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diy solar

dirty electricity

mlanier43

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Sep 29, 2019
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has anyone looked into the dirty electricity, my wife has been looking into this stuff and was wondering if solar power is cleaner.
 
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Here's a visual reference to explain what dirty electricity is:
Dirty-Electricity-chart.png
What's happening is radio frequencies (RF) or other forms of electromagnetic energy (EMF) are absorbed by the wires (they're acting as antennas) and it is added to the 120V 60 Hz signal. The RF signals can come from a lot of places. For example, a hair drier, wifi, florescent bulbs, a blender, a cell phone tower, nearby radio stations, a star far far away.

Small noises on the electricity are fairly normal and appliances are built to tolerate them. Noise is also different from surge currents (a bigger problem for the long life of your electronics) in that the variations are usually less than a volt. Unless your lights are flickering, breakers tripping, or you need to replace your TV every couple of years it's probably not a big deal.

I did see some really misleading information on this while reading up on this; most disturbing was "if you don't buy our filter you're killing your baby" type of thing. I even saw an NIH paper saying how bad dirty power is (although their ultimate conclusion was now that we've scared you give us funding so we can research it). Not a medical or frequency specialist, but to me that's just nonsense. There are studies that show EMF can be hazardous to your health; and dirty power is caused by EMF. So isn't it more likely the dirty power caused by the EMF caused the ill health? Regardless, removing the EMF would fix both problems.

Is Solar Power Cleaner?
Yes and no. Yes in the sense that since you're generating your own AC from the inverter you've removed all line noise outside your house when disconnected. No because if you're grid tied some of that outside noise still comes in and the wires in your wall are still absorbing energy and adding noise to the electricity.
 
Interesting this came up. Today I noticed that the receive light on my IR blaster was constantly flickering. A bit of investigating and it turned out that the mains cable from the pay TV box had flopped over onto the USB lead for the IR blaster. The inverter outputs so much noise that it was triggering the IR detection circuitry, despite the USB lead being shielded.

These cheap direct HF inverters are known to be noisy but I had no idea just how bad it really was. I might grab the DSO and do a spectrum plot if I remember to do it to see just how much crap it is producing. Despite that the THD on the inverters output is better than the mains. There's probably a lot of crest load (harmonic noise) on the mains from everyone else's crappy switching power supplies in the area.
 
... company that sells faraday-type clothes ....

That's not a bad idea! RF paint and fabrics exist, perhaps RF drapes aren't crazy? https://www.amazon.com/s?k=RF+Shielding+Paint&ref=nb_sb_noss

Anyone ever use any?

Update: https://emfacademy.com/yshield-emf-paint-review-does-it-work/
Update 2: Not sure if they're any good, but EMF meters are cheap: https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=emf+meter&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
(Might be a cell phone app that will measure RF in the wifi/cellular bands)
 
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I had an RF filter I just plugged in to the wall (110vac) and then my TV plugged in to the RF filter. It seemed to clear up the static I was getting sometimes through the wall plug.
 
I might grab the DSO and do a spectrum plot if I remember to do it to see just how much crap it is producing.

I went to do this and can't get sense out of the FFT function on the scope. Might be time to get a real specky ;)

*edit*
Take that back. I am able to get it working just that the amount of noise put out by the inverter is amazingly horrendous. It's such a broadband emitter of crap that I fooled myself into thinking that since there is just so much noise there I must be doing something wrong. With the inverter off I can see the usually birdies but with it on its just a wall of noise.

I sure hope there aren't any amateur radio ops in the area!
 
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I have twenty five years in RF. Yes, radio frequency does, "modulate", and ride along with the fifty or sixty cycle per second AC sinusoidal wave form. Yes you can hear this noise under certain situations in especially audio equipment. Yes, having a grounded, three prong outlet is very important in helping reduce the interference. Yes, many DC to AC invertors use a "modified sine wave", method which takes a square wave, (digital), output and modifies it by rounding off the corners. Because many invertors do not output a nice, rounded, sinusoidal AC waveform, they are noisey and can often be heard in the devices that they power. Transformers, (like the cube transformers that we all ysey), run less efficient and create more heat when fed with a poor quality, modified sine wave. Source: my puny noggin right here and right now. Note: Power conditioners to eliminate voltage spikes and line noise have been around for awhile. >> https://m.grainger.com/mobile/categ...on-and-distribution/electrical/ecatalog/N-qoj
 
I've heard inverters really put out a lot of rf noise. I know some led lamps and flashlights do. I use a am radio to see how horrible it is. I tried the cellphone apps and they are a joke.

I once had a led headlamp that I thought worked ok, until I put it near the am radio! Freaked me out! I replaced it with a thrunight and no worries!

I lot of people are getting sensitive to rf and dirty electricity. I heard lead paint was banned shortly after radar became popular. Perhaps it's a em shield?
 
The sort of inverter I'm taking about is a so called HF direct. LV DC in > boosted up to intermediate 400 or so volts > PWM'd to produce pretty good sine wave and pushed through an inductor to clean it up a bit.

A small bit.
 
I've heard inverters really put out a lot of rf noise. I know some led lamps and flashlights do. I use a am radio to see how horrible it is. I tried the cellphone apps and they are a joke.

I once had a led headlamp that I thought worked ok, until I put it near the am radio! Freaked me out! I replaced it with a thrunight and no worries!

I lot of people are getting sensitive to rf and dirty electricity. I heard lead paint was banned shortly after radar became popular. Perhaps it's a em shield?
Yes, many invertors output a "modified sine wave", which essentially is taking a square wave and rounding off the corners, not making a nice, clean, therefore, quiet sinusoidal wave output. "Pure sine wave" invertors solve this problem I believe. Yes, LEDs and CFLs emit spurious harmonics as well. On another subject, Cellphones, WiFi and Bluetooth devices transmit on essentially the same frequency range that a microwave oven uses to cook food on. Most people now are unable to go out into the big wide world for a walk, or wait for a bus or what have you without being glued to their devices. I'm not a doctor, but pressing a device that puts out 600 milliwatts, (that's over 1/2 a watt), of microwave oven power, up against your temple, is probably not the best idea. While doing this obviously doesn't make us drop dead on the spot, I'm wondering if exciting our brain cells to the point of vibrating at the frequency that creates enough heat to cook food, isn't having physical and mental repercussions. Use speaker phone and keep your phone as far away from your body as possible and use plug in data and audio cables instead of wifi and don't use Bluetooth.
 
Usually you can clean these things up with a few smoothing capacitors . Big ones across the DC input line . They don't usually bother ,just more cost. Thats probably the sparks we see when we connect them to the battery .Dc does not flow through Caps but dont put them on the 240 a/c side!


There is a very nice sine wave producer board put out now too . I have a couple ,I'll see if I can find the listing.
 
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I'm not a doctor, but pressing a device that puts out 600 milliwatts, (that's over 1/2 a watt), of microwave oven power, up against your temple, is probably not the best idea. While doing this obviously doesn't make us drop dead on the spot, I'm wondering if exciting our brain cells to the point of vibrating at the frequency that creates enough heat to cook food, isn't having physical and mental repercussions. Use speaker phone and keep your phone as far away from your body as possible and use plug in data and audio cables instead of wifi and don't use Bluetooth.
Microwaves use 900 watts or more , Ham radios put out 100 watts and the louder guys 300+ watts right next to them. Never done me any harm ..HOI ...just twitching me neck..OI.. bugger...
 
Microwaves use 900 watts or more , Ham radios put out 100 watts and the louder guys 300+ watts right next to them. Never done me any harm ..HOI ...just twitching me neck..OI.. bugger...
Roger that bjames, I've worked with 6 to 23 GHz point to point microwave links, straddled hundreds of of live antennas on towers putting out well over 200 watts of effective radiated power and I'm still here. Still, not so keen on exposing my brain to near field microwave oven energy by pressing a transmitter, even at 1/2 of a watt, up against my temple, besides, a cellphone puts out a couple hundred times more power than a microwave oven is allowed to leak! Food for thought!
 
I hope you don't use a UHF radio set :)
I have operated with the 450 to 470 MHz, (the commercial UHF band), bazillions of times! Microwave ovens operate at 2.45 GHz, Cellphones, (up to 4 G), operate up to 2.4 GHz, not enough difference to matter. Microwave ovens are allowed to leak 5 milliwatts as measured at about 2" from the oven, Cellphones transmit at 600 milliwatts which is why I'm not so keen on pressing one against my temple!
 
Usually you can clean these things up with a few smoothing capacitors . Big ones across the DC input line . They don't usually bother ,just more cost. Thats probably the sparks we see when we connect them to the battery .Dc does not flow through Caps but dont put them on the 240 a/c side!


There is a very nice sine wave producer board put out now too . I have a couple ,I'll see if I can find the listing.
Yes, capacitors pass AC, block DC, and you certainly do not want to exceed the voltage rating of a capacitor. I also by mistake once upon a time reverse biased an elctrolytic capacitor by hooking it up backwards between the twelve volt positive supply line and negative ground, in attempt to bleed off the popping noise heard when a radio was transmitting. The capacitor blows up fairly quickly and it's very loud and embarrassing!
 
Usually you can clean these things up with a few smoothing capacitors . Big ones across the DC input line . They don't usually bother ,just more cost. Thats probably the sparks we see when we connect them to the battery .Dc does not flow through Caps but dont put them on the 240 a/c side!


There is a very nice sine wave producer board put out now too . I have a couple ,I'll see if I can find the listing.
Its broadband RFI radiating from the AC side. Slapping a big electro on the input won't make much if any difference, wrong thing to use to reduce RFI and in the wrong place. If I was worried I'd use some ferrites on active and neutral.

I would be interested in seeing that sine wave board though, so don't forget to post the link etc.
 
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