# Neutral problems causing PS blowout.



## Cycleops (Dec 6, 2014)

We've recently moved to a new house and after some few weeks it was evident there was a problem with the circuits in the house. The main fuse box became live,also one AC unit and nearly all the light bulbs blew. All sorted now and I was told it was a problem with the negative phase. Unfortunately it also blew the power supply on my NCE PowerCab. Would you think this has also affected the controller?


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

I can see how an errant neutral could result in possibly doubling the
voltage on your circuits and understand why bulbs etc. went pffft.

It's going to be iffy as to whether the over voltage to the NCE power
supply got thru it to your controller. Depends on how quickly
the power supply gave up the ghost.

Even tho built in 1958, my house had fuses when I moved in.
Full breaker protection now though.

Best of luck on that.

Don


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

This is a fairly common failure sad to say. I've experienced it in a minor fashion, and I've had two friends that have had fairly extensive damage for the same reason.

Problem: Power line neutral becomes open.

Symptoms: 110V voltages on one side of the 220V are too high, and the other side are too low. Any change in the 110V load on one side will change the ratio. If you have a high current 110V device switched on one side, you can significantly change the voltages on all the 110V outlets.

No way to know what happened to stuff plugged in, you were obviously on the high voltage side. The only way is to test it.


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

Happened to my neighbor, did a lot of damage that luckily the power company paid for - they had over/under voltage protection. I lost a phase one time at my house, but that did not do any damage. There is some protection against losing the neutral if your ground rod is in good shape, so one wants to make sure the ground rod has not corroded into nothing.


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## gregc (Apr 25, 2015)

Cycleops said:


> Would you think this has also affected the controller?


i'll guess that while the high AC voltage overpowered the transformer and may momentarily have provided a much higher than normal voltage to the regulator, that the regulator still maintained regulated output and probably blew before the regulation voltage was exceeded.

In other words, i'm guessing that you could replace the transformer and regulator (if you wanted to). You may only have to replace the wall wart if it provides some regulation.


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## Cycleops (Dec 6, 2014)

Thanks to all you guys. I have a wall wart PS on order from the UK and I'll see what happens when I connect it up. Fingers crossed. Can you believe the electrician didn't install a ground rod but its in now, maybe that would have avoided the problem.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

FWIW, the two guys that I know that had the neutral blowouts had what appeared to be properly installed ground rods. 

I know my house has the ground rod, and after the incident I had the power company verify it was properly installed. My voltages got to around 145V and 95v before I noticed something was amiss. Mine turned out to be a bad connection in the meter box that was allowing the neutral to float. Once I realized there was a problem and it was outside my power panel, I made sure the loads were balanced until the power company arrived to fix it. I had a couple of space heaters plugged into the high voltage side to balance the load until it was fixed.

I now have a set of meters on the wall in my shop that I can check the two 120V sides of the power at any time.


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## Cycleops (Dec 6, 2014)

I suspect something similar happened to me here. Everything here is 240v, the same as the UK. We've suffered shortages of power for years, but just recently they increased the tariffs by 50%, I suspect to buy in power so at least there is now very little interruption of supply.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

I've seen the rats nest of wires that seems to include power, telephone,
and cable hanging from streetside poles in so many countries. I don't know how
they keep anything working.

It's bad enough here now that there are power, phone and cables strung
along the streets but they are much better attached and organized.

I am so fortunate to have solid power service. While I have had a generator
for years, it has less then 2 hours running time on it. And my service is
from a pole, not underground.

Don


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## Cycleops (Dec 6, 2014)

I'm surprised you feel the need for a generator especially in the developed country like the US. I don't know of anyone in the UK who has one, they are only popular in rural areas and the more remote parts of Scotland.

Here the ECG(electricity company of Ghana) is jokingly known as ' electricity come and go'! Well in fact not jokingly!


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## bluenavigator (Aug 30, 2015)

Sorry to hear this. Hope that nobody has to go through this. *knock on the wood*

I did consider getting a generator in event of blackout, when I used to work at home. My work requires electric for the workstation computer and internet connection with VPN, connected to the headquarter in Florida. I had about 5 or 6 blackouts during 4 years of employment. During blackout, I could not work at all, just sit and wait for the electric to come back on. The blackouts varies from an hour to all day. No fun at all. I found out that one of the blackouts was caused by auto accident, hitting the telephone pole and caught on fire!


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Living in a semi-rural area, we have lots of overhead wires that go through heavily tree-lined areas, so the generator is a very useful item to have. When hurricane Sandy came through a couple of years ago, power was out for three days! I was mighty glad to have the generator. We had water, sewer, sump pumps, the fridge, lights, and even Internet and TV. The only thing missing was the heat pumps, good thing it wasn't too cold. Not enough power for the heat pumps, so the wood stove and fireplace had to do the heating.  

I can go a year without needing the generator, but when the high winds come through, there are times a tree takes down a powerline, then I need the generator.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

I'm a spoiled brat. I don't like to sit around in the dark with no lights,
no TV, no computer, no trains and I could afford the generator. For me, it's an
insurance policy against boredom. Now that I'm getting (got) old and lazy I'm planning to
trade it for a fully automatic power transfer natural gas fueled system
that will run my heat pump or AC.

Most of us in the US do have fairly a stable power source, but it's
surprising how many people do have generators here in Jacksonville.
All of the big Publix Super markets have generators as do many other
businesses. I seem to recall that there is a Florida State law that major
gas stations have generators so they can provide fuel during an
outage. The big box stores have a wide array of choices at reasonable prices.

Don


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

The US doesn't have a very reliable power grid, that's common knowledge. We need some major improvements.


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