[mythtv-users] [Slightly OT] solar power for all our gadgets

[David Brodbeck]

Brian Wood wrote:
> On Tuesday 10 March 2009 11:13:19 Simon Hobson wrote:
> 
>> I would not be at all surprised to find these solar installation
>> having setups designed to detect loss of grid and shut down - so as
>> to avoid the potential problems of feeding the grid (you either
>> overload the unit, or stuff dangerous voltages up the line, os some
>> combination).
> 
> A local Railroad signalman here was killed when he shut down the primary line 
> to work on it. A Maintainer fired up a generator to run one of the doghouses, 
> and this fed back through the transformer, killing the signal lineman, who 
> thought all power was off.

I actually heard about a very similar incident when I was doing an 
internship with a railroad signal department.  It's probably more common 
than you'd like to think.  The culprit was an ad-hoc emergency power 
installation where someone forgot to open the main breaker before firing 
up the generator.

The same thing sometimes happens to linemen in residential areas, when 
someone gets the clever idea of powering their house using an extension 
cord with a male range plug on each end.

All of these problems can be avoided with a proper transfer switch 
installation, of course, but often people don't want to spend the money.