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A hidden neutral fault nearly destroyed a city-owned facility
When a busy municipal golf course started seeing lights flicker and ovens reset, staff chalked it up to “quirky power.” Hours later the clubhouse neutral burned open, dumping 208 V onto 120 V outlets and frying HVAC controls, point-of-sale terminals, and irrigation electronics—an outage that cost well into six figures. This eight-page case study follows the investigation from first symptom to final fix. You’ll see how technicians deployed a portable recorder, correlated surging neutral current with rising conductor temperature, and captured the exact moment the conductor opened. Clear waveform graphics, thermal images, and step-by-step calculations show how a flaw that began as a 1 mΩ resistance grew into catastrophic failure. The narrative closes with a concise checklist of preventive inspections that could have averted the damage in under an hour’s work.
Key topics include:
- RMS Effects
- Deriving the RMS-Variation Formula
- Worked Example: 175 Hz Injection and Flicker Risk
Why utilities should care:
Loose or overheated neutrals rank among the most common—and most misdiagnosed—sources of voltage complaints. They often masquerade as sags, swells, or flicker until the day they burn open, leaving the utility to shoulder blame and repair costs. This real-world example equips engineers with: (1) unmistakable PQ fingerprints of a failing neutral, (2) a proven monitoring strategy to distinguish utility responsibility from customer wiring faults, and (3) hard dollar figures that justify proactive neutral-health programs. A half-hour read today can spare weeks of troubleshooting and hundreds of thousands of dollars in claims tomorrow.
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