In message CAJ_qRvb6-79y99aFgAUowZjJcEUK4LWeAEHwDgRqNOsGQVzneQ@mail.gmail.com
, Tim Shoppa writes:

In EU you're supposed to have 230V +/- 6% in your outlet.

The way this was arrived at was:

A lot of europe used 220V +/- 10% = [198..242] V

Brittain used 240V +/- 10% = [216..264] V

Take the average of the two, and use the low max and high min as limits

QED:  230V +/- 6% = [216..244]

--
Poul-Henning Kamp      | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG        | TCP/IP since RFC 956
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Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Another one of those fascinating "threads!"  I have lived through the claimed 110, 117 and 120 volt periods and have been apparently lucky enough to not have suffered any device damage.  At present I live on a hill and do worry about lightning strikes to ham radio antennas.  The last time I counted I had over 20 standard eight foot plated ground rods driven at various places and the entrance point of these antennas to the house is protected by an additional 6 rods.  All wiring in the house is either thin wall tubing or other armored cable.  Thus I effectively have building perimeter protection as well.  All grounds are tied together along with the power neutral.  I also have an automatic transfer backup alternator with separate ground also tied to the entire system.  I do disconnect antennas during storm threats but in the past thirty years have yet to have any "over voltage" damage.  From time to time I do check the line voltage but not with any NBS standard voltmeter and have found that it does "drift" between 120 and 126  which I feel is outstanding given the general circumstances which include being several miles from the distribution point along a rural road and the possibility of some fairly demanding motor starting loads that I deal with.  My input panel is over 200 ft. from the farmer's electric co-op transformer which I used to share with two neighbors but now I have "my own."  Yes, I do have lightning rod protection.

73

Lee  K9WRU
----- Original Message -----
From: Poul-Henning Kamp phk@phk.freebsd.dk
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com, Chuck Harris cfharris@erols.com
Sent: Mon, 02 Jan 2017 12:55:58 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Line Voltage - USA

In message 586A8B40.4050806@erols.com, Chuck Harris writes:

Close, but no cigar.

The main problem was that in many countries outlets did not have a
protective ground terminal.

That meant that an internal fault in your appliance had a 50/50
chance of lighting up some exterior metal part you could touch.

The "obvious solution" isn't obvious in countries where the geography
does not allow you to obtain proper "protective ground".  Norway being a
good example.

But even countries with the "obvious solution" of protective ground
in all outlets saw problems, because it took 10-16 ampere misdirected
current to blow the fuse, and you can light most flameable stuff
with a lot less energy than that.

The "Residual Current Device" solved both problems.

RCD's even protect you from internal faults where proper protective
ground is not available, by providing neutral from "outside" the
RCD as PG in the installation.  You'll still be (horribly!) exposed
of an accident in the distribution grid (or lightning!) fires up
the neutral, but that's simply life - or death - without a grounding
rod.

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Speaking about MAIN... I was interesting to see if "leap second" event
has correlation with MAIN frequency fluctuation

Here is graphs for the MAIN periods recorded. Note: The data on the
charts is "smoothed" by Bezier curves

I could see some "surge" which starts to climb in December 30 and end at
Dec 31 at the time close to the "leap second" event. But not sharp.

For 16-12-29 00:00 to 17-01-02 00:00
http://www.patoka.ca/OCXO/60hz-periods-Dec29-Jan2.png

For Dec 31:
http://www.patoka.ca/OCXO/60hz-periods-Dec31.png

It will be interesting to see/compare if anybody else has similar stats.

Regards,
Vlad

On 2017-01-02 13:00, Tim Shoppa wrote:

--
WBW,

V.P.

On 2 January 2017 at 18:14, Poul-Henning Kamp phk@phk.freebsd.dk wrote:

Do you have a reference to this +6%? I've heard from various sources that
the UK is 230 -6%/+10%.  If the EU dictates otherwise, then I'm certainly
over the 6% limit. I may or may not be over the 10% limit.

While the UK is still in the EU, it would be good to get this resolved,
since we will be leaving in just over 2 years.

Rules in Brussels override those made in the UK, which is one of the
complaints we have in the UK. But +/- 6% could actually be beneficial, if
it is correct.

I will be measuring at the incoming terminals some time soon. For now I
have added a variac, which has lengthened  the time I can hold my fingers
on the 8970B from 2 seconds to 9 seconds!!! So a very marked difference in
heatsink temperature since dropping the voltage.

Dave

Vlad

do you have that data for a longer period of time...say 3 to 6 months?

Dave

On 1/3/2017 11:05 AM, Vlad wrote:

--
Dave
Manuals@ArtekManuals.com
www.ArtekManuals.com

This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Power utilities tweak the system frequency on a daily basis to keep MAINS
powered clocks correct. I wonder what their correction strategy was for the
leap second?

On Tue, Jan 3, 2017 at 11:05 AM, Vlad time@patoka.org wrote:

I put some raw data here:

http://www.patoka.ca/OCXO/60HZ.logs.tar.Z

Unfortunately its not continuous, because of for some period of times my
machine was offline (software upgrades or my radio made some mess with
RF which affects the MCU and recordings. And I was busy with something
else to check what was going on there...

The format is very simple:

[Time Stamp]            [Period]              [1/9830400]

16-12-05 22:00:56.683 [-] 0.01667439778643      163916  -49
16-12-05 22:02:04.976 [-] 0.01667348225909      163907  +9
16-12-05 22:03:13.253 [-] 0.01666941324869      163867  +40

The column [-/+/0] just indicate if periods is up or down from the
"golden standard"
The [1/9830400] - is the what the timer(counter) value was
and the last column is just a delta with previous measurement

Note: the device itself catch each and every zero-cross event 8192
times, and then do averaging (simple shift to the right the big counter
value). Then it took this averaged value, translate it to main periods
and prints the results as [Period]

Regards,
Vlad

On 2017-01-03 11:41, Artek Manuals wrote:

--
WBW,

V.P.

On 2 January 2017 at 05:15, Jeremy Nichols jn6wfo@gmail.com wrote:

I have just been chatting to a friend who was a controller at two power
stations in the UK - Darlington (coal) and Bradwell (nuclear). He tells me
that the voltage is likely to be higher in the summer around 2-3 am in the
morning. Now it might seem obvious that the load is smaller in summer than
in the middle of winter, but this is NOT the reason the voltage rises more
in summer. I must admit though, I could still not understand it, and he
admits he could not explain it, but just tells me it is so. But a few
things I did get, which are not all obvious - some are.

1. The real power consumed by the users + losses must balance the power
   generated. That's pretty obvious.

2. The reactive power (V*A) must also balance - perhaps less obvious.

3. The voltage generated by a generator when it is not providing any load
   is controlled by the current in the field winding.

4. Before connecting a generator to the grid it is necessary to ensure the
   voltage and phases are matched.

5. Once the generator is on the grid, there's nothing the generator can do
   that has any practical effect on the voltage. Even with a nuclear power
   station, the output power it is a small fraction of the overall power being
   generated by the all the power stations, so one power station coming on/off
   line does not have any significant effect on the voltage of the grid.

6. What the operator can do is

• Generator more power, by increasing the steam that drivers the generator.
• Change the reactive power by changing the field current

7. As soon as the generator is connector, he would increase the steam to
   provide at least  5 MW at Bradwell (nuclear, 2 MW at Darlington (coal), as
   failing to do so risks the generator going unstable due to disturbances on
   the grid.  This could easily result in the generator becoming a motor,
   which is not good. So there's a minimum power a generator can practically
   provide - in his case 2 or 5 MW.

8. If there were no uses on the grid, so nobody using any electricity, the
   capacitance of the cables would make the load capacitive.

9. Users are generally inductive, so in practice the current lags the
   voltage, as the reactive power of users is greater than the the grid.

10. The higher power usage in winter means that the power factor is further
    from 1.0.

I get the feeling that the voltage might go up more in summer as the
generator are running closer to a point of instability, with small changes
in load causes significantly more change in power factor than in the
winter.

As I say, I never really seemed to get to the bottom of fully understanding
this, but he assures me that voltages will be less stable at light load
than at heavy load.

I guess if I do report a problem, I will get them to measure all 3 phases.
That must increase the chances of at least one phase going outside
specification. I am rugulary going over 250 V, but not 10% more which would
be 253 V.

Dave

Hi

Measuring line voltage for “official” purposes straight up with a lab grade device that may
have a bandwidth of many KHz (or even 100’s of KHz) is generally not a good way to go.
The line voltage is the value of the fundamental (50 or 60 Hz) sine wave. All the other nonsense
that accumulates is more likely load related than line related. If the power company brings
out the right stuff, it looks more like a spectrum analyzer inside than a normal voltmeter. They
sell a lot of 24 bit audio DAC’s into that sort of gear. Team them up with some DSP and you
get all sorts of interesting data. The “one number” that counts is the fundamental ….

Bob

Leap seconds only matter if you are counting seconds.  The power
line isn't.  As long as they keep the frequency near nominal, they
are fine.

-Chuck Harris

J wrote: