AC Power

[doobes]

Greetings all,

Perhaps someone here has had a similar issue and can provide some ideas.

We had a new house built in Williamsburg, VA last year. We took possession of the house in early October.

I've got a full suite of AV gear and have stood up an instantiation of Home Assistant to provide for some smart home functionality.

The AV gear has:

• Sony KD-65X85K HDTV
  
• Yamaha TSR-700
  
• 7 Polk speakers (2 x back, 2 x mid, 2 x front, 1 center)
  
• 1 BIC 12" sub-woofer
  

All this stuff is (was) new, except the subwoofer. 

The Sony has a direct Ethernet connection and is the control of the system.  I'm using the HDMI connection with eARC to feed the audio signal back to the Yamaha for driving the speakers. Bandwidth is definitely not an issue as I've got a 600/600 Mbps fiber connection from GloFiber feeding into an Ubiquity Dream Machine SE for internet distribution (it's awesome BTW)

This all worked fine until a couple of months ago. Then the sound would drop out for a 1/2 second or so rather irregularly. This went on for a while and got progressively more frequent forcing me to look into the issue.

I've tried a bunch of different things to isolate the issue. I get the same behavior (although less frequent)  when playing directly though the TV speakers which would "tend" to eliminate the AV part of the system as a culprit.

The other day, I went to turn off a ceiling fan, which is on the same circuit as the TV, and lo and behold, the audio blinked. H'mmm. The behavior is repeatable.  This is the switch that the first time I toggled it, opened the breaker.  Luckily the electrician was in the house at the time, and I could demonstrate.

I moved the TV to another circuit in the house and the behavior with the ceiling fan switch is no longer there, but the audio is still dropping out, albeit less frequently.

LOML and I were sitting in the kitchen a couple of days ago and there was this blink, for just a moment when the lights flashed.  These were the LED lights on the tops and bottoms of the cabinets controlled by 2 Lutron Caseta Smart Switches.

So, I've just got a bunch of this kind of stuff niggling at me that something isn't right with the power.  Dunno if it's a global thing (from the utility) or a local thing with the installation.  We have a whole house generator that has triggered one time due to a 30 minute power drop out a couple of months ago.  All my AV gear in the "comm's closet" is on an UPS which will support everything for the 30 seconds or so the generator needs to react.

Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? 

I'm nearing the end of my 1 year warranty with the house, and I'd like to provide some concrete evidence to the contractor that something is janky. If push come to shove, I'll rent a power quality logger and collect data.

Thoughts, ideas, etc?

cheers

[MstrCarpenter]

Greetings all,
..... If push come to shove, I'll rent a power quality logger and collect data.

Thoughts, ideas, etc?

cheers

That would be my idea, especially if there's a lot of houses around with solar panels. Your lights could/would be flickering too, but at less than a year old they're probably fairly decent LEDs and have filters to reduce that. I was a Journeyman Electrician (USMC) but I'm not an Electrical engineer, so I can't really help with the electronics other than your experiencing a spike or drop in power which the electronics are more sensitive to. All of this could be a wiring connection that's not necessarily loose, but not tight enough. Most electricians are aware of this and crank down the breaker connections but some fail to do the same with the neutrals which actually carry the same current.

These are just my thoughts.

[doobes]

That would be my idea, especially if there's a lot of houses around with solar panels. Your lights could/would be flickering too, but at less than a year old they're probably fairly decent LEDs and have filters to reduce that. I was a Journeyman Electrician (USMC) but I'm not an Electrical engineer, so I can't really help with the electronics other than your experiencing a spike or drop in power which the electronics are more sensitive to. All of this could be a wiring connection that's not necessarily loose, but not tight enough. Most electricians are aware of this and crank down the breaker connections but some fail to do the same with the neutrals which actually carry the same current.

These are just my thoughts.

Thanks,

No solar panels anywhere near.

Appreciate the feedback

[Roly]

Thanks,

No solar panels anywhere near.

Appreciate the feedback

 Is the hdmi cable bundled with or close to power cables ?  I am thinking it is more of a interference issue.    A lot of led's produce interference, does the ceiling fan have led lamps? , Dont understand the breaker tripping issue which was probably corrected unless it still happens.  Any dimmers on the leds ?Can you operate it without the hdmi cable connected to see if it drops out ? Roly

[JosephP]

Bad (loose wore?) ground somewhere? I think that would cause more problems with audio than regular lights, etc...

How much is on one breaker? A ceiling fan and TV don't draw much. I'd expect better division of circuits in a new home.

Would a power conditioner help the AV equipment?

[MarkSingleton]

I had one receptacle circuit in our living room flicker LOMLs' floor lamp.  Drove me nuts trying to find the problem.
It was only every so often.  Usually some hours after she had the light on in the evening.

Took the lamp apart , tightening all the connections.  Took the receptacle out of the box and replaced it, making
super sure all connections were tight. 

Replaced the LED bulb in the light itself.

Nothing made any difference.

On a camping trip with some friends, one of whom is an electrician, I casually mentioned the ongoing problem.
He suggested I check the wire connections on the breaker on that circuit. Bingo. The hot lead screw was just
slightly ever so loose.  Just enough that my turning the screwdriver less than an eighth of a turn made all the
difference. 

While I was there, I found a few more that were a bit loose.

Just a possibility.  But worth checking for sure.

[doobes]

In going to get the electrician come and go through the everything.

The HDMI cable is nowhere near any power cables and it's a optical fiber, so little chance of EMI interference.

The ceiling fan does not have a light in it.

Thanks for all the ideas

[rwe2156]

I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but check for arc fault breakers and if there are any replace them with standard breakers.