Voltage at your house or shop

[Brandon_oma#692]

yes i have had an issue with incoming voltage being too high.... troubleshooter had to go to substation to turn the voltage down on the transformer and called me back stating the circuitry inside the transformer that auto adjusts the line voltage was dead and needed to be repaired...

Ive also had an issue with the voltage being too low in mobile home park... customers breakers were tripping due to appliances drawing too much current

if your lathe is that sensitive to voltage i would look into getting a voltage regulator for it...

What would I need for that? Could it feed a sub panel that feeds multiple machines? Or would I be looking for a transformer to put in the shop and adjust as needed?

I'm expecting the utility to take care of it and hopefully I'm good as of now.

 

[Codyboy]

doesnt need one. it verifies there is voltage thru inductance. when the power goes out, it detects the loss of voltage and activates the light...

Loss of power should not set the light. That would be useless for troubleshooting.

Fault current will set the light or in the ones we use will turn the little spinny wheel inside and it will show red on the faulted phase ( like a propane regulator that shows whrn empty). If the other phases didn't have a fault they will still show white regardless of power or no power.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Loss of power should not set the light. That would be useless for troubleshooting.

Fault current will set the light or in the ones we use will turn the little spinny wheel inside and it will show red on the faulted phase ( like a propane regulator that shows whrn empty). If the other phases didn't have a fault they will still show white regardless of power or no power.

Yeah whoops. My mind was in a different place when i wrote that. Of course, its for fault detection… i fixed it

 

[Brandon_oma#692]

Sadly it looks like the big lathes spindle drive is failing. The small one is working correctly and the manual I found has 230 input as ok which I am at after the machines transformer. Found some documentation on troubleshooting to go thru. The main board is the same as the smaller drive on the smaller lathe so I can swap and reset parameters to verify before replacing that. The power supply in the drive is another known failure point and It may be the same also. I am going to test that myself and replace if bad. not sure about the main board. Might have to send it in for a rebuild.

Got it relocated and the new mill in place and running. Need to run some new conduit and wires to the lathes this week.


Thanks for the help.

 

[Codyboy]

Hoping the transformers on the pole are good. They are only 2 years old.

That will not buff out.

 

[Brandon_oma#692]

Following up.
Replaced the power supply in the spindle drive and the CNC. This one and other CNC's have been running well. Solar was still acting up occasionally and power company said something about a large but but still residential solar setup in my area. I was sitting here thinking that is probably me...... 15kw is what the inverter maxes out at and I am at 24 MWh for the year.


They must have changed something because I have not been getting errors from the solar very often and if it does happen voltage goes down quicker and solar restarts. Last one was in September. If I remember correctly something automatic at the local station was not working that adjusted things and was scheduled for replacement. If not BS to give me an answer I suspect it has been fixed or they are keeping a closer eye on it.

Machine shop area is expanding. Need to put up some more lights in the other end of the shop and some more 120V circuits for general use. Have had some stuff on cords long enough to figure out where I need to drop power from the ceiling at. I need to take one more hard look at my planned layout and move a couple things around.

 

[dscheidt]

They must have changed something because I have not been getting errors from the solar very often and if it does happen voltage goes down quicker and solar restarts. Last one was in September. If I remember correctly something automatic at the local station was not working that adjusted things and was scheduled for replacement. If not BS to give me an answer I suspect it has been fixed or they are keeping a closer eye on it.

Most substation transformers have an automatic tap changer. This allows them to adjust the output voltage as the load rises and pulls it down, or drops and voltage rises. They do break. Newer systems have controls and monitoring that let the poco know what's going on, but older stuff doesn't have as much monitoring and there are still lots of them around. I wouldn't think 15kW would be enough to raise the voltage on a substation transformer enough to be a problem, but who knows.

 

[mm08822]

Most substation transformers have an automatic tap changer. This allows them to adjust the output voltage as the load rises and pulls it down, or drops and voltage rises. They do break. Newer systems have controls and monitoring that let the poco know what's going on, but older stuff doesn't have as much monitoring and there are still lots of them around. I wouldn't think 15kW would be enough to raise the voltage on a substation transformer enough to be a problem, but who knows.

The local inverter from the OP'S solar could be raising the voltage at his house in order to push current back toward the grid as explained in post 10.

A buck-boost transformer ahead of his equipment could be the easiest solution to get the voltages down to a level that the equipment is happy.

Try turning the solar off next time the shop equipment acts up. Restart the equipment and measure difference in mains voltage.

 

[Brandon_oma#692]

The local inverter from the OP'S solar could be raising the voltage at his house in order to push current back toward the grid as explained in post 10.

A buck-boost transformer ahead of his equipment could be the easiest solution to get the voltages down to a level that the equipment is happy.

Try turning the solar off next time the shop equipment acts up. Restart the equipment and measure difference in mains voltage.

I was measuring the voltage after dark and was still high at the time. If the problem comes back I will look into a transformer.

 

[mm08822]

A high grid voltage AND a solar inverter can be an additive voltage problem. Either contributor alone can be enough.

Keep a log of voltage and time when equipment faults.

ETA: Include in the log of when you use it and of the voltage during those runs when all went w/o issue. This info could tell you the possible limit that the equipment will tolerate.

 

[reader2580]

A grid-tie solar inverter will typically match whatever hertz and voltage the grid is at.

 

[mm08822]

A grid-tie solar inverter will typically match whatever hertz and voltage the grid is at.

Not voltage when back feeding the grid. It has to slightly raise the voltage in order to push current backwards through the meter. Current flow depends on a voltage difference between to points.

 

[ericm]

Not voltage when back feeding the grid. It has to slightly raise the voltage in order to push current backwards through the meter. Current flow depends on a voltage difference between to points.

Just trying to understand: If it's your solar, does your equipment see that higher voltage? Or is it just on the meter side? If it's some one else's nearby solar then do you see the higher voltage, or does the substation somehow take care of it?

 

[mm08822]

Your entire house panel would see that increased voltage. Possibly slight impact to a neighbor also if the connections were tied together on the local transformer output.

The substation wouldn't even know a 15kw solar system was online. (A fly on the back of an .)