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Any body need help after the storms?

Tallman

KW4YJ Honorary Member Silent Key
May 1, 2013
5,121
6,030
573
Louisville, KY
These storm can really wreak havoc on your utilities and antennas. The other evening we were sitting at the dinner table and the lights flickered a couple of times then normal for about 5 minutes or so and then out all together. The crimp connectors between our wires and the lines from the transformer failed.
No trees downed no car crashes nothing noticeable at all. I cycled the breakers and a portion of the house was relighted. I took the covers off of the breaker box to check incoming power and when I measured from L1 to L2 I got zero volts. When I measured from L1 to neutral I got zero volts. L2 to neutral 125 volts.
I was some what puzzled by this and checked L1 to L2 again, zero volts. L1 to neutral Zero volts.
L2 to neutral Zero volts. I then realized that the power connection from my breakers and the metermight be at fault. I called the power company and they showed up about 45 minutes later. He pulls the meter and checked the L1 toL2 and nothing. He pulled up a ladder and went up to the connections reached up and tugged one wire solid, next wire came off in his hands. He got to work because it was cold as hell and he wanted to get warm.
What had happened is that the water inside the connector froze solid and spread the contact open. It was not just this one night that it failed. My noise floor is down to zero now too. It had been increasing over a period of six months.
If there is something I can do for you send me a PM.
 

A couple months ago I guy I work with had power issues at home. Some lights would work while others not. Some wall plugs would work while others would not. His washer would work but not the dryer or stove. He lost one side of his 240 volt service which of course meant that nothing requiring 220 volts would work and only those things connected to the side of the 220 volt live still working would work. He couldn't understand why until I explained to him how the power is fed into and distributed from the panel.
 
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We had lights in the living room but no where else. This house was wired in the 1950's and they did not worry about balance loads. This happened on the coldest day of the year so far. I thought it was weird with power here and there with no rhyme or reason.
But like you said one leg of the power was out. Fortunately it happened where the power company owned. No charge for fixing it!
 
I worked on a mobile home one time that lost it's neutral connection at the meter. Had 240 phase to phase. One leg to neutral was 196v and the other leg to neutral was something like 42v. Being in the middle of winter, we had to find things in the house to turn on or off to balance the load so the voltage on each leg would be close to 125v until the power company could come out.
 
My AC quit today. No fan but comp cycles and shuts down. After reading diagnostic chart it's either the Start Cap or the Elect Module. Will test Cap tomorrow and any connections. If it's that damned elect module it has to be replaced. For the mean time I just opened doors and windows and let it all come in.
 
Same thing happened to me years back @ my other home , only 110 v , 1 of the cartridge fuses was bad . But house was built in the 40's , never happened again after that . But it drove me crazy till I found it .

When I encounter those I usually just reinstall a piece of copper piping in place of fuse.

o_O
 
My AC quit today. No fan but comp cycles and shuts down. After reading diagnostic chart it's either the Start Cap or the Elect Module. Will test Cap tomorrow and any connections. If it's that damned elect module it has to be replaced. For the mean time I just opened doors and windows and let it all come in.
We had the same thing here this summer. What was bad is the capacitor was not overtly bad. It was outside of tolerance of the capacitors rating. I could hardly believe the cap was bad, it was not puffy, or leaking because of a punctured case.
I have the cap in my hand and it has a weird raring +or- 6 %. I worked in air conditioning back in the late 60's and the tester we had was you connected clip leads, plug in the wall power and pressed a button. Light good, no light bad.
The technician here connected up his tester and it was much like my tester I use in my radio shop. It read Capacitance, ESR, and leakage. It was out of tolerance over 10%.
For those who do not know, ESR is the Effective Series Resistance. When the ESR is high the cap gets warm to the touch and is not as effective as a filter. But in this application it is being used strictly as device to cause a Phase shift between voltage and current.

ELI the ICE man
 
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When I encounter those I usually just reinstall a piece of copper piping in place of fuse.

o_O
I believe I have worked on one your radios in the past.
th
 
Aluminum foil works great on those mini cartridge fuses too. But vehicles aren't built with those any more. Figur I'll make another pot of coffee while I dig out the foil to wrap that cap with while I'm pontificating the matter. Then it's up on the roof top, click click click! o_Oo_Oo_O
 
Starting to wonder how many transmition lines around here have loose connections such as described above. Not too much freezing happens down here but the winds get ferocious at times and may loosen connections. The noise level comes and goes, sometimes the pile driver effect happens. Our drop doesn't fluctuate, 125.7 on high leg and 123.4 on lower. Figure it may be over along the feed following fence line to the south, that neighborhood is about fifty yrs old and the transformers are old and tired.
 
Starting to wonder how many transmition lines around here have loose connections such as described above. Not too much freezing happens down here but the winds get ferocious at times and may loosen connections. The noise level comes and goes, sometimes the pile driver effect happens. Our drop doesn't fluctuate, 125.7 on high leg and 123.4 on lower. Figure it may be over along the feed following fence line to the south, that neighborhood is about fifty yrs old and the transformers are old and tired.
I agree you have a transformer about to kick it. Those voltages should be equal.
 
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