If anyone was wondering where I have been, I have been wallowing in the area of No Computer Access.
My computer was taken out by a 11kV fault down the road, that meant that the Xformer short-circuited and fed 11kV down the LV wires, all of us in the same block here, lost most of our appliances and switch-boards.
I'm still arguing with the Insurance company over a few appliances, but I'm just glad to be back on line.
I lost my power supply, modem, mother-board and monitor.
What really annoys me is the fact that the Surge Diverter I installed a few years ago, only protects against Lightning and didn't trip.
The switchboard melted and I have been rewiring the house after work each day.
I realise that this may be a one-off thing (I'm hoping it is), but there should be a better way of protecting yourself against this sort of thing, don't you think?.

perhaps going off grid?

sorry to hear of your troubles Trumpy, i must say though....
ya can't keep a good poster down around here, do carry on ...

~S~

..Trumpy, when you speak of "switchboards",are you referring to CB panels??? and if so,the breakers actually melted??...

Trumpy,

Most Happy to see You!

Sorry to hear about your troubles over there. Glad to have you back.


Bill

Glad to have you back Trumpy -- We were wondering where you'd been!

Took ya long enough

What, don't you have a spare xformer in the shed out back? You could've loaned it to 'em for a few days...

Whow, sounds dangerous...
dod you take any pictures? Id be interested to see what stuff (panel ect) looks like after an 11kV strike.

Yea, Andy beat me to it. I was going to say if you took any pictures we would be glad to see them.

hi trumpy , glad to see ya back. sorry to hear about your trouble.can't the power company be held responsible for the damages?over here we hold them responsible. we had a brown out one morning.got up cut the liights on looked like candles burning, grabed my meter to check the voltage & it was 61 volts instead of 123.a friend at works central air unit was burnt out by this. the power company paid for a new compressor & a few other things in his house. this lasted for about an hour. come to find out thata switch yard that feeds the substations had a bad transformer.

It looks as though we might be suffering some brown-outs in my area later tonight, as the voltage has been sagging a little since about 3 p.m.

Nothing too bad yet, but my line voltage has been sitting around 220V for the last half hour, and has now dropped to 217V.

OK, confess now! How many of you do exactly what I did and run for your meter when the lights start dimming and flickering a little?

Paul,

I just look for the Flashlight ...

Bill

Good to see you back online, Mike. Around here, a primary-to-secondary fault in a distribution transformer is called a “line cross.” Is it possible to get some recourse through the serving utility? There is almost nothing that will prevent damage in the case you describe, short of unplugging everything prior to the fault—which, of course is impossible because one can’t predict the future.

Legally, I don’t know business practices in NZ, but the utility at very least has a moral responsibility to reimburse you for lost equipment and time you spent getting it back up and running. Good luck in your efforts.

Bill, am I the only one left here who still futzes around with a kerosene lantern when the lights go out?

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 12-25-2003).]

It must have been a short-lived problem. Around 4:30 p.m. the lights suddenly came up brighter and when I looked at the meter the line was up to 238V. No problems since!

Trumpy,
If nothing else, couldn't you get the PoCo for failing to maintain the supply within required tolerances? I'd say 6kV+ is a little out of tolerance for a 240V supply...

Attic Rat,
Yes, a switch-board is what us New Zealanders refer to a CB Panel as.
andy,Mean Gene,
Sorry, but I really got time to take any pictures, I was more concerned with re-instating the supply to my and all the other houses on the blocks around here.
But the Tranny is still in the yard at work, I'll see if I can get some pics of it on Monday morning, it's not looking very happy!.
Bjarney,
I agree, there is no predicting an occurence like this one, nothing short of leaving your Main Switch off, until you need to use some power, would minimise the chances of it happening.
With regard to liability, the Lines company responded an assessor to check out the damage on Xmas Eve and I am told that they will fully re-imburse everyone for all property, etc lost (as they should!).
I gave the Line Crew a hand to change over the Xformers and it was so hot that you could have put it in your Lounge and heated the whole room, but the thing never burst into flames during the fault.
BTW, a Line Cross is called a Blow-Over, here.
Paul,
At least the Lines Co couldn't be accused of lack supply voltage.
Just think how quick you could cook a Turkey in an 11kV oven! .

Power outages and HV cable faults are taken VERY seriously over here, especially after the big outage in Auckland, a few years back, the media usually get a good chance to lambast whoever is responsible, even if they don't know who exactly that is.

Mike;
That really sucks!!! Terrible loss of equipment! Very glad that nobody was hurt during the scenario!

I imagine the PC you finally got working was killed from the introduction of 11 KV + 230 V? If it did, man that machine is
Possessed!

As to the Brownouts and Blackouts;
We had momentary Blackouts on Christmas day. Happened twice - about 15 minutes apart. Each was reset within 5 seconds.
High winds and rain brought down Tree Limbs, which screwed up things on Primaries in the next neighborhood over (same
feeder, just Isolated by cut-outs).

When something is going to happen, we get a little "precursor" notice, in the form of Audio Hum. The Audio Amp on my PC has
an AC hum problem, which I have suppressed as much as possible. It's lowest noise level is when system is stable. When AC
Voltage raises or lowers, the hum increases dramatically - hence gives us a ½ second warning of "Weirdness To Come".

During the Disneyland and City of Anaheim projects, we had a few nasty Brownout scenarios come our way!
Those were the worst I had ever seen.

Anyhow, how did the Turkey end up, when cooked via a high voltage Resistance oven?

Scott35

Trumpy:

I realise that this may be a one-off thing (I'm hoping it is), but there should be a better way of protecting yourself against this sort of thing, don't you think?.

Not sure how they would work over there but they are supposed to be good to 6000 volts

http://www.surgex.com/

GlennH,
Thanks for the link, mate.
While I was looking at the site I read some of the FAQ's and I can't help but find the answers a little hard to fathom, I don't know, it must be just the way I read them?.
Scott35,
I was just kidding around when I mentioned that 11kv oven.
At that level of energy, I reckon you'd burn the bird in a matter of micro-seconds!.

The Auckland blackout even made the news here in Britain, and believe me it's not very often that we hear anything about New Zealand on our news!

Why not go here and find out?
http://www.voltnet.com/humor/cook/index.shtml

NJwirenut,
That has to be the most hard-case website I've seen in a while!.
Thanks for that link, mate.

Glad you liked it! I really got a kick out of the "Furby Dielectric Stress Test" myself...

voltnet is really funny, and the webmaster is a nice guy. he helped me when looking for information on old carnbon stick arc lamps, as his greatgreatgrandfather or so was the inventor