Voltage Regulator

[wreck-it-steve]

Hi,

I want to regulate the voltage on a circuit to 220 - 230v max and the circuit will have a load of about 100w. Is there anything I can get to do this apart from those expensive "whole house" vphase things.

Im having problems with bulbs blowing (even LED and CFL) and my voltage can be at times up to 253v

Its something I have thought about for a while now and just wanted to know if there was anything about to serve my needs. Im not sure if there is anything like a straight forward transformer you can get??

Thanks

 

[EFLImpudence]

253 is right on the upper limit of what is allowed.

Contact the DNO.
http://www.energynetworks.org/info/faqs/electricity-distribution-map.html

 

[wreck-it-steve]

253 is right on the upper limit of what is allowed.

Contact the DNO.
http://www.energynetworks.org/info/faqs/electricity-distribution-map.html[/QUOTE]

Its up and down, sometimes its only 247v. Id rather sort it my self. I only ever have problems with bulbs

 

[westie101]

Basically the adjustment is in 2.5% steps (roughly 6V) so if it does prove high at times the range would be dropped to about 241 to 247.
I would advise you do contact the DNO as the voltage will be recorded over a period of a few days so will show if it exceeds limits.

It is a FREE service

 

[wreck-it-steve]

Basically the adjustment is in 2.5% steps (roughly 6V) so if it does prove high at times the range would be dropped to about 241 to 247.
I would advise you do contact the DNO as the voltage will be recorded over a period of a few days so will show if it exceeds limits.

It is a FREE service

Thanks, ill contact them in that case.

 

[JohnW2]

Basically the adjustment is in 2.5% steps (roughly 6V) so if it does prove high at times the range would be dropped to about 241 to 247.

As a matter of interest, would you (or any DNO) only drop the voltage if you demonstrated that it was sometimes actually going over 253V, or would you do so if it spent a reasonable amount of time hovering around voltages close to that 'limit'?

Kind Regards, John

 

[westie101]

As a matter of interest, would you (or any DNO) only drop the voltage if you demonstrated that it was sometimes actually going over 253V, or would you do so if it spent a reasonable amount of time hovering around voltages close to that 'limit'?

A bit of string question that!

It would depend on a few factors like how far from the source substation is it, cable size, length of route time of day, type of average load (e'g' is gas available or is it off-peak and a few others. Whilst it is easy just to lower volts there is always a risk that it could go out of limits the other way at the remote end of long networks.
Whilst we can do a more detailed study a lot of it is seat of the pants calculation
Nowadays we also look more at how much installed PV there is as that is tending to cause network voltages to rise as well

 

[westie101]

Bear in mind as well that it only has to be within limits 95% of the time over a 5 day period!

In honesty if it was an easy job and all the other factors add up I'd probably drop the volts for good customer relations and the possibility they would continue to rise as PV was added to the network

 

[ericmark]

Living in a caravan site in the 1990's I had huge volt drop problems at times under 200 volt and yet other times right on the upper limit.

I tried to design a auto switching to the tapping of a transformer to get around the problem it was a failure spikes while switching and not knowing when it would switch with break before make it was a total failure.

At one job we did have a large UPS unit which used solid state switching and it seemed to work however not something one would what in your home.

On my sons boat we tried switch mode power supply feeding a 400 Ah bank of 12 volt batteries and a 3 kW with 6 kW peak inverter however that also failed the inverter gave out expensive blue smoke. I think the idea was good but quality of inverter was what let us down plus using such a low DC voltage really should have been 48 volt or at least 24 volt.

I know there are units which use an auto transformer and switch tapping claimed to save electricity by stopping over voltage but today so many items use switch mode power supplies and inverters I really question as to how much volt drop is a real problem?

With the odd brown out we get now with LED lights and inverter controlled HF florescent lamps it makes little difference only when we have a standard lamp on with tungsten bulbs do we even know it has happened.

From fridge/freezer to washing machine all inverter controlled only very old gear and home made gear is really effected by volt drop.

So since only 100W then the idea of a battery charger, battery, and inverter would likely work. In the main the standard UPS only switches to battery as power fails most of the time you get the straight through power so volt drop can still be a problem.

I have had the problem with radio transmitters as specially with SSB or CW the load altered too quickly to use switch mode power supplies, however today there are switch mode power supplies which will work with radio transmitters so the old idea of using a battery as a smoothing capacitor is no longer required.

I was surprised to read the voltage requirements for LED lamps I was looking at GU10 and it gave a voltage of 190 - 250 volt which is a huge latitude. As to CFU never stripped one but I did do tests to see if they actually used the power stated as with a standard florescent I found they didn't. I was surprised to find spot on claimed wattage which leads me to believe these also use a switched mode regulator.

As a result I wonder if the bulb problem is caused by volt drop? I have not looked into the circuit of a CFU but the LED has a switch mode regulator and what I wonder in that case is if spikes on the supply line are taking out the electronic control bits on the bulbs.

This could be caused by anything from poor quality switches to simple bad connection either inside the house or on the supply line.

There are filters often built into sockets to remove spikes. However these have a limited life with wall sockets the filters can be changed without renewing socket.

This is just a thought on my part as likely cause and I would welcome comments by other forum members as I am unsure of how one would fit a filter on the lights alone.

If it were my house I would cheat and actually use a filtered socket on the lighting circuit to prove or dis-prove the theroy. But this would not comply with regulations so I now throw it open for suggestions.

 

[bernardgreen]

Years ago I worked for an office machinery supplier and one of the machines was very critical on voltage. We displaying it at Hannover Trade Exhibition where the voltage varied enormously from minute to minute.

We rigged up a motor driven Variac and a "controller" using a moving needle meter and two contacts that the needle could touch an operate relays to make the motor rotate the variac. The "luxury" was a lamp that lit if the motor was powered to tell the salesman to wait until the voltage was OK before demonstrating the machine.

 

[JohnW2]

Years ago I worked for an office machinery supplier and one of the machines was very critical on voltage.

Given the relatively wide variation in supply voltage which is permitted, throughout the EU (and probably much/most of the word), if the machine were that voltage-sensitive, should it not have had some built-in regulation?

Kind Regards, John