20000106 Thursday

Subject: Question re: Power spikes and flucuations

I'm located about 50 miles (via I-75; off of Exit #93) NNE of Detroit, Michigan.

On Sunday (20000102U) my APC (Americam Power Conversion) UPS (Uninterruptible Power Source)--my only Amp/Volt "meter"--went into "alarm" for several hours in the afternoon, indicating (Detroit Edison [DTE]) power fluctuation (in)tolerance "faults." I turned off the system to quiet the dang thing. These "faults" didn't produce perceptible effects on incandescent or fluorescent lighting.

Haven't "seen" any since, however.

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus1@yahoo.com), January 06, 2000

Answers

Thanks BOB, nice to see you are attached again.

chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 06, 2000.

Our lights were flickering for a couple of hours yestersay here on the "West Coast" of MI.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 06, 2000.

Bob, I mailed this thread to a friend in Detroit who has a new PC and is still learnin' the ropes. I told him he may wanna mail you for advice re: good surge protection for that area. Hope this is okay. His id will be joedarque.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.

Lights went out for a minute or two on New Year Day, twice in a row. No noticeable problems since - thankfully. But it was pretty eerie, especially since I was speaking to someone about Y2K at the moment. In the summer, there were brown-outs and black-outs in several towns for several days. Lights were out in one town all day and night. Resembled a ghost town at night as I rode around. Only a generator with one large light broke the darkness. Traffic lights out. Intersections closed off by barriers or plastic streamers. Police directing traffic. Places closed down. this is in a heavily populated area of central New Jersey. No one wants to know what a prolonged power outage would be like. This foretaste was enough.

-- Patrick Lastella (Lastella1@aol.com), January 06, 2000.

A very short power interuption took place early Tuesday morning in Ferndale. It was so breif that the clocks did not have to be reset!

-- Ruth Edwards (REath29646@aol.com), January 06, 2000.