Catastrophic Power Surge

[bigleo48]

Phase loss protection is not going to protect against spikes, transients etc that hit the electronics.

Yeah...that was the other part of my post about the whole service surge suppressor. You can now hang one off your 3 phase service for as little as $2k. About 15 years ago I had some installed at a large computer room at work...cost was almost $50k!

 

[wash4me]

How are surge protectors rated and what size do I need?

 

[bigleo48]

I'd have an electrician sort that out. Maybe just protecting some circuits may be the better route.

 

[MEP001]

http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_lhm/surge.html

 

[2Biz]

FWIW...I did some experimenting awhile back with putting a Standard UPS on my Bill Changer since I was having problems with the circuit breaker tripping on the controller. One thing for sure, the changer didn't like it when running in backup off the UPS. It went nuts....I called technical service for the UPS and the technician quickly told me I needed a Pure Sine Wave UPS which is about 5 times more expensive...I bought one anyway, and all is good. I haven't had problems with my changer since.

I also have a standard UPS on my DVR and camera system. For these small items, I wouldn't turn it in to insurance if they did get damaged. The insurance company's around here will raise your rates and then some to cover their loss...So I try to protect my equipment the best I can. The surge protectors I use have joule ratings of over 4000 to help protect the equipment...The higher the joule rating the better it will protect your equipment.

 

[washme1]

FWIW...I did some experimenting awhile back with putting a Standard UPS on my Bill Changer since I was having problems with the circuit breaker tripping on the controller. One thing for sure, the changer didn't like it when running in backup off the UPS. It went nuts....I called technical service for the UPS and the technician quickly told me I needed a Pure Sine Wave UPS which is about 5 times more expensive...I bought one anyway, and all is good. I haven't had problems with my changer since.

I also have a standard UPS on my DVR and camera system. For these small items, I wouldn't turn it in to insurance if they did get damaged. The insurance company's around here will raise your rates and then some to cover their loss...So I try to protect my equipment the best I can. The surge protectors I use have joule ratings of over 4000 to help protect the equipment...The higher the joule rating the better it will protect your equipment.

I will be installing a device to protect against power surges and one to protect against loss of three phase.

 

[JGinther]

I will be installing a device to protect against power surges and one to protect against loss of three phase.

Thats good.... But now you won't have a power surge or single phasing issue... Instead you will have a surge suppressor fail and kill power to your machine on a saturday, or your phase monitor relay will fail open... Your not allowed to win.

 

[2Biz]

Your not allowed to win.

That pretty much sums it up!

 

[mmurra]

Question - does underground electric service improve the odds against lightning surges?

 

[rph9168]

I was once told underground service was less likely to have a surge due to lightning although it was still a possibility.

 

[washme1]

I don't know why my overload didn't kick out. I am waiting for a quote on phase loss and power surge protection devices. Have no idea what to expect in cost.

 

[bigleo48]

Depending on the grounding absorption in your area, it may be good or bad...so no real advantage there. The advantage comes from aesthetics (no poles and hanging wires) and physical protection. However underground service is more difficult to install and access.

The biggest issue in grounding and absorption. Most big computer rooms will have sophisticated grounding systems. First, the will ensure that the ground is good (they would use a megert (spelling?!) to measure ground quality). In the case of bad grounding (like in rocky areas or in permafrost), the may have to create a way to absorb surges.

Then they typically will have 2 or 3 grounds in the room. The first would be a HALO ground. So they would have a ring around the building, above all the equipment. This would have the effect of making all the equipment look like it was underground (thus less likely to propagate a surge through it). Then they would have a system ground for all the equipment that would bond to a common ground.

When dealing with electronics, don't forget other sources of ingress. I managed a large center that was taken out by a lightning strike to the ground near the underground telco wiring. The surge entered the building and blew everything three equipment hops deep. The irony is that it was a fiber optic cable. The metal conductor in the cable was only to be used for locating and not for grounding, but it was bonded to the telco ground by mistake. The telco ground was poor and so the surge propagated by the communications wiring.

I had problems where the electrical service came in on a different pole line that the telco service...there was 60Vac difference between both grounds...so any equipment needed telco and power had big problems.

So one easy thing you can do...is go to any grounding point with an amp clamp and see if you can measure any current on the ground. There should not be any...if there is investigate where its coming from by switching off or disconnecting equipment.

Ask an electrician what the grounding is like in your area...is it very rocky? That would be bad and could be a symptom of your problems.

 

[Randy]

Washme1,
Has anyone determined what the cause of this catastrophic power surge was?

 

[cwguy.com]

I don't know why my overload didn't kick out. I am waiting for a quote on phase loss and power surge protection devices. Have no idea what to expect in cost.

I did a site for someone who sales a 3 phase surge protector and phase balancing thing. (I'm not selling anything here!) I think the price was 8-12k? Carwash.com sent a bulk email from a similar product months ago also....

 

[mjwalsh]

So one easy thing you can do...is go to any grounding point with an amp clamp and see if you can measure any current on the ground. There should not be any...if there is investigate where its coming from by switching off or disconnecting equipment..

Bigleo48,

Do you know where some of us could buy a specific clamp ammeter on that go low enough in amperage to be effective? I have used my Amprobe Brand for over 25 years now ... but for the minuscule amperage ... it is too high of a range. I found a few meters & accessories to some multimeters but every time ... it appears to be really expensive. Your idea is a good one ... but the expense of the devices that I have been looking at does make them less attractive.

mike

 

[cwguy.com]

Do you know where some of us could buy a specific clamp ammeter on that go low enough in amperage to be effective?

If you can't find a cheap enough meter purchase an Uni-Trend?

 

[cmawash]

we have had 2 very major electrical shunts in last 6 years at two locations first shunt occurred when one wire broke on a SCE power company transmission line broke and hit a vacuum with 11000 volts, causing a back feed thru the vacuum. thru the 3 phase in the transformer blowing it up and resulting in at least 7 separate fires in the car wash equipment. Insurance settled for 0.25 cents on the dollar as the utility bragged that's what they would pay. got reimbursed 3 years later from insurance company

Second shunt occurred july last year. a drunk illegal speeding over 80 mph missed a curve and hit a pad mounted transformer with 16000 volts knocking it 6 feet off the pad and shorting every piece of equipment at the car wash and knocking out power in a 40 block area. Insurance company hired a electrican contractor who 30 minutes at the car wash, who said the electrical problem was caused a the main breaker not tripping.( our problem)
being an electrical engineer I went balastic and forced the insurance to hire an independent electrical to evalate the damage. #1 the main breaker is rated at 600 volts as is the whole electrical system in the car wash. 600 volt system vs a 16000 volt 22000 amps nullified the breaker question, also when the transformer shorted wires were the neutral was supplied with 16000 volts. an electrical arc jumps 1 " for every 10,000 volts. Its easy to see how much damage can be caused to components running on 5 to 24 volts. during utility company repair work under ground wires were repaired from trans former to car wash, meter blew itself off the meter panel and 3 months later utility was out again to replace 5 blocks of under grounding wire due to original shunt. and the drunk driver was never charge with drunk driving, taken to the hospital and let loose and left the state, never to be charged. total damage about quarter of a million

 

[bigleo48]

Mike,

I use a Fluke multimeter with a separate amp clamp....had it for years. Yeah they can be expensive, but I have found that with tools, it can always be justified.

You're really trying to measure above a quarter amp or so. Your looking for big problems. At work, I found a Cisco Switch that dumped six amps to ground at -48VDC! We had a few of these at different locations and they all did it. Cisco said it was designed that way!! I said "by who...idi0ts!" With DC, that can be very dangerous!

The infrared camera survey may very well be worth the money too. Don't need to buy it, just find a contractor who has one to come spend an hour looking for hot spots. You'll be amazed at what they find. For me they found numerous bad electrical connections and a super hot electronics control board. All of which would have become a problem eventually.

But I agree with an earlier post about finding the root of the problem. The carwash that blew up near mine had several issues that a local electrician told me about, that exacerbated his problem. Like his main disconnect had cheap (read slow) fuses. Hiw system was badly layed out, not installed by electricians...the inspection was bad...etc

 

[Buzzie8]

I had a similar situation with a lightning strike. My insurance paid for all including business interruption. If by chance yours does pay, make sure you check electronics in your floor heat boilers as well (if you have one). I missed this because it happened in summer and had to pay out of pocket for the repair once I realized it later in the year. Hope it works out OK for you.
Buzzie

 

[mjwalsh]

Mike,

I use a Fluke multimeter with a separate amp clamp....had it for years. Yeah they can be expensive, but I have found that with tools, it can always be justified.

You're really trying to measure above a quarter amp or so. Your looking for big problems.

Bigleo48,

I know I am getting a wee bit off of the focus on the catastrophic topic with the various horrific causes ... but problems can also be caused from "much less stray current in grounding" in other ways also. In our laundromat ... in some of my commercial dryers (all of which have small Intel chips on their control printed circuit boards) ... are very vulnerable to leaky ground current. I know that ... because a suspected intermittently crashing bad chip (main control board) will often work perfect in a dryer with lesser grounding issues. I just bought some 6A CORCOM EMI filters ... thinking they possibly will do some good used just in the electronic control portion of the circuit. The Corcom EMI filter has a ground wire on both sides along with a neutral & a hot on both sides.

Do you think that the following $145 tiny current AC/DC CLAMP ON AMMETER could be helpful tracking down a ground that is not functioning properly??? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sq2WRGPABw I came real close to getting a higher end true RMS Fluke Multimeter with a clamp on accessory a few years ago ... probably similar to what you have ...

mike