Power Failure!

Woke up this morning feelin fine
Had something...

No! I went to use my microwave to heat my breakfast and thought that the incandesent light therein seemed a bit dim. Started it up and the turntable turned but no characteristic buzz from the klystron.

Strange... tried the light and it flickered into life. Checked the mains voltage and it was something like 50volts!

Got out my generator and connected up my Fridge, Freezer and microwave so I could at least have breakfast.

The outage lasted a couple of hours before it was all restored but I have never had that before, power has either been on or off.

It is very confusing because all the little LEDs work on the TV radio etc even the LED lights work (dimmer) but I am sure it doesn't do motors etc any good trying to work off such a low voltage.

Strange, never had that happen before I can only presume a transformer or something similar in the area decided that life was too unbearable for it to carry on.

Re: Power Failure!

A late thought - I wonder if it was someone's solar system struggling to supply the neighbourhood? There are pretty big arrays around me and I have no idea what protection systems they have.

Re: Power Failure!

We have reasons, mainly, as for the past year work has been going on to remove all cables that go across our Gardens. Cuts in the electric power, some scheduled, when a set time is known and when it could be off for many hours some days..then a sudden cut with no warning at all..regardless how it affects what your doing...yes we have generators from our caravanning days and ok not that powerful but enough to run freezer and light draw stuff...
not had that situation though..seems you just had a small charge coming your way but not enough to be of much use...Sure it will come to light..pun meant...
We have very good friends that live the other side to you in the SW Perth....Denmark..you know it Bruce?

Re: Power Failure!

We had a similar thing happen Bruce, we are supplied from a three phase supply, some houses on red, some on blue and some on yellow. When our phase went down it affected every third house and it started drawing a low voltage from one of the other phases through neutral...We didn't have any problems, but some people suffered damage to some electricals.

Re: Power Failure!

If the local tranny was connected correctly with star configuration secondary and the neutral point earthed, then that should not have occurred. Any serious under-voltage should have been detected and the local breaker tripped. Probably too many cut backs on the maintenance side, or someone engaged in load shedding without referring to the T&S schedule.