Talk of power cuts?

[Spark plug]

You can’t just pop down to screwfix for one of these:

 

[colnerov]

Friend of mine work(ed) for the Grid. Couple of years ago a series of big tranformers went down. One went pop and the following ones were so close to the limit they followed like dominoes. Huge things with casings 3" thick blew up like footballs. He said it came very close to blacking out a large section of the city.

Hi, Yes cascade effect, one blacked out half of North America a number of years ago.

Colin

 

[optima21]

Hi, Yes cascade effect, one blacked out half of North America a number of years ago.

Colin

you mean the 1965 one as detailed here....... James Burkes Connections, over 40 years old now .

 

[brightspark]

I think the guy just wanted to know if it was worth sorting his genny out.

I would if I had the time and it wasn’t a big job.

I’ve one here as we get cuts rather than outages routinely through the winter. Usually it’s back on before you really notice but it doesn’t hurt to have a back up.

@julianf if you have a genny and the space to put it and it isn’t too much faff I’d set it up.

ive just fueled up mine and tested it pointless having it if it didnt work if u have one make the effort

 

[colnerov]

you mean the 1965 one as detailed here....... James Burkes Connections, over 40 years old now .

Hi, Yes, thanks for reminding me how long ago it was. seems like only yesterday.

Colin

 

[mike os]

So when they have these power cuts … they will be refunding the money obtained by threats and menaces? … oops I mean the standing charge , ?

 

[Spark plug]

So when they have these power cuts … they will be refunding the money obtained by threats and menaces? … oops I mean the standing charge , ?

Act of god

 

[mike os]

Act of god

Not when it’s planned

 

[Parm]

There's been talk of power cuts over the winter.

I don't entirely see this as a logical conclusion, but then there's undoubtedly factors I'm unaware of.

The reason I'm asking -

I have an old Lister CS in a friend's barn. I really don't want to bother moving it here and setting it up, but, if I really thought there was to be significant power outages, then I would.

We have wood fired heating and cooking here but electricity is always useful. Especially for the freezer.

So, what do you think?

We are in a (larger) Devon village.

Get you engine over, you know you want to

Then you can save lecky by asking folk of the forum how to burn paint waste.

There should be some good answers, we have folk from Yorkshire

Be an interesting thread

 

[dobbslc]

Mainly due to corruption, poor planning and theft

You sure you're talking about South Africa?
Maybe no so much of the theft but the first two...

 

[reb78]

scare people for a few days with no elec /heating etc then they will be gagging to pay whatever is asked , much like the recent fuel shortage soon as there was fuel avail no one moaned it had gone up 20-30p a litre ....im sure that fuel shortage was fabricated for someones benefit

if theres not enough fuel and food to go around why are we still building more houses on every scrap of land and welcoming in our overseas friends so benefits can pay their elec bill

How on earth did we used to live? We didnt have central heating for years. Just open fires. I dont recall dying each winter and our house was bloody cold! Ice on the inside of the crittals windows. Its all just the media stirring up worry yet again...!

 

[Red'n'Black]

Just like you can control if the repair works or not, by if you've put all the case back on or not.

"The definition of optimism is putting the lid back on before you've tried it"

 

[reb78]

ive just fueled up mine and tested it pointless having it if it didnt work if u have one make the effort

Is there a diy way of measuring the 'quality' of the output. I have a generator, prob about 2.5kVA. It runs fine. Testing it on a very old drill, i always get more arcing in the drill than on mains. Is this a sign that the output isnt great?

 

[julianf]

Is there a diy way of measuring the 'quality' of the output. I have a generator, prob about 2.5kVA. It runs fine. Testing it on a very old drill, i always get more arcing in the drill than on mains. Is this a sign that the output isnt great?

My friend had one which would run most stuff, except his washing machine always failed at exactly the same part of the cycle.

It was because the current went up on that part of the cycle, and the waveform of the generator became too lumpy for the electronics, so they would quit / reboot.

You could scope the output, and then load the generator and see what the waveform looks like. Probably a mess.

In the end my friend got a big ups unit. He used the generator to power the ups and used the sine wave inverter of the ups to give a better waveform.

 

[reb78]

My friend had one which would run most stuff, except his washing machine always failed at exactly the same part of the cycle.

It was because the current went up on that part of the cycle, and the waveform of the generator became too lumpy for the electronics, so they would quit / reboot.

You could scope the output, and then load the generator and see what the waveform looks like. Probably a mess.

In the end my friend got a big ups unit. He used the generator to power the ups and used the sine wave inverter of the ups to give a better waveform.

Thanks for that.

Would an old PC UPS with knackered batteries do the job here? Dad bought them 20 years ago. They werent cheap ones.

 

[Nomad]

Thanks for that. Would an old PC UPS with knackered batteries do the job here? Dad bought them 20 years ago. They werent cheap ones.

I picked up an older home UPS (for pc's etc) that had a totally dead battery. I removed the old small capacity internal battery and connected it up to a spare car battery (mounted externally) - and it's working great. Best remove the covers from yours and check it has 12 volt batteries before connecting it to a car battery

 

[Nomad]

Possibly related - Spain has introduced restrictions in an effort to avoid power cuts :
Aircon can't be below 27*/ Heating can't be above 19*
Shop window display lighting (& public building illumination) must be turned off at 10pm
Any building with aircon or heating must have automatic doors fitted to avoid wasting energy (due to come into force at the end of next month !)

Spain BANS people from having AC turned below 27C in summer

With temperatures exceeding 102F today, under the new government decree, air conditioning must now not exceed 80F (27 degrees Celsius).

www.dailymail.co.uk

The restrictions are part of an EU-wide plan to move away from the need to buy gas from Russia.

*No political comments implied or intended, just a statement that nearby counties have just introduced laws that relate to power cuts <insert "Halo" smiley here>

 

[julianf]

Thanks for that.

Would an old PC UPS with knackered batteries do the job here? Dad bought them 20 years ago. They werent cheap ones.

There not all the same.

The smaller, cheaper ones seem to pass through the AC until there is an outage, and then switch to the inverter, whilst others run the inverter constantly.

I forget the key words that you need to look at in the description, but I knew them at some point.


Somthing you may want to look at, and I'm unsure if this works, but someone with more knowledge than me may be able to confirm -

I'm under the impression that a transformer with the same windings on either side will also clean up a waveform, as the field adds a dampening effect. As I say, I may well be wrong on this though.

The inverter / ups thing I'm much more sure about as I've seen it done.

 

[Smouser]

You sure you're talking about South Africa?
Maybe no so much of the theft but the first two...

Haha. I see your point, but South Africa is next level.

 

[daleyd]

Haha. I see your point, but South Africa is next level.

It’s been going on for years there, I used to work a lot out in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban - the worst I remember was when we installed a big newspaper printing plant in 2007/8 in Durban and there were days where we just sat in the hotel as they couldn’t guarantee power would be available. (If the machine was running and power went off it used to wreck drives etc)