On 03/13/2015 08:24 AM, Russell Reiter wrote: > I live close to the exhibition grounds which is near to one of the > city's major grid switches. For example, they were testing the new > streetcars, the ones with three sections for navigating tight turns > and they browned us down to (I assume) 50hz. This was visible as all > the lights dimmed and the streetcar appeared to navigate the loop a > short time later. As I don't have ups I had powered down my tower. The > next time I powered up the breaker in the power supply tripped and > when I reset it and booted, my 1.5v agp video card was toasted, at > least I hope its the card and not elsewhere on the bus. > > So that's not so bad, there's no enterprise stuff at risk, I just hack > together another box and carry on. However, now I have a real problem > and I'm in need of a solution. Yesterday I fired up the WiFi while my > SO was drying her hair. I toasted her salon quality hair dryer. Not > good. :-( There is no gfi outlet and at this point I'm wondering if I > need UPS, for the hair dryer, if not the computer. > > So my question is, does anyone on this list have similar problems and > a low cost hack they have used to deal with Toronto's iffy grid. > TIA > Russell >
Something seems wrong here. If that's actually happening, there's a problem with the power distribution network and you'd need a TTC power station nearby. Streetcars run on DC, not AC and those stations are used to convert 60 Hz (not 50) to DC. I suspect that power dip was caused by something else. If it was caused by streetcars, you'd see it happening frequently. A UPS is always a good idea, but I really doubt your WiFi damaged the dryer. A GFI outlet protects people against electrical leakage. It does not protect equipment. However, it's a good idea to have one for safety with outlets nears sinks etc. --- Talk Mailing List [email protected] http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
