mapj1:
Interesting results of the swap test. So, the spikes are not coming in down the main supply. Pity, as catching them at that point would have been easy.
So either (1) !the problem is conducted but not via the incoming mains or (2)radiated and received.
1) There is a spike generator plugged into ring 2, and that could be one icky lead, one loose terminal in a socket, an arcing switch or something inside a PC or monitor,
2) The spikes are picked up by the leads and wiring layout acting as an unlucky pick-up antenna, and something else, either electrostatic, or switched loads on another circuit some distance away is 'illuminating' this, in just the right way and the right sort of attack waveform to make the large voltages pile up in the wrong places.
I presume there is nothing special about the dirty ring - it is a ring and all 3 cores follow the same route no great loops where N and L diverge or spurs to feed something next door.....
If you wanted this to happen to order it would be really quite hard to arrange. I feel your pain, this sort of thing can be right sod to identify, even more so with limited access.
I do not really have more to suggest I'm afraid, but others may, and in any case keep us posted.
Mike.
I'm thinking it's 2) to be honest. Once these patch leads arrive i'm really hoping it will at least mask the problem.
The ring is so straight forward and the Spark that installed it is a really decent sparks that they use all the time. The only difference is that it looks like the dirty ring is wired in 4.0mm2 as it's stranded and the other ring is solid strand 2.5mm2 which may or may not have had an influence regarding electron flow around the outer surface, more surface area and all that jazz but who knows... not me that's for sure! haha!
I just stuck the scope on a little one man station on the other side of the wall in a different room and on a different phase that's using a laptop plugged in via a HDMI lead to a small monitor and let's just say I wish I hadn't as I really do not understand what I saw there! ? Measuring the outer of the HDMI lead whilst plugged in to the laptop but with the monitor switched off and it was all over the place!! Shame I can't show a video but i'm definitely going to stop looking at the scope now as suggested as it's causing more confusion than anything else!...... I'll keep you posted next week if I make any progress and thanks to all that have tried to understand my ramblings!
Kelly Marie Angel:
Out of interest I connected my scope to the 7.2v winding of a heater transformer and then plugged in a table lamp borrowed from the house switching the lamp on and off with its own switch made a few flicks on the mains waveform they were too fast to see properly. However turning the socket switch on and off as slowly as I could produced similar traces to the OPS ie noticeable fuzz on the positive and negative crests of the mains wave assuming im understanding it correctly I was producing spikes of 5 to 10 volts over the peak mains volts all this from a humble light bulb the RFI was clearly audible on my radio in the same room tuned to 648 kilocycles although I'm sure the noise would of been all over the place
That's interesting! I'm guessing you'll see all kinds of weird and wonderful anomalies through the scope. It's the significantly higher amplitudes of the distortions that interested me between the "dirty" ring and the better one but like I say, I think i've gone as far as my understanding will take me regarding scope readings but just purely out of interest and because sharing is caring i'll stick some pics on of that little setup I mentioned on Friday and show you the scope readings.
This is just a little one man station on a separate circuit (L3) next door. It's a 1M HDMI lead (3 ohms outer to outer) that goes from a Laptop and plugs in to a pre-wired station that has HDMI leads from a socket to a Monitor (not measured) The monitor is a 12V monitor fed via a power supply from a 4 way extension lead ( yes i'm going to try and disconnect this power supply tomorrow and see if it has been causing all this fuss all along!)
The readings shown are with the lap top plugged in to the HDMI socket (Green line measuring where the outer of the HDMI is showing whilst plugged in to the socket) and then another reading is with the Laptop HDMI lead unplugged and the green line probe straight on to the HDMI socket feeding the TV. Both instances, the TV is on standby.
Sparky Dave:
Kelly Marie Angel:
Out of interest I connected my scope to the 7.2v winding of a heater transformer and then plugged in a table lamp borrowed from the house switching the lamp on and off with its own switch made a few flicks on the mains waveform they were too fast to see properly. However turning the socket switch on and off as slowly as I could produced similar traces to the OPS ie noticeable fuzz on the positive and negative crests of the mains wave assuming im understanding it correctly I was producing spikes of 5 to 10 volts over the peak mains volts all this from a humble light bulb the RFI was clearly audible on my radio in the same room tuned to 648 kilocycles although I'm sure the noise would of been all over the placeThat's interesting! I'm guessing you'll see all kinds of weird and wonderful anomalies through the scope. It's the significantly higher amplitudes of the distortions that interested me between the "dirty" ring and the better one but like I say, I think i've gone as far as my understanding will take me regarding scope readings but just purely out of interest and because sharing is caring i'll stick some pics on of that little setup I mentioned on Friday and show you the scope readings.
This is just a little one man station on a separate circuit (L3) next door. It's a 1M HDMI lead (3 ohms outer to outer) that goes from a Laptop and plugs in to a pre-wired station that has HDMI leads from a socket to a Monitor (not measured) The monitor is a 12V monitor fed via a power supply from a 4 way extension lead ( yes i'm going to try and disconnect this power supply tomorrow and see if it has been causing all this fuss all along!)
The readings shown are with the lap top plugged in to the HDMI socket (Green line measuring where the outer of the HDMI is showing whilst plugged in to the socket) and then another reading is with the Laptop HDMI lead unplugged and the green line probe straight on to the HDMI socket feeding the TV. Both instances, the TV is on standby.
Sparky Dave:
Sparky Dave:
Kelly Marie Angel:
Out of interest I connected my scope to the 7.2v winding of a heater transformer and then plugged in a table lamp borrowed from the house switching the lamp on and off with its own switch made a few flicks on the mains waveform they were too fast to see properly. However turning the socket switch on and off as slowly as I could produced similar traces to the OPS ie noticeable fuzz on the positive and negative crests of the mains wave assuming im understanding it correctly I was producing spikes of 5 to 10 volts over the peak mains volts all this from a humble light bulb the RFI was clearly audible on my radio in the same room tuned to 648 kilocycles although I'm sure the noise would of been all over the placeThat's interesting! I'm guessing you'll see all kinds of weird and wonderful anomalies through the scope. It's the significantly higher amplitudes of the distortions that interested me between the "dirty" ring and the better one but like I say, I think i've gone as far as my understanding will take me regarding scope readings but just purely out of interest and because sharing is caring i'll stick some pics on of that little setup I mentioned on Friday and show you the scope readings.
This is just a little one man station on a separate circuit (L3) next door. It's a 1M HDMI lead (3 ohms outer to outer) that goes from a Laptop and plugs in to a pre-wired station that has HDMI leads from a socket to a Monitor (not measured) The monitor is a 12V monitor fed via a power supply from a 4 way extension lead ( yes i'm going to try and disconnect this power supply tomorrow and see if it has been causing all this fuss all along!)
The readings shown are with the lap top plugged in to the HDMI socket (Green line measuring where the outer of the HDMI is showing whilst plugged in to the socket) and then another reading is with the Laptop HDMI lead unplugged and the green line probe straight on to the HDMI socket feeding the TV. Both instances, the TV is on standby.
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