Magnetic Field Trouble in Los Angeles: Equipment Failures

[Adder_Noir]

Just read Tom's report and I would say indeed that this is what it is. CD drives will not open by themselves no matter how much current is being dumped to Earth by mistake.

Have a look at getting some harmonic filters (large inductors) fitted right away. I'm very sure that's what this is but it may indeed not be coming from your premises.

Tell the power company right away if they're still there that you think it may be a harmonic problem.

 

[Adder_Noir]

Just a quick note before I go and make a cup of tea. These disturbances may well be originating outside of your property. They may infact be entering your property via the earth/ground line for example. This would account for why your problems got worse when you improved your grounding.

If I were you I'd be straight in touch with a contractor or the power company and get harmonic filters installed on your premises on your phase, neutral and Earth where your supply enters your property.

And the sooner the better

**Edit**

I'm signing off for the night. I'll pm ypu my mobile number in case you get really stuck during the night.

 

[business man]

I will get this info over to my guys asap. It's hard to get to them right now. They are all so busy directing traffic. I will try to update as more info comes back to me.

Thank you for your time and input.

 

[Gokul43201]

Just a suggestion, but do you have a compass? If you take it just outside your building and it points to the power main instead of pointing North, then there's a good chance that the main is indeed the source of your woes.

The B-field from a transmission line points, not towards the line, but tangentially away from it. Furthermore, I know of no compass that has a response time below the 16 ms needed to detect an oscillating 60Hz field. A typical compass will not respond to a rapidly oscillating field; it will settle along the direction of the static field.

From what I've read so far, it seems there's a likely shielding problem here...has the office been checked for possible ground loops and such?

Also, with a half-decent oscilloscope and a length of wire, you can check for yourself if there's large 60Hz fields in the air (compared to someplace else).

<<Note: Just started reading this thread now (and haven't gotten past post#5), so if this is redundant, please ignore it.>>

 

[business man]

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. We really need as many brains on this as we can get. I feel we are funneling down to something, or multiple things now.

The problem is far from being solved but at least now we are being recognized by the power company. Unfortunately even THEY may not be able to help, so that is why I am here, to try to get more intelligent possible solutions.

I am passing-on everything here, as it comes in, over cell phone, because they have no connection at the office.

 

[business man]

At about 8:45pm pst I was just informed by 2 employees working late, that several breakers tripped again, including lights, and they will not reset.

 

[business man]

The latest information regarding the power company is that they are FINALLY seeing how serious the situation is here but they do not have an answer yet.

They are going to power us down at noon tomorrow to change out a main breaker that they say is failing due to these ongoing problems. They are now at least very sympathetic to our situation and have assigned some senior more experienced people to the job.

Tom shaunessy from Powercet, our expert, is now saying that this is so serious that he feels a division of the military should be contacted about it. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would overreact, so I am really concerned now.

I can't imagine the losses if I have to move my entire operation to another building at this point, I am not sure if i could even find one. I am not sure if we can keep our servers running long enough to process payroll tomorrow, then there's invoicing, billing, payables, etc.etc. not getting processed now.

WE ARE SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY DIEING HERE
My operations manager, CEO, and computer tech are about ready to collapse from exhaustion. They have not gotten much sleep in the last few weeks.

Local Universities don't really want to talk to us. I think they are concerned about potential liability. We did get one that said if we submit a written report that they would look at it and get back to us. So far they have not done so.

 

[Danger]

Blackadder;
I'm totally out of my league here, but I'm just going to try to clarify something. What you call an RCD seems to be, by your description, what we call a GFI (Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor). Is that correct?

 

[Adder_Noir]

Blackadder;
I'm totally out of my league here, but I'm just going to try to clarify something. What you call an RCD seems to be, by your description, what we call a GFI (Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor). Is that correct?

That's the one mate. In fact that's a better name for it as it better explains what it does.

Business Man,

If you can mate I'd get someone into check for harmonic disturbances as your symptoms tie in very well with the problems they cause. Have you had a chance to check for anything like a drive or something which might be causing it?

Just one more thing that might be causing such things is a backfeed which could be generating a standing wave. I'm scraping my memory banks there but it's one suggestion and an Earth loop of some kind could I suppose be doing it as was mentioned above.

Your best bet mate is to shut down your property and slowly turn things back on again until you hit problems.

I still believe harmonic filters installed at your supply would help enormously if it can be proven that the source of disruption is external to your premises.

 

[Adder_Noir]

I notice Tom's report states that the worry is the High Voltage DC line entering the city near your premises. Surely he means AC doesn't he? Or does he mean DC? I'm not sure what he means there can you check that one out please as it might be something that turns out to be important.

I've dug out my harmonics book and I'll list some of the things it states can be sources of such harmonic disturbances:

1)Transformer Magnetisation Non-linearities (a cracked core?)
2)Motors
3)Arcing devices - Electric Arc Furnaces, Discharge Type Lighting
4)Single phase rectification in D.C. power supplies (could be this one)
5)Three phase current sources (see explanation below)
6)Thyristor controlled drives
7)Inverter Fed A.C. Drives (don't even know what these are)

Three Phase Current Sources:

Had a little to do with these in my last job. A customer required some big pumps (and I mean big) to be run off an A.C. supply without rectification but with a voltage profile being a close match to D.C.. Problem is when you get that big it is either helpful or required (can't remember which) to use a method called twelve-pulse. It's done by taking an input from an A.C. source and routing one through a series of star and delta connections (very clever and totally beyond me) which alters the phase relationship between the two supplies which are then both fed into the motor by the same cable I believe. Reason is you super-impose one A.C. profile onto another in such a way that it reduces the ripple voltage going into the motor. Obviously anything slightly wrong with the phase relationship and you'll get some rather substantial problems, one of which being higher-than-normal supply frequency disturbances and magnitude spikes.

This could also I suppose (again I'm dredging everything up here) be caused by two supplies being connected to each other which are out of phase. Voltage spikes and high frequency disturbances could also occur here.

If I were you I'd get someone to check if your incoming Earth has current flowing in it when your building is powered down tomorrow. You really do need to know if the disturbances are originating in your premises or not.

 

[Adder_Noir]

I work for a company that manufactures, installs and maintains electron microscopes. In order to determine if there is a lot of vibration or EMI we contract out to other companies. If this problem persists, there is a company called TCM that specializes in detection and cancellation of vibration and electromagnetic field. http://www.techmfg.com/index.htm?gclid=CNq8s8TAuIgCFTosGAodOlG4zA

Also you might want to take down this guy's suggestion in case you need these folks. They might be able to help you with other stuff even if a magnetic field is not the issue.

 

[business man]

Ok, I am going over there in about an hour to make sure that all of the most logical suggestions here are contemplated or implimented.

Logically the first thing would be when they shut my power down at noon, we will use that time to check for current all over the building.

I did forget to mention one other thing but it may not be pertinent. I was told that in one of our servers with four or five drives, that one of the power suplies was arcing and had to be shut down.
Soon after that two or three hard drives failed so we are down to two drives now and they are limping along doing all the work but seem to be holding up.

The reason I bring it up now is because there has been discusion here about drives creating high frequency problems. The reason I did not bring it up earlier is because I think they have been shut down, and, or disconnected for a period of time and we were still having problems.

I must verify this today to see if the problems stop when circuits to the servers are swithched off.

 

[business man]

I just verified that the drive problem was suspect weeks ago. They completely isolated the server (disconnected) and we still experienced problems, so scratch that one off the list.

 

[Adder_Noir]

Will do. Don't forget to report back your findings on Earth conductor current under isolation

 

[Adder_Noir]

Just in case you need it here is my old employer's website.

John Merriman the guy who runs it is an uber expert on electrics. He is very busy though and you'd have to at least offer to re-imburse him if you were going to take up a lot of his time because he runs the company and it is very hectic, although I'm sure he'd be very glad to help.

http://www.jmsweb.co.uk"

His UK number is 0151 647 5092. I'm not sure how to ring it from outside the UK though, although I'm told it's very easy.

He might be the kind of guy who can point you straight to the problem.

 

[business man]

What a day! Just got home. I am totally spent and overloaded with info.I will never be able to remember everything we did today. I met Tom today for the first time and all I can say is WOW is this guy sharp. He had so much cool eqiupment out there, I couldn't believe it!

I will keep it brief because more info will come to me later. Just want to hit the major points.

This is 99% most likely a EMF problem, and it may be one of the only combination of circumstances that exists in this country from what i am gathering.

The power line passing my building is D.C.! It was determined years ago that this is a more efficient way to get power transferred long distances, and was apparently government sponsored, but obviously not researched quite enough regarding easement and right of way guidlines and restrictions which are fairly well established for A.C.

I should say before I go too far, that when we shut down power to change out that main breaker, we saw a reading of around 280 mamps before and maybe around 260 after. This was checked in several places on both ends of the building and pretty consistant.

We checked several water lines outside, rebar below grade and in the wall.
DWP said he was ready to rule out that the problem was coming from ground but said he would leave a recording meter for 24 hrs.

We had several events today, breakers were tripping with normal loads, some while the guy was there, so he is actually saying that it could be EMFs from the D.C, line!

The best evidence came at 3:02 pm when just after an event, my computer guy runs back to the panel where we were all standing and says,"your not going to believe what i just saw"

One of our pallet wrappers was out in back and heard unusual crackling in the wires then a loud bang, and said a wire or wires were glowing!
So chris runs out to see the very end of the glowing wires before they went back to normal color.

more in a minute:

 

[Danger]

DC on a major line?! WTF?!

 

[business man]

Tom, who you should know by now, was already thinking that the two lines running next to each other, should be fine no matter how much current was passing through them as long as they are balanced. His most recent theory is that when they are, for some reason out of balance, is when it causes our EMF problem.

The guy who manages this line has now been informed of the situation, and we took reports from three employees that saw or heard the wires at 3:02 along with our statements about the concurrent failure of magnetic breakers. He will also receive the report from the other DWP guy that will substantiate our claims of random failures that do not appear to be from ground or faulty wiring\appliances.

After this 3:02 event, I decided to take action. I had a bigger generator ordered, got it hooked up to our big UPS with line conditioner. Had the magnetic breaker bypassed, (still has fuse protection) so i wouldn't have to cage it. I had this hooked up to our phone system and computers with separate grounding using special receptacles that will not ground to the boxes but use ground wires inside conduit. I then had the computer cabinets grounded to the conduits.

In the phone room I went the extra mile, not only completing above tasks but also rigged a faraday cage from expanded metal lathe and twist ties that I grounded to conduit. I not only caged the equipment but also most of the hundreds of cables running in and out of the room, then grounded the metal wire rack that is sort of like a sideways ladder in a T shape that seemed like it needed to be grounded.

The only weekness here is that I could not complete the cage against the wall that the equipment is mounted to. That wall is away from the EMF source, or the far side, so I am hoping this does not compromise the cage's effectiveness too much.

The bottom line here is that I can run my business without lights and outlets for awhile, but not without phones and computers! So right now that's the priority.

When I left tonight they were just buttoning up the final connections. I am crossing my fingers. The last couple hits just before I left did not shut down the phones, which is a good sign, although the phones didn't always go down on every hit, I was encouraged and proud of my work.

We are crossing our fingers and toes.

There is a lot more to say about some of the readings from the awesome equipment Tom brought over, but I'm beat, I've got to be somewhere early A.M., will try to check in here sometime tomorrow.

 

[Adder_Noir]

Tom, who you should know by now, was already thinking that the two lines running next to each other, should be fine no matter how much current was passing through them as long as they are balanced. His most recent theory is that when they are, for some reason out of balance, is when it causes our EMF problem.

Wow no wonder you've had problems this really is a rare one. If I remember correctly then current running in one direction cancels out the magnetic field from current running in the opposite direction. That's why you have to use three core (actually four-cored) cable for two way lighting circuits so you never have a phase wire running departed from the neutral as it causes magnetic disturbance which can affect hearing aids.

If the operation relies on several lines running next to each other in opposite directions (or the same direction - I really can't remember which at the moment) to cancel out each others magnetic field then yes an imbalance woould cause a resultant magnetic field to be in effect.

Because it's D.C. the field would be stationary and would not fluctuate until something caused further imbalance in the line (someone turning on a big circuit somewhere) which might be what is causing sudden current spikes which are throwing your breakers. I believe however that your electronic equipment will still suffer even when the field is stationary.

My best guess is something extra has been routed onto this D.C. line recently which is drawing more current (alot more) but has not been compensated for in the other lines, i.e. all the load has been dumped onto one line. This will be causing the imbalance I think. It would be interesting to have a look at major construction projects which have been taking place in your town lately and see if this gives something away. Also maybe something has recently been de-comissioned causing the imbalance (perhaps more likely if these lines have been around a long time).

Remember when you said your computer guy said the T1 connection was super fast in one location of the building? Might be very interesting to see how that part of the building relates to the D.C. line's location compared to where it was situated when it was going very slowly.

The incident with your pallet wrapper is incredible and shows potentially just what a hopeless battle you've been fighting recently. I think it will be getting sorted out now though. I have to say I also suspect a lawsuit might be on the horizon for your lost earnings, assuming the power lines have been imbalanced without adequate investigation by the persons responsible for distributing their power.

Keep us informed please mate this is most interesting

*LOL just don't ask anyone with a hearing aid to visit your property at the moment either!

 

[Adder_Noir]

Just one thing to note although I suppose it's not your issue anyway but what the hell.

If the D.C. line relies on the neutral return path of each phase/live running next to each other to cancel out magnetic fields then if a phase/live has been routed back through the wrong neutral somewhere further down the line then that could be causing all this trouble. Might be worth mentioning

 

[business man]

I will, Monday.
Thanks
Scott

 

[business man]

We had a hit last night that tripped the breaker on our phone system that was inside a faraday cage, surrounded on all sides but the back wall away from the source. Now I have to completely surround it. If that doesn't work, then i don't know what else to do.

Maybe the wires coming into the room that are not caged could be causing the breaker to trip.

Our T1 line still gets too much noise (we have not been able to get the company out until next week to do the job), we took some of the long network cables offline and that helped the noise a bit.

No word from DWP yet.

 

[Danger]

Do you have the option of moving your operation to the other side of town?
No offense intended... it just seems that what you have to do to overcome this might not be worth it.

 

[Adder_Noir]

Maybe the wires coming into the room that are not caged could be causing the breaker to trip.

It's a fair assumption, given what happened to your pallet wrapper.

**Edit

I have an uber stupid idea which I suppose might just be crazy enough to work.

As I understand it when a magnetic field hits a conductor the resultant energy required to set-up a voltage in the conductor causes the magnetic field's energy to drop.

So here is my ridiculous suggestion. Sorry but I really just have to say it.

Stupid Idea:

Is it possible for you to get a HGV (Big Rig in USA terms) parked sideways across part of your building which houses the sensitive equipment so it's between you and the power lines, and then ground the truck's body? It might work as a temporary solution.

Feel a bit embarassed just saying it, but it might work

 

[Danger]

it might work

Man, but I love seeing people think outside of the box.

 

[Adder_Noir]

Not the most high tech solution but you never know

 

[Danger]

Too right. In a situation like this, anything that helps is good regardless of what it looks like.

 

[business man]

I will suggest that. We have big rigs to use as a parasite field absorber

We can't move, I own the building, so if I can't solve the problem for our company, how could I lease it to another company.

 

[berkeman]

You said that the warehouse-style company in your same building has no problems. Find the right kind of low-tech use for your property, disclose the problems in the sale, and there you go. Maybe your neighbor is looking to expand anyway...

 

[Adder_Noir]

I will suggest that. We have big rigs to use as a parasite field absorber

We can't move, I own the building, so if I can't solve the problem for our company, how could I lease it to another company.

I think Berkeman has the best suggestion. If you do decide to give the truck option a try as a last gasp make sure you ground it at both ends

 

[Danger]

Yeah... it would seem that the type of equipment that you use is particularly succeptible to the sort of interference that you're experiencing. The only aspect of that that seems to be contradictory is the bit about the glowing wires which, from what I gathered, were simply part of the normal building wiring rather than a specialized circuit. If such is the case, then there must be something specific to the building itself, and you could not in good conscience dump it on someone else. (And the fact that you wouldn't want to puts you miles beyond most businessmen. Hats off to you for that.)

 

[berkeman]

(And the fact that you wouldn't want to puts you miles beyond most businessmen. Hats off to you for that.)

I agree with Danger, hats off to you Buisness Man. In the beginning of this thread, I was concerned that you were just trolling for statements to use in a a lawsuit against the power company, regardless of what the underlying cause-effect relationship was.

But in the *many* pages of this thread, it is clear that you want to get to the bottom of the problem no matter what the explanation is, so that you can get your business back on track and productive. Your honesty and straighforward nature have become very apparent in the course of this thread, and we all wish you the best in the outcome. Hang in there and figure it out! (or sell out to U-Haul or somebody and move to a quieter place...)

 

[business man]

Your kind words and support are very much appreciated

The latest today:

THE PHONES STAYED UP! We had two hits today that took out the lights for a few seconds but did not trip any breakers. I have a feeling either DWP is working on the problem or the demand is down in the area, because the hits have diminished substantially.

I think the shielded T1 might be finished tomorrow, so hopefully our internet connection will be more stable now. Computers have been staying up but we have limited use because of damage to drives. Our new hardware will not be ready to install for a couple weeks, I hope everything is sorted by then.

We are still renting a generator for the phones and computers. Something dawned on me recently. doesn't a big generator use magnetic breaker protection? They will tell me in the morning, if so, why don't they trip? Is it because the generator is not grounded or because it is grounded to Earth and not the building and local water lines?

We decided not to attempt the big rig idea. If you saw how much this building dwarfs one, you would know why. The building is huge and you could probably fit three or four hundred of them within its volume. The entire roof structure is made of steel trusses about 30ft high, with lots of sprinkler pipes and aluminized insulating paper stapled to the ceiling joists.

I hope this will be over soon. It sure is better though for now. All of the staff is really hanging in there. I'm sure they are very curious and frustrated but are keeping a possitive attitude. This company has the best team of any company that I know of. Even with all of these problems, I am still a very fortunate Business Man

 

[Danger]

Sounds as if you deserve a loyal staff. Continued good fortune to you.

 

[business man]

Thanks Danger.

Unfortunately more bad news today, phones and computers are down!
I will try to have more details later as to why it happened. We think possibly the new Dmark shielded phone line and equipment might have contributed to todays problems.

 

[Danger]

****!
Don't worry too much, dude... we're here for you.

 

[NoTime]

I noticed that you said problems increased as you improved grounding.
A thought occurs to me.
The normal electrical ground is made locally to the building.
However, everything is also grounded back at the various source points, Phone and power for example.

If you have a nearby transmision tower it also has a local ground connection.
Not all soils make for good ground points.
If a nearby tower had a leaking(arcing) insulator the power could possibly flow back into your ground connections to better grounds elsewhere.

 

[business man]

I will suggest it.

I talked to the dwp guy today that had a meter on the water pipes at the outside of building. He faxed over the graph and told me that everything was at or well below acceptable levels.

I am going to the building in the morning with my hvac guy to check out some wiring. He said today that one of our units showed 15 volts on the ground leg!

He is not a wiring expert but he does have a lot of hvac experience and he thinks it's a wiring problem. Four of our a/c units on the roof are, for some reason single phase, all others are 3phase.

I have a funny feeling he is on to something. The breakers for these units may NOT have been turned off the night we ruled out hvac as a possible problem. The breakers for these units were not marked, which he found out after tracing them today.

The problem I have with this direction is that why would the problems be so inconsistant and escalating and so random.

What do you guys think? It sort of makes me think we should have followed through methodically with more discipline the early suggestion of starting with everything off and adding things one at a time. The problem with this is we can sometimes go nearly all day without a single event and then have 5 in a matter of a few hours.

 

[business man]

The division of DWP that handles the DC line says that 2 of our events coincide with some sort of ramping up or down with their line, but two other events happened during a time that the lines were down for maintainance.

So not much help here so far.

 

[Adder_Noir]

Hmm...I'm must admit the fact you got two incidents whilst those lines were down does comply a bit more with conventional thinking that it's a wiring fault. I assume HVAC systems use quite a lot of power.

A dodgy wiring fault would account for your problems. Remember that more than likely your HVAC will operate when sensors installed in your building tell it to. It will also shut off when your sensors tell it to.

Try increasing the level of ambient temperature you want the HVAC to achieve and see if this increases the number of incidents you keep having. Alternatively just get a HVAC engineer out to look at at. It sounds to me like you might have a hefty Earth fault on one of your units which caues problems when the sensor kicks in and tells it to start up.

 

[Danger]

I notice that Russ hasn't been involved in this thread. He's the HVAC specialist; perhaps he's encountered a similar situation in his work.

 

[Darryl]

if i were ask to fix a problem like this, i would first determine if possilble, the source of your problem, is its
1. directly from the supply, ie, spikes or dips in the electricity from the power company.

2. is its inducted noice, or power from the near field magnegitc field.

3. is it voltage induced from the electric field.

you can measure magnetic field, with a compass, but you will not pick up transients, like spikes. or you may not pick it up at all.

if you buy a cheap test meter (multimeter) from radio shack, put it on the AC setting, you will read a voltage this is the Electric field indusing a voltage in the test meters leads.

take the meter home, and to work and compare the reading,

shielding and faraday cages will reduce electric and magnetic (electromegnet radiation) interference (induced voltage, current).

i would also try to see if there is any pattern to your outages, do they occur at regular times, ?

you can also purchase equipment that will clean up your supplied power, called "Power Line Filters". these consist of some capacitors and inductors, and are basically a 60hz filter for your power.

you can also purchase, a 1:1 power transformer, you put 115Volts AC in, and you get 115Vac out, but its isolated from the mains supply, and with the large amount of inductance of the transformer its acts like a filter.

yes, you can get harmonics on your power, when there is a spike or dip in your power, its is no longer a pure sine wave, but becomes are square, (with distortion), and harmonics are created,

you should also run power line filters in every piece of equipment as well, they are cheap and are often built into power boards.

 

[Darryl]

if your T1 line runes the length of the building, its a long antenna and will pick up induced ac from high power lines. and high tension,

is it possible to relocate your server to there your T1 line enteres your building, ??
and put your PABX system at the same location,

can you replace your wired phone and computer network with 802.11g wireless hub, and network. run laptops. and solve your power outage problems that way.. ??

 

[Darryl]

sorry for the multiple posts, its because i type before i think..

but i was trying to think of way to determine if you are in a strong electromagnetic field. one way is to use a NEON light, they require a high voltage to start but very very low current,

but those novality things you get for your cell phone, that light up when your phone rings, are the same thing, they are neon, that light up in the presence of strong electromagnetic fields.
i have not played with one of them, but i assume if you held one close to a power cable carrying current it would light up as well.

put one on your desk as see if it lights when your lights go out, or phone/computer.

 

[business man]

I was at the building for most of yesterday. I am afraid that there is more going on with the wiring than I thought. I personally helped to track down three problems that we still do not fully understand, but seem to be related to what we think was done by a very bad electrician who tapped legs of wires just because they showed voltage.

One case shows a small window air conditioner in a back wharehouse office being wired with some flourescent lights.

Another case where track lighting in the office shows a 5amp ground loop and some of these office lights are tied to a relay so that all office lights could be shut off at night by a single time clock. There were outlets and who knows what else added to these circuits conrolled by two relays that are powered through a breaker that in turn controls another circuit. These office circuits were known to be at their limit when staff, during the winter months tried to add very small space heaters under the desks and ciurcuits would trip so they had to stop using them.

There are other problems but these were the worst.

I will be very happy if this ends up being our problem but at the same time dissapointed that these problems were not given greater attention and addressed sooner. I am cautiously optimistic because there were events during the middle of the night when no hvac would be cycling and little or no load on any circuit yet breakers had tripped. Could everything in the building be so unstable that normally acceptable levels of emf's would put things over the edge?

We have evidence of fields from very sophisticated equipment and we know those fields fluctuate in intensity and diminish as you move further from the DC line.

Our expert knew we had ground loops based on the evidence from the meters all along but nothing was done about it because we were too busy getting phones and computers isolated from the problems, he was too busy trying to prove out the EMF theory, and I don't think he thought that this ground problem would trip breakers, especially with no load!

This may prove to have been an error in judgement and I should probably have been advised by my expert to bring in more resources/ electricians to address these wiring problems diligently.

The saga continues...

 

[Paulanddiw]

sorry for the multiple posts, its because i type before i think..

but i was trying to think of way to determine if you are in a strong electromagnetic field. one way is to use a NEON light, they require a high voltage to start but very very low current,

but those novality things you get for your cell phone, that light up when your phone rings, are the same thing, they are neon, that light up in the presence of strong electromagnetic fields.
i have not played with one of them, but i assume if you held one close to a power cable carrying current it would light up as well.

put one on your desk as see if it lights when your lights go out, or phone/computer.

What about an oscilloscope? You could leave the probe open-circuit and see how much e-field there is and it's frequency. You could short the probe to ground with a length of wire e.g., 6" and see how much magnetic field there is.

Open circuit, you shouldn't get more than 50mVAC. Short circuited it should less than 1 mVAC. (my experience)

Interference from the DC transmission line would have a frequency of 120 Hz as opposed to that from the AC service in your building which would have a frequency of 60 Hz.

 

[Darryl]

yes,, your right a CRO, (cathode ray oscilloscpoe) would be able to tell you alot.

it does sound like you have a combinations of problems, each taking your systems to the edge of failure, or over.

poor earthing,
high indused Voltages from the power lines
strong magnetic fields at your location.
possibility of large spiks or dips on your local power system.
possiblity that the high power feeder is inducing power spikes into your local ac power grid ?

i don't know if you are using "earth leakage circuit breakers" on your appliances, do they trip ?

if your getting 5 amps "ground loop" current. is this leakage current, or is your electrician simply reading the current flowing in the Earth side of your power system.

its your electricity power system 3 wire, (like here in australia), we have an
Active
Neutral
Earth

at the power box, there is usually a short circuit link between the Earth and neutral. power to your appliance is supplied between Active and Neutral, with the Earth as a safety,

this means current flows between active and neutral, if any current flows into the earth, its a fault and the Earth leakage breaker will trip.

IF your neutral or Earth line has measuragel AC voltage on it, this means your Earth is not effective, and will also mean your equipment will be at an AC voltage and not and zero volts.

this causes problems with you interfact equipment together over a dispance, (you get Earth current loops flowing), this would (and often does) cause equipment to fail, shutdown, or possibly give small "shocks" if touched.

see if you can divide your businesses power distribution into separate supplies for sensitive equipment, and another supply for higher power, and swited equipment, like AC system, lighting etc.

then on the supply for your computers/phone etc, you can install power line filters, isolation transformers, or a stand alone UPS, or constantly online UPS, so your computers are always powered by the UPS, this will isolate your systems from the power circuits, as much as possible.

reduce long cable runs, if you run a lot of fluro's you might need to consider some Power Factor correction capacitors in your system as well.

Power factor is when the current and voltage of the AC power are not in phase, due to running a lot of inductive loads, (like fluro's). and can cause problems as well.

when trying to solve problems like this, its important (IMO) to sort out what are "effects" and what are "causes". you need to try to focus on and fix the "cuases" of the problem, and not the "effects". otherwise you never really cure the underlying problem.

hopefully you are getting a handle on it, these are certainly a complex issues to resolve,

 

[Adder_Noir]

I was at the building for most of yesterday. I am afraid that there is more going on with the wiring than I thought. I personally helped to track down three problems that we still do not fully understand, but seem to be related to what we think was done by a very bad electrician who tapped legs of wires just because they showed voltage.

You need an inspect and test done ASAP. I assumed the majority of the wiring in your premises was sound given you're a commercial property.

With this new evidence I'd say it is a wiring error. Most likely you're suffering from what we call 'backfeeds' in the UK. It's were two lives from separate circuits are routed back through the same neutral. It causes one breaker to sustain the current of two or more circuits worth of current when everything gets turned on. Given the nature of a lot of your equipment being something that can draw current automatically when needed due to its electronic nature, I'd say this is what's happening.

If he was a really bad electrician then he could have used an Earth as a neutral which would throw GFI/RCD type breakers. It's even possible he could have routed a live into Earth then back out of it again onto another circuit or whatever!

I know how to perform an Inspect & Test and I can give you the details if you like which will enable you to establish correct/incorrect wiring and polarity in your installation if you so wish.

I assume then from this latest information that it's most likely the same circuits which are giving you trouble all the time?

Oh by the way, your phone wire shielding is connected to ground. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how much trouble it would cause your phone lines if someone had made an Earth live by bad wiring which was then routing current through the shielding of your phone line! Hmm..it's all starting to become a bit clearer now!

 

[business man]

I don't have the energy to write much tonight. Just wanted to let you know I am reading and taking advice as may be appropriate.
Today we had a local university proffesor at the building and he was very perplexed and interested to say the least.
We showed him pictures of the breakers on several panels that randomly tripped and switched to off position at 2:45 A.M. last saturday, which was our latest big event. He thinks it is a field problem but has never seen or heard of anything like it. He may want to turn it over to his graduate students.
Here is another question , if a breaker panel is closed and grounded, how could a magnetic field trip a breaker? The panel must act as a faraday cage right?
There are so many confusing things happening on the various recorded meter readings that I can't remember or understand it all. but the professor was shocked when he saw them.

 

[Danger]

This building wasn't constructed on an aboriginal burial ground, was it?