Re: 60V Single Phase
You don?t need me on this one, Bennie. I am certain that you and Tom already gave the best available answers to Ed?s question, though I think yours is closer to the probable truth.
I have no experience in line work, so I may have this all wrong. But here is my reasoning for agreeing with your explanation:
It is clear from the way Ed worded the question that the problem went away without any intervention on his part. That means it was on the utility system, and not within his own home. I also infer from Ed?s wording that, after he first measured the 60 volts, the power never went off completely again. At some point, the normal voltage was restored, but without an obviously long period of ?no power.? That tells me that the problem was not in the transformer that served his house, for otherwise there would have been a blackout period during its repair or replacement. Therefore, the problem had to have been upstream along the radial, or even at the serving substation.
Given, then, that his transformer was not the problem, but recognizing that its secondary was giving half voltage, that necessarily means that the primary voltage (line to neutral) was half of the normal value. A primary phase conductor cannot do that on its own. But the phase to neutral voltage can vary all over the map, if the neutral becomes disconnected from planet Earth. A loose neutral could explain any strange measurement of voltage within a house. But this was exactly half of the normal value, and that fact is too much to accept as mere coincidence. Your notion of two primaries being placed in series (by virtue of a loss of the MGN connection) provides a credible answer to the voltage being exactly half of normal. I can think of no other.
As Sherlock Holmes is reputed to have claimed, ?Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth.?
I think he was trying to point out all the caps in the OP.