HZ question...

[coyotegray]

What is harder on the typical household appliance, high or low HZ..?

 

[SCSG-G4]

Motors will run slower or faster if the frequency is not exact. Since it still has to do the same amount of work, slower is going to put more strain on the motor. Digital things like clocks are going to run slow or fast, so your alarm may not go off at the time you thought it would be. Pure resistive loads will be fine (IE, you can run real light bulbs on 400 Hz without problems) Most appliances in North America will run on 50-60 Hz, since out Canadian cousins use 50 and we use 60 Hz. This is really a question for e-how or wikipedia.

 

[tbearatkin]

Our 60HZ Kitchen aid mixer ran slower on the 50hz in Kenya and the speed control did not work real well and it never really ran the same after we returned it back to 60hz when we got back to the states. Clocks will run a lot slower on 50hz. Our tv's did fine but most TV's just turn ac power into DC power to run what is inside. No issue with our laptops.

 

[Isaac-1]

These days most digital clocks have in internal quartz crystal reference and don't really care about frequency for the most part most appliances don't care that much with the world market since most of Europe uses 50 Hz, the U.S. uses 60 HZ, then there is Japan where it is really crazy, the southern part uses 60 Hz and the northern part uses 50 Hz. By code appliances, etc. are supposed to be designed tolerate +/- about 2 Hz with a long term average frequency being 60Hz, but thanks to the modern electrical grid real world variation rarely slips by more than .5 Hz, the exception is when there is a major blackout like when NY or southern California drops off the grid, there there can be a multi HZ ripple across the entire grid for several seconds. In the real world things don't always work this way, for example some cheap microwave ovens use the line frequency as a refence clock, and if it slips they don't work, this is most often noticed in RV's with generators that have less than perfect frequency regulation.

Ike

 

[PeterD]

... Most appliances in North America will run on 50-60 Hz, since out Canadian cousins use 50 and we use 60 Hz....

Canada uses 60 HZ the same as the United Sates. All of North and Central America is 60 HZ, though voltages do vary somewhat when going south. The US and Canadian power grids are interconnected.

 

[armytruck63]

^True, it would be mayhem otherwise.

I wouldn't mess around with a frequency other than 60 Hz in the US. If you happen to have bought a 400 Hz generator by mistake, I wouldn't power anything other than incandescent light bulbs or pure resistive heater elements with it.

 

[Isaac-1]

I am fairly sure all of Canada is now 60Hz (I think the last legacy odd frequency system in Canada was reitred within the last decade though).

Ike

 

[coyotegray]

^True, it would be mayhem otherwise.

I wouldn't mess around with a frequency other than 60 Hz in the US. If you happen to have bought a 400 Hz generator by mistake, I wouldn't power anything other than incandescent light bulbs or pure resistive heater elements with it.

Nothing like that. I was just wondering if it's better to set it to run at little <60 or >60.. Sounds like it's best for it to run no more then 60 and less is ok, correct..?

 

[Isaac-1]

The general suggestion in the commercial generator world is when dealing with a mechanical governor generator is to set it so it droops under constant load to 60 hz, often this will mean setting the no load speed to 62 Hz, and allow for drop to 58 hz when sudden load is applied

 

[WillWagner]

^^ This is what I learned when I went to Onan school.

 

[coyotegray]

The general suggestion in the commercial generator world is when dealing with a mechanical governor generator is to set it so it droops under constant load to 60 hz, often this will mean setting the no load speed to 62 Hz, and allow for drop to 58 hz when sudden load is applied

Thanks, thats what I have been doing so Ill keep doing it..

 

[quickfarms]

The general suggestion in the commercial generator world is when dealing with a mechanical governor generator is to set it so it droops under constant load to 60 hz, often this will mean setting the no load speed to 62 Hz, and allow for drop to 58 hz when sudden load is applied

I think this is the answer he was looking for