Electrical gadget trouble?

F350-6 · May 20, 2018

Not a main stream article, but that's what worries me.

http://www.dailyjournal.net/2018/05/17/us-sci-crazy-clocks/

I'm not too worried about clocks being off, but what about all the sensitive, computer controlled electronic gizmos that we have in our houses?

Years ago my fancy, top of the line, ac unit went out in July 3 years in a row. Even the factory tech guru couldn't figure it out. Finally discovered a voltage issue in the afternoons when a neghbors well pump went out. Voltage was always fine whenever someone got around to checking it at the ac. TXU fixed the voltage and I switched to a condenser that didn't have a computer control board inside and things have been fine for 8 years.

So what happens when we start straying from 60hz for an extended period of time other than clocks being off?

Vaquero · May 20, 2018

It's called power factor.
Leading or lagging.
ERCOT requires a generating facility to be within a certain percentage. Distribution utilities also must be within guidelines.
It's confusing, but not complicated.
60hz is the standard. -95 or +95 power factor is common.
Lagging power factors are corrected with capacitors.
Leading power factors are corrected with resistors.
You might be running at 56 or 68 hz. Wider swings are common.

In a nutshell. Coal, natural gas and nuclear (steam driven) are maintainable at 60hz.
Wind and solar are "clean energy " on the bill and "dirty" on the grid. Utilities are spending fortunes trying to satisfy ERCOT and consumers at the same time.

Sophisticated equipment and relays have a "delay" in the software. No sense in correcting an issue that corrects itself in less than one minute.
So, wind gusts or lulls. Clouds passing by. These all effect the "renewable" generation.

Tree huggers are costing you and me by sacrificing our sensitive electronics.
The only true safeguard is conversion to DC.
Audiophiles knew this decades ago.

Conversion from AC to DC, then back to a true 60hz AC is the only failsafe solution.
That and an an expensive surge arresting unit. On the consumer side of the meter, of course.

benenglish · May 21, 2018

Vaquero said:
The only true safeguard is conversion to DC.
Audiophiles knew this decades ago.

Conversion from AC to DC, then back to a true 60hz AC is the only failsafe solution.

QFT and something I've been keenly aware of for many years. Unfortunately, audiophile-quality AC-to-DC-to clean 60hz solutions generally don't scale up to whole-house applications.

That said, I'm currently contemplating moving. There are some places with free natural gas in old building condo-conversions where the commercial-rate, whole-building natural gas feed has been retained and individual units are not metered. Well, the gas isn't "free" but it's included in a low HOA fee.

If I could find a generator that was quiet, burned natural gas, and fit into the space currently occupied by a dish washer, I could go mostly off-grid in the middle of the city. The design, installation, and hardware would be expensive and probably not return the investment in my lifetime but there's something satisfying about the thought of giving a giant middle finger to the electric companies.

oohrah · May 21, 2018

Didn't you mean inductors instead of resistors? ELI the ICE man

HKShooter65 · May 21, 2018

Educate me.

I read numerous places that quartz crystals vibrate at exactly 32,768 times per second.

This is divided up by the clock circuitry to know when a second has passed.

Is the 32,768 an inherent constant defined by the physics of the quartz?
or
Is the 32.768 kHz number something electrical engineers devised to make the IC math conveniently easy?

oohrah · May 21, 2018

A quartz crystal can be sized to vibrate at any frequency, called the piezoelectric effect (mechanically squeeze it and it generates electricity, give a voltage and it will vibrate at a very precise frequency).

Back in the old ham radio days, the Novice license allowed CW only operation on HF bands, but you had to use a quartz crystal controlled oscillator for frequency control, so there was a market for crystals cut at different frequencies in the band.

(I know, more info than you asked for

)

HKShooter65 · May 21, 2018

HKShooter65 said:
(I know, more info than you asked for )

No, no. Not at all.

I did notice 32,768 is EXACTLY two to the fifteenth power!

If quartz vibrates inherently and constantly at 2 to the 15th it must be either:
1. An incredible coincidence.
2. Intelligent design evidence. (Verboten thread material).
3. Chosen for expediency and purpose by an electrical engineer.

It's #3 apparently.

Ergo a source of inaccuracy with variance in electrical source I'm supposing.

HKS

Byrd666 · May 21, 2018

Interesting.

I LOVE this forum. I get to learn all kinds of stuff I never coulda' learned elsewhere.

Darkpriest667 · May 21, 2018

I use UPS boxes for ALL of my computer equipment and anything that I don't want to replace every few years... they tend to "clean" up the power delivery... I've found a lot of electrical systems to be wanting in houses and officers... They're heavy as hell lead acid battery backups but they provide clean energy and the sine wave is PURE.

oohrah · May 21, 2018

Yep, #3. For a computer using binary logic, it make sense to make the clock run at a power of 2. CPU clock speeds are now in the gigahertz range.

robertc1024 · May 21, 2018

And things like A/D converters typically convert their input (say voltage) into bits that are almost always in powers of 2. i.e. if you buy a 16 bit A/D the output resolution of the input voltage - say 2.5 V is 2.5/2^16.

TheDan · May 21, 2018

benenglish said:
If I could find a generator that was quiet, burned natural gas, and fit into the space currently occupied by a dish washer, I could go mostly off-grid in the middle of the city. The design, installation, and hardware would be expensive and probably not return the investment in my lifetime but there's something satisfying about the thought of giving a giant middle finger to the electric companies.

Any 4-stroke engine can be pretty easily converted to run off natural gas. Muffling and exhausting it in a condo will be the difficult part. Perhaps a fuel cell?

ZX9RCAM · May 21, 2018

TheDan said:
Any 4-stroke engine can be pretty easily converted to run off natural gas. Muffling and exhausting it in a condo will be the difficult part. Perhaps a fuel cell?

This is what I was trying to get around.

grasshopperglock · May 21, 2018

TheDan said:
Any 4-stroke engine can be pretty easily converted to run off natural gas. Muffling and exhausting it in a condo will be the difficult part. Perhaps a fuel cell?

They sell duel fuel gens that'll run off liquid gas. It's already been invented.

benenglish · May 21, 2018

TheDan said:
Perhaps a fuel cell?

grasshopperglock said:
They sell duel fuel gens that'll run off liquid gas. It's already been invented.

These are things I know far too little about. I am, however, intrigued by some buildings in downtown Houston that have relatively low HOA fees because they don't include electricity. A couple of them have unmetered natural gas.

A while back I investigated fuel cells and found nothing the right size. There were little ones and there were some the size of houses designed for industrial applications. I found nothing sized for a small home.

In practical terms (noise, vibration, exhaust, etc.), is there a generator or small fuel cell that could be installed in the space left after pulling out a dishwasher?

grasshopperglock · May 21, 2018

benenglish said:
These are things I know far too little about. I am, however, intrigued by some buildings in downtown Houston that have relatively low HOA fees because they don't include electricity. A couple of them have unmetered natural gas.

A while back I investigated fuel cells and found nothing the right size. There were little ones and there were some the size of houses designed for industrial applications. I found nothing sized for a small home.

In practical terms (noise, vibration, exhaust, etc.), is there a generator or small fuel cell that could be installed in the space left after pulling out a dishwasher?

Yes. The duel gas generators are the same size as the single fuel. The size of a dishwasher, minimum 2000watts. 3000+ easy. Think about indoor fork lifts. The engine runs on LPG for clean exhaust. It still has to be vented.

Keep the generator outside or in the garage. Run an extension cord or hard wire it into the house. I wouldn't personally put it in the kitchen. You could but it's inventing an ink pen to go into space when a pencil will work. Build a dog house around the gen and stick it on the back porch.

All the generators I've been around. Make more of a hum then an exhaust note. However, It makes enough noise to make the kitchen annoying. Then there's the exhaust plumbing. You can't run the exhaust inside. That includes LPG.

TheDan · May 21, 2018

benenglish said:
A while back I investigated fuel cells and found nothing the right size. There were little ones and there were some the size of houses designed for industrial applications. I found nothing sized for a small home.

residential fuel cell manufacturers
or if those are too big...
rv fuel cell manufacturers

Cost will likely make them not really worth it, but like you said doing it just the the FU factor might be

benenglish said:
In practical terms (noise, vibration, exhaust, etc.), is there a generator or small fuel cell that could be installed in the space left after pulling out a dishwasher?

Size wise, definitively. I think you could pretty easily isolate the vibration. Plumbing an exhaust in a stealthy way will require some creativity.

benenglish · May 21, 2018

grasshopperglock said:
Keep the generator outside or in the garage.

I'm talking about installation in a small, high-rise condo. Literally pulling out the dishwasher and putting the unit in that space is the only logical way to proceed.

ZX9RCAM · May 21, 2018

From my experience, even in the garage, with 2 doors between us and the generator, it's too loud.

benenglish · May 21, 2018

TheDan said:
Plumbing an exhaust in a stealthy way will require some creativity.

Understood. However, I've seen some stealthy air filter/exchange units plumbed to the outside in some high-rise units. This part isn't convenient but it can be done. The biggest problem is the fact that in order to hide the exterior exhaust vent, the vent from the unit to the outside will have to run at floor level. If that requires an inline exhaust fan, I can live with that.

Electrical gadget trouble?

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