House lights flicker...fix?

[Surfing4Dough]

Not a huge deal, but could get annoying... Notice that at times some of the indoor house lights flicker slightly to the beat of my LOR display music/lights. I have 2 CTB16PC controllers using 3 different house circuits (only 3 available outdoors). Unfortunately, 2 of these circuits (garage and front porch outlet) also are the same circuit used by bedroom and family room lights (yes, the house is wired strangely). This is mainly an issue for the family room. Does anybody know any tips for helping reduce this indoor flickering? I'm using CFL bulbs in the house, but I think it does the same with regular light bulbs too (maybe worse). Would plugging the indoor lights into surge protectors make any difference? Or some other fixes? I know probably not, but figured I would ask--I am always amazed at what others know here. Someday the ultimate plan will be to add a subpanel or something along those lines, but that is another whole discussion. Thanks for your help. I have attached a clip of the spreadsheet for my display power distribution.




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[bisquit476]

What are those 3 circuits pulling before the controllers are used. 15amp circuit @80% usage is 12amps, you are over on 2 of 3 circuits, without considering the room use, the only way to lessen the flicker is lower the amp draw. With the 20 amp circuit you have a little breathing room by drawing only 10 amps. Maybe move some of the draw from the 15a circuits to the 20?

[Surfing4Dough]

The 20A circuit is the room that flickers (family room, which is why I left plenty of breathing room there hoping that that would prevent this flicker issue). There are only 1-2 light bulbs otherwise on in the other rooms, and those are CFL, so very little draw. Plus the amp usage that I show is if everything is on all at once, which happens maybe for 5 seconds total during my entire 20 minute show, so the total draw is usually 2-5 amps less that that listed. I ran the LOR power utility (Excel based) to confirm this.

[bisquit476]

If I remember correctly, there was an issue with CFL's and controllers not playing nice. I just don't remember where it was (LOR forum, Planet Christmas forum), maybe try to search that issue. Sorry I can't be more help.

[Greg]

does everything pull from one of your power legs, you may need to balance them out.

[Wolf]

Had the same probelm. well still do at peak and so do my neighbors.

I was pulling from one leg (Red)

to fix it, I installed a semi-sub pannel. I have a 100amp 2-pole fanned out to 10-line cords. I know this could be a problem because I am not fused at the line cord but I know what each box is pulling and we only use this box for the show. (Fedder cable connector's) and its removed...right now I have 10 boxes each at 30amps,... i am back to using exterior 20amp outlets. Next year I am considering either installing a second service OR installing a generator.

[stanward]

Greg, that is what I was going to say as well.



Greg wrote:

does everything pull from one of your power legs, you may need to balance them out.

[Surfing4Dough]

stanward wrote:

Greg, that is what I was going to say as well.



Greg wrote:

does everything pull from one of your power legs, you may need to balance them out.

Not sure I know what is meant by "power legs." Does this have to do with divisions within my circuit breaker box or something? Or something on a controller level?

[stanward]

There are two legs that come into all homes. Sometimes people call them "two phases" that come into the home, but that is technically incorrect.

You have leg A and leg B. Between leg A and leg B, you have 240VAC. Between leg A and neutral (or between leg B and neutral), you have 120VAC.

Ideally, you would want to balance the 120VAC loads between leg A and leg B. For example, you would want to have 20A drawn on leg A and 20A drawn on leg B.

Possibly, all of your LOR equipment is drawing power only from leg A, where half should be drawn from each leg.

[Dennis Cherry]

If you look at your breaker box, you will see two vertical rows of breakers.

Each row is on one of legs either A or B

So when you add breakers for the display balance the number of breakers between the two legs.

ie, 6 breakers = 3 on the left side and three on the right side.

[stanward]

I think you meant "columns" instead of "rows." The load center has two vertical columns, but each column is NOT each leg A or B. I mean the left column is not only leg A and right column B is leg B.

The leg A and leg B alternate in between each row of breakers, this is how you can get 240VAC between leg A and leg B, as in your clothes dryer circuit, range, and water heater, they use adjacent breakers.

So what you want to do is use adjacent breakers to go to your LOR equipment, meaning you want to have legA and legB going to your LOR equipment.

Is this clear as mud???? Sorry, I'm not so good without using pictures.



Dennis Cherry wrote:

If you look at your breaker box, you will see two vertical rows of breakers.

Each row is on one of legs either A or B

So when you add breakers for the display balance the number of breakers between the two legs.

ie, 6 breakers = 3 on the left side and three on the right side.

[Paul C]

When your 35 amps or so of lights flash, it will cause the voltage to drop. Spreading the drop over both legs will minimise this effect , but it will still drop. Things like over loaded extension cords and crummy connections will not help, not saying thats what you have though.

An example: my next door neighbors mig wire feed welder will sometimes cause my lights to flash, especially when he gets close the welders service factor. The welder is on a 30 amp two pole breaker connected to a 100amp panel connected to the same two wires seven other houses are on. Do not know the Kva of the transformer on the pole. So do this, LOR up a welder so that your neighbors house flashes with yours.

I do not know what you have for breaker space, but I would suggest putting the lights on there own breaker. You will diffidently notice your 5-10 amp living room flashing to another 5-10 amps of lights, when they are on the same circuit.

In my case I had to install a 50 amp panel and move my clothes dryer circuit to this box to make space in the old panel for the 50 amp 240v two pole breaker. hint hint

To ramble on some more, I could have put another 100 amp panel in with out the use of another breaker, by tapping to the top or bottom of the existing panel but the run was more that ten feet away.
So much for the easy way.

[stanward]

I agree. Spreading the LOR loads equally to both legs will reduce the effect of the flickering, but will not eliminate it.

Other way of reducing the effect is to upgrade your service. If you are on a 100A service (from the utility), chances are, you have either 2/3 or 4/3 service wire dropped to your meter socket. Upgrading to a 200A service will yield 1/0 wire to your meter, or better yet, go 320A service and you will get a minimum of 4/0 wire to your meter.

If a person uses a welder, he/she should be on his own transformer, to minimize the voltage flicker to the other homes on the same transformer.

[Paul C]

Hay there is a good idea. If a buck boost transformer were used to run your lights, would the rest of the house see the drop as much. You can get a buck boost xfmr that does not boost so much as isolate.
I do know the LOR equipment will not see the noise from vacuums and other motor driven devises, and buzzers jees are they electronically noisy.

[stanward]

Isolation transformer would work wonders......... Another reason why we require water supply pumps (hundreds of horsepower) to be isolated on their own transformer when they run VFD (Variable Frequency Drive) starter units. The harmonics from the VFD is super noisy, worse than a large welder!



Paul C wrote:

Hay there is a good idea. If a buck boost transformer were used to run your lights, would the rest of the house see the drop as much. You can get a buck boost xfmr that does not boost so much as isolate.
I do know the LOR equipment will not see the noise from vacuums and other motor driven devises, and buzzers jees are they electronically noisy.

[Paul C]

VFD's are very noisy. We have many small drives, none of of which are on there own Xfmrs. One of our biggest noise issues , we were losing the dough line program out of an AB 504, at that time they put in line a Isotrol and the problem went away.

Where you are at Stanward, you guys have a XFMR for every drive no matter the size?

[stanward]

Hi Paul,

I am out in Hilo, Hawaii, the Big Island that is. We do require a transformer no matter the size to reduce the neighboring ppl from seeing flicker, etc. However, we have a lot of old stuff out there (70 years old) that our distribution lines can barely keep up (2.4kV delta).

Paul C wrote:

VFD's are very noisy. We have many small drives, none of of which are on there own Xfmrs. One of our biggest noise issues , we were losing the dough line program out of an AB 504, at that time they put in line a Isotrol and the problem went away.

Where you are at Stanward, you guys have a XFMR for every drive no matter the size?

[Paul C]

Santa Rosa Ca. is where we are at. Did you say you local power plant had you isolate your drives. I'm asking because we have two frequency driven 250 HP refrigeration compressors that no one at PG&E has complained about, yet.

[stanward]

I work for the local utility. It is now a requirement for isolation, but previously, it has not been.



Paul C wrote:

Santa Rosa Ca. is where we are at. Did you say you local power plant had you isolate your drives. I'm asking because we have two frequency driven 250 HP refrigeration compressors that no one at PG&E has complained about, yet.

[Paul C]

So something like this would probably work, even for my welding neighbor?

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