistory.com/factories/river_rouge/power_house.php


Some other references on DC power follow:

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?15051-Old-DC-power-to-Music-Hall-theater

https://books.google.com/books?id=T...t dc direct current power in detroit&f=false

Some photos:

Edison's 1879 high efficiency dynamo.

PICT3134.jpg

Trouble loading more pictures so I am syopping here.

.
 

mopowr steve

Senior Member
Location
NW Ohio
Occupation
Electrical contractor
Came across a DC ran freight elevator at a building in Toledo, Oh. It's still in use today a converter was installed to convert the now AC to DC.
 

Tony S

Senior Member
It was common in the UK. Municipal corporations built both gas and electric generating plants.

The house I had in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire was originally on DC fed from the corporation tram system. At 00:30 the system would shut down and so did the domestic supplies. It restarted at 04:30 for the miners getting to work at the local pits.

The original DC service heads still crop up occasionally. Although converted to AC 250V Ph > N they often neglected to change the fused neutral to a solid link. (I’ll leave it to your imagination the problems that could cause.)

Now I’m retired the history of our trade is something I’m interested in. Any information is very much appreciated.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
Common enough for rural homes in this area to have DC until REA came through. Wind generators.

And you never know any different from the wiring installed unless some of the DC equipment is still in place - but that is pretty rare. They ran same K&T wiring or the old cloth covered NM cable same ways as AC supplied systems ran it, or even a little of both wiring methods depending on when it was wired.
 

Jraef

Moderator, OTD
Staff member
Location
San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
Occupation
Electrical Engineer
You are also focusing on the "AC" part too exclusively. The other issue might have been the "60 cycle" part of it. A lot of early services were 25Hz, such as Tesla's initial installation at Niagara Falls and for a while in the beginning, people even experimented with 16-2/3Hz, 33-1/3Hz, 40Hz, 50Hz and even 133-1/3Hz before we all settled on 60Hz as a standard in this country. There was a big installation near me (Folsom, CA) that was one of GE's first forays into AC power, it was originally 40Hz for big pump motors. Many of the big huge pumps that were keeping New Orleans dry were still 25Hz right up to and right after Katrina, which contributed to their problems when the generators were flooded. Even though the pumps were protected from flooding, they did not have 25Hz back up generators. They have now all been changed out with 60Hz motors I've heard.
 

tom baker

First Chief Moderator
Staff member
And now the electrical industry is moving back towards DC Power. I am getting away from UPSs as they are not as efficient as a DC power plant. My telemetry cabinets use a DC UPS, 24 in, charges a 12 VDC battery, and then converts to 24 VDC on a power fail. I ran a test with the DC UPS, the cabinet ran for 3 + days on DC, running the same cabinet on a 500 VA UPS it was 3 hours. The DC UPS uses a 26 AH battery, the AC UPS uses a 8 AH, but still the DC is far more efficient.
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
I found this on Wiki:

The first three-phase alternating current power transmission at 110 kV took place in 1907 between Croton and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

We used to have a cabin just a few miles from Croton. I have been at that dam many times. There was miles of trails to ride dirt bikes on up there.

The river the Croton hydro plant is on is the Muskegon River. I live about 3 miles from the Muskegon River now. About 25 miles downstream of the Croton.

Interesting to know that the first prime mover of transmitted high voltage 3 phase electricity is my dear, old friend, the Muskegon River.

I remember this day in 1986. People around here were pretty nervous.

The dam was threatened by rainfall during the flood of September 1986. The Croton and Hardy nearly failed during the peak of the flood, caused by a storm that dumped 14 inches (36 cm) of rain on West Michigan in 48 hours. Consumers Energy officials stated that "had the Hardy Dam failed, the Croton Dam would have been washed away and every community from Croton to Muskegon would have been submerged under several feet of water".

The Hardy is a second hydro on the Muskegon River just a short distance from the Croton. The two are known around here as 'Croton/Hardy'.
 

mgookin

Senior Member
Location
Fort Myers, FL
I found this on Wiki:

The first three-phase alternating current power transmission at 110 kV took place in 1907 between Croton and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

We used to have a cabin just a few miles from Croton. I have been at that dam many times. There was miles of trails to ride dirt bikes on up there.

The river the Croton hydro plant is on is the Muskegon River. I live about 3 miles from the Muskegon River now. About 25 miles downstream of the Croton.

Interesting to know that the first prime mover of transmitted high voltage 3 phase electricity is my dear, old friend, the Muskegon River.

I remember this day in 1986. People around here were pretty nervous.



The Hardy is a second hydro on the Muskegon River just a short distance from the Croton. The two are known around here as 'Croton/Hardy'.

You and gar have the best stories to share. Thanks!
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
You and gar have the best stories to share. Thanks!

You are welcome!

Well, both of us are Michiganders and gar used to be a ham radio operator, so we do have some things in common.

Michigan has much to be proud of that most people are not aware of. Both the snowboard and the snowmobile were invented in Michigan. Dearborn is home to Carhartt. Winters here can be brutal, but we invent ways to deal with it!

Summers here are like being in Paradise. At least over here in Western Michigan. Gar is an 'easterner'. They get different weather over there to some extent.

The sunsets on Lake Michigan are spectacular, I have seen hundreds and each time they were awesome. Some were so incredible that onlookers at a public beach I lived close to would break out into applause and cheer at the sunset.

That was in the 70's. Beach people were extremely 'happy' in the 70's.

:D
 
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