Exposure to electrical equipment

Im 33 and soon will be receiving my first Pacemaker, I work in the factory and part of my routine is to conduct inspections on motor control rooms and transformer rooms. My worry is that the interference to my pacemaker that i might encounter when I'll perform my routine. Please enlighten me...

3 Comments

You MIGHT have a Problem...

by donr - 2012-07-06 09:07:21

Although PM's are well shielded, you will be in an environment that will have significant electro-magnetic fields.

Many of us here will tell you that there is no problem for you, & there should not be, but the ONLY way to find out is to expose yourself to the environment you will work in.

You say you will be in a factory - but what kind & what power do they use? I read that you live in the Philippines - I assume that you use 60 Hertz power. I know that a lot of industrial facilities use 3 phase 440 volt power for bigger motors, but if you are in a facility that has nothing bigger than 240 Volt machines, it has a significantly lower threat to you than the 440 volt stuff.

I suspect that a man named Electric Frank will drop in and comment tonight. And, I think he will agree w/ me that the only way to find out is to go where you will be working to find out what the effect is.

You did not say what you are getting the PM for, nor did you tell us what kind it is. That can have a big bearing on the potential for adverse reactions to EM problems.

Let me give you my experiences, small though they may be, to get you started. About two weeks after I received my PM, I passed my chest (& PM) by a cable carrying 30 Amps at 240 Volts, 60 Hz. The cable came within 2 inches of my PM - it switched it into "test" mode, & scared the daylights out of me. I was atop an 8 foot step ladder at the time & was so surprised I almost fell off! I immediately gopt away from the cable & everything went back to normal.

I have a transformer box in the front yard of my house - 13,000 V stepdown to 240 V. I routinely work around it & have on occasion, used it as a work table for something I was doing out there. I have also inadvertently leaned across it to pick something up off the ground & my chest was right on top of the box - no effect at all.

But - those two experiences are a long way from industrial exposure.

You are going to have to determine for yourself how sensitive your PM is to the EM environment you work in.

Don

I agree with don

by ElectricFrank - 2012-07-07 12:07:37

The only thing I can add is that modern electrical motors and transformers have much less radiated energy than the old ones. With the emphasis on efficiency any energy that escapes from the them is power lost.

The other thing to consider is the field around one of these systems if there is a failure before the breakers blow.

Last week I was exploring an old mining area in the desert and ran across one of the old open frame motors. It stood about 5' tall. I can only imagine the magnetic field around it when running.

frank

thanks

by khageroe - 2012-07-10 09:07:11

big thanks don & frank. Ur right Don, we use 3 phase 440volts power for our motors. I was diagnosed with bradycardia, my hr went down to 38 and sometimes pauses for 2 secs at rest. Before, i ride my MTB every weekends and run for an average of 5km daily during weekdays. Hope to get back on track soon.

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