Power Issue with my Machine Shop

I can cook, I can bake, I can weld, I can sew, I can CNC, etc. What I'm short on is patience for a woman bitching at me - "Out damn woman!" would come up in just minutes.

Pete C.

Reply to
Pete C.
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Sounds like its the power company's problem. A Bridgeport mill doesn't draw that much current. My central AC unit probably draws more.

Tony

Reply to
Tony

Heh. Mine goes to conferences overseas. I go tool shopping while she's away. In the end I was running out of space in the basement shop (30' x

45') so I bought 3.5 acres of land and have a fruitful relationship with an interstate freight company; they pick up whatever I've bought and deliver it to my other place. No dramas at all. What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over.

PDW

Reply to
Peter

A 200 A service at 240 V delivers 48 KW. Throwing in even a small allowance for power factor brings it to 50 KVA. So, the

25 KVA transformer is barely able to supply the OP's OWN 100 A service alone. Putting 3 houses with 100 A service on one 25 KVA transformer is really marginal. I find it hard to believe that 3 houses were running off one 5 KVA transformer. You could only get about 20 A from that small a transformer. It would most likely have a 25 A secondary breaker on it. If anybody has an electric range, dryer or central air, it would pop that breaker real fast.

I have a 200 A service, and my OWN 50 KVA transformer on the pole. All single phase, for sure. 25 KVA is by no means a special or industrial level of service.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

Bitchy women and ill-behaved children are sorely vexing to be sure. I think the key is to not tolerate it -- but that takes considerable endurance during the training period and still some resolve ever after. Persuasion works well, bitching is decidedly counterproductive.

That cuts both ways, by the way... I've been trained too. My babe is incredibly tolerant and generous, but it is a very bad idea to seriously piss her off. Bitching is a behavior of one who is (or feels) dominated or subordinate without respect. Who but a Scotsman would want a sheep for a partner?

Ya know ya got a good mate when you're pleased to see her buy a pistol she really likes!

Reply to
Don Foreman

Reply to
Carbonite

Thats what NYSEG told me and when that transformer was on the lights really dimmed out bad, I would say 40 percent when I turned on the mill. The 25 kva did help and isn't as bad. Maybe the soft start maybe an option. They also told me if I wanted my own transformer I would have to pay for it.

Thanks

J> >

Reply to
Carbonite

You have to realize a few things:

1) A "200A" electrical service is not allowed by code to be loaded to 200A continuously, and in the real world will spend most of it's time with a load under 20A.

2) Utility grade transformers are rated to handle a 100% overload (i.e.

50KVA on a 25KVA transformer) for 24 hours without damage. This is not the same as regular dry type commercial transformers.

3) There are load diversity allowances since the three houses are quite unlikely to max out their services at the same time.

I share a 25KVA transformer with one neighbor. I've not noted (nor has my UPS's log noted) any power dips even when I'm using my large TIG welder that pulls close to 100A at 240V. Not even the slightest blink when starting the rotary phase converter for my Bridgeport.

If you're seeing a significant drop from a small load like a Bridgeport,

*do not* waste your money paying for a new dedicated transformer, the problem is with the primary lines feeding your area, not the transformer.

Pete C.

Reply to
Pete C.

Unless you have a real money making business, you *do not* want "real" three phase power. Not that real three phase power isn't nice to have, the problem is that in most areas three phase commercial service is peak metered so you'll get really screwed paying for the peaks from your welder even though most of the time there is hardly any load. Much cheaper to use VFDs and RPCs on KWH metered single phase service.

Pete C.

Reply to
Pete C.

I was wondering last night on the way to work about the effects of adding a flywheel to an idler motor (phantom). Assuming you decoupled the flywheel on startup to avoid the serious load of spinning one up and clutched it in gradually after the motor was up to speed, would the flywheel, fully connected, help dampen the current draw at the mains seen when spinning up a load from a standstill.

Wes S

Reply to
clutch

On the other hand -- yesterday I helped a friend install a 20HP rotary kompressor (just a giant vacuum cleaner motor) for his NC router. During inrush, it pulls about 90A on PH1-PH2 (measured at the service side of his rotary converter), and about 80 on the manufactured phase.

The incoming service drops to 203V across PH1-PH2 (at the utility side of the main) during the startup inrush.... too low to meet specs, but the power company says that's all they're going to provide. Our local tarrifs call for a minimum of 210V at 100A. They don't give a damn if it meets spec. or not, so long as most residents don't complain.

He's on a 25KVA can shared between two homes.

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Wes, I think that it is a great idea, kind of a little bit complicated to implement practically, but very sound. A similar effect can be achieved electrically by means of having several idlers, to be started in succession. That's what I do on my converter, it has two idlers, 10 and 7.5 HP.

i
Reply to
Ignoramus11550

Get a power line logger or dig scope and appropriate probes, document the issue and send the documentation certified mail to the utility and cc'd to the utilities state regulatory commission.

Pete C.

Reply to
Pete C.

Check the regs carefully before making too much noise. In this area the power company can refuse to supply power to single phase motors larger than 5HP (or maybe it's 10HP). I've never heard of that rule being enforced, but I wouldn't want to be in the position of demanding that the power company deliver a specified voltage to a load when they have the option of simply refusing to feed it at all.

Ned Simmons

Reply to
Ned Simmons

============ Actually why should he do anything? It's not his problem. If the neighbors have a problem let them take it up with the electric company.

Unka' George (George McDuffee) .............................. Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be "too clever by half." The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters.

John Major (b. 1943), British Conservative politician, prime minister. Quoted in: Observer (London, 7 July 1991).

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

And she lets you borrow it to shoot from time to time.

Wes S

Reply to
clutch

"Staged" rotary phase conversion. Did it. Luv it. Weighted idler is great idea, too. Might be easier to do it with a cammed pulley--sorta like how Kalamazoo "raises" the motor to allow a belt change. Picture's worth millions of words. Start the idler, w/ a loose belt, then w/ a lever, which could mebbe just tighten an "idler pulley", like on yer car, engage the flywheel, manually, off and apart from the motor itself, making things sort of modular.

Reply to
Proctologically Violated©®

Do a little looking and you can easily find out where the voltage drop is hitting the system - He may have a 200A Service on the house with 3/0 Copper going up to the weatherhead, which is fine and dandy. And the 25 KVA can is probably enough...

But if the power utility is feeding the house with #6 Aluminum triplex drop wire with a #6 ACSR support strand neutral, and the secondary leads between poles are #2 AL for two or three spans to the transformer, there's where you are getting all the voltage drop.

You may have to do some serious screaming to the utility regulators in your state, but you can get the utility to clean up their side.

I'm finishing up a service upgrade now, and I swear they've got #8 AL drop wire for the old 100A service.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Think they were trying to both provide power to the house and provide mood lighting to the yard from the glowing drop?

Pete C.

Reply to
Pete C.

That, and they were looking to make their pool parties more exciting if and when the service drop ever broke - the old drop wire routing for the C. 1960 house goes right over the C. 1965 swimming pool...

I've requested a mid-span attachment when they upgrade their half, let's see if SoCal Edison will do it right the first time.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

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