Can being in the same room as 13.6KV damage electronics?
Can being in the same room as 13.6KV damage electronics?
(OP)
I have a situation where we have 3 peices of identical equipment in the same room, which has 13.6KV feeds going into the room. All 3 peices of equipment worked fine, until they added a 2nd feed, then one of the units started experiencing intermittant program errors (even though it was not being poweed by the new feed). The units run off 460V which is derived from the 13.6KV power going into the room. We replaced the control board 4 times, and each board was subsequently damaged after a few hours of operation. When I get the control boards back to my shpo, they expoerience the same intermittant program faults, proving that the bus on the controllers was somehow damaged by being in the equipment.
My question is. Can simply being in the same room as a 13KV feed cause damage to a control board, even though the board is not being directly or indirectly powered by the 13KV feed?
If so, how?
and what are some things that can be done to help?
My question is. Can simply being in the same room as a 13KV feed cause damage to a control board, even though the board is not being directly or indirectly powered by the 13KV feed?
If so, how?
and what are some things that can be done to help?






RE: Can being in the same room as 13.6KV damage electronics?
RE: Can being in the same room as 13.6KV damage electronics?
I suggest you quickly install some extra impedance in the form of some filters and certainly some MOVs ahead of your units (between the filters and your equipment) and see what results from it.
So, in a way the presence of the 13.6KV is the problem but not the way you're thinking, only in that it represents more nasties on the power.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Can being in the same room as 13.6KV damage electronics?
Obviously when something works fine for a long time, then something is changed, and now there are failures, that something that changed, is likely the cause. With dimensions and locations someone may be able to point to the problem and thus a solution.
If you subscribe to the theory that ALL power is transferred in the electric and magnetic fields OUTSIDE the feed wires themselves (non inside the wires), your problem seems obvious, and location location location may be your answer.
www.KilroyWasHere<dot>com
RE: Can being in the same room as 13.6KV damage electronics?
Is the new 13.8kV feeder incoming out of the room anywhere near your 480V controllers outputs outside of the room. Since it's a new install, the cable(s) shield maybe damaged.
An old lineman trick is to take a portable AM radio an follow the new 13.8kV feeder incoming from the room to is feeder location and continuity changing the AM dial full width of the frequency span (530-1700khz). If you have any leaking or arcing the radio will be static at that location.
Lineman have used this trick for years with where truck radios finding broken or arcing bushings or insulators. I have refined it to find bad cables, swgr, motors, ect. A $10 piece of test equipment.
Hope this will help,
Dave