Do you smell smoke??

[Jff24Gordn]

OK, I was on the net lookin around today at around 2. I herd a loud POP and the lights started to flicker. I killed the switch on the surge protector to keep my computer from having too many problems with low voltage. My sis was in the living room and watching TV. I can see it from where I am sitting. I look over there and the VCR is smoking pretty hard. Then the TV starts to smoke real hard. I got them unplugged fast and carried them outside. The result is one fried GE 36" tv, one cheep vcr, direct tv reciever. The DVD player dont appear to be tore up. It also fried my surge protector for my computer. Nobody else had this hit them, so it must be from near the house. The electric co came out and their end was fine.

I am thinking the VCR got a short (lots of critters in the house) and fried and backfed power through the antenna into the tv and direct tv. From there, the TV dumped the capacitors out into the house power and my surge protector picked that up and dumped it to the ground.

I just bought a nice APC 725VA UPS for the computer this evening. Does anybody else here agree or have any ideas on what happened? Also, we have more than one transformer/meter at the end on my driveway. There was a digital clock on one of the other meters and it didnt lose track of time, but the ones in the house did.

 

[jrobinson2]

A problem with the neutral wire somewhere between the power company's transformer and the distribution panel will cause a problem like that. In my case the voltage went to 210 volts on one leg and 80 volts on the other under load, when everything was turned off it returned to 120/120. We ended up ruining everything with a low voltage transformer on the side that went high, clocks,tv vcr,stereo,ect. I my case it was a broken neutral wire on the power company's transformers.

Jared

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Keep in mind that you most likely bought a standby UPS. Your computer runs on line power just like if it was plugged into a surge suppresor until power goes out and then it switches over to battery power. That is different than an online UPS where your computer is always pulling power from the battery and the AC is charging the battery. Online UPS's are a lot more expensive - at least double.

 

[willyslover]

might check your insurance for coverage on the dammaged items also...



I use a Tripp Lite OmniSmart UPS that does the run on the battery and charge battery as Steve talkes about [of course that was after a lightning shot that took out some things here LOL]... it has two rows of plug outlets. . switched and non switched. . a couple hundred buck for it

 

[illflem]

Jared, is right about the neutral failing. The neutral to my shop went out, what happens is power flows though anything that is turned on back to neutral so the power still works. Problem is the voltage can vary from 0 all the way up to almost 220 depending on what type/how many appliances the power is flowing though.

When mine went out it was weird, shop lights would go brighter rather than the normal dimmer when turning on a high amp drawing tool such as a grinder.



The easy way to tell if the neutral has failed is to unplug everything that uses power then plug just one thing in, if it doesn't work the neutral has likely failed.

 

[bighammer]

I think it's the input shaft.

 

[Cummins4Life]

Had a similar experience. The ground wire on the power line from the street to the house wore in half on a neighbors tree. Seemed like every electrical appliance that was "on" at the time was overjuiced and surged for a second or two then all the power went out. Fried the TV, VCR, microwave, refrigerator, and poped a few light bulbs. :{

 

[Jff24Gordn]

Ive been playin with my multimeter and the power is holding when I play with turning stuff on. So I guess it was a bad case of cat hair in the VCR and then it fried the TV and satilite.

I assume its a standby UPS. But it doesnt flicker if I unplug it from the wall, so I guess its good enough.