emergency therapy needed :o

[Raven]

i had just put a pizza in the oven and was about to kill some time watching mythbusters and changing some water in the aquarium when suddenly the electricity went out.

it got completly black and i realized the computer had died, is one of the most terrifying moments in my life :eyes:

no tv no music no games just nothingness :banghead:

i happened to have the frontlight to a bicycle on the table which was an easy find and used it to pick out my flashlight just to find out the batterys had gone empty so i started to look for my cellphone and called a friend and took my moped over to borrow a lighter and some candles and on the way i saw only "nothingness", im glad i have a 25w frontlight and not the original legal 15w so i could actually se where i went and arrived at my friend and talked for a couple of minuts and the electricity came back.

i drove home and finished the waterchange and now sitting with a slightly dry pizza.

and what do we learn from this story ??? by the biggest ups you can find

tomorrow im going out to buy new batterys to my flashlight and a big powerfull petrolbased powerplant

 

[FragTek]

Yeah everyone should have a good UPS... I might invest in one for the new rig.

 

[Raven]

not only ups, im considering buying a flashlight with rechargeable batterys so the next time the power goes out i will have light.

seen a version that automaticly lits up if the power goes out which would be perfect for me.

i saw absolutly nothing, was so extremly dark so im glad i found the bicyclelight earlier today so i could atleast find some clothes before i went out.

 

[FragTek]

I have a rechargable flashlight that plugs in to a wall outlet and just hangs their with a blinking red LED so u can find it when the power goes out. Nice little light.

 

[Ham]

This reminds me of a time we're were laning it up at llwyds. Power went out. We like sat stearing at blank screens for about 20mins trying to think of somthing to do...

 

[Dav0s]

so is ur pc ok?

 

[Nagaru]

One time the power went out and me, my bro and a friend were playing Guild Wars, so we put the cable modem and router on an ups and played on our laptops, it was awsome.

 

[Raven]

so is ur pc ok?

ye think so, has worked just fine for an hour and a half now.

I have a rechargable flashlight...

not a bad idea.

found one flashlight, has no batterys in the usual way but are charged by a small dynamo, 1minut of work gives 30minuts of light which sounds decent and will go and take a look at it some day when i have time over.

We like sat stearing at blank screens for about 20mins trying to think of somthing to do...

talk about addicted to computers

the first thing i thought of was how unprepared i was for it.

its the first time in 27 years i experience a powerfailure this hard.

when it have happened previosly it has been during day, streetlight been enough to light up or only 1 of 3 powerphases.

over here the electricity comes in 3 wires, the kitchen is on one phase and the livingrom on the second phase and the oven/freezer on the third phase so if one phase goes out i still have light.

read the news and seems a couple of hundredthousand lost the power due to some failure in a highpowerline around 12km away from me but didnt take long for the power companys to reroute the power to other lines

so i strongly suggest everyone should atleast have a flashlight nearby just incase.

 

[Nagaru]

over here the electricity comes in 3 wires, the kitchen is on one phase and the livingrom on the second phase and the oven/freezer on the third phase so if one phase goes out i still have light.

You lucky people, all we get is stupid 2 phase here .

 

[Raven]

yup and only 110v.

those 3 phases comes in at 400v, quite handy when working with heavy powertools like welding or a washing machine.

400v 16a can do alot of work espically when they are combined.

also higher V tends to be a bit gentler to the wallet when the bill comes.

then there is a wire called "zero", between any of the phases and the zero their is only 230v.

 

[Hyper]

Once I got home and found no power, it was getting dark so I found a tourch and waited for it to come back on.

Anyway after a few hours of waiting my dad arrives, says the rest of the streets electric is on, flicks a switch in the fuse box and we have power

So I sat in the dark for hours pointlessly when all it would have taken was the flick of a switch to fix it

 

[Nagaru]

yup and only 110v.

those 3 phases comes in at 400v, quite handy when working with heavy powertools like welding or a washing machine.

400v 16a can do alot of work espically when they are combined.

also higher V tends to be a bit gentler to the wallet when the bill comes.

then there is a wire called "zero", between any of the phases and the zero their is only 230v.

OK so you have 2** 3 phase right?

 

[Raven]

OK so you have 2** 3 phase right?

have phase1 phase2 and phase3 and its 400v between them.

then i have the Zero, there is 230v bewteen the zero and any of the phases and is whats normally used at home.

then there is ground/earth too.

according to the news there was a problem with a 130.000v line but they do not know what the problem is yet.

 

[NickS]

We have two phase, two 50-amp 120v lines coming into the house. Then pretty much every room has a fuse. Furnace has its own fuse. So does washer & dryer, etc.

We hardly have power outages though, most last only 5 minutes max (like during a bad storm or something.)

In-home power outages, we've never blown a fuse in the five years we have lived here, even when we had high-power tools and a huge air compressor plugged in when we re-did the kitchen and finished off a section of the basement.







The two @ top labeled main = two 50a. The other two linked are two 20a for the 3rd floor (master bedroom/home theater.)

 

[Raven]

only 50a, thats only 6000w.

thats much less then what i have in to my apartment, 3x16a 400v is 19.2kw

ye i know 19.2kw is quite high for an apartment better safe then sorry and a modern speedy computer needs alot of power

i used to live in a house and it had 3x35a 400v = 42kw but due to some stupid electrican it wasnt enough.

cant put washer dryer and heat on one phase :cussing:

 

[Rastalovich]

Ugh, I can remember using candles quite alot in the 70s >.<

 

[NickS]

only 50a, thats only 6000w.

thats much less then what i have in to my apartment, 3x16a 400v is 19.2kw

ye i know 19.2kw is quite high for an apartment better safe then sorry and a modern speedy computer needs alot of power

i used to live in a house and it had 3x35a 400v = 42kw but due to some stupid electrican it wasnt enough.

cant put washer dryer and heat on one phase :cussing:

Heh, 12000w is a lot when most computers draw less than 500w.

 

[FarFarAway]

The UK has the best power grid. The only time anything gets blown is if some idiot decides to do something stupid, or lightening blows down a pilon.

 

[Raven]

checked the news and seems several small problems made a big impact.

my hometown have 3 main powerlines, at any given time 2 of them can fail and the third one still provide power.

about 7-8 years ago the main power line that was in use failed and the power was rerouted to the 2 other powerlines so fast so most people didnt even notice it but the problem last night was one powerline failed.

one was out of commission due to relocation and a switch failed to disconnect the faulty line so a switch later down the line cut off completly to protect from a major shortcut so parts of the town was blacked out.

took about a half hour before the power got back over here, a friend of mine was "blacked out" for only 20mins but took up to 2 hours for all to have power again.

 

[nathan]

The UK has the best power grid. The only time anything gets blown is if some idiot decides to do something stupid, or lightening blows down a pilon.

that is a good point, i cannot remember when the power was last out.