Must Read: EMF (Electro Magnetic Field) or leaking current/ voltage, and why you need to be aware

cinergi said:

OK I see your video now - but even though visually it seems there's no connection between the cells and the rods, I'm concerned that there may be some inadvertent touching happening (plus I'd strongly advise insulating those rods anyway).

I'm still curious about measuring voltage from a battery terminal to the rods.

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From terminal to the rods shows 0.00, while 2 rods show different voltages

fhorst said:

From terminal to the rods shows 0.00, while 2 rods show different voltages

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OK, from the rods that show voltage to the battery terminal, test that rod with the positive and negative of *every* cell in the pack ... any 0's?

sunshine said:

Just a voltage difference between you and the rods.
Fuel tankers have a earth lead they connect to the fuel tanks before refilling.
An earth strap on your boots?

You really need to fix this... do you have a pacemaker....or even worse: a $800 smartwatch??


Probably need to earth each rod to the frame. Wrapping your cells with tin foil before binding them isn't so silly.
Earthing is only a generic term. In most cases establishing a connection between two sites of PD is the aim.

Edit- ''You can't get emf with dc!" With switchmode electronics isn't DC just AC with zero V set lower?

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It can be leakage.

But what is leakage?
It's not solid, not liquid..
So?
Is it EMF?
Or does it have different scientific name??

I'm the noob here, I really do not know.

Wrapping with tin foil and grounding this foil is probably the most easy way to get rid of the "leakage".

Not solving it.

I'm not that smart, but in my book leaking is never good,and all that got leaked out, you can not use.

No idea on how to measure how much we talk about.
kWh wise 0.0000 close to nothing?
Or?

Making Faraday cage and grounding this is the best solution to avoid problems like getting shocked.

Probably the time of day will make difference also, as around 10 am cells charge with +/- 4000 watt.
during the video it was early

cinergi said:

OK, from the rods that show voltage to the battery terminal, test that rod with the positive and negative of *every* cell in the pack ... any 0's?

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I tested 4 different parallel sets, 50%, all 0
And no other cells have connection with those rods

fhorst said:

I tested 4 different parallel sets, 50%, all 0
And no other cells have connection with those rods

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As you can see, the 3 rods are sided by 2 x 2 x 2 cells sets.
2 parallel, both sides.

Measure them, and all cells that could possibly make contact are tested.

Even if it would have contact with one or more cells, they are coated.
Even if the coating is damage where I can not see, then it should be 3.33 negative.

Not the different voltages we see in the videoz

Leaking...
Sounds just as possible as EMF, where I think leaking is EMF.

Reading the Wikipedia stuff about this subject it's a phenomenal that was seen +150 years ago, "leaking" into iron rod.

It's hard to find stuff ONLY about electricity, and not magnetic.
If I wouldhabe a compass it probably would go nuts above the battery.

The leaking in a rod as described on Wikipedia was the closest thing I could find that describes the same thing.

There it's called EMF

fhorst said:

I tested 4 different parallel sets, 50%, all 0
And no other cells have connection with those rods

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Ah, I misunderstood your previous reply. Are you able to shut down the equipment in the area and observe the voltages go to zero? They shouldn't hold voltage if nothing is inducing it. Heck, this would mean that walking around with 2 rods in your hands are picking up something from somewhere in that room - because you're showing it happening to rods that have no cells between them -- meaning it has nothing to do with the cells/battery.

cinergi said:

Ah, I misunderstood your previous reply. Are you able to shut down the equipment in the area and observe the voltages go to zero? They shouldn't hold voltage if nothing is inducing it. Heck, this would mean that walking around with 2 rods in your hands are picking up something from somewhere in that room - because you're showing it happening to rods that have no cells between them -- meaning it has nothing to do with the cells/battery.

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The rods have the 280Ah cells in the back on both sides.

I tested those cells +/- (4 x 2 parallel) and the 3 rods that are in-between them.

If I disconnect the battery from the Inverter and discharge them, I'm quite positive it would not charge this much.

There needs to be movement for leaking can occur.

It's NOT Falce contact.
Obviously that is something I tested first.

It's not constant.
It builds up, and is quickly discharged when in contact with "ground".

I've seen voltage up and over 40 volts.

I thought about static electricity, to my knowledge that's high voltage.

Humidity is "low" 50%
The air is filtered in the the electronica room.

This is what happens, perhaps "no one else" have this issue, perhaps many have, but never touched the rods days after installation.

Or they did proper grounding, something I didn't do.

All possible.

Yes, I will start grounding today.
Include the metal roof to the 6 lightning rods in the soil.
I have separate rod for the room, no direct contact with the rebars or concrete.

During the build I thought about how the grounding for lighting and electrical systems better be split, as I'm sure most appliances won't like the thousands of volts from lighting

You can certainly ground them and call it a day, but personally I'd want to explain it. I'd start by creating the same rod structure with no cells in them and see if anything builds up. Follow up with cells in between, but nothing connected. Keep going until the phenomenon occurs.

While I haven't tested the voltages of the rods in my system, I touch them all the time without being electrocuted. I'm sure others here have as well -- so we're all very curious what your circumstances are so the rest of us can benefit from this knowledge and prevent similar issues.

Thanks!

cinergi said:

You can certainly ground them and call it a day, but personally I'd want to explain it. I'd start by creating the same rod structure with no cells in them and see if anything builds up. Follow up with cells in between, but nothing connected. Keep going until the phenomenon occurs.

While I haven't tested the voltages of the rods in my system, I touch them all the time without being electrocuted. I'm sure others here have as well -- so we're all very curious what your circumstances are so the rest of us can benefit from this knowledge and prevent similar issues.

Thanks!

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Yes, I can and will do this.
I need to rebuild the cells as I need to shuffle the 152Ah cells.

Some on the lower section have "delicate" threads... I used them too often with bolts ;-(

I already tried to fix one with helicoil, that didn't work out, At ALL!
The thread cutting rod have a 3mm tapered end, smaller.
You have just 3.5 mm of the 6.5mm left, as the first 3 mm don't get thread.

I know there are more expensive kits that uses 3 or 5 different rods to make thread, they have almost no loss.
I didn't have them.

Long story short, 2 components epoxy is now the base for the threaded terminal on that cell.

As understandable, I need that cell on top, so I can more easily attach the bus-bar with alternative method.

Threaded rods/bolts aren't the only system to make good (or good enough) contact.

As result, all cells are removed, and the whole setup is done again.

One thing that I will do different,that probably might solve the issue, is to better seal the bus-bars.

They are now mostly blank, no shrink wrap.

I also probably will use tube around the rods to prevent issues.

If the electricity charging issue still occur, it's for sure magnetic, EMF.

If it doesn't, it was leaking.

It's not possible for me to just make test setup.

Changing the batteries takes two or three days for me.
(80 cells!)
My personal energy is limited due medical conditions.

I was happy to have the power back up and running with just the 280Ah connected, after countering the thread issues with the 152ah's.

That took me 8 days to build.
During daytime we have electricity, the Revo II can work without battery.
After 16.30... no electricity till 09.00

Doable, not ideal.

@fhorst , this is an interesting problem. I don't have a new answer to suggest, but just some things to think about.

To feel a shock from DC power, electric current has to flow through your body. You have to have completed a circuit. If you touch something at 40V but have no connection somewhere else on your body to complete the circuit you won't feel anything.

You are working barefoot, and I assume you get shocked when you touch only one rod, so the circuit you are completing is from your threaded rod, thought your body, through your floor, and back into your system somewhere it is grounded. My best example of this is when I was young, I wanted to move a telephone jack in my basement. I was barefoot and putting the wire on the terminal coming from the phone company. It runs at about 40V. When I touched the terminal, I got shocked. I had never been shocked working on telephone equipment before. Too lazy to go get my shoes, I had a plastic garbage back nearby. I stood on the garbage bag and could touch the terminal and not feel any shock, because it insulated my feet, and I no longer completed the circuit with my body.

Your experience may be different than most others because very few people are working on their batteries while barefoot on a concrete floor. For safety, it is a good idea to wear insulating shoes while doing this work.

If the threaded rod is in contact with the case of the cell, it can get a voltage on it. I agree with others who suggest adding tubing around the rod to protect the blue wrapper from getting cut by the threaded rod.

The video is very interesting. But in the video, you measure from threaded rod to threaded rod. This is not what your body feels. Do you have a good metal connection to your foundation so that you could measure from threaded rod to metal in your cement floor?

I agree with others that it is very important to figure this out. Be safe.

Don't make me wear shoes ?️

I used to have rubber slab to stand on when working with the lead acid battery.

That got lost in transition...
Better find it back

I agree, it's strange, and not safe.
How bad/ not safe highly depending on the course of the problem.

One thing keeps bugging me.
"Leaking current/voltage" on relative lower voltage, but high capacity (1016Ah)

I don't see any sparks or so, at all!
How does it leak?
And how much leaks?
How much distance can it travel?

I usually wear rubber gloves when working, that is good enough, but won't protect my arms and legs..
Rubber slab are pond foil sheets of 0.8 mm thick 4 layer should be perfect safe.

I know how to work safely with high current, just never experienced this.

So I share to get more insight on what is going on!

fhorst said:

Probably the time of day will make difference also

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Seasonal as well.
Probably you are having a period of low humidity.

It's a few days later.

Grounding rod installed and connected to my "home grid" and appliances.

I need to find copper clamp, for now this will do.
About 180cm into the soil.


I relocated the mining equipment to our room.
Cold season now, why not use the heat
Cold in night temperature below 15 Celcius...
For my wife and kids cold enough to wear winter jacket in the morning!!
(Pussies, not used to real cold)

For when it moves back (Februari/March) I prepared "EMF shield" made from simple chicken wire.(grounded)
If it is a problem, it will be low frequency, the holes are small enough.



Leakage, EMF, what ever it is/was.....
Things where getting high enough charged to "bite".

After using my grounding rod, that disappeared.

Obviously,
I do need to ground the threaded rods, and electric equipment.

I never realized how important that is.
And what the effects of not grounding are, how it can slowly charge your equipment housing up to a point where it "bites" or probably will give errors in the equipment.

My Samsung "inverter type" refrigerator have 2 wire plug, and separate ground cable on the base.
Probably Thai logic...
If it needs to be grounded (and according to the manual it needs to be) why not use the 3 wire power plug that is invented to do just that??

Delmar said:

I would guess the solar panels are the source of the EMF either through damaged internal circuitry, or potentially external static (nearby thunderstorm) especially since the charge happened "suddenly". Are the panels securely grounded?

My day job is industrial weighing and I have seen static charges throw off readings and scramble electronics. Once a nearby 3-phase AC motor zapped my tech through the loadcell shield wire.

Static charge is a huge concern with my golf cart and I hesitate to use onboard 48V inverter without being first grounded & bonded to my house breaker panel.

Setting a battery on concrete has been debunked on the internet however I have no personal experience.

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I worked for Toledo Scale (now Mettler-Toledo) in service then in design engineering for 34 years. I am working for a load cell manufacturer in Scottsdale now (you know who it is). Small world.

When I was tech in Los Angeles CA, I had a customer that filled boxes with plastic pellets for injection molding. The scale had a wooden pallet sitting on the deck with a large (4' cube) corrugated (cardboard) box lined with plastic. The scale was used to cut off the pellet feed when the box was full. Every so often the static charge would get so high it would jump from the box to the scale deck (4.5") and reset the scale. The operators treated that scale with the highest respect (nobody wanted to get near it). 4.5" sparks is over 135 kV and it had to penetrate the plastic liner of the box too!

This arcing happened over and over again. I was amazed this didn't damage anything, they just had to empty the scale and recapture zero after every ZAP!

I fixed the problem by adding braided ground straps around the load cells, plus I also had to add a 100' extension cable between the floor scale and the indicator (extra coiled up under the instrument). The impedance of the longer cable slowed down the rise time of the induced surge in the cable to the point that the instrument was able to handle it without resetting. Toledo Scale made some tough instruments (8142 was the model, I recall).

EMF/leaking current or voltage or what ever it is...
It builds up!!

Unlike some members who claim "not possible" there are enough real life examples that it does happen.

Thank you for this additional example how lack of grounding can cause serious problems.

It's amazing what grounding fix.

I don't know what it is, just that it travels from the battery to the Inverters to the computer (mining rig)
Each have about 40 cm open space between them.
Besides battery cable, no contact to the inverter.
Besides AC wire going to switching panel and to the computer, no contact.
That same computer now works perfect on different location....

40 cm, or 160 cm (distance from battery)

Something is making the computer malfunction, where only difference in location fixed that.

If it's not EMF, I don't know what else it possible could be!!

Grounding all fixed the problem of getting randomly bitten by iron things.

If my EMF shielding works I will know in a few months when moving the computer to the electricity room

fhorst said:

If it's not EMF, I don't know what else it possible could be!!

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We had reports of a major geo magnetic storm in North America last week. All my wife noticed is her Internet was flakey. I just told her to reboot and had another glass of wine. Problem solved.

Ampster said:

We had reports of a major geo magnetic storm in North America last week. All my wife noticed is her Internet was flakey. I just told her to reboot and had another glass of wine. Problem solved.

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Wine solve all problems

Unless you have more knowledge about electricity and magnetism being almost one and the same (they go hand in hand) then Wikipedia can inform us, it's just the wine that solved the problems

I am totally open to any realistic expectation of this phenomenon.
Thunder storms ain't one of them, being not a constant factor.

I also doubt your wife's computer have 7x +$350,- videocards...

You are free to visit and witness the phenomenon with your own eyes.
Until then, stick to the wine as being the problem solver

fhorst said:

I also doubt your wife's computer have 7x +$350,- videocards...

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What? Only 7 video cards? And old ones at that??

You need to upgrade to compete.


"Sierra is a heterogeneous supercomputer that uses IBM Power9 central processing units (CPUs) and NVIDIA Tesla V100 Tensor Core graphics processing units (GPUs)."
"Graphics Processing Units (GPUs): 17,280"

HaldorEE said:

I worked for Toledo Scale (now Mettler-Toledo) in service then in design engineering for 34 years. I am working for a load cell manufacturer in Scottsdale now (you know who it is). Small world.

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To expand on my previous statement…my day job is industrial weighing of pellets and powders. Handling them can create static charges, especially for materials delivered in one-ton bags or boxes. Normally the oppressive humidity here in Texas and Louisiana dissipates static buildup and the operators get complacent on connecting the drain (ground) cable to the bag/box. But now in the winter we have cold & dry fronts move through, and static charges ignite the contained dust and chemical plants go big-boom. I treat static charge with high respect otherwise it will bite back.

Delmar said:

To expand on my previous statement…my day job is industrial weighing of pellets and powders. Handling them can create static charges, especially for materials delivered in one-ton bags or boxes. Normally the oppressive humidity here in Texas and Louisiana dissipates static buildup and the operators get complacent on connecting the drain (ground) cable to the bag/box. But now in the winter we have cold & dry fronts move through, and static charges ignite the contained dust and chemical plants go big-boom. I treat static charge with high respect otherwise it will bite back.

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I did a batch controller upgrade for LOF Glass in Stockton CA back in the 80's. The carbon black hoppers kept jamming (bridging). We tried everything to correct this. Higher intensity vibrators, thumpers no help. The humidity would get so high I saw fog and even rain inside the building one day.

The way we finally solved the feeding problems was to install a silicone sleeve (shaped like an ice cream cone) inside the hopper. When the feed rate stalled we would inflate the space between the hopper and the liner to break up the bridging.

Material handling, no thanks. That is a specialty I want nothing more to do with.
-Edit-

Did I say carbon black? That is from rubber batching system, my material handling nightmares are getting mixed up.

It was some other hydrascopic powder used in glass, that I have mercifully forgotten the name of.

Hedges said:

What? Only 7 video cards? And old ones at that??

You need to upgrade to compete.

https://asc.llnl.gov/sites/asc/files/sierra-fact-sheet.pdf

"Sierra is a heterogeneous supercomputer that uses IBM Power9 central processing units (CPUs) and NVIDIA Tesla V100 Tensor Core graphics processing units (GPUs)."
"Graphics Processing Units (GPUs): 17,280"

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Yeah...
I should.
Sadly I spent the money on solar panels and battery

Is it possible that whatever material is next/glued to the plywood (is black and has DD written on it) is conductive? If it is that could be a path to the threaded rod.

HaldorEE said:

Material handling, no thanks. That is a specialty I want nothing more to do with.

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After 30+ years in the industry I am rapidly approaching the same conclusion. Thinking about going back to my power generation roots to finish my career.