Forge won't turn on after power outage

[Jfralick]

Hi All

We had a power outage here at school and now our forge won’t turn on. I moved it to a different outlet and checked the connections. Any other ideas?

Thanks

Joe

[evansd2]

Do you have a pro? There’s a safety interlock in the back that may have come loose.

[Jfralick]

Thanks for the help! I’m starting to wonder if there were still electrical issues in the building, it just turned back on!

[evansd2]

Were you on a pro, and was it loose?

If so, I’m astounded. I didn’t give that advice much chance of working

[Jfralick]

Yeah, I thought I was screwed! I have a basic. I think it was a building issue. Its almost like there wasn’t actually enough electricity to power up. We had a snow day today, so I was in the building catching up. While here I noticed that not all of the building had power. I wrongly assumed that since I had lights and internet that I was all good. Long story short, Once the entire building had power the forge worked.

Thanks again for your help!
Joe

[raymondking32]

We get a lot of power outages this time of year, and typically they’ll get half the power on before they get the full power back on. Maybe they did something similar with your school

[bbum]

If you’re in a building and only half the lights work, that can indicate that you’ve lost one “leg” of power.

For a house, there are 3 wires that come in; two live wires and a common. Light bulbs and stuff in normal plugs connect between one live wire and one common (all the way back at the breaker).

240v appliances use the two live wires and the common. (This is why some people notice that things like ethernet over power line solutions “only work when the dryer or oven is on”).

In your house, if “half” the house stops working and/or the oven/drier starts acting weird?

You most likely have lost one of the “hot” or “live” legs of power.

If your lights are changing brightness as you turn things on and off or you hear motorized appliances making weird buzzing noise are running at funny speeds?

You lost the common wire and now have a “floating common”.

If any of these things happen?

Immediately turn off the main breaker to your house and call the electric company.

A floating common, in particular, will destroy motors and electronics with cheap power supplies.

Now, the same can happen in commercial buildings, but they usually have a 480v feed and multi-phase supplies with more live legs. I.e. the failure modes can be more complex, cause more damage and the equipment damaged is likely more expensive.

If you can’t turn off the main breaker, unplug anything you care about until power is restored to correctness.