Outlet Tester, Have you checked your Power-line conditioner?

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. Read 7147 times.

Sandrock

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 81
  • *My Sound Space*
Re: Outlet Tester, Have you checked your Power-line conditioner?
« Reply #40 on: 19 Jul 2017, 05:43 pm »
Holly smokes Batman, I just viewed the pics and noticed that a bunch of them came in upside down. They were all right-side up and I made sure of that before I took the picture knowing that on the off chance the meta data might get screwed up...
So much for that idea. I hope you can still discern the information in-spite of some of them being USD!
Thanks,
Cheers
Ian

jea48

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 307
Re: Outlet Tester, Have you checked your Power-line conditioner?
« Reply #41 on: 19 Jul 2017, 07:29 pm »
Back at the keyboard and in 72 minutes, well under my 90 min quote....Ha!
Anyway I have a bunch of pictures of the guts of the T4 which I hope will shed some light on this vexing question.
They are in no perticular order and a few of them might be overlapping info-wise.

































WOW!

I have no idea what the two 22 meg ohm resistors do that connect from each hot AC line on the receptacle/s to the equipment ground.  :scratch:
 Just a guess it has something maybe to do with noise filtering.  :scratch:
 22 meg ohm? That is right isn't it?

WOW! :?


DaveC113

  • Industry Contributor
  • Posts: 4341
  • ZenWaveAudio.com
Re: Outlet Tester, Have you checked your Power-line conditioner?
« Reply #42 on: 19 Jul 2017, 09:32 pm »
22M is also what I get, seems like that wouldn't do much.

We need a well lit overview of the whole thing though. Looks to me like the receptacles are all grounded to chassis. I'd test this with a multimeter between receptacle grounds and IEC inlet, ground should be straight through with very little resistance.

I'd expect results to vary a lot, the trafos are small and 2A capacity could be a problem with many components.


jea48

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 307
Re: Outlet Tester, Have you checked your Power-line conditioner?
« Reply #43 on: 20 Jul 2017, 12:16 am »
22M is also what I get, seems like that wouldn't do much.

We need a well lit overview of the whole thing though. Looks to me like the receptacles are all grounded to chassis. I'd test this with a multimeter between receptacle grounds and IEC inlet, ground should be straight through with very little resistance.

I'd expect results to vary a lot, the trafos are small and 2A capacity could be a problem with many components.

~

Quote
Looks to me like the receptacles are all grounded to chassis. I'd test this with a multimeter between receptacle grounds and IEC inlet, ground should be straight through with very little resistance.



I agree. The power cord equipment grounding conductor connects to the grounding stud, seen in the picture/s, and from that stud individual green equipment ground wires run to and connect to the IG (Isolate Ground) equipment ground terminal screw on each IG ground Hubbell 15 amp single receptacle.

The unit, as is, should protect the user from any electrical shock hazard in the event of a Hot to chassis fault. Not only the power conditioner metal chassis but also the chassis of any equipment fed from the power conditioner, that uses the safety equipment ground, in the event either of the two secondary hot conductors were to come into contact with the metal chassis. Basically such a fault would make the fault of the wire contacting the chassis a grounded conductor. It could end up being the conductor feeding the safety fuse in a piece of audio equipment though.

Because the unit operates with 4 individual 120Vac floating power supplies I would not change any interconnects between audio equipment with any of the 4 power iso transformers energized.  If more than one, or all energized, then the OP could receive an electrical shock. Bad enough one transformer's secondary is floating above ground. This has four 120Vac power supplies floating above ground. Definitely never use a ground cheater to lift the ground on a piece of equipment fed from the unit. 

Dave,

Do you see a problem with removing the two 22m ohm resistors from each receptacle outlet and installing a bonding jumper from the neutral terminal on each receptacle to the equipment ground on each receptacle? This will ground the secondary lead that is connected to the neutral contact on the receptacle making it the "grounded conductor",  the neutral conductor.

Then,

From neutral contact to Hot contact 120Vac nominal. Still the same.

From the Hot contact to the equipment ground contact, it will measure 120Vac nominal.

 From the neutral contact to the equipment ground contact, zero Vac.

Resistance, continuity, check from the neutral contact to the equipment ground contact will measure OL, short.

The OP's polarity/ground circuit checker will indicate Correct when he checks each outlet.

The OP will need to check to make sure all 4 receptacles, transformers secondaries, are in phase with each other. In other wards from any hot to hot contact combination the voltage will measure zero volts nominal. If one or more reads 240Vac he will need to reverse the power leads feeding the odd receptacle/s. I would do this with all the "phase" rocker switches in the normal same position.

So what do you think?  Worth the effort? The OP should be able to make the changes himself. An hour at the most, probably less.

As for the 2 amp max rating of each of the 4 transformers I just assumed the OP was aware of the fact.   

 
« Last Edit: 31 Jul 2017, 03:44 am by jea48 »

Sandrock

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 81
  • *My Sound Space*
Re: Outlet Tester, Have you checked your Power-line conditioner?
« Reply #44 on: 26 Aug 2017, 01:04 am »
Sorry for the long hiatus from this thread (travel & sickness) debilitated me.
Anyway I continued to do some background research on the T-4 unit and contacted a long-time friend in San Diego who co-incidentally also purchased a unit as well.
I spoke to him (electrical engineer) at length and after him popping the hood off his unit he confirmed that what we have is a "line-isolator" and not a line-conditioner, which I already suspected.

We spoke further and deduced that everything is working as designed.
The initial problem I was asking about had to do with the little 'wall-outlet' tester and why the ground did not light up.
Well actually the outlet tester is designed for house use and not to test something like this piece of equipment.
So it was giving me a false reading which started raising red flags etc.

What that means is that there is no direct connection between the wall outlet and the connected pieces of equipment as normally thought. However they are in the end all working together but do not receive and of the noise/hash coming directly from the a/c outlet.
So no noise etc. is getting into my line level equipment.

Everything is grounded as designed and there is no worry of electrocution or fire etc.
The only problem was that the tester was misused in this test and gave out with a fault issue.
So all is good......

Thank you to all that participated in my quest for an answer to my own-created problem.
In the end one phone call did it all.
So the old adage is true.....its not what you know, but where to find the answer!

Cheers,
Ian

jea48

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 307
Re: Outlet Tester, Have you checked your Power-line conditioner?
« Reply #45 on: 29 Aug 2017, 01:16 am »
Sorry for the long hiatus from this thread (travel & sickness) debilitated me.
Anyway I continued to do some background research on the T-4 unit and contacted a long-time friend in San Diego who co-incidentally also purchased a unit as well.
I spoke to him (electrical engineer) at length and after him popping the hood off his unit he confirmed that what we have is a "line-isolator" and not a line-conditioner, which I already suspected.

We spoke further and deduced that everything is working as designed.
The initial problem I was asking about had to do with the little 'wall-outlet' tester and why the ground did not light up.
Well actually the outlet tester is designed for house use and not to test something like this piece of equipment.
So it was giving me a false reading which started raising red flags etc.

What that means is that there is no direct connection between the wall outlet and the connected pieces of equipment as normally thought. However they are in the end all working together but do not receive and of the noise/hash coming directly from the a/c outlet.
So no noise etc. is getting into my line level equipment.

Everything is grounded as designed and there is no worry of electrocution or fire etc.
The only problem was that the tester was misused in this test and gave out with a fault issue.
So all is good......

Thank you to all that participated in my quest for an answer to my own-created problem.
In the end one phone call did it all.
So the old adage is true.....its not what you know, but where to find the answer!

Cheers,
Ian

Quote
Well actually the outlet tester is designed for house use and not to test something like this piece of equipment.
Not true. It just doesn't work on "Isolated AC Power Systems".
It works as designed on "Grounded AC Power Systems".
They are used to check for correct polarity and for open ground in wall receptacle outlets in, office buildings, industrial facilities, hospitals (Other than in areas like procedure rooms like, CATH Labs, OR rooms, ER rooms, some X-ray rooms.), Malls, strip malls, about everywhere you can think of they are used.
 
Quote
What that means is that there is no direct connection between the wall outlet and the connected pieces of equipment as normally thought.
Other than the wall safety equipment ground. All the "U' ground contacts of the receptacles on the unit are connected to the equipment ground of the power cord that feeds the unit that plugs into the wall outlet.

Quote
Everything is grounded as designed and there is no worry of electrocution or fire etc.
You should have let the EE read this thread.

Best regards,
Jim