Voltage Question

[Jsf721]

I have a home theather system an there is a Monster Voltage cleaner/surge protector filtering the line voltage. Last night I could not get the TV to turn on so after playing with the remote I opend the cabinet and the Monster is reading 124 volts? THat is too high correct. I think it is protecting the components and allowing anything to go on. Am I right or not?
Voltage should be 110 or less correct? It read 119 when I woke up this morning. Still no TV. It is not the cable company because the other TV's work. Before I call the Hime theater co, though I would check on this voltage issue.

As alweays thanks,

http://www.google.com/shopping/prod...&sa=X&ei=xj_UUb6mK-bT0wH25oCYBw&ved=0CJ4BELkk

 

[larry_g]

120 volt is nominal. The 119-124 volts you are reading is normal.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[Jsf721]

Thanks, I guess I have other issues with the system.

I apprecaite the quick response.

120 volt is nominal. The 119-124 volts you are reading is normal.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[Jarcese]

Turn your microwave on and then check the voltage at the power strip and then check it without the microwave on. If your voltage is going up and down by more than a volt or two you may have a neutral problem. I have no idea what type of equipment you have and I don't pretend to know much about power conditioners, but it might be protecting it because of a bad neutral.

 

[Teken]

There hasn't been 110 VAC being supplied for more than 25 years.

Teken . . .

 

[porschedude996TT]

I had a Brown-Out the other day for a 1/2 hour. It took out my Dish Hopper Hard Drive. Got the replacement yesterday and everything is fine. I think under voltages are worse than over voltage situations because if there is a failure the Monster Power Strip can't raise the voltage. It can only clip the transient spikes.

 

[Teken]

I had a Brown-Out the other day for a 1/2 hour. It took out my Dish Hopper Hard Drive. Got the replacement yesterday and everything is fine. I think under voltages are worse than over voltage situations because if there is a failure the Monster Power Strip can't raise the voltage. It can only clip the transient spikes.

Yes, for many modern electronics a lull, sag, brown out. Will cause more damage as when the voltage goes down, the current goes up.

The increased current will melt the wiring / PCB traces that are not rated to handle the increase in current.

Now, not all electronics are affected by this and that has to do with if the PSU is tightly regulated or not. Some use capacitors to buffer the incoming voltage to ensure any lulls / peaks are smooth out, some what.

Teken . . .

 

[Jsf721]

I called the power company and they are sending someone out. Just like you said, they thought it might be a bad neutral. Wife tells me the numbert is now up to 131. I had her unplug anything of value. Out of curiousity, her hair dryier got zapped yesterday. Any relation?

Turn your microwave on and then check the voltage at the power strip and then check it without the microwave on. If your voltage is going up and down by more than a volt or two you may have a neutral problem. I have no idea what type of equipment you have and I don't pretend to know much about power conditioners, but it might be protecting it because of a bad neutral.

 

[Jarcese]

It might be in your best interest to call the power company. Low voltage is bad for sensitive electronics, but high voltage will start a house fire easily. Power strips and small DC transformers are the first to go usually possibly starting fires at the outlets they are plugged in to.

I trouble shoot for the POCO here and the 5 volt drop coupled with the fact that you have noticeable voltage fluctuations/brown outs in equipment means that you have a possible serious problem.

 

[Jarcese]

I called the power company and they are sending someone out. Just like you said, they thought it might be a bad neutral. Wife tells me the numbert is now up to 131. I had her unplug anything of value. Out of curiousity, her hair dryier got zapped yesterday. Any relation?

Good call. Yes it is related. Shut your main off until they get there.

 

[ShawnJ]

I may be wrong, but I think that between 108 -132 is within the range of guaranteed voltage. (120V +/- 10%) I have my PC and network gear on a UPS that does power trim to reduce the voltage. But I think an AV system would have too much draw.

 

[theoldwizard1]

I may be wrong, but I think that between 108 -132 is within the range of guaranteed voltage. (120V +/- 10%)

I concur.

I have my PC and network gear on a UPS that does power trim to reduce the voltage.

If you have expensive AV gear then get a "online" UPS. This style converts the AC voltage to DC, then charges a battery. Then the DC is converted back to AC. Monitoring circuitry cuts the incoming voltage if it is out of spec.

These are pretty expensive, but this is the best you can get. A 1000VA unit would probably allow you to watch videos in surround sound for about an hour after the power goes out.


Watch Craigslist. When companies go out of business these things show up. Be careful, because if it s over a couple of years old, it likely needs a new battery (or 2) ad they are expensive.

 

[theoldwizard1]

I called the power company and they are sending someone out. Just like you said, they thought it might be a bad neutral. Wife tells me the numbert is now up to 131. I had her unplug anything of value.

Good call. Yes it is related. Shut your main off until they get there.

Over-reaction, IMHO !

 

[Jarcese]

I've seen a house catch on fire immediately after losing the neutral. So.. no not over reaction. Maybe shut off all 120v breakers.

Had one where a neighborhood was out in a storm and a house neutral broke after the power went out. Energized the neighborhood and while I was on my way out the fire department was passing me. Wasn't 10 minutes that the house went without a neutral before they lost half of the house.

Also had another one where I asked the guy to throw his microwave on while I tested the meter and everything behind his tv caught on fire immediately. Had a bad neutral connection installed by his electrician.

Even a small load with no neutral can give you high enough voltage to cause a fire.

 

[Jarcese]

Also, bonus to shutting off all the breakers is that you can tell your wife that you NEED to drink all the beer before it gets warm.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

I have a home theather system an there is a Monster Voltage cleaner/surge protector filtering the line voltage. Last night I could not get the TV to turn on so after playing with the remote I opend the cabinet and the Monster is reading 124 volts? THat is too high correct. I think it is protecting the components and allowing anything to go on. Am I right or not?
Voltage should be 110 or less correct? It read 119 when I woke up this morning. Still no TV. It is not the cable company because the other TV's work. Before I call the Hime theater co, though I would check on this voltage issue.

As alweays thanks,

http://www.google.com/shopping/prod...&sa=X&ei=xj_UUb6mK-bT0wH25oCYBw&ved=0CJ4BELkk

Nominal voltage is 120v/240v and most PoCos have a policy of +/- 5%, so 114v-126v is good! The volatge can fluctuate up and down a few volts depending on how far away the transformer is, what if any high load equipment is on at the time, etc.

I had a Brown-Out the other day for a 1/2 hour. It took out my Dish Hopper Hard Drive. Got the replacement yesterday and everything is fine. I think under voltages are worse than over voltage situations because if there is a failure the Monster Power Strip can't raise the voltage. It can only clip the transient spikes.

If that expensive Monster power conditioner doesnt regulate voltage up and down, then I'd say what a rip. I have several APC conditioners/volatge regulators that can trim over voltage and boost under voltage, shunt spikes, and filter some noise because it has a transformer that isolates its output AND they only cost me around $50 whereas Monster equipment is very expensive!! I'm willing to bet though, that the Monster conditioners are capable of doing the same! If they didnt, then whats the point?

I called the power company and they are sending someone out. Just like you said, they thought it might be a bad neutral. Wife tells me the numbert is now up to 131. I had her unplug anything of value. Out of curiousity, her hair dryier got zapped yesterday. Any relation?

If u have a multimeter/voltmeter, theres an easy way to check if you have a bad neutral connection feeding your house. Measure the voltage between each hot leg and the neutral! If u get anything other than the normal voltage, u could have a bad connection.

I may be wrong, but I think that between 108 -132 is within the range of guaranteed voltage. (120V +/- 10%) I have my PC and network gear on a UPS that does power trim to reduce the voltage. But I think an AV system would have too much draw.

As i said above, most PoCos have a 5% allowance. 10% is kind of low for a lot of devices and can cause breakers to trip!

I've seen a house catch on fire immediately after losing the neutral. So.. no not over reaction. Maybe shut off all 120v breakers.

Had one where a neighborhood was out in a storm and a house neutral broke after the power went out. Energized the neighborhood and while I was on my way out the fire department was passing me. Wasn't 10 minutes that the house went without a neutral before they lost half of the house.

Also had another one where I asked the guy to throw his microwave on while I tested the meter and everything behind his tv caught on fire immediately. Had a bad neutral connection installed by his electrician.

Even a small load with no neutral can give you high enough voltage to cause a fire.

Huh? Its not the voltage that can cause a fire, its high resistance! Have u ever seen melted 12v wiring in a car?

And neutrals arent the only wire that can cause fires. A bad connection on a hot leg will do the same so turning off just single pole breakers wont protect against this!! Again, it all has to do with high resistance! This is electrical 101!

The main issue with loosing the service neutral is overvoltage on one leg and under voltage on the other, depending on what is on at the time!!

 

[EOC_Jason]

Freakiest thing I saw was a power line from the transformer to our building CAUGHT FIRE WHILE IT WAS RAINING!!!! Yeah, you would think the rain would put it out... nope... plus, how does a wire with insulation catch fire?!?! (I'm guessing the insulation is burning)... It was crazy... Poor power guy had to go up in a bucket in the rain to fix it... and wouldn't you know it as soon as they were finished it stopped raining...

 

[RickP]

Make sure the power company checks the transformer connections too. We had fluctuating voltage when we first had elec service installed. Called the PoCo but they couldn't find anything wrong. The problem went away, so we dropped it. Seven years later, a PoCo subcontractor discovered that the terminals connected to the main feed lines inside the transformer had been loose the whole time -- they'd just melted into place, which fixed the voltage fluctuations.

 

[Rob_b]

In my related field of work, we go by 5% high and 10% low as maximum allowable values. I'd say you better get things checked out by a qualified electrician.
In my own home, I had one side of the service start to arc within the meter box. Called the local utility who was there in 40 mins (record service) and they found the saddle within the box on the feed side had arc'd itself almost off. I actually put my fluke 87 on each leg in my panel and recorded the voltages for 15 minutes each and found the one was rock solid at 118 and the other varied from 96 to 120. They were shocked to find I had done that and wondered why I would have such an expensive meter. Told them what I did for work (well known company in my city). We actually cleaned up the saddles with a wire wheel in my garage, re-installed them, had a coffee together to shoot the breeze since I did all the trouble shooting for them. If it hadn't been for my Christmas tree blinkin' (no flasher installed) it may have taken alot longer to detect the issue.
don't delay...get it fixed properly!

 

[ddawg16]

Nominal voltage is 120v/240v and most PoCos have a policy of +/- 5%, so 114v-126v is good! The volatge can fluctuate up and down a few volts depending on how far away the transformer is, what if any high load equipment is on at the time, etc.



If that expensive Monster power conditioner doesnt regulate voltage up and down, then I'd say what a rip. I have several APC conditioners/volatge regulators that can trim over voltage and boost under voltage! I'm willing to bet that the Monster conditioners are capable of doing the same!



If u have a multimeter/voltmeter, theres an easy way to check if you have a bad neutral connection feeding your house. Measure the voltage between each hot leg and the neutral! If u get anything other than the normal voltage, u could have a bad connection.



As i said above, most PoCos have a 5% allowance. 10% is kind of low for a lot of devices and can cause breakers to trip!




Huh? Its not the voltage that can cause a fire, its high resistance! Have u ever seen melted 12v wiring in a car?

And neutrals arent the only wire that can cause fires. A bad connection on a hot leg will do the same so turning off just single pole breakers wont protect against this!! Again, it all has to do with high resistance! This is electrical 101!

The main issue with loosing the service neutral is overvoltage on one leg and under voltage on the other, depending on what is on at the time!!

yep...all that....I concur...

Another way to check for a bad neutral....measure from neut to hot for each side as noted above.....then repeat the test with a heavy load...a vacuum or iron works good enough.....while measuring the voltage...turn on the load. If one side goes up and the other goes down....either a bad neut connection in your box or an issue with the PoCo. Happened to me....when I turned on the saw, one side went to 135 and the other down to about 105. Poco came out the next day...a few min later the wife gets a knock on the door....transformer is bad.

The replaced it 2 days later....the neighbors loved me....they thought all this time the issue was in their house.

BTW....any AV equip with the "Monster" name on it is WAY over priced. Their speaker wire is the biggest rip off in the world.....

If you want good protection....get an APC or BEST UPS.

 

[Jsf721]

All fixed. Not sure what they did but everything is back to normal. Everything was done outside the house. They even trimmed the tree over the power lines. Thanks to all who chimed in. By the way from my understannding the monster 1600hts is a line conditioner not a surge protector it shuts hi or low voltage off to supplied components to avoid damage. I plan on installing a whole house surge protector right off the pannel box. Need to research this. Glad it was only the wife's hair drier that got zapped. Easy fix.

Thanks.

 

[Jarcese]

Surge protector won't help for a future broken neutral. It is a good idea to have one, just won't do anything to protect against effects of a broken neutral.

The only way I can think of to protect against it is to install an auto throw over generator and set the threshold to 5% or maybe 10% at the most of 120. Don't take my word for that because I'm getting out of my realm of knowledge. Couple that with a whole house protector for higher surges like lightning and/or high voltage phase falling on low voltage. That will be some real good protection right there. It's like buying insurance.. you might hate spending the money, but you'll be happy when it pays off.

Also, you might want to check that anything else didn't get smoked. Most utilities are good at responding to legitimate loss claims. If it was your tree that either broke or rubbed the neutral clear, they probably won't pay.

I know a hair dryer isn't worth much, but you might want to check all your sensitive electronics just in case because they won't hear your claim if you decide six months from now that something doesn't work.

 

[nehog]

Even a small load with no neutral can give you high enough voltage to cause a fire.

(bold by wyliesdiesels)

...
Huh? Its not the voltage that can cause a fire, its high resistance! Have u ever seen melted 12v wiring in a car?
...

When a neutral is opened what happens is this:

One side of the circuit (one leg of the 240 feed) has a higher load. The other side has a lower load. Ohms law is then invoked. The side with the higher load (lower resistance) gets lower voltage, and the side with the lower load (higher resistance) gets higher voltage.

In the microwave example above, the microwave was a high load. The TV and video equipment was a low load. Likely the microwave ended up with about 20 volts, and the TV and video equipment got about 220 volts. With that much of an over voltage, cascading failures would have been the result.

Saying 'not the voltage that can cause a fire, its <sic> high resistance' is not correct. Both are related (voltage and resistance,) and in the open neutral scenario balance is the main factor!

 

[ShawnJ]

All fixed. Not sure what they did but everything is back to normal. Everything was done outside the house. They even trimmed the tree over the power lines. Thanks to all who chimed in. By the way from my understannding the monster 1600hts is a line conditioner not a surge protector it shuts hi or low voltage off to supplied components to avoid damage. I plan on installing a whole house surge protector right off the pannel box. Need to research this. Glad it was only the wife's hair drier that got zapped. Easy fix.

Thanks.

Glad to hear it's fixed. At least you only lost a hair dryer.

 

[Jsf721]

They are not responsible for any damage caused by electricity entering the house, per Customer Service.

When I called I had no way of knowing if the TV was zapped. They are not responsible for squat inside your home. Basically you use their electricity at your own risk. Gotta Love it.

Surge protector won't help for a future broken neutral. It is a good idea to have one, just won't do anything to protect against effects of a broken neutral.

The only way I can think of to protect against it is to install an auto throw over generator and set the threshold to 5% or maybe 10% at the most of 120. Don't take my word for that because I'm getting out of my realm of knowledge. Couple that with a whole house protector for higher surges like lightning and/or high voltage phase falling on low voltage. That will be some real good protection right there. It's like buying insurance.. you might hate spending the money, but you'll be happy when it pays off.

Also, you might want to check that anything else didn't get smoked. Most utilities are good at responding to legitimate loss claims. If it was your tree that either broke or rubbed the neutral clear, they probably won't pay.

I know a hair dryer isn't worth much, but you might want to check all your sensitive electronics just in case because they won't hear your claim if you decide six months from now that something doesn't work.

 

[Jsf721]

Thanks Me Too!

Glad to hear it's fixed. At least you only lost a hair dryer.

 

[Jarcese]

Glad everything worked out anyway, even if it was at the cost of a couple bad hair days.

 

[Jsf721]

Believe me she has a spare in the house.

Glad everything worked out anyway, even if it was at the cost of a couple bad hair days.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

All fixed. Not sure what they did but everything is back to normal. Everything was done outside the house. They even trimmed the tree over the power lines. Thanks to all who chimed in. By the way from my understannding the monster 1600hts is a line conditioner not a surge protector it shuts hi or low voltage off to supplied components to avoid damage. I plan on installing a whole house surge protector right off the pannel box. Need to research this. Glad it was only the wife's hair drier that got zapped. Easy fix.

Thanks.

Just read the specs on this unit and while it does filter noise and has surge protection, it DOESNT trim overvoltage and boost undervoltage, which is what u would have needed in a broken neutral connection! Crazy how much those things cost and they dont even regulate voltage! I would check out the APC AVR units if u want something to regulate the voltage!

 

[Milton Shaw]

I have had to replace a couple of APC backup units that were tripping off all the time from a bad neutral at the transformer on the pole. The APC units would trip off sometimes every minute or so. Once the neutral was fixed the backup units would still trip without really having a problem as monitored by Fluke meters, so I had to replace them. I have them on computers, tv's and sound systems so I have several that have needed battery replacements over the years but the bad neutral got the whole unit in one or two cases.

 

[westom]

Crazy how much those things cost and they dont even regulate voltage!

Monster has a long history of identifying scams. Then selling an equivalent product for even higher prices. Because so many associate price with quality.

Essential to protecting from an open neutral is a good earth ground. It will not stop voltage variations. But will definitely limit voltages so that fire is not a risk.

In one venue, their earth ground was completely compromised. Eventually, electricity had to find another path. It used the gas meter. Fortunately no one was home when those gaskets failed and the house exploded.

Another indication of a defect is lights changing intensity especially when major appliances power cycle. Incandescent bulbs changing intensity implies a wire problem. In most cases, the problem is trivial. However it may also be reporting a failing or compromised neutral.

That changing intensity should not be ignored. Better is to ignore others who say changing intensity is acceptable.