Lighting-Gallery.net
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: don93s on October 04, 2015, 12:08:36 AM
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I don't know if it does this every night because tonight, for example, nothing changed (stayed at 123v). However, quite often while I sit at my computer, the lights will suddenly change in brightness and I can almost hear an audible 'click'. I will look at the computer clock and it will say 12:01am. Recently, I did have my Fluke RMS meter ready and it went from 125v to 120v in that instant. Must be an automatic voltage adjustment from the power company for night time demand. Just wondered if anyone else noted something similar.
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I never heard of that, at least here. A few consecutive mornings last December I heard a buzz followed by a slight dimming of lights. I didn't have a meter so I couldn't measure.
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Substation transformer changing taps depending on load..
Have not noticed anthing like that here. It moves around 235V..240V through the day and thats it
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Sometimes my UPS make a ticking noise, and its voltage display, changes from 215-220V to 238-241V and the opposite.
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Here in the winter time when. People fired up there 10 15! KW. Central heat in south. Texas, the the electric
Goes all over the place. Nothing stays contant
It will bounce around. 112 under severe loads
Up to 127 volts. Randomly. Though out night
When All power plants get nearly. Maxed to
It limits.
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Interesting! It might be something switching at a substation, something else in your house turning on (Do you have electric heat of any kind on a time-programmed thermostat or something like that? Maybe one of your neighbors on the same transformer does).
Or maybe the power company sends pules along the mains for stuff like turning off A/C for a few minutes at peak demand times, etc...I've heard of this kind of thing being done in other countries with 220v/230v/240v/50Hz mains).
FunkyBulb, I can imagine!
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Every evening around ten past six our voltage dips down to about 243 volts stays that way for a few minutes then goes back to around 248 volts in the mornings its around 255 volts and in the afternoons when everyone's cooking and the local kids are watching TV it goes down obviously here in the UK with our cold dark winters its more pronounced than somewhere with a decent climate
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Every morning, around here, my lights will sort of pulse, at a few second interval. Every morning at the same time, affecting the LEDs in my bedroom AND the incandescents/halogens elsewhere in the house, it's too quick for my cheapo meter to pick up though
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Or maybe the power company sends pules along the mains for stuff like turning off A/C for a few minutes at peak demand times, etc...I've heard of this kind of thing being done in other countries with 220v/230v/240v/50Hz mains).
We get this system here. The power company sends 1050Hz frequency morse-code like pulses along the power lines that control relays for off peak systems, street lighting etc. These 1050Hz frequencies can cause interference in many devices as well like ceiling fans giving off a morse-code style humming. It's known as the 'Zellweger ripple system' by the company Zellweger Uster.
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A couple of years ago every evening around 4:30pm we would get a pulsing effect on our supply it lasted for several minutes in the end I called the power company to have a whinge about it its never happened since
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Every evening around ten past six our voltage dips down to about 243 volts stays that way for a few minutes then goes back to around 248 volts in the mornings its around 255 volts and in the afternoons when everyone's cooking and the local kids are watching TV it goes down obviously here in the UK with our cold dark winters its more pronounced than somewhere with a decent climate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity#Voltage_levels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity#Voltage_levels)
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We get this system here. The power company sends 1050Hz frequency morse-code like pulses along the power lines that control relays for off peak systems, street lighting etc. These 1050Hz frequencies can cause interference in many devices as well like ceiling fans giving off a morse-code style humming. It's known as the 'Zellweger ripple system' by the company Zellweger Uster.
Our off-peak hot water storage tank is controlled by this. The ripple pulses causes fluctuations to those cheap 3-stage touch lamps and to the newest dimmer switch. I have an APC brand UPS that would go ballistic when the ripple pulses came through. I had to stop using it as the constant clicking of its relay and alarm became annoying. The problem times seemed to be around 5pm and again from 10pm.
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Our off-peak hot water storage tank is controlled by this. The ripple pulses causes fluctuations to those cheap 3-stage touch lamps and to the newest dimmer switch. I have an APC brand UPS that would go ballistic when the ripple pulses came through. I had to stop using it as the constant clicking of its relay and alarm became annoying. The problem times seemed to be around 5pm and again from 10pm.
I remember when I was a kid, the house I grew up in had a electromechanical ripple switch that had a wheel that spins round when it received the signals. I could remember the clicking and humming noises from the meter box everytime the signal was being received. :o
I love falling asleep everynight to the ripple signals coming through my fan every 15-30 minutes. ;D
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Mercurylamps: where do you live? This isn't a thing here In Illinois, USA.
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Mercurylamps: where do you live? This isn't a thing here In Illinois, USA.
I live in Australia.
Here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zellweger_off-peak) is a Wikipedia article on the subject we are talking about. :)
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Thanks, Mercurylamps. 8)
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Our off-peak hot water storage tank is controlled by this. The ripple pulses causes fluctuations to those cheap 3-stage touch lamps and to the newest dimmer switch. I have an APC brand UPS that would go ballistic when the ripple pulses came through. I had to stop using it as the constant clicking of its relay and alarm became annoying. The problem times seemed to be around 5pm and again from 10pm.
I remember when I was a kid, the house I grew up in had a electromechanical ripple switch that had a wheel that spins round when it received the signals. I could remember the clicking and humming noises from the meter box everytime the signal was being received. :o
I love falling asleep everynight to the ripple signals coming through my fan every 15-30 minutes. ;D
Oh, yes, I forgot that you can hear it coming from the ceiling fan. This fan is almost 30 years old and hums at the best of times but is worse when the ripple pulse comes through. Fortunately it's not in a bedroom. I'll try and get a picture of the ripple control receiver on the meter box.
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Here is a picture of the Ripple Control receiver on my meter board. Used to turn the off-peak hot water tank element on/off. Usually kicks in around midnight.
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Wow! That looks newer than the one I have on my house. I've got an older electronic one which has a clear cover but a brown base. I'll get a picture when I can. :)
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The town I go to school in has a highly antiquated electrical system. The wires feeding streetlights (120/240v; many are glass lensed NEMA buckets of 100&175w MV!) are highly degraded with mostly bare lines, which has wispy fibers dangling from it, so I assume it is asbestos insulated wire. The new sections of wire has black rubber insulation that isn't degraded very much. I notice that the lights will sometimes dim for a fraction of a second and then everything is all good. I talked to the teachers and they said that its from them working on the school (they're adding on a new part of the south wing in addition to the demolition and rebuilding of most of the main building in the summer). A few times around 2:00pm, the power has gone completely out for about a min to the whole place. My computer teecher said that a gust of wind is enough to make the lights dim in the whole town of about 800 peeps lol.
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Wow! That looks newer than the one I have on my house. I've got an older electronic one which has a clear cover but a brown base. I'll get a picture when I can. :)
What I don't understand is the label 'real time clock fitted'. Why would it need a time clock when this unit replaced an older style time clock? I thought the idea of these ripple control units was to enable the electricity supplier to have complete control of the switching cycles? For the ripple control receiver to also have a time clock as well, doesn't make sense to me. Looking at the unit, a time clock is not obvious.
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The town I go to school in has a highly antiquated electrical system. The wires feeding streetlights (120/240v; many are glass lensed NEMA buckets of 100&175w MV!) are highly degraded with mostly bare lines, which has wispy fibers dangling from it, so I assume it is asbestos insulated wire. The new sections of wire has black rubber insulation that isn't degraded very much. I notice that the lights will sometimes dim for a fraction of a second and then everything is all good. I talked to the teachers and they said that its from them working on the school (they're adding on a new part of the south wing in addition to the demolition and rebuilding of most of the main building in the summer). A few times around 2:00pm, the power has gone completely out for about a min to the whole place. My computer teecher said that a gust of wind is enough to make the lights dim in the whole town of about 800 peeps lol.
That reminds me of when I was at TAFE (college) a number of years ago. Lightning struck a power pole outside and knocked out power for a few minutes. When it returned, the computers would power on like normal but the connection to the server didn't work. Apparently the network hub was fried. :o
What I don't understand is the label 'real time clock fitted'. Why would it need a time clock when this unit replaced an older style time clock? I thought the idea of these ripple control units was to enable the electricity supplier to have complete control of the switching cycles? For the ripple control receiver to also have a time clock as well, doesn't make sense to me. Looking at the unit, a time clock is not obvious.
That is strange indeed. I know these modern units are programmable using an IR link by the engineer so perhaps the clock is programmed in but like you say it's pointless to have a time clock built in if it's a ripple switch.