In NZ we face a power crisis this winter, and they may take action by turning off our hot water cylinders to try and save power. If this happens, i want to be able to make a device that puts a signal in the range of 175 Hz to 1050 Hz, superimposed on the 50 Hz mains , 230v.
How easy would this be to do, as i dont want to be left without hot water!
In NZ we face a power crisis this winter, and they may take action by turning off our hot water cylinders to try and save power. If this happens, i want to be able to make a device that puts a signal in the range of 175 Hz to 1050 Hz, superimposed on the 50 Hz mains , 230v.
How easy would this be to do, as i dont want to be left without hot water!
The reason why no other things turn off is because there is a receiver in your meter box, that receives the signals sent down the power lines from the power company which triggers a relay to turn off your hot water cylinder, nothing else is affected through this, we hear ours clicking at least once or twice a day that i can think of, usually in the mornings and evenings
if i really wanted to i could wire a direct feed to the cylinder, so that it always got power, if they start cutting off hot water, i could easily do that
The first sentence of your post is "Power crisis" and you want to bypass it? The more people like you there are the more brown outs and blackouts there are going to be.
it is a big con, and ive found other way around it anyway, like thumping the meter i was told will trigger off the relay! lol but i still think it would be real neat project if you could make a controller that sent a signal down the mains! I dont know if it would turn off everyones hot water in your street though. ive seen networking kits called homplug that could send data signals through the mains for connecting your computers together, and that is supposed to only be able to work in your house.
it is a big con, and ive found other way around it anyway, like thumping the meter i was told will trigger off the relay! lol but i still think it would be real neat project if you could make a controller that sent a signal down the mains! I dont know if it would turn off everyones hot water in your street though. ive seen networking kits called homplug that could send data signals through the mains for connecting your computers together, and that is supposed to only be able to work in your house.
I have been "Experimenting" with a circuit that works principally on the same way. Superimpose a frequency on the domestic AC lines and with a NE567 PLL detector on the receiving side filter out the correct frequency and use it for control. The problem I have is that it works 100% on static lines (while testing) but the moment I connected it to my AC at home, it tripped the earth leakage and I have an equipment failure rate of about 50% That's BAD!!!! (It either blows the transmitter IC or the receiver IC). And that's where I left it.
The circuit uses the Earth and Neutral wires on the AC circuit for its communication medium. The problem is (I don't know if all earth leakage devices does this, or just mine) the moment I superimpose the frequency (at about 5V) the Earth leakage picks it up and trips out everything.
in our house, only a circuit breaker or a fuse, which will blow if there is a short to earth, but that only works at close to full mains voltage to earth, ours has tripped over when ive had appliances short to the earth
in our house, only a circuit breaker or a fuse, which will blow if there is a short to earth, but that only works at close to full mains voltage to earth, ours has tripped over when ive had appliances short to the earth
It's a very common method, usually using an element in an insulated copper tank, the copper tank also normally has the option of being heated from the central heating system, or (in the VERY old days) from a 'back boiler' mounted behind a coal fire.
I used such a system until late 2006, when it was all ripped out and a gas combi-boiler fitted.
What were you doing with it?, mine was on 24/7 for 25 years, and I never had big bills. I only took it out because the element failed (insulation breakdown, blowing the earth leakage trip). I did buy a new element to try and replace it, but I couldn't get the old element out (I was scared the tank would rip), so we decided to replace the old (pretty crappy) gas central heating totally.
While waiting for the job to be done I borrowed three 1KW isolation transformers from work, wired them in parallel, and fed the immersion from them this stopped the trip blowing, and worked fine.