Brown outs at night

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gboy

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So I say in Somerset West and have for the past few nights noticed something strange early morning 1am and onwards, my computer UPS fan will startup, not beep but definitely probably the AVR function kicking in for about 10min, my digital bedside clock will reset to 0 and flash like the power is out, and my. Cellphone will light up like it's just been put on charge, even though it has been on charge for a few hours already.

This has to be a voltage drop, or a poltergeist, I hope is the latter, anyone else noteicing this.
 
gboy said:
So I say in Somerset West and have for the past few nights noticed something strange early morning 1am and onwards, my computer UPS fan will startup, not beep but definitely probably the AVR function kicking in for about 10min, my digital bedside clock will reset to 0 and flash like the power is out, and my. Cellphone will light up like it's just been put on charge, even though it has been on charge for a few hours already.

This has to be a voltage drop, or a poltergeist, I hope is the latter, anyone else noteicing this.
Click to expand...
Any blood running down the walls at the same time? Definitely a poltergeist then.
 
gboy said:
This has to be a voltage drop, or a poltergeist, I hope is the latter, anyone else noteicing this.
Click to expand...
Haven't noticed any poltergeists here.

Does your UPS not keep any sort of log?
 
Last edited:
gboy said:
So I say in Somerset West and have for the past few nights noticed something strange early morning 1am and onwards, my computer UPS fan will startup, not beep but definitely probably the AVR function kicking in for about 10min, my digital bedside clock will reset to 0 and flash like the power is out, and my. Cellphone will light up like it's just been put on charge, even though it has been on charge for a few hours already.

This has to be a voltage drop, or a poltergeist, I hope is the latter, anyone else noteicing this.
Click to expand...
You won't know what is happening without some way to record voltage and frequency over time.
 
Power from the grid in Somerset West is used to energise the Steenbras pumped storage scheme overnight. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a voltage drop around that time.
 
Gordon_R said:
Power from the grid in Somerset West is used to energise the Steenbras pumped storage scheme overnight. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a voltage drop around that time.
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And you might need a pretty sophisticated instrument to detect and measure the transient. That same transient might be sufficient to trigger the charging/discharge cycle for long enough to trigger alarms.
 
Ive experienced incoming grid electricity running at 40.8Hz in gauteng in the past. Everything was buzzing with clocks losing time. Dont expect too much of your grid electricity if you do have the luxury of said electricity.
 
zeridine said:
Ive experienced incoming grid electricity running at 40.8Hz in gauteng in the past. Everything was buzzing with clocks losing time. Dont expect too much of your grid electricity if you do have the luxury of said electricity.
Click to expand...

The most likely explanation for that kind of number was your neighbour's generator backfeeding into your street during a local blackout.
 
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