You betcha, Red Rider. Depending on the duration of the event, brown-outs can damage anything connected to the electrical grid.
Brown-outs are caused by low voltage conditions. Any connected electrical equipment will attempt to draw more current in order to maintain its normal power output. More current means more heat. More heat causes bad things. Reduced lifetime. Smoke. Fire. Cool green flashes when the transformers blow. As a last gasp, sometimes the electric company will lower the voltage on purpose to reduce the demand in an area. This strategy works for incandescent lighting and resistance heaters. It's hard on motors, electronics, and most everything else. The grid operators assume that low voltage is preferable to no voltage. It's a good assumption for a few minutes. After that it starts to degrade the equipment. >-----Original Message----- >From: b_s-wilk > >Can a "brown-out" also cause damage to electronics? ************************************************************************ * ==> QUICK LIST-COMMAND REFERENCE - Put the following commands in <== * ==> the body of an email & send 'em to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <== * Join the list: SUBSCRIBE COMPUTERGUYS-L Your Name * Too much mail? Try Daily Digests command: SET COMPUTERGUYS-L DIGEST * Tired of the List? Unsubscribe command: SIGNOFF COMPUTERGUYS-L * New address? From OLD address send: CHANGE COMPUTERGUYS-L YourNewAddress * Need more help? Send mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ * List archive at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ * RSS at www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml * Messages bearing the header "X-No-Archive: yes" will not be archived ************************************************************************
