To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

Inverter Welder causing electrical "noise" in house

mrpowderkeg

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 9, 2008
Messages
776
Location
Bismarck North Dakota
My shop is detached with it's own electrical panel. The power company double tapped my meter, so one power feed off of the meter goes to the house, and one power feed goes to the shop. (each feed is three wires) The house has a grounding rod and so does the shop.

So I was out in the shop doing some welding with my Miller Dynasty welder, this is an inverter, it makes a quiet hum when running, not like a typical 60hz hum, but something else.... always has. Half way through my project, the wife calls me and says that the electric stove is making a noise like a timer is running. I gotta let the piece cool off so I leave the welder on, and go inside and inspect the stove. Sure enough it's making an odd noise coming from the digital control panel where the clock is located. I kill the power to the stove and disassemble the control panel and plug it in so I can listen and view it. I was afraid of an electrical arc taking place, it almost sounded like that, only super quiet. Once I power the stove back up, I can here it again, I took my probe style stethoscope, and listened to the cover of the transformers, and I narrowed the actual noise down to an electrolytic capacitor. Yeah the noise was coming from inside the cap, it reminded me of my tig welder, the hum it makes. The cap didn't look bad, no bulge, it tested fine, and the stove was working properly. So I put the stove back together and determined that the cap wouldn't cause a problem, while I thought of why this was happening. I come back into the home later, and the noise is gone. I go out and turn the welder on, and the noise is back. What could be going on, or is this Inverter machine just making some electrical noise, and the most affected appliance (stove) the capacitor is "filtering" that noise? The home was built in 2011, my shop in 2013, and I'm pretty accomplished at wiring, all grounds and neutrals look proper and tight.
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

rsanter

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 22, 2007
Messages
18,556
Location
visalia ca
VFDs and inverters do cause electrical noise
But I have never heard a timer making noise from it

Bob
 
OP
M

mrpowderkeg

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 9, 2008
Messages
776
Location
Bismarck North Dakota
Yeah, well it's not necessarily a timer, it's the circuit board in my range oven, Circa 2011 model. It has the push button oven controls, oven light, timer/clock and LCD display. Kind of an odd thing to happen IMO...
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

rockwithjason

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 8, 2006
Messages
2,633
Location
Las Vegas
those machines use high frequency start. it wouldn't suprise me at all if they are feeding harmonics back into the rest of the system. you may need to use an isolation transformer to soften up the harmonic input to the system
 

sberry

Banned
Joined
Jun 18, 2005
Messages
35,747
Location
Brethren, Michigan
We had an issue with the plasma causing some weird sound in a fixture in a remote building on the same service,,,, I forget now exactly what it involved but learned to ignore it.
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!
Top Bottom