Hi guys,
I just got my new oscilloscope. The voltage at my mains is more than what is required on Oscilloscope.
And this is what I'm getting right now, but at night it goes upto 257v
Is it okay if it goes upto 260v ? Or do I have to use something to step it down to be safe? I'm confused.
Face it east/west to balance the electrons. Are you worried about your other electrical items? Like your TV? Any problems there? No - then plug in your scope.
Face it east/west to balance the electrons.
Haha. The fuse says 250v and I get 260v, that's why I was wondering. All other items work fine.
The voltage at my mains is more than what is required on Oscilloscope.
This is much more important: The voltage at my mains is more than what is ALLOWED on Oscilloscope.
If for some reason you have super-excessive voltage, you might want to take action....who knows what margin they allowed for?
260/240 is 8% over the max...so some investigation might be worthwhile. Look up what the line voltage standard limits are. Maybe 240 is a "typical" value. What does the manual say (it might be more informative with more details)
This is all what I could find in the manual.
I live in India, standard residential voltage is 230v.
Weird things happen here. 
International standards require that equipment is marked with its 'Rated Voltage' or 'Rated Voltage Range'. These are the voltages the equipment must operate on under normal conditions.
Those standards further require that equipment will continue to operate when the actual supply voltage falls outside the rated voltages. The specified tolerance is +6% and -10%.
So, for a rated voltage range of 100V to 240V the actual range is 90V to 254V.
However, those +6% and -10% figures are the minimum tolerances and manufacturers are allowed to specify a wider tolerance if they so wish.
If your location is powered off of two phases, check your neutral line - it might be disconnected.
See if anything run off the other phase is at very low voltage at the same time.
I had a weird time once when, the refrigerator (among other large loads) would kick in loading down one phase - and suddenly the old incandescent light bulbs on the OTHER phase would get real bright for a little while! Turned out that a tree had rubbed through the neutral line - and when one phase got pulled down, the other phase went very high because there wasn't any balance anymore.
Once I figured out what was going on, the electric company came out, in the middle of the night, and repaired it for free, but I'm in the USA, and they're probably pretty good about that around here compared to much of the world. S.
A good UPS with power conditioning should solve the problem for you. It will provide a stable output that is within the devices tolerance. But as Kartman has noted....how are your other devices handling things?
Oh, who makes your Meter? Is it a good quality one or an el-cheapo?
Jim
Other devices are working fine, the multimeter is el-cheapo. I do have an apc ups but with no batteries, it has an surge protection socket at the back which works even when there are no batteries installed. Would that be of any help?
Hmmmn, Interesting. Will check under load and see what happens. My location is powered off of three phases.
