snow and hum

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Philip Spinner

1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Joined
Apr 8, 2007
Messages
1,279
Location
Southwest Connecticut
Perhaps one of the tech people here can answer this. As many here know we just had a big snowstorm here in the northeast. By the time the storm was winding down I developed a hum in my sub woofer. It lasted for a day and a half and now is completely gone. I can only guess that the snow had something to do with it. I have cable so perhaps that was involved somehow. There also was a major power outage in a nearby large city. Any thoughts.
Phil
 
Quick guess, a poor cable TV ground where the cable comes in, or maybe a serious ground problem at the power company. Cable ground connects to the system and presumably there is a system ground through the third wire earth. If the two are at different potentials there will be a ground loop, or induced voltage between two points in the system that should both be 0 volts ground. If it happens again disconnect the CATV cable and see if it changes. Very common problem. CATV ground gets all kinds of induced voltage and it has to drain to ground outside, it should be at the pole and there is a secondary ground rod at the house.
 
Hope you have that guy on a good surge protector. I'm sure you were getting excessive power sent down the line. AC power is unreliable and for electronics, computers and other sensitive equipment. There is too much fluctuation, example, if you are in a room with lights on, and they will dim when an appliance is turned on. The appliance is starting and uses more power to start, once it's going it uses less. This happens on the entire block, or where the transformer is feeding the homes. It will go up and down, and the only control is to add a power conditioner. If it goes off during a storm, unplug all your shit! When it returns it surges, and this will fry an AVR-TV. PC amps, anything electronic. My aunt had her stove fry, it was all digital.
A good trick is get a inexpensive AC power meter, and watch it go up and down. AC is rated at 110-115 volts, It will exceed 115 often is short bursts, and the amps will go up. Then drop below 110.
When they had no power, you were getting overflow, this is why the humming.
 
Oh great. We just bought a new electric range. It has a fancy digital control panel so now we've got to worry about those electronics frying.

Another warning. Don't ever connect any electronics to a back-up generator unless the generator has an integral inverter to smooth out the power. My friend hooked up a small flat screen TV to an inverterless generator and ended up carrying it out the door with smoke coming out of it.
 
Oh great. We just bought a new electric range. It has a fancy digital control panel so now we've got to worry about those electronics frying.

Another warning. Don't ever connect any electronics to a back-up generator unless the generator has an integral inverter to smooth out the power. My friend hooked up a small flat screen TV to an inverterless generator and ended up carrying it out the door with smoke coming out of it.

They are also very easy to overload too much draw will burn a gen out. good to know about power, like extension cords, I caught my stupid friend using a lamp cord with an a/c. Easy way to start a fire. The cord must be rated to the appliance.
 
Thanks to all for the answers. All my stuff is on surge protectors so I think I have that covered. After noticing the hum I shut everything off thinking I may have lost a phase or something. Yesterday after all my snow shoveling was done I fired everything back up and the hum is now gone. Still a mystery what happened. My cable ground seems to be ok.
 
Thanks to all for the answers. All my stuff is on surge protectors so I think I have that covered. After noticing the hum I shut everything off thinking I may have lost a phase or something. Yesterday after all my snow shoveling was done I fired everything back up and the hum is now gone. Still a mystery what happened. My cable ground seems to be ok.

brothers and sisters; please remember the existence of U.P.S.s...
I know that you live in CIVILIZED countries (where there are basically no blackouts nor "brownouts") ..as opposed to me...they are great investment...

AND thank you (honestly)for your observation that SNOW is a HUM producer..at least in those latitudes---this is what makes this Forum so cool..very informative.....

:smokin
 
A good trick is get a inexpensive AC power meter, and watch it go up and down. AC is rated at 110-115 volts, It will exceed 115 often is short bursts, and the amps will go up. Then drop below 110.

I upgraded a bunch of cheap UPSes for a couple of massive ones here in my computer a few months back. It has a little LED screen that cycles through a bunch of status information, including the current voltage. At the moment it claims 119 volts, but I routinely see it go to 122. I thought maybe it was just overstating things, but I had to have an electrician out here last week and when I looked over his shoulder while he tested the circuit breakers he was consistently getting 122 as well.

And just in the time it took to type the above it's dropped down to 116 volts.

Shout out to the Europeans wondering why I'm only getting half the voltage I should. :)
 
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