vgizzi OP6 postsAre you referring to the line side of the breaker contact to the Hot bus tap connection? Is the electrical panel Line bus copper or aluminum? If copper is it bare or plated? Manufacturer of electrical panel? How did you clean the electrical connections surfaces? Abrasives should not be used on electrical aluminum bus in an electrical panel. The aluminum bus and aluminum alloy neutral/ground bars are plated. Even light sanding can remove the thin plating. Also, I have the same question about a dedicated circuit. What is it actually doing?Basically a dedicated wiring circuit is used to feed a specific, dedicated, load(s). Like audio equipment. Unlike a convenience outlet branch circuit that may feed several outlets and in some cases will also feed ceiling lighting fixtures/lights. The convenience outlet branch circuit has many electrical connections. With the passage of time and connected varying loads over time the connections may/will loosen and or corrode. (Methods used for making the connections can very. From very good, to not so good). Poor electrical connections can add series resistance to the branch circuit wiring. Also a loose and or corroded connection can cause micro arcing which can/will create electrical noise on the wiring. Add to that the integrity of the wall duplex receptacle female contacts. Most houses have cheap residential grade outlets installed. With the passage of time, and use, the outlets lose their contact pressure and ability to grip the male plug tightly. When a load is connected the poor contact connections will cause micro arcing and put noise back onto the branch circuit wiring. Last but not least the loads that are connected to the convenience outlet branch circuit will add their own noise directly onto the circuit wiring. A dedicated branch circuit in most cases will not have any splices/connections from the breaker, neutral, and equipment ground connection in the electrical panel to the electrical wall outlet. No other loads are connected directly to the branch circuit. The type of branch circuit wiring used and wiring method used can greatly influence the quality of how your audio system will sound. . |
You will need an oscilloscope to see the sinusoidal waveform of your AC coming into your home. If you're dead keen on seeing it, that's what you want to use. What you use in your house / stereo system will introduce noise into the supply, especially localised noise. What I liked that sold me on the idea of the Puritan PSM 156 power conditioner is the no nonsense approach. Twin transformers to allow for good current flow with no bottleneck, DC (direct current) removal (also can been seen using an oscilloscope) and each receptacle is isolated from each other by using a high pass shunt of electrical energy to ground, from both neutral and active, individually. It also has circuit protection. And it's one of the least expensive, with the most features. I'll admit it, I am a performance buyer, with limited budget - so it had better perform! |
Household Circuitry: 101 All household circuits are tied together at the circuit breaker panel. Kind of like a train switchyard. The rumbling of a train will be most severe on the track it’s traveling. But, the other tracks will still suffer the effects of milder rumbling since they’re all connected. Most residential houses in the U.S. have a circuit breaker panel with two hot buss bars and one neutral buss bar - along with a ground connection. Each hot buss bar is tied (connected) to the one neutral buss bar via the circuit breakers. In other words, no matter how many circuits you have in your house, they all meet at the two buss bars and the one neutral. The one neutral is shared by every circuit in the house. Here’s how Bob Vila explains it. A dedicated circuit for audio that is properly installed will help isolate it from the noise on other circuits caused by various household appliances. A dedicated circuit is definitely a major improvement. Yet, a high resolution audio system will still reveal noise (distortion) that’s polluting other circuits – such as a hairdryer that’s being used in the upstairs bathroom. Many dedicated listening rooms that have multiple dedicated circuits – also have power conditioners behind the equipment rack. Most audio systems sound best after midnight during the week - or on Sundays - when the town’s electrical grid is less taxed. Apartments in apartment buildings share the noise from their neighbors. Houses in housing developments share the noise from their neighbors. Much depends on how resolving the audio system is – and one’s hearing sensitivity. Curiously, the cleaner the power supply, the easier it is to hear anomalies. Imagine looking a white wall that is randomly speckled all over with black dots. Your eye will wander around the wall. There’s plenty to look at, but specific areas are ignored. Now, imagine looking at a white wall with only one black dot. Your eye will zero in on that one black dot. A low resolving system is like the first wall. A high resolving system is like the 2nd one. The black dots would be points of distortion. (nota bene, Christo). Safety warning: Do not poke around a circuit breaker box - if you don’t know what your doing. Instant death may occur. |
jea48: My panel is a Challenger SB40. The buss material is hard to determine; it is clearly not raw copper, but has a shiny metallic finish. The contacts in the breaker are copper. I cleaned the load wire with a fine metal brush until the copper was shiny, then sprayed Deoxit: same for the the load end. Didn't touch the buss connector. Thanks for your detailed response to my last question. |
