Power Cap.

[hemigreg426]

i been fooling for years with power factor correction caps. in my home.
I have big squear D units at my washer/dryer. one on my boiler ckts ,one on my workshop area and one for whole house at main feed along with 500 amp inductor. for no real reason other than I like to play with this stuff and drive my local utility crazy by reporting to them every lag,freq drift, noise on line and and offset. yes im retired and dont have better suff to do besided work on my 5 us patents and future medical RF and audio modulated signals to enhance dopamine and serotonin non invasivaley.
anyway the caps make a big difference at startup surge for a few micro secs of coarse. but now im going to add one to my refridge and microwave cause both still give me a quick start drop till rotors are moving.
I changed all my bulbs to LED and they are great but I can see this instaneous drop of line voltage as a blink off and on with lamps on the same branch line as the kitchen
The other way down the other branches dont help cause of the long wire losses and inductance, Im thinking 40uf AC motor run cap self healing 480 volts to be way safr added to each.
what do you think.

 

[kellys_eye]

Whatever floats your boat.

 

[WHONOES]

Are you sure it is legal to mess around with such stuff on your system. It's not in the UK.

 

[kellys_eye]

??? You can do whatever you want on the consumer side of a UK consumer unit. The distributors only have 'control' up the the fuse/meter. After that it's none of their business what you do!

The issue of PF correction is, however, coming to rise since the introduction of Smart Meters whereby they can discern between real and apparent power consumption and can (although they currently don't) charge you for the 'lost' power.

 

[Bluejets]

This is not strictly correct.
Think you will find that even though there are some things one can do, there is still a need for checking by registered lecky and issue of notification.
As most won't touch that with a 40 ft pole because of how it just leaves one completely open to getting ones arse sued, therein lies the problem.
Seems open to interpretation as well which, as we have found in Aus is a dangerous road to go down.
As an example, diagrams that explicitly defined details have been replaced by descriptions and it depends how one reads it as to the interpretation.
As well known, this can make the decision biased whichever way.
I would not be surprised if the UK diy attitude is knocked on the head in the near future and good riddance too.
Things I've seen done by these home reno drongos would make your hair curl.
I would not be surprised if the Op intention is to make his meter go backwards.

 

[hemigreg426]

yep all legal plus i was licensed in my county for electric.
had an inspector come one time after permitting a new shed/shop and he was blown away with the milspec wiring,and panels and monitoring equipt and loads of safety gear. The utility guys call me once in a wile to check in on their readings from nearby wireless power quality transmittors., from a commercial 3 phase feed.
Im so bothered by the now prevelent switching noise carried on the old 60hz sinewave. cant get a nice clean sine anywhere now. all have the inverter chop riding them. a huge HVDC feed from new jersey was put in 10 years ago and I can read the RF noise from the substation IGBT inverters at my house with a parabolic dish focused 5 miles away. thats why I added a choke/inductor to my house feed back then.

 

[hemigreg426]

I would not be surprised if the Op intention is to make his meter go backwards.

nope bluejet, i have no consideration for effect on meter ,im sure it wont change ,theres no physics to eddy currents dimishing in a few microsecs amd the mass spinning gears also delta in that time frame
please only respond with science

 

[Bluejets]

Look it up....

 

[kellys_eye]

This is not strictly correct.
Think you will find that even though there are some things one can do, there is still a need for checking by registered lecky and issue of notification.

That's only if you make adjustments or changes to the WIRING (installation). Putting a PF correction capacitor on the equipment plugged into the system is 'your choice/problem' and no-one need know nor would they care.

The only 'true' check the distributors make is for a proper earth on the system. If they don't measure a proper earth they won't connect the supply.

You can even (in the UK anyway) make SIMPLE changes to the system on a like-for-like basis (such as replacing a light switch or socket plate) without getting 'notification' or clarification.

Otherwise - anything goes.

 

[hemigreg426]

im not worried about the utility, im liscenced and know code and keep within it always.
anyone else see the Led problem ongoing? the new flash is same from moment dim at inductive starts all over the house. my big tesla oil plays havoc too with tthe pole pig online i use 4000uf caps x10 onthe line side.

 

[kellys_eye]

anyone else see the Led problem ongoing?

.... in what way is it a problem?

If it was costing you money or creating issues that were 'of concern' then I'd probably seek to do something about it. As it is........ meh....

 

[hemigreg426]

the prob is the moment Led bulb flash when the inrush starts the microwave and refrige. on those lines. I scope them with saved waveforms and like guessing seat of pants fix before the engineer in me starts calculating actual values-too much brain pain at this point, i just had a crainamoty and brain surgery in feb.
all my other Pfc's did their job well. each "local PFC" unit is only $11 to build(inductor/Cap)
with bnc for scope tracking.

 

[kellys_eye]

Yes, but what is your PF correction achieving? Are you billed for actual power or corrected power consumption? You are spending money unnecessarily fixing an issue you aren't (I presume) being billed for.

 

[hemigreg426]

you dont get it, I dont care what the billing and or consumption is.
I only care in what is the stability and quality of the line feed power to all of my home items that use electric.
and yes I also had some huge inverters awile back with real clean dc to ac 60cyc with 4 8D 1000amp/hr batts trickleed charged from the dirty line.
Its all for science cause I can do it not really an answer why. As a troubleshooter i look for ananomolites in everything and look to fix it and yes I do the same for humans with 3 Psych patents.

 

[kellys_eye]

I only care in what is the stability and quality of the line feed power to all of my home items that use electric.

Washer/driers and LED lights couldn't care less what they get........

If you actually have harmonically-sensitive equipment then I can see the point but even then, 99% of any equipment will have it's own PSU with the appropriate filtering and regulation making the 'input' supply requirement pretty non-critical.

Of course, I don't have a horse in this race so what you do is your business and good luck in your efforts.

 

[hemigreg426]

 

[kellys_eye]

I don't see the relevance. Nothing you do - or even hundreds of thousands of connected consumers - could result in what that (fake) picture shows.

 

[hemigreg426]

no rel. just cool photoshopped pic. I did reactor startups and was at Shoreham Ny for defueling process

 

[hemigreg426]

well ive been thinking about the relivance, that happened cause cooling pumps were shut to test stability and when they couldnt restart them in time it ran away, not enough time to drop the rods to absorb the neturons and it overheated and began to melt, sooo motor starting up from inrush overloaded the backup safety breakers and all was down hill from there. thats why USA has whats called in MILSPEC battel design rules that have NO openable links on critical systems so no matter what current flows. no heaters on safety motor starts from emergancy generators cause its either burn up the electric circuits or risk total failure. you know all fighter planes and bombers etc do this too. for all their critical cirkts. plus triple redundancy.
geez ive got too much spare time nowadays. LOL