Electrical

Ongoing power problems with Oncor

melev — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 20:43:37 +0000

Ongoing power problems with Oncor melev Mon, 11/21/2022 - 23:43

For the last 7 weeks, my entire home has had power fluctuations that were really frustrating. Initially I noticed lights flickering in the bathrooms and kitchen. But it got worse, much worse.

My reef uses the Apex controller, which comes with the Eb832 energy bars. Normally we use them to turn things on and off that are plugged into them. They measure power consumption and can tell you if a pump is using too much or too little energy. However, they do something else: they measuring the incoming voltage. I was looking at those numbers specifically 18 months ago during our ice storm that knocked out power to 20 million people in Texas. My system was running on a generator, but the power wasn't coming out cleanly and the Voltage reading were concerning. But I digress.

When I was vacuuming my home, which takes about 20 minutes, I couldn't help but notice that the motor was at one speed, then slowed down for 10 seconds, then sped up again. That's weird. Another occasion I was using a Waterpik and heard that device slow down and ramp up. My iMac's screen would go dim, then brighten, but I wasn't touching the brightness buttons.

I called the electric company to have them check the incoming power. They removed the meter, and hooked up two different devices to measure the voltage as well as the amperage. Of course everything was "normal" during the 10 minutes of testing. My power issues happen whenever, sporadically. There was no way to align it with anything. One night I turned off the breaker that feeds power to the Studio, in case that was it but it didn't make a difference.

That's when I checked my Apex to see what it was reading. Each screenshot shows the low reading, the high reading, and the average number. At the top you can see the dates. Apex Fusion keeps track of 12 weeks of data, so I was able to look at what the voltage measured back in August. Week by week, I could scroll through the graphs, studying the highs and lows. The week of August 12-19, the power graph looks normal, but you will see how it changes for the worse image by image.

August 17-24: Voltage begins to look different. The variance measures 117V - 126V

August 23-30: The power is slowly trends downward each day. Variance: 116V - 126V

September 11-18: The drop continues, more so in the latter half of the week.

September 24-October 1: Spikes or surges are tracked. Variance 114V - 128V

September 30-October 7: Variance 113V - 129V

October 12-19: The spikes are varying 113V to 130V, and UPS systems beep in distress.

October 31-November 7: Minimum 109V and maximum 133V

I own two Eb832 energy bars on two different circuits that had matching voltage readings. I also have the Hydros controller on another tank on yet another circuit, which reports voltage too. It doesn't graph it like the Apex, but when I opened up the app, I could see the current value, which then matched what I would see in Fusion at the same time.

I called the power company a second time to come inspect the power. I really wanted them to hook up a device that tracks and records data of the power entering at the meter, but they don't offer that. Would you believe the Smart Meters do NOT track the power flow? They only act like an odometer, measuring what we use, nothing more. That seems unfortunate to me. Wouldn't it be great if they could activate that feature when the need arises, to help identify potential issues?

Like the first time, the lineman said everything was normal. He replaced the connections where the power connects to the house, but that made no difference. Power fluctuated from 106V to 134V within the hour.

I was wondering if I needed to replace my entire breaker panel to solve the problem. But if I hired an electrician and spent upwards of $2000 "fixing it" only to find everything was still flickering because the problem was actually from the power company, I'd be really upset (as would anyone else). I don't mind paying to fix a problem, provided it's my responsibility and the correct solution.

November 14-21: The roller coaster continues, but wait, what have we here?

The lowest number yet, 105 volts was recorded. But as of Saturday afternoon, the graph indicated a big change. That was promising.

Here's a closeup of 24 hours:

For the past 24 hours, voltage varies from 118V to 122V, with an average of 120V. At last!

Clearly, my home's breaker box was NOT the problem at all, nor any of its components. Nor the addition of the Studio. As I figured all along, this was a problem somewhere in my neighborhood that needed to be mended.

I've put in a call with the power company to find out exactly what they fixed. I've had to live with these circumstances for seven weeks, two service calls, plus a few things were damaged during that time. About 1/3 of the outdoor LED string lights blew out (22 out of 72), and a 12V power supply for the Apex took a hit. I'm sure if this situation had continued, more gear would have been damaged or their longevity reduced.

Thankfully this problem appears to be gone. Hopefully never to return.

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Faulty wiring discovered

melev — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 14:17:36 +0000

Faulty wiring discovered melev Mon, 04/27/2020 - 17:17

It seems like lately most of my blogs seem to be about the Apex. I'll try to work on that and add some other things in here from time to time.

The Apex saved my home. Sorta. For the past couple of days, I was getting Power Lost alerts from Fusion, yet everything was on. The reef was normal, tv was normal, internet was normal, the only thing I was seeing was the lights in the bathrooms would flicker a little and I assumed it was brownouts.

Saturday night as I was heading to bed, I heard the tiny bip that the Apex Display Module does when an alarm is on. I checked the alarm, power was off but clearly it was on. Decided to go to bed, and investigate in the morning. When I got up, I had about 9 duplicate alarms, for every hour I slept saying power was out.

My Apex brain is plugged into the Eb832, and I have the black power supply plugged into a UPS for backup. My assumption was the UPS is having issues, so I removed it from the electrical cabinet and plugged in into a different outlet in the kitchen. The UPS started wailing, and a light appeared on the side, next to the words "Crossed wiring."

I recently bought this gizmo to quickly check outlets. You want two yellow lights on the right, but it was showing red and yellow. No bueno. I checked each outlet in the kitchen, and discovered one circuit has been wired wrong for -- 20 years -- and no-one has ever noticed it despite work being done in the house, let alone the original home inspection that was performed when I purchased the house.

This circuit includes my microwave, which from time to time would pop the circuit for no reason. I couldn't make it happen on demand, it just did it once a while and I'd have to reset the breaker. This plug (below) was behind the microwave, 100% out of sight. I pulled out the outlet and visually discovered that the black wire and white wire were on the wrong sides. Black always is on the right side of this type of outlet, white on the left.

Yesterday, I replaced one outlet since it is used so much. The screws on the side of outlets indicate which side gets the white & black wires (the screws are silver and bronze colored, basically), and the markings on the back state the correct way to wire it, too. I bought a "commercial" grade 15 amp outlet, which was about $1.25 more than the regular wall outlet.

All of those outlets are now fixed and I verified a bunch more outlets in my house while I had the tester handy. I still need to get the UPS checked out but now you know how the Apex saved my house.

#powertrip #ThanksNeptuneSystems

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Ecotech Customer Service experience

melev — Fri, 11 Aug 2017 12:47:24 +0000

Ecotech Customer Service experience melev Fri, 08/11/2017 - 15:47

I contacted Ecotech today. I'm the type of hobbyist that likes to plug something in, it works correctly and I'm done. I don't tinker with it incessantly, I don't change settings all the time; I want it to be on when needed, and off when required.

I bought the Vectra M1 for the frag system, and the L1 for the 400g reef. The M1 has been running for nearly 18 months, and it connected with the Booster cable to a Battery Backup designed for Ecotech gear. It is supposed to keep the return pump running if the power goes out. But it didn't seem to be doing so, and it was one of those things I needed to sort out but knew it would take some time.

Talking to the support people today, after a couple of firmware updates and further testing, it turns out the Booster cable I had was faulty. That frag system is now set up correctly since I had an extra one in my store's inventory to use, and they are sending me a replacement for the one that failed.

Very important steps when hooking up the booster cable from the battery to the driver:

Install the "input" side of the booster cable into the battery backup
Install the "output" side of the booster cable into the Vectra driver
Plug the power cord into the battery backup
Wait a few seconds before testing to see if it works. Pull the power cord going into the Vectra driver, and see if the battery backup runs the pump. If it does, you did everything correctly. Re-plug the power back into the driver for normal operations.

While we were testing things, I wanted to make sure the L1 was going to run correctly with its own Battery Backup, which it does. Now if the power goes out, the Anemone Cube and the manifold continues to get flow at 25% of the normal setting. Two birds, one stone --- well, 2 phone calls, a few emails back and forth and a little bit of cardio walking back and forth between things, but all is well.

We read a lot of negative stuff when people are annoyed, but not enough positive reviews that are just as deserving. Thanks EcoTech Marine for the assistance, and making sure my gear runs right.

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Well worth the wait

melev — Sat, 29 Apr 2017 21:56:12 +0000

Well worth the wait melev Sun, 04/30/2017 - 00:56

February 2016 I set up my new frag tank. All the electrical stuff that supports the tank has been sitting to the left on top of a box of salt, primarily to avoid it getting wet if the fishroom were to get flooded. I had a piece of acrylic set aside for this project for about as long, but today I finally cut out the pieces and got it glued up. One of the reasons this went undone is because I knew I'd be running a CNC soon, and wanted to cut it out on that table instead of my normal 'craft by hand' method I've employed for the past decade. Did some programming today, and then fired up Minion to carve out the parts.

I still have more to go, but wanted to share a few pictures.

All the parts laid out on the new acrylic box are spare or backup components I keep on hand for my reef. Which sounds crazy, but you never know when you'll need something.

The various parts will be screwed to the black acrylic, or they will rest upon a small acrylic shelf I still have to cut out tomorrow. Then once everything is installed on the panel, I'll hang it on the wall. I added a couple of acrylic bits on the inside of the box, which will allow me to place it where it needs to be, but also permits me to remove it when I have to access the powercords hidden within. I believe this is going to work out quite nicely, and will look much better than the mess on the floor.

Reef Blog

Gotta love a good power bill

melev — Sat, 17 Dec 2016 15:44:10 +0000

Gotta love a good power bill melev Sat, 12/17/2016 - 18:44

In early 2016, it was time to renew my annual contract with the electric company. We have deregulation in Texas, so while everyone gets power from Oncor, we can pick which company sends us the bill each month. Strange I know, but for the past few years I've been skipping from one name to the next to always get the best deal I can. So far, it's worked out without a hitch. If there is a power problem, you call to report it to Oncor, and they fix it. The billing company just bills you for what you use, and doesn't provide any other service.

Well over a decade ago, this wasn't a choice in Texas. You had one company in the area, and you paid them the rate they demanded. I remember it being about 14.6 cents per kilowatt hour. I had electric bills in the summer that were over $400. Winter was less, but in an all-electric home you can't really save power if you need to be warm. Fast-forward to 2016, I'm looking on powertochoose.org for a new plan, and found a company I'd never heard of called Hino Electric. Comparing the different plans from various electric companies (billing agencies really), Hino stood out this time. I read the fine print, but still couldn't believe my eyes so I called them to confirm. The special was if you could use more than 1000 kWh but less than 1999 kWh in a single billing period, you'd get power for 1.1 cents per kilowatt hour. They told me I read it right. I tend to use about 1600 to 3100 kWh throughout the year, based on how extreme or how mild the weather is here. At best, I figured I'd get two billing periods this year at a steal.

The first bill rolled in, but they tricked me because they changed the measured billing cycle and I didn't land in that magic window. Oh well, I figured there had to be a catch. However, that next month, the bill was $16 for the entire month. Ha, it worked! Then summer hit and I had my normal bill which was around $175 to $220 a month. Then November arrived, temperatures were mild, we were still getting quite a bit of unseason rain and the bill was $17. Power consumption was 1850 kWh. Let me add that the month prior, I was a mere 75 kWh over the window (I wished I'd turned off the A/C unit in the workshop that week while i wasn't feeling well) and I would have gotten a bargain bill that month too.

Our weather has gotten colder, and my heater has been running. Today I opened up the mail and this bill (pictured above) is what I got. That's the third billing cycle with an incredibly cheap rate. So awesome! Thank you May, November and December months.

For all of you that say "oh, that tank must cost you a fortune in electricity" or "don't use Metal Halides, they suck the juice!"... not if you have a great power plan. lol Next year, I'm sure I won't find a deal like this one. But it has been nice while it lasted.

It's time to do an energy audit on the reef once more, to add up what everything is using and list the costs individually as well as collectively. That article will be added soon.

Reef Blog

The cost of running a reef tank - measured

melev — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:41:00 +0000

The cost of running a reef tank - measured melev Sun, 08/10/2008 - 13:41

Doing a little math to see what it costs to run my tank...

3 MH bulbs - 900w x 6 hrs per day
2 VHO bulbs - 187w x 11 hrs per day
Return pump - 141w x 24 hrs per day
3 Vortech pumps - 63w x 24 hrs per day
Calcium Reactor - 65w x 24 hrs per day
3 Fuge lights - 62w x 8 hrs per day
2 Skimmer pumps - 116w x 24 hrs per day
Prop light - 147w x 7 hrs per day
2 Icecap Fans - 12w x 7 hrs per day

All of the above runs 19.3 kWh per day, or 579 kWh per month.
Take that number times $.124375 and it adds up to $72 of basic operational cost.

Not included are a handful of tiny pumps running the suncoral tank, phosban reactors, flow in the prop section and refugium, which is probably around 100w for about $9 a month more, which puts the tank at $81.

In the winter, I run a couple of heaters which definitely cost me money. I only use two and they don't have a lot of wattage, thus they run longer than they should have to trying to bring the tank temperature up to 79.5 so they can shut off again. I probably need two 500w heaters so they can do the job quickly and save money, but what I have is a 300w & a 250w heater. That's something I'll need to resolve this fall, and make sure the DJ power strips can handle the extra wattage load, if they were to kick on during the lighting period. For now, the heaters are turned off for the summer months. My tank doesn't drop below 78.5F at night.

The window A/C unit definitely adds to the monthly expense during the hot months. If the circulation fan is running, it uses 116w of power. When the compressor kicks on, it uses 727w. If the garage is closed, it works even harder and uses something closer to 780+w of power. Last year, I measured the window A/C with a Kill-o-watt for two weeks straight to find out how long the compressor was on versus how long just the circulation fan was running, and it was pretty much 50/50. I hate to even calculate this one. 303 kWh equaling $38 a month.

During June, I was been able to turn off the window a/c during the late night hours, and turn it on daily around 1pm. One day I forgot and didn't turn it on until 3:30pm, after the lights had been on for some time and the fish room was getting toasty. However, the tank was 79.8F, which is due to the fact that my lights are 18" off the water. I don't really want to test the theory of what will happen if the A/C unit is off for the full day with the fish room closed up, but I do have the Aqua Controller II set to turn off the lights if the tank reaches 83F.

Add on the live rock cooking vat and the quarantine tank of 36 kWh and the angled tank of 73 kWh, and it looks like my little hobby is soaking up 1063 kWh per month, which is about $132 per month. My electricity rates are about to jump up slightly, which will put it around $149 per month in total electricity usage.

My three Vortechs combined use $5.64 of electricity a month to provide all the flow in my reef. The one Vortech on the angled tank costs $0.62 a month at a mere 6 watts of power. :)

Reef Blog

Fri, 12/23/2005 - 01:25

melev — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 09:25:00 +0000

Fri, 12/23/2005 - 01:25 melev Thu, 12/22/2005 - 12:25

This is a nice page I bookmarked about a year ago.

Calculate the cost to run an aquarium.

Just fill out the form, and it will give you an idea of what it costs to run all this equipment.

White lights - I entered 900w for my Metal Halides - 11 hrs (11am to 10 pm)
Blue Lights - I entered 320w for VHOs - 9 hrs (1pm to 10pm)
Heater - I entered 450w - 6 hrs a day (the site recommends 6 hours)
Main Circulation Pump - mine states 1.3amps, so I entered 143w - 24 hrs
Skimmer Pump - 2 Sedra 5000 (50w each) - 100w - 24 hrs
Supplemental pumps - 2 Tunze 6100 Streams (45w each) - 90w - 24 hrs
Calcium Reactor pump - Mag 7 - 70w - 24 hrs
Refugium lighting - 38w - 24 hrs
Misc pumps for Phosban Reactors* - 40w - 24 hrs

*That includes 4w for the Aqua Controller and 3w for the top off.

My average cost per kilowatt hour on the current bill was $0.103

So total wattage used was 2151.
Cost to run the tank was $83.50 for the month, $1002 for the year.

Reef Blog

The 14 day project is now a dedicated page on my site

melev — Fri, 03 Sep 2004 00:10:00 +0000

The 14 day project is now a dedicated page on my site melev Fri, 09/03/2004 - 04:10

I documented my 280g 14-day Upgrade Project. It is a 5.6meg webpage, so dial-up will probably not be able to download this page (browser error for sure) with all 111 images.

I re-coded the 280g reef project page into two pages to make it easier for the dial-up visitors. If you find that it doesn't work for you, please email me. Each page should be about 2.8 megs in size. Edit 11/2017: What's dial-up? LOL It's one page again, enjoy the narrative.

I also added a new photography page, that talks about the Top Down Photo Box I build. I added other photography related links to the base of that page.

While feeding the tanks tonight, I hand fed some Silversides to the Golden Eel. It ate several pieces from my fingers, one after another. I'd say it ate about 3 fish worth, and was very gentle in taking the food each time. That was really neat.

Reef Blog

Cool timers available at Costco

melev — Sat, 06 Dec 2003 01:18:00 +0000

Cool timers available at Costco melev Sat, 12/06/2003 - 04:18

I came across a good deal on digital grounded timers to Costco yesterday. Unlike mechanical timers, these have a rechargeable battery backup to keep the timer on schedule. Two for $10 is really amazing, with 3-hole recepticals.

By feeding a small amount of shrimp to the BTA every other day, it has improved in appearance by inflating itself further.

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