Will this mess up turntables, etc?

MLZ

http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/8f7284130c3c4c81b24c16c0f406012d/US-SCI--Power-Clocks/


AP EXCLUSIVE: Experiment with power grid may throw off your electric clock

WASHINGTON ? A yearlong experiment with the nation's electric grid could mess up traffic lights, security systems and some computers ? and make plug-in clocks and appliances like programmable coffeemakers run up to 20 minutes fast.

george daniel

I dunno,,I'm not that smart,, but my TT is connected to a torrodial transformer,that I salvaged,,it's British made and 63hz,which is perfect for my application.YMMV

txcoastal1

This doesn't sound good...When Bush pushed the daylight savings time around it created issues if you were not on top of it

Maybe this is going to be the government's way to stimulate the economy...blah

Polkersince85

This may be an issue with a lot of thiings. That's the reason for the experiment, to see what is affected. Any clock that flashes when powered off will gain 14 sec a day on the East coast. It depends on how much it fluctuates as to how it will mess with turntables. May have to go to DC motors.

They are tryng to determine the effect of variable frequency in case of Solar, EMP or cyberattacks on the grid.

quadzilla

Or power regenerators. My TT has a motor that's phase locked to the grid frequency. It'll throw it off a bit. May or may not notice. If nothing else, I wanted a power regenerator anyway. Now I have a good excuse.

It doesn't really have anything to do with EMP. It's more about the fact that keeping the frequency so precise is very expensive for the companies generating the power. They have to vary output to match demand constantly. What this means is that if demand for power increases, voltage drops along with the frequency, so they have to almost instantaneously increase supply to prevent the voltage/frequency drops. The opposite happens when demand suddenly drops. The voltage and frequency increase. They're going to try allowing greater fluctuations to see if there are any major problems.

This will matter as more renewables come on line, as a sudden drop in wind can cause turbines to slow down, and a large cloud could drop the output from a solar collector. The only way to keep the voltage and frequency stable now would be to have other generating stations online and able to meet the drop from other sources. This of course means all those gas and coal fired plants have to keep running and be online all the time. This negates about 2/3 of the carbon savings from using renewables.

Since larger voltage fluctuations will be allowed, you will want at least a really good regulator on your eqiupment to keep it from being damaged. Surge protectors aren't going to help. Wish PS Audio was a public company. I expect they'll see orders picking up soon.

madmax

Tube amps often have an adjustment to eliminate hum. If the line frequency starts moving around you will get hum from time to time.

Face

Would a pure sine wave UPS prevent any issues with gear?

MNmike

I think that would only work in the "isolated" mode. Not sure the battery and inverter are used when you have grid power. I also do not know how well they regulate frequency to load changes ro even steady state.