SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Our power went down yesterday afternoon (December 12). The utility posted a message on their 1-800 number with expected repair time (a few hours later), but no explanation except that ~2000 customers were affected in our suburban area (Northeast USA).
Here's the weird bit -- LED bulbs stayed on, at reduced brightness. I got out a meter and measured 16 VAC in the house. This was enough to make useful light from "dimmable" LED bulbs (happened to be GE brand). After it got dark, we could also see that incandescent bulbs were giving off a faint reddish glow.
16VAC was also enough to keep a Netgear home router/Wi-Fi box going, it must have a switcher in the wall wart that accepts a really wide input voltage range?
Called a friend on the other side of the country who is an EE (with hardware background). He didn't have a good explanation, but suggested that in the process of bringing the grid back up there might be some big voltage swings--recommended unplugging everything we could. Went out to dinner and all was restored when we got home (no damage).
He also told a story from a rural area (near CA-Nevada border) where there was a power failure that upset the normally-balanced split phase -- instead of ~120V on both sides of neutral, the power went to 80V on one side and 160V on the other side of neutral. Equipment on the high voltage side failed due to extended over-voltage, seems that surge suppressors won't deal with this much energy.
Anyone? How does the grid fail-soft?
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 15 2015, @05:36PM
I've seen some pretty dumb stuff myself. The best is I worked with a guy who refilled a small coleman gas generator while running on a carnival job that was running a bouncy castle and cotton candy machine. The gas splashed and hit the hot cylinder head and I assume the exhaust pipe. The whole thing flashed, so his reaction was to whip the gas can around and throw it. Well that resulted in him splashing gas on his arm which caught fire and then heaved the gas can at a wood fence which went up in flames. My uncle was there with his ride truck and said he heard screams and saw a plume of black smoke coming from behind the bouncy castle along with people running away. Fire department came and put the fence out and the gas that was on the ground burnt itself out. Dumb dumb who filled the tank was treated for minor burns as he was at least smart enough to stop drop and roll to put his arm out before it was severely burned. We had to pay for the fence and the generator needed a new fuel tank. We then made him pay us back for the fence which wasn't much. That dude always caused all sorts of cartoonish calamities. Once he actually did the paint can on a board across two horses that gets turned into catapult after something heavy fell on it and splashed white paint all over the yard, equipment, two vans and himself.