We Could Talk About The Weather

[K7SGJ]

All this rain weighed down the branches of a black walnut tree in the front side yard. It broke the ground cable and voltages were all over the place. 90 to 150 VAC! Called the EC and had them fix it. Boy! There sure got out here in a hurry!

Can you spell liability? Glad you're okay and no damage to anything, other than the tree.

[kb2vxa]

That shows you what a HUGE load imbalance you have, the neutral return current must be equally huge. What happened here was with the metallic neutral broken all the return current was passing through the ground between your earthing stake or cold water lateral and the earthing stake below the pole transformer. Did you notice a lot of worms on your lawn or did the birds get them?

Naturally they got out there in a hurry, if anyone got between the neutral lines or protective grounds also connected to the grounded neutral bus in the service entrance panel in your house and anything grounded to the Earth separately such as your ham shack ground it would have been a shocking experience, 30 volts worth. Then there are appliances to consider, such overvoltage can burn out motors, lamps, heating elements or anything rated for 115V nominal. Such undervoltage causes induction motors to draw more current, again leading to overheating and burnout.

When power companies reduce voltage in a brownout to protect their equipment they never exceed 6% which translates to 108V minimum you're on the bottom end of 115V nominal +/- 6% which is the safe operating range. When the voltage drops to 90 lights go dim, refrigerators and air conditioners fail to operate properly and motors fry. There is one good thing here believe it or not, 230V appliances don't use the neutral so any you have still were operating at 230V.

[KG4CGC]

I don't know.
The ground was running overhead and a limb broke it. It's that unshielded gray steel cable. Is that what you're talking about in your first paragraph? The building is grounded along 48 different points into the Earth.

[kb2vxa]

Now I'm not so sure we're on the same page, an "unshielded gray steel cable" can be anything from a catenary support cable to a guy cable, the neutral conductor is part of the electrical service drop line. Older installations are open wire, that is parallel single conductors, modern ones are insulated conductors wrapped around an uninsulated usually steel or aluminium clad steel support cable that doubles as the grounded neutral conductor. Three types of drop cable are pictured, in descending order they are 115V single phase (no longer used by power companies), 230V single phase and 3 phase 208V wye or 230V grounded delta.

Frankly I've never seen a ground running overhead all by itself. What I have seen happen however is for whatever reason the service drop is strained beyond capacity and the support cable/grounded neutral being shortest snaps leaving the hot conductors intact but no metallic connection between the transformer and the neutral bus in the entrance panel (load center). A 48 point grounding system sounds like if you look along the roof line you'll see lightning rods.

[KG4CGC]

We would be #2 in your illustration.

[KG4CGC]

It has rained so much that while I was getting out of the truck today at the store, I noticed that it looked like it was just washed.

[kb2vxa]

OK, es claro. Now I understand that what happened was basically what I said, the stringer/neutral snapped. Hmmm, nature's car wash, but where I used to live in Union County the air was so thick it could have been raining mud. Snow was worse, the day after it was noticeably dark and in a few days it was covered in black soot. No need for cigarettes, everybody was a smoker. (UGH)

Now that we're back to weather, today was the hottest day of the year peaking out at 95 with 60% humiditity which sent the index well above the century mark, just how well I don't know. And it's usually cooler at the shore? Cooler than WHAT? This was the first day of a long heat wave, it's gonna be roastin' all week at least and those popcorn thunderstorms only make it muggier (double UGH).

[N2NH]

New York City will probably be worse.

[KG4CGC]

OK, es claro. Now I understand that what happened was basically what I said, the stringer/neutral snapped. Hmmm, nature's car wash, but where I used to live in Union County the air was so thick it could have been raining mud. Snow was worse, the day after it was noticeably dark and in a few days it was covered in black soot. No need for cigarettes, everybody was a smoker. (UGH)

Now that we're back to weather, today was the hottest day of the year peaking out at 95 with 60% humiditity which sent the index well above the century mark, just how well I don't know. And it's usually cooler at the shore? Cooler than WHAT? This was the first day of a long heat wave, it's gonna be roastin' all week at least and those popcorn thunderstorms only make it muggier (double UGH).

You were in Union?
You have my deepest sympathies.

[NQ6U]

WX here is perfect, as usual. Yawn. It gets kind of monotonous some times.

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