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From: rick@ee.uwm.edu
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Stray Voltage? on 60 Minutes
Summary: More ignorance rebutted
Keywords: ignorance, natural
Message-ID: <10917@uwm.edu>
Date: 10 Apr 91 14:09:46 GMT
References: <3853@uc.msc.umn.edu> <10868@uwm.edu> <1991Apr9.222509.1188@colorado.edu>
Sender: news@uwm.edu
Distribution: usa
Organization: Wisconsin Electric Power Company, Milwaukee, WI
Lines: 29
Originator: fisher@csd4.csd.uwm.edu

> lewis@tramp.Colorado.EDU (LEWIS WILLIAM M JR) writes:
>In article <10868@uwm.edu> rick@ee.uwm.edu (Rick Miller) writes:
>>... Stray voltage occurs NATURALLY
>if the power company fails to keep the load on the two legs balanced
>>as well as being a result of poor wiring (usually an un-grounded neutral
>>in the farm's own wiring).
>More likely the reluctance of the power company to replace old wiring that
>can't handle the load.


I've got a book (_Collier's Cyclopedia of Social and Commercial Information_)
published around 1896 that describes how to get your pigs to drink out of a
tin trough...  Ground it.  Tin troughs typically rested on wooden frames with
a metallic water-pipe leading from the windmill several yards away.  The pigs
standing in the mud by the trough didn't appreciate the 50 mV or so that was
tickling their snouts as they drank... and this was nowhere near ANY power
lines.

As for the "old" lines...  A power company's responsibility for old wiring
ends at the meter.  Almost all stray voltage problems are due to poorly-
wired barn circuits.  And unless a farmer is using more amperage than his
(or her) service is rated for, the imbalance caused by line reluctance will
be negligible compared to the imbalances caused by the loads he/she puts on
their circuits (which are, by the way, rarely in perfect balance and almost
never under power company control).  Lines are built to last a LONG time.

==========================================================================
These are MY statements, not those of my employer nor of Wisconsin Energy.
Rick Miller, Meter Applications Engineer, WEPCo		rick@ee.uwm.edu