Digital clock and voltage

[rrlund]

As Paul Harvey used to say, here's a strange. The power was off for six hours yesterday. I waited two hours before I hooked up the PTO generator to the tractor. It's been a few years since it was used and I'd never ran it with the Oliver 1365 before, but I had just filled it with fuel and it was warmed up, so I used it. Something happened to the tach cable over the winter and I haven't fixed it yet, so the tach wasn't working to know when I was right at PTO speed. The generator is old and the gauge on it doesn't show voltage, just has a red low voltage at the bottom end, green in the middle and then red again at the top. It was jumping around all wonky at any speed, but the lights were bright and the electric stove worked so the wife could make supper.

We have a Bose Acoustic Wave radio under the TV and it has a digital clock. When I started the generator, it came back on to the correct time and wasn't flashing like all the other clocks. After a few minutes, I noticed that it was two minutes ahead of the time on the Direct TV guide. After a while it was four minutes ahead. It was four more hours before the power came back on and by then it was 14 minutes ahead. When the power came back on, I disconnected the generator and turned the main breaker back on. I came in and sat down, the clock on the Bose was still 14 minutes ahead. I reset it to withing about 4 seconds of the Direct TV guide and it's still right there today.

If I had the generator running too fast and putting out too much voltage, would that effect that clock like that? Or maybe it was low voltage? A mystery to me. I didn't bother to set any of the other clocks when the generator was running because it would have been a waste of time, so I don't know if any of the other ones would have acted like that or not.

 

[RM-MN]

It wasn't the voltage, it was the frequency. You were running the generator too fast and the clock was affected by that.

 

[rrlund]

If I ever use that tractor on it again, I'll have to use that clock to know when I have the RPMs dialed in. LOL

 

[Tom from Buckeye Lake]

Here you go. kill a watt meter. Volts, amps kilowatts, Hz. Next time plug this in and adjust RPM to correct Hz. (60).

http://www.p3international.com/products/p4400.html

 

[MarkB_MI]

The radio probably has a backup battery that keeps the clock running as long as there's no power, using an internal crystal clock reference. Once power is on, it relies on the line frequency for its time reference. Of course, there's no way a backup generator is an accurate frequency reference, so the clock will drift as long as it's on generator power. But it stays dead on when power is out because its internal reference is pretty accurate.

 

[Tony in SD]

It might set time by the frequency of the power. It should be 60 Hz. It it is more than 60 Hz or if the power is dirty, meaning spikes in the power from dirty contacts, you will get an advanced reading on your clock. IMHO generators are best set to frequency rather than voltage. There are inexpensive volt/frequency meters you can buy to accomplish that task.

 

[Bret4207]

(quoted from post at 16:58:22 03/31/22) Here you go. kill a watt meter. Volts, amps kilowatts, Hz. Next time plug this in and adjust RPM to correct Hz. (60).

http://www.p3international.com/products/p4400.html

X2! Handy device.

 

[Russ from MN]

I second what Tom said, get a Kill-A-Watt, very handy to have.

 

[SanDogDewey]

Your generator upset the time space continuum and you went forward in time 14 minutes. :lol:

This post was edited by SanDogDewey on 04/01/2022 at 09:09 am.

 

[Ozlander]

(quoted from post at 11:08:46 04/01/22) Your generator upset the time space continuum and you went forward in time 14 minutes. :lol:
This post was edited by SanDogDewey on 04/01/2022 at 09:09 am.

Which means you'll die 14 minutes early.

 

[rrlund]

Maybe I'll avoid a fatal accident by 14 minutes. Think about it. LOL

 

[Tom from Buckeye Lake]

Sheldon should be able to help you.
I'll have wine with Penny while I wait
on you.

 

[onefarmer]

My neighbor had a work truck with a generator on it. He used it to power his house when the power went out for three days. He said he had to run it fast enough for it to make 60hz, but it made like 140v so he had to turn on everything in the house to get the voltage down to 130v where he though it safe.