POLL: Fun with bias/voltage meters? What is your wall voltage?

[Deang]

Maybe he does, think of all extra the peace and quiet he gets.

[sfogg]

"If these spikes are so bad, why was I advised to plug them right into the wall?"

What spikes? I simply pointed out that if you had them you won't see them on your meter. You can believe that or not, it does not change anything. But if you don't believe it ('cause you don't see it on the meter) tell me what the peak of each cycle of AC is actually measuring coming out of your wall.

" I have surge protectors that I'd hope help with this. "

If your wall outlets don't have a ground in them (or you put a cheater plug ahead of the surge protector) the surge protector will do nothing.

Likewise if your surge suppressors are MOV based (like most of them) it is possible the MOVs are dead. They are basically self sacrificing. They die a little bit every time they divert a spike to ground. Eventually they stop diverting spikes to ground.

But again... spikes may not be your problem.

I do not no what your problem(s) is/are.

Neither do you.

Shawn

[Piranha]

Allan - is this a California thing or area issue? I wonder how it works cuz Dr. Who has 125 which is highish and he's close to me. Does it depend on the Electric company used?

I hired a handyman to deal with my gutter issues. I asked him if he did electrical about a week ago. IDK He charges $75/hour. I've no clue what would be involved in installing a breaker (or whatever)... IDK what's involved with putting something on a separate circuit or how many watts to go for, etc.... I guess I'd have to assess the wattage of all my gear first.

meagain,

You're kidding about having your handyman do your electrical work, aren't you? If I were you I'd hire a licensed/bonded electrician with references to investigate to eliminate any potential probleems with your electrical serice.

[PrestonTom]

Meagain,

I am sorry to hear about your woes. However, I really must give a different perspective.

First: With all due respect, people are guessing about what the actual problem is . None of us have the whole story or what the specific details are regarding "when, what and how" of your electrical system (if, in fact, that is the problem).

Second: Amplifiers have power supplies. There is a transformer and a huge capacitor in the box (along with some other stuff). They are designed to "deal with" a variation of a couple of volts from the wall. If it is a spike (occurring with some regularity and in spite of the transformer / capacitor on the pole outside), then surge protectors need not be expensive (if in fact that was the problem).

Third: I think it is a "charming" notion that one has to spend a few thousand dollars on electrical upgrades (200 amp service, isolation transformers, etc) just so they can use their amplifier. The problems you are describing are not subtle.

Does anyone else on the block have these problems?

-Tom

[anarchist]

I concur. Instead of all this discussion, meagain should be investigating the circuit in question and in 1/2 hour have the answers indicating whether there is a problem.

Installing a new circuit takes a whopping 10 minutes if you have the capacity and a circuit breaker box. Ride to the hospital will take longer than that if you screw up and touch the wrong thing. As with everything, it sounds far more complex and dangerous than it is.

Since all this is foreign to you, pay an electrician a hundred bucks to come out and perform an assessment of your current service.

[meagain]

Meagain,

I am sorry to hear about your woes. However, I really must give a different perspective.

First: With all due respect, people are guessing about what the actual problem is . None of us have the whole story or what the specific details are regarding "when, what and how" of your electrical system (if, in fact, that is the problem).

Second: Amplifiers have power supplies. There is a transformer and a huge capacitor in the box (along with some other stuff). They are designed to "deal with" a variation of a couple of volts from the wall. If it is a spike (occurring with some regularity and in spite of the transformer / capacitor on the pole outside), then surge protectors need not be expensive (if in fact that was the problem).

Third: I think it is a "charming" notion that one has to spend a few thousand dollars on electrical upgrades (200 amp service, isolation transformers, etc) just so they can use their amplifier. The problems you are describing are not subtle.

Does anyone else on the block have these problems?

-Tom

I guess this pretty much summarizes where my head is at.

[meagain]

I concur. Instead of all this discussion, meagain should be investigating the circuit in question and in 1/2 hour have the answers indicating whether there is a problem.

Installing a new circuit takes a whopping 10 minutes if you have the capacity and a circuit breaker box. Ride to the hospital will take longer than that if you screw up and touch the wrong thing. As with everything, it sounds far more complex and dangerous than it is.

Since all this is foreign to you, pay an electrician a hundred bucks to come out and perform an assessment of your current service.

If my situation was horrifying - wouldn't I see effects in 'something' here? Even if it's blowing lightbulbs? I don't have any other issues. No lightbulbs dimming - anything.

Tom - No one around me has never mentioned any electrical issues. IDK.

[@silverfox@]

meagain!

i can't remember reading any where that you are experiencing problem
blowing fuses or tripping breakers,

i t seems to me in my ignorance to first install an indevidual &dedicated branch circuit including the grounding conductor

from
your panel box, ask your elecrtrician to use #10wire , by the way is
your house in conduit,or some type of sheath cable?

hopefully you'll have additional space in your box, if not i"m sure an electrician who is capable will be able to see what load

is beign used on your smallest circuits and safely combine them to free up a circuit for this purpose,

Unless you are using an astsomical amount of power
the demand load that is calculated in an electrical service is never
maxemised,

this is why 200 Amps is now beign used verses100 Amp from the
pass. spiking happens in pico secounds and realistically should not
affect

your system. Also have the electrican check and tighten
the conductors in your box especally the neutral , which if loose and
is a part of a multiwire

circuit can in some cases present a higher constant voltage , this would not be good at all.

[anarchist]

I don't think your situation is horrifying. I think it is pretty simple to investigate and determine if there is a problem. Calculate the load on the circuit. Make certain your fuses are rated at the same amperage as your wiring. Verify the connection to the outlet.

Be aware that any device turning on will result in a voltage spike which may or may not instantly destroy your equipment. Use a good local surge protector or install a whole house surge protector (easy if you have a circuit breaker) and this isn't an issue.

I will give you a real world scenario to point out how simple your problem could be (if you have a problem.) I was mystified a couple components which worked intermittently. I would check the outlet and all would report well. My component would work. Next time it wouldn't. Finally, I got pissed off and decided to resolve the problem. Unscrewed the outlet and discovered the morons previously had used those little plug-in terminals instead of actually screwing the wire to the outlet (like a good electrician would). One of those plugged in wires had snapped but it was very close to the outlet. When close enough, the outlet worked, when too far away, the outlet didn't. How did the wires move around in the wall? Besides being a fire hazard from the arcing, it was a very simple thing to fix. I could have spent days asking people what might be wrong and received the same kinds of responses you have and still had an intermittent component. Outlets are frequently wired incorrectly.

As I said, you could answer these questions in a 1/2 hour and know whether you're chasing your tail.

[meagain]

meagain!

i can't remember reading any where that you are experiencing problem

blowing fuses or tripping breakers

Right. Because I'm not. The only time I lose power is if the whole block does from a storm. Not blowing fuses, etc.

Sheath cable? Not sure what that is. I don't have cloth anything if that's what you mean. Coming out of the fuse box, there are metal pipes. I had a certified electrician here to install an outdoor outlet and he didn't freek out or anything. Just surprised we still had a fuse box and not breakers. IDK.

[meagain]

Anarchist - OK, I'll play. How can I better understand what I have here (without dieing). I know the fuse box says 100 amps on it. I've counted the fuses. (13)-30's and (2)-20's. There are 2 panels in the middle that pull out that hold cylindrical fuses. I didn't pull them out but I think there are a total of 4 for the whole box. I think they are also 20 or 30 but I'd have to pull them out to see which is fine. If I should count the cylindrical shaped fuses with the other screw in types, I'm getting 590. Sooo.... ???

[meagain]

OK, a 20 screw in fuse is handling these 2 rear rooms of my house. The listening room has: TV, amps, HK AVR-435, Peach, one watt lamp, occassionally a laptop, occasionally a reading type lamp with one of those energy type bulbs, the remote recharger/dock. The other room has the pond pumps (runs 24/7 spring summer fall). "sometimes a 60w lamp" and my computer. Mostly this room is dark.

[sheltie dave]

Wow, yet another thread on another problem Lisa has. If it isn't amps, tweeters, woofers, out of phase speakers, ugly looking speakers, color, end bell caps, crossovers, tubes, fuses, decisions, graphic equalizers, or microphones, walls, room dimensions, and ambient noise floors, then it must be bills, Tuesday, and electrical problems. And people rush in to help.

Is there a pattern?

Yes, it is codependancy.

[Piranha]

Tom - No one around me has never mentioned any electrical issues. IDK.

meagain,

Do any of your neighbors have galvanized wiring, knob and tube, and screw in type fuse panel?

[meagain]

Excuse me sheltie Dave - does this mean you won't be shareing your wall voltage in the poll?

Amy - please feel free to delete all threads I've ever started.

[meagain]

Tom - No one around me has never mentioned any electrical issues. IDK.

meagain,

Do any of your neighbors have galvanized wiring, knob and tube, and screw in type fuse panel?

Pirana - I've no idea, but it's a very nice neighborhood & house price points. Except mine. I think my house is the oldest.

[DrWho]

To be honest, I don't understand all this negativity towards fuses and the recommendations of using breakers "because they're safer." Sure, if the insulation on the wires has corroded over time that can be an issue, but all the electrical engineering professors on campus claim that fuses are safer. Sure, breakers are more convenient and can certainly be built to be "safe enough", but there is absolutely no reason that "old wiring" is insufficient in any way. In many cases it is overbuilt for the purposes in which it would be used. Now trying to use an existing old wiring scheme that's not capable of delivering modern power demands is certainly a valid concern, but it has absolutely nothing to do with a properly designed system. In other words, if the old wiring scheme was designed to deliver 20A at 120V, then there is no reason that you can't safely take full advantage of it.

Quick side comment....polarity often wasn't considered in the past because the power systems designers didn't consider the shortcuts that product designers would take - so in some cases connecting multiple pieces of equipment together would result in shorting the high voltage to ground - yikes. So in light of the shortcuts, proper polarity was implemented to allow shortcuts to be safely made. And that's why we have all these new crazy fangled electrical codes - just to make sure everything is dummy proof. So all that to say, if the old wiring doesn't have proper polarity, then it's probably a good idea to fix it....but if it doesn't have proper polarity and things are working fine, then you aren't affected by it and therefore it won't be the cause of the issue.

[cjgeraci]

No real idea what my wall voltage is. Everything appears to work fine.

But, I wanted to post before this thread is locked and/or deleted. Made it!!

Carl.

[NOSValves]

Anarchist - OK, I'll play. How can I better understand what I have here (without dieing). I know the fuse box says 100 amps on it. I've counted the fuses. (13)-30's and (2)-20's. There are 2 panels in the middle that pull out that hold cylindrical fuses. I didn't pull them out but I think there are a total of 4 for the whole box. I think they are also 20 or 30 but I'd have to pull them out to see which is fine. If I should count the cylindrical shaped fuses with the other screw in types, I'm getting 590. Sooo.... ???

Am I understanding this correctly? You have a 100 amp service.....13 - 30 amps fuses and 2- 20 amp Hmmmmmmmmm 400 amps of fuses. Most homes will have maybe 2 or 3 - 20 amp fuses or breakers. The rest would be 15 amp and the amperage of the fuses should not exceed the rating of the breaker box. If the above is true and I'm understanding it correctly you have huge electrical issues.

Again like I have said until I am green in the face. The issues in this case are many. Not just the electical but it surely looks hugely suspect to me.

[DrWho]

Just because she has 100 amp service doesn't mean the sum total of all the fuses should come to 100 amps! Wow, that would make life sucky for power engineers! The reason "more output is allowed" is because you never pull full current on every leg. In other words, it allows you to pull 15A on say 6 legs, leaving 10A to be distributed around the rest of the house (so like 1A each). Or you could have 10A on 8 legs and then 20A for everywhere else. If you limited the sum total to be that of the input, then you're forcing yourself to only deliver (100A / # legs) to each circuit. So if you had 20 legs, that's only 5A per leg!

Instead, you put fuses at the input of the circuit breaker to limit the total to 100A. When this blows, all the power in the house goes out. The only time you need to upgrade the power to your house is when the sum total exceeds the capabilities of the system (ie, you're blowing the main fuses).

I wouldn't be surprised if meagain had her power split up two ways, with two 50A fuses for the mains. Then you've got half of the house wired to each phase. Ideally, the power drawn on each leg will be about equal and the electrician will wire the house in anticipation of that. So if you're blowing only one of the main fuses due to overdraw, most electricians will come in and rearrange the legs to spread the power out. Spreading the power out also benefits the general public since the quality of the power delivered depends on maintaining a perfectly balanced system. Residential power needs are so small in comparison to industrial needs so this often gets swamped by the behavior of nearby industry. Nevertheless, you can often get power credits by implementing power in the house that maintains balance and has caps to improve power factor (for a home, the caps will need to be the size of 80 gallon drums so you don't see it too often).