Supply voltage

[jujubean]

Guys ...get this
Western Power deny there is anything wrong with a manky old transformer feeding 2 houses. This Transformer has been zapped by lightning god knows how many times.
Actually to be fair to western power it is down for renewal

Anyways voltage readings at the consumer is 235 ish.When kettle is plugged in it drops 5 volts...and another 5 volts when immersion heater is switched on.another 5 when electric oven is on and so on
with 4 high wattage appliances working I got the voltage down to 216 volts
Not good huh?..fast approaching dangerousely low value
Obviousely a problem with the supply characteristics...I am just wondering why this happens and hope the board's boffins can enlighten me as a point of interest
Cheers

 

[breezer]

so long as this doesnt happen.

its an american transformer.................well watch and see

 

[jujubean]

so long as this doesnt happen.

its an american transformer.................well watch and see

Lol but Western power would STILL deny it were faulty

 

[industryspark]

suppliers are aloud +10% -6% of stated voltage.....ie for a 230v supply anything between 216.2v and 253v is ok..... so they are probably correct in saying that nothing is wrong.

although 235 volts is probably below the average of what we often find.

one installation i worked at had a voltage of 258volts. the DNO man did offer to come and tap down the supply transformer which was on site but it never happened .

 

[plugwash]

you need to find out what your agreed max demand is (this will probablly be lower than your fuse rating), afaict the voltage is only gauranteed provided you stay within your agreed max demand.

once you know what your agreed max demand is load up the supply to that value and see if it is out of spec.

 

[Qedelec]

That reminds me of a call out I had when I worked in computers. It was to the site office of a well known road builder near Nottingham. The fault that was reported was the printer kept stopping. Could not make the fault happen on my visit and just to be thorough I checked the supply, you guessed it it was high (can't remember how high). when I mentioned this I was told "wonder if that is why they have had to send 3 TV's away for repair". the site was supplied from a genny and someone had failed to set the voltage. Some times you wonder why no one read the signs.