Power Conditioner Failure... twice?

Serendipity

heiney9 wrote: »

FWIW,

My APC reads an incoming voltage pretty consistently between 119 and 123 at various times. It mostly stays at 121 or 122. There is definitly something wrong somewhere in your electrical delivery system.

Good luck

H9

I do have 123V... on half of the house. And as you probably know most breaker panels balance the load by placing breakers on opposite phases in a zig-zag pattern.

heiney9

treitz3 wrote: »

That should not be happening. Just for **** and giggles I warmed up the rig this morning and plopped in some hard diggin' tunes. I noted the voltage and proceeded to turn the rig up as far as I could stand it [which was F'n LOUD..ouch!] and the voltage did not fluctuate.

I agree..........it shouldn't happen. Is the Monster a regulator also. With my APC no matter how loud I listen to music the amperage and voltage readings don;t change. I really wouldn;t expect them to as the meters in these power conditioners aren't anywhere near sensitive enough to read the ultra fast transient changes music causes on the load.

H9

Serendipity

Attached are two pics:

With the Monster plugged into the first outlet, I get 126V. With the Monster plugged into the second outlet, I get 121V.

Serendipity

At night when the neighbors turn on their air conditioners, the voltage changes even more.

heiney9

appadv wrote: »

At night when the neighbors turn on their air conditioners, the voltage changes even more.

I don;t understand that..........if you have regulation along with conditioning it should step up or step down the incoming voltage.

Do these units regulate as well as condition? My APC even has 3 user settings to manually select how tight you want to regulate the power. I believe I can chose a swing of 3, 5, or 10v or something like that.

I thought the whole idea behind you getting the APC was to regulate the power coming from your outlet.......my memory is a littel fuzzy though.


H9

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heiney9 wrote: »

I don;t understand that..........if you have regulator along with conditioning it should step up or step down the incoming voltage.

Do these units regulate as well as condition? My APC even has 3 user settings to manually select how tight you want to regulate the power. I believe I can chose a swing of 3, 5, or 10v or something like that.

I thought the whole idea behind you getting the APC was to regulate the power coming from your outlet.......my memory is a littel fuzzy though.


H9

No, the Monster units do not regulate. The APC I previously had was 60 lbs and had a huge transformer to regulate the power. That unit is dead however.

In the above picture you can see the Monster to the right and an APC to the left - that is not the broken one. The broken one is the SUA1500, which is the one that weight 60lbs.

Serendipity

There is a third outlet in that room - plugging the Monster into that gets 125V.

heiney9

Again take the voltage readings with a grain of salt because I'm sure they aren't dead accurate but I'm sure they're close. I'd really look into getting a condtioner that also regulates. Just IMHO

Serendipity

heiney9 wrote: »

Again take the voltage readings with a grain of salt because I'm sure they aren't dead accurate but I'm sure they're close. I'd really look into getting a condtioner that also regulates. Just IMHO

Sure, it's just strange that one phase on the breaker panel has much higher voltage than the other - it's the entire house that has this problem, and when they tested the power coming from the street (that's before it enters the house) there was higher voltage on one phase.

Serendipity

heiney9 wrote: »

I thought the whole idea behind you getting the APC was to regulate the power coming from your outlet.......my memory is a littel fuzzy though.

You know what, I think the APC died because it was being fed too high a voltage for long periods of time. During peak hours the voltage would be 131V and it was trying to regulate the voltage to 120V. That may have led to the APC's demise.

heiney9

appadv wrote: »

You know what, I think the APC died because it was being fed too high a voltage for long periods of time. During peak hours the voltage would be 131V and it was trying to regulate the voltage to 120V. That may have led to the APC's demise.

If it's under warranty I'd try and get a replacement. I would think they should be able to handle it...........unless there are other issue's going on. Like I said I have user setting for the regulation swing up to 10v.

Serendipity

It is out of warranty as I bought it before I joined Club Polk.

I think there are other issues going on... in this house and the neighborhood. My neighbor recently lost a bunch of cordless phones, PC gear, and answering machine due to power.

apphd

No electrician here, but something just sounds wrong.:eek:
Any idea what your neighbors have for outlet voltages?

Sounds like you may have two problems: incoming power and house wiring/breaker box.

I would have to bite the bullet and call in a licensed, well recommended electrician (and I'm a cheep bastage).

The electrician should be able to tell you the problem rather than a lot of speculation, and if there is an incoming issue can argue your point to the power company better.

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apphd wrote: »

Any idea what your neighbors have for outlet voltages?

My neighbor is having issues with power too, recently he told me his scanner died and had to replace it.

His lights get bright and dim whenever I've been over there - usually during peak hours. Heck MY lights dim a little when the guy next door turns on his central A/C and that has happened throughout the summer.

It seems like all the houses in the surrounding area have some strange voltage fluctuations.

Serendipity

I have another neighbor 8 houses or so away and his lights dim and get brighter too. It's much worse than it is over here.

Serendipity

From asking around, here is what I know so far:

- Heard from my neighbors that electronics were dying rather quickly.
- The guy that lives down the block has a strange case of lights getting brighter then dimming.
- The guy that lives next door has lots of A/C compressor problems.
- I have normal voltage on one phase of my house yet higher voltage on the other.
- This happens throughout the entire house.

apphd

Here is an interesting read that sounds like what you are seeing is incoming power issues, and makes it sound like if the power company does not want to do anything they don't have to. But I would think if all of you that are having problems and replacing equipment they may be more helpful.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Electrical-Wiring-Home-1734/high-voltage-house.htm

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apphd wrote: »

Here is an interesting read that sounds like what you are seeing is incoming power issues, and makes it sound like if the power company does not want to do anything they don't have to. But I would think if all of you that are having problems and replacing equipment they may be more helpful.

Just out of curiosity...why do you have almost the same screen name as I do?

Serendipity

Ah well. I will just plug things up to the outlets that have 121-125V... for now.

apphd

appadv wrote: »

Just out of curiosity...why do you have almost the same screen name as I do?

Just something I picked out long ago when I needed something for my initial internet account and don't like using my name. Something easy for me to remember, so I use it for numerous things now.

polrbehr

It seems to me your neighborhood would benefit from a new transformer.

Your next step is to have more people on your street complaining to the power co., but that may be easier said than done.

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Haha...

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polrbehr wrote: »

It seems to me your neighborhood would benefit from a new transformer.

Your next step is to have more people on your street complaining to the power co., but that may be easier said than done.

Check the pic in the above post.

I'm happy now

treitz3

What did you do to correct the issue?

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treitz3 wrote: »

What did you do to correct the issue?

Plugged it up to a 20A dedicated circuit that was installed but never used.

The other half of my house still has the problem.

apphd

appadv wrote: »

Check the pic in the above post.

I'm happy now

Is that the results of switching to the outlet on the lower voltage side of your panel or something else?

If you still have the high voltage I think you and your neighbors would still benefit from contacting the power company as a group.

Never mind....

Serendipity

apphd wrote: »

Is that the results of switching to the outlet on the lower voltage side of your panel or something else?

If you still have the high voltage I think you and your neighbors would still benefit from contacting the power company as a group.

Yes, the circuits in the panel are in a zig-zag pattern so # 1, 3, 5, 7 9 are on one phase and # 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 are on the other.

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A forum member told me the following:

"And as far as I'm concerned, your neutral connection, while important, should not cause your voltage to be so high - if you can read approx. 130V (on both legs) to ground, theoretically you will get 260V across the two hot legs, thereby rendering the neutral argument null and void."

Across the two hot legs (air conditioner circuit) you get around 260V, so I don't think it's a loose neutral. The air conditioner is powered by the two hot(s), one hot to neutral is 125V or so...

disneyjoe7

There's some funny wiring in your house IMHO When ever I see 9 outlets next to each on a wall Flags go UP! You need to have it checked out, if not either you will have problems in the future.

Serendipity

No problems right now...

I believe it's a neighborhood issue as other people are having power problems too.