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S

stick insect

I'm a NICEIC domestic installer with years of electrical experience dating back to 1979 at college but I have a bad problem at a couple of shops owned by my parents. I would appreciate any help with this problem.

The 2 premises, one shop (105) rewired in 1979 and an adjoining house (103) light circuits rewired in the January. They have been converted to one large retail premises. When turning on the lights they have been suffering from blown bulbs, some even exploding and covering the room in glass shards.

example of frequency of blowing bulbs.
Wed 13 Feb 9.00am 105 downstairs middle room
Thurs 28 Feb 9.03am 105 upstairs front room
Sat 1 March 9.05am 105 downstairs front room
Thur 6 March 9.00am 105 downstairs middle room
Thurs 6 March 9.04am 103 upstairs front room
Sat 8 March 8.53am 103 downstairs front room
Mon 10 March 6.50pm 105 downstairs middle room

When these incidents have happened there has been a big bang and the fuse has tripped.

They have seperate consumer units, both split load with no common connection other than the electricity suppliers cable is looped through the wall in the cellar. The water supply is linked onto one meter by a plastic pipe and there are no earths linked apart from the one on the supply board in the first shop. The problem is apparent in both premises and has only started happening in the last 2 years. In this time 20 large, 3 storey town houses have been build directly behind the shops. The voltage is 242 volts measured using a Fluke 1653. alll tests show circuits to be in good condition with insulation resistance greater then 500 meg.

I am contacting the relevant suppliers to see if they can help.

Do you have any suggestions please?

David
 
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Hi Shakey, thanks for the reply, it is TN-S and has a good connection. when I came to the unit there was some verdigris and so I replaced the earthing block and ran a check with the 25amp earth test on my Robin PAT tester. all spot on. what theory had you reagrding the PME system? floating neutral?

David
 
Hi Shakey, thanks for the reply, it is TN-S and has a good connection. when I came to the unit there was some verdigris and so I replaced the earthing block and ran a check with the 25amp earth test on my Robin PAT tester. all spot on. what theory had you reagrding the PME system? floating neutral?

David

dodgy neutral, not sure from your post if they are on seperate supplies or not (or seperate phases)

Just remember one many years ago when i was working in europe somewhere, two houses connected to seperate phases, the common neutral supply went o/c and both were connected across 415V. Bulbs, TV's things everywhere were poppin'

Like i said, long shot, but a dodgy connection ..........

Anyway, the grasping sound you can hear is the straw i am clutching at......:rolleyes:


or maybe you just got them at ten for a quid at 'Bulbs 'R' Us'?
 
The supply comes in through the cellar wall and goes into the BS88 fuse holder, it then is serially connected through the wall to the other BS88 fuse holder in the next property ( 103). the earth come from the sheathing into a new earth block and an earth cable is then connected through the wall for the neighbours supply earth.

everthing else is fine in the property, computers, tills and the high power massage devices. Forgot to say they sell exclusive furniture and have an aromatherapy/ feng shui massage room......

bulbs are Osram or GE

David
 
just about the only thing that would cause a lamp to explode is if its getting 415,i heard about a thing called a swinging ground once ,cant remember exactly what it was but ,it had something to do with the supply transformer ,shorting out intermitedly ,could be it ,why not set up some sort of peak hold monitor or something ,
all the best now:):):)

Thats what it is spiritual power being induced,to much feng suie ****:)
 
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Hi Rumrunner, I will chase the electric authority for a speedy response to my request. Thankfully the two properties are with different suppliers so that may help....

I'll keep you posted.

David
 
Hi David
yeah please keap me posted im interested in what this turns out to be,sounds like it is on the supply side,so you may have to be patient ,
all the very best in the whole happy world
 
Yeah, be interested on this one as well.

been reading up a lot in the 17th edition of the effect of the LV side from faults on the HV side

How can they be with different suppliers if they are connected off form the same supply?

do you mean different DNO's?
 
United utilities are going out in the next 3 hours, much better response than expected!. the supply is looped but they have different electricity providers EDF and British Gas in either property.

David
 
Id ring the gas board as well ,there stupid enough to try and fix it ,oh and mind to tell whoever comes that ,rumrunner thinks it might be a swinging ground .:D
all the best and have a nice day;)
 
United utilities are going out in the next 3 hours, much better response than expected!. the supply is looped but they have different electricity providers EDF and British Gas in either property.

David

Aah, got you, these the electricity suppliers, not the network operators;)
 
@rumrunner, I could tell them the cellar uis a torture chamber. It was for me fitting a new consumer unit as there is 6 foot headroom and i'm 6foot 6!.

forgot to say the tenants father fitted a metal chandelier, didn't earth it and used terminal strip with 4mm of conducter hanging out. The terminal strip had been forced into a hole in the ceiling with the live rubbing on the metal mount at the top. for some reason the girl changing light bulbs kept saying she kept getting a tickle when she touched the light fitting.....

David
 
hi,
ha ha ha ,im only laughing because ive been there ,the one i was in had an inch of water on the floor after we pumped it out and a dead rat,which we put in a cardboard box ,because it ponged so much :eek:,i banged my head on a nail in the joist and my back seised up :),i had to connect a tempory lead accross the service fuse for the drill and a light ,and the bulb blew,the whole job was a total nightmare ,and to make it worse i was doing it as a favor,i cant remember every job ive ever done,but i will never forget that one,:mad:
on a serious note now ,have you rewired both propertys or is some of it still dodgy?
i am asking because if next door is on a different phase and ,i know its a long shot but just maybee the wiring has gotten muddled up and you could have 415 floating around
some how. better ask the young lady how tickly it was:D
good luck
 
in summary ;
supply side problem
probably over voltage or dodgy neutral
only time ive come across blown up fittings is when a digger went through a supply cable but i don't know the science
i'll be watching this thread
 
I went past the shop and was pleased to see the pavement had been dug up and a sign with United Utilities on the apologies board. I spoke to the tenant and they said that The water main was being replaced......

Anyway on a positive note a mains voltage monitor has been left to check the mains.

The two properties are on the same phase and the supply is looped through from one to the other. the voltage is 242 volts. Keeping my fingers crossed.

David
 
just about the only thing that would cause a lamp to explode is if its getting 415,i heard about a thing called a swinging ground once ,cant remember exactly what it was but ,it had something to do with the supply transformer ,shorting out intermitedly ,could be it ,why not set up some sort of peak hold monitor or something ,
all the best now:):):)

Thats what it is spiritual power being induced,to much feng suie ****:)

Following up from the above ,can anyone explain the "third harmonic voltage " that is produced across the output terminals of the supply generator ,when there is a heavy earth fault ,i need to know if this causes a satuation of the transformer core or if it is caused by satuation of the core,and as far as i can deduce when the core is satuated this causes the voltage to multiply ,is this shunted via the generator windings ie path of least resistance ,where it is added to the voltage being generated and causes a peak on the line.
im a bit stuck ,cant find out much on line about 3rd harmonic voltage ,i did have it in a text book ,but thats with her to soon be divorced,so cant really ask her to look it up for me ,but i have a feeling thats whats up with mateys light bulbs,all and any ongoing dialouge on this subject is most wellcome
thanks in advance shake
atvbiotwww

just tried to find out more about 3rd harmonic voltage,it can be utilized to increse torque in electric motors ,does that mean its produced as a matter of cause,as with a slip ring motor that generates a voltage when running,or am i on the wrong track,and if 3rd harmonic is produced ,then why not other odd harmonics ,presuming the even ones are added,i cant get my head around where the unwanted voltage ends up
atvbitwww
 
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Following up from the above ,can anyone explain the "third harmonic voltage " that is produced across the output terminals of the supply generator ,when there is a heavy earth fault ,i need to know if this causes a satuation of the transformer core or if it is caused by satuation of the core,and as far as i can deduce when the core is satuated this causes the voltage to multiply ,is this shunted via the generator windings ie path of least resistance ,where it is added to the voltage being generated and causes a peak on the line.
im a bit stuck ,cant find out much on line about 3rd harmonic voltage ,i did have it in a text book ,but thats with her to soon be divorced,so cant really ask her to look it up for me ,but i have a feeling thats whats up with mateys light bulbs,all and any ongoing dialouge on this subject is most wellcome
thanks in advance shake
atvbiotwww

just tried to find out more about 3rd harmonic voltage,it can be utilized to increse torque in electric motors ,does that mean its produced as a matter of cause,as with a slip ring motor that generates a voltage when running,or am i on the wrong track,and if 3rd harmonic is produced ,then why not other odd harmonics ,presuming the even ones are added,i cant get my head around where the unwanted voltage ends up
atvbitwww

Ok, heavy stuff Rum,

I first got involved with harmonics because i have worked a lot with mobile and static generators

basically with normal resistive and inductive loads (and capacitive) the V & I relationships are linear. (ie the Xl will mean the current will lag the voltage in an inductive circuit because of CIVIL) but they will still be directly rpoprtional to each other in their magnitudes

now as seen as we introduce semi conductors to the load, the relationship becomes non-linear, i.e the current being drawn by the componenet does not follow the current sine wave that produced it. think of the main sine wave and then another 'spikey' sine wave superimposed over it, consisting of the original sine wave and the new spikey (non-linear) waveform. That is a current harmonic. Now when that harmonic current hits a linear load, that current produces a voltage drop, which, because the I producing it is non-linear, is also non-linear.

So you now have a non-linear harmonic voltage waveform superimposed on the original V sinewave.

Now imagine you have banks of semi conductors all switching on and off at different frequencies , a 'bandwidth' of harmincs will become your 2nd harmonics, then the next bandwidth the 3rd harmonic and so on. Each harmonic increasing in magnitude.

We used to hit this with generators supplying loads with a lot of thyristors in. Basically anything like that, particularly a thryristor because it would be pulse firing rapidly. End result was, that with a high 3rd harmonic current, we could be derating the genny output by as much as 50%.

What this meant in reality was, we would size a genny at say 500Kva. Then when we accounted for the additional current taken by the harmonics we might need, say, a 1MW for the same supply

Cant see how saturation of the core would cause the V to multiply

We used to use saturable reactors as part of a transductor system for control windings for generators

Basically think of a normal transformer. This v & I rise and fall as a sinewave through the zero point. Now if you were to superimpose a DC control current to the winding, this would cause a 'constant' magnetic field at a set level around the zero line, so the AC could then only induce an putput at the parts of the sinewave above and below the DC level. Thus by controlling the DC level you could control the output.

The same is used with the old Robin RCD testers with the 'D' lock function, it just floods the RCD with DC and desensitizes it.

So, in basic terms.

A sudden fault on system would cause a sudden rapid change in current, this sudden rapid change would cause a corresponding voltage to appear (think of back EMF - which is where i think you were going with the slip ring motors analogy) which of course, because we are using Lenz' law would be greater than the force which created it. Thus we have the original V&I and the harmonic V&I caused by the collapsing fields ADDED to it

ok, me 'ed urts know, hope this has helped Rum, although i'm not sure it has

perhaps i'll try again after me second coffee......:p
 
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Hi shakey
Of cause its helped ,i did a quick revision on lenz" law ,back emf ,and core satuation ,the web site i was on last nite when i was searching the net looking for "swinging grounds" was american and very dense ,i had trouble even reading it ,didnt understand hardly any of it ,but ill try again

one question thats arose from your excellent ,quite easy to understand answer,is
"if another sine wave is superimposed on the first then does that have the same effect as having 2 geneys on the line but out of sync"

i understand a voltage is produced due to a difference of potential between the waves ,secondly if this voltage is out of phase with the first does that cause a d.c effect when it reaches the transformer ,also if the fault was ,say,on the primary and was a swinging ground ,ie momentarially ,to earth does this have the same effect as opening the inductive circuit quickly.

im not trying to confuse your head shakey,really im not
atvbitwww
 
Hi shakey
Of cause its helped ,i did a quick revision on lenz" law ,back emf ,and core satuation ,the web site i was on last nite when i was searching the net looking for "swinging grounds" was american and very dense ,i had trouble even reading it ,didnt understand hardly any of it ,but ill try again

one question thats arose from your excellent ,quite easy to understand answer,is
"if another sine wave is superimposed on the first then does that have the same effect as having 2 geneys on the line but out of sync"

i understand a voltage is produced due to a difference of potential between the waves ,secondly if this voltage is out of phase with the first does that cause a d.c effect when it reaches the transformer ,also if the fault was ,say,on the primary and was a swinging ground ,ie momentarially ,to earth does this have the same effect as opening the inductive circuit quickly.

im not trying to confuse your head shakey,really im not
atvbitwww

ok first point, not really, partly because the harmonic will be based around a sine wave, but will be changing in a non-linear fashion, unlike the linear sine wave, which sort of covers the second point as well. try and steer away from thinking of PD between the main sine wave and the harmonic wave, (we are not going to go into vectors!) and think of the harmonic as a seperate entity (which 'contains' the original sine wave)

to calculate harmonics i recall using Laplas transforms, and 2nd order differential equations, nor somewhere i want go this side of a stronbow based bank holiday!!!

and really, we tend to talk about harmincs in terms of effect of loads on supplys.

I have never really used them in terms of faults, where we should be dicussing power frequency fault voltages and the resultant power frequency stress voltages.

So, back to basics, - in any situation where you get rapidly changing currents (such as with a fault or highly inductive rapidly switched loads) you will get an element of harmonics

so your anology of the 'swinging ground' will include harmonics obviuosly. and try and think of harmincs as things that happen 'from' the supply (caused by the load) rather than 'to' the supply.

And your DC effect on the transformer, as i tried to state in my first bit, i think it will have the opposite effect. The constant DC 'stabilises' a proportion of the linear sine wave so it becomes non-effective for inductive (transformer) puropses.

So a harmonic will tend to INCREASE the amount of induced EMF's, both linear and non-linear, with the effect that with a step up, the harmonic effect would be increased (i think)

have you thought of using a HF digital ballast to counteract the harmonics:p:p:p

ok Rum, thats me done, i'll stop making things up about harmonics and get back to work.;);)
 

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