Electric fans disrupting Joggler?

[wywywywy]

Hi all,

So as you all know the weather is getting a bit warmer at present, unless you're from the southern hemisphere, I've started to use electric fans around the house.

However, every time I switch the fan on or off, the Joggler either makes the sound "pop", or it completely freezes needing a reboot. Sometimes the freeze is only the UI, so I can SSH in and reboot, but other times I can't even SSH in.

I've heard that this is quite common as motors cause voltage spikes and may upset sensitive electronics.

Last night was the worst I've seen. The pop was really loud and the file system on the USB stick was corrupt. It couldn't boot into SqpOS any more, but that's ok since I was planning to upgrade to SqpOS 2 anyway.

If I move the fan to another electric socket it may solve the problem, but unfortunately there's only one usable in the bedroom

So what I to know is... is there some sort of plug-in "noise suppressor" type thing I can buy to stop the electric fan from messing up the Joggler? It is already on a surge protector.

Thanks.

[hawsey]

Yes , I had this issue with a fridge years ago and had to fit a capacitor in the electric plug
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.vi ... 33&alt=web
It will need you to research a bit as I don't remember exactly how I did it but it cured my issue at the time .
The above capacitors might not be the exact ones you want but this is the cheapest method to possibly try first .
Other things to try would be ferrite rings which are a sort of circular magnet that you wrap the power cord around .
The best solution would of course be to put the fans on a different ring main

[roobarb!]

I have a little external fluorescent light above the back door. Most times when it is switched off, it upsets the active dimmer in the hallway, causing it to dim and then raise the hall lights. On occasion, it's enough to knock out the audio from the Joggler in the kitchen. It was only when the dimmer was fitted that I realised it was this light causing weirdness. I could never understand why the Joggler ran more stably through the summer than the winter!

[hawsey]

Roobarb , the fluorescent tubes are really bad for "noise"
Part of My job is to troubleshoot problematic broadband issues which are mainly caused by something we call R.E.I.N , mainly it comes from a device , maybe a sky box , an old video recorder , CCTV systems are favorites and power packs for cordless phones ; when emitting REIN thousands of errors are induced in to the Broadband line causing it to go very slow or stop altogether ,
I have a REIN sniffer tester which let's me locate the source of the noise once close . A radio tuned to 612 medium wave will also provide a basic way of locating any REIN .
This type of noise is different to the type that causes audio Pops and cracks which is normally caused by a sudden surge of power .

[wywywywy]

So today I replaced my cheapo dodgy surge protected extension leads with some proper ones.
And the problem seems to have gone away now.

It looks like the surge protector didn't real protect from surges...

Consider it case closed please. And sorry I should have tried changing the extension leads before asking here.

[hawsey]

Result

[Juggler]

I had an issue years ago, when ever someone entered the company's store cupboard and turned the fluorescent lights on, the company's database would crash. We concluded that the starter motor in the lights caused Electro Magnetic Interference which interfered with the network cables that were all over the store cupboard. Solution was to leave the lights on all the time !

Perhaps another solution for you, may be to find a more friendly starter motor for the light ?

In a halls of residence I stayed in the fluorescent lights above the mirrors would buzz after being on for a period of time. When those 'things' buzzed, they produced spectrum wide noise, well it certainly hit Long and Medium wave and Band 2 FM (88-108 MHz) stations. One of the radio hams there I knew, actually put a morse key on these lights and sent morse, to his mate in another room ! Using the devil for a purpose. Classic. (Note- EMI is a pet hate of mine and I despise Sony Teletext TV's for what one did to me; but that's another story)