Measuring the EMF

Happy to do it. I'm in the City.

In case anyone is interested, I measured the inside of the Leaf with my Geiger counter and found no levels of Alpha, Beta, or Gamma radiation over standard ambient background levels common in the SF area.



-Phil

Paul,

I know Stefano had an EMF meter at the SCE meetup. He was measuring for fun both while charging and not. He also tested the Tesla and Mini-E. I don't remember his findings but if you ask him you could get some data. Probably not fully official but something.

Ingineer said:

In case anyone is interested, I measured the inside of the Leaf with my Geiger counter and found no levels of Alpha, Beta, or Gamma radiation over standard ambient background levels common in the SF area.

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Phew! Thanks Phil!

JessEV said:

(Note: as a basic calibration I used the Triflow on my iPhone and laptops and house breaker box....
breaker box pegged at 100mG but drops off to 2mG at about 2 ft)

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My house breaker box is just outside my bedroom wall, about 4 feet from where I sleep. When I add a circuit for charging my future Leaf, I'm a little concerned that my car charging at night will expose me to more EMF than I would like for 8 hours at a time. I did some web searching and found http://www.emfcenter.com where they mentioned that the breaker box (and home wiring) can be shielded to reduce EMF. Does anyone have any thoughts about this or know a San Francisco Bay Area contractor who would know how to do this?

This is silly. The very low amount of 60hz magnetic energy coming from a panel is less than the earth's magnetic field at 4 feet, and overall the EM emissions are several orders of magnitude less than a cell phone.

If you are worried about that kind of stuff, your "safe bet" is to eschew all modern technology and move into the wilderness in Siberia or somewhere. I'm sure it will extend your life by many years!

Ingineer said:

This is silly. The very low amount of 60hz magnetic energy coming from a panel is less than the earth's magnetic field at 4 feet, and overall the EM emissions are several orders of magnitude less than a cell phone.

If you are worried about that kind of stuff, your "safe bet" is to eschew all modern technology and move into the wilderness in Siberia or somewhere. I'm sure it will extend your life by many years!

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Thanks for putting some common sense into this thread, Ingineer. I agree 100% :roll:

I became curious after reading this thread and performed an interesting experiment last night. I ingested 20mg of Levitra, went out and sat in my Leaf during a 2-hour charging cycle and listening several times to a combination of The Doors' "LA Woman" and the Rolling Stones' "She's Like a Rainbow" (memories of my First Wife, the Italian Bitch from Vicenza). Then hurriedly came back into the house, presenting a rather grandiose protuberance to the ever-suffering Mama-San. I'm writing this note from the Emergency Room where they are preparing to commence treatment for that warned about "4-hours or more". In my case, we became somewhat alarmed after about 6-1/2 hours. Ahh, I see the nice doctor now, he is approaching with a rather large syringe and needle. He is smiling ...

I'll check back with you'all later ...

Dave

i guess if you fly planes, you have to be nuts. not as crazy as the guys who jump out of them, but nutty nevertheless
sorta like my father-in-law retired aviator.

thankyouOB said:

i guess if you fly planes, you have to be nuts. not as crazy as the guys who jump out of them, but nutty nevertheless
sorta like my father-in-law retired aviator.

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I know, I know ... I not only flew them but jumped out of them ... although never had to do that at the same time, so to speak. My Uncle Harold jumped his B25 someplace over Italy and carried the D-Ring and rip cord all they way with him back through enemy lines, with the Partisans and back to Scicily to his base -- only took him about 6 weeks. The rest of the crew went to a Stalag. The D-Ring is still framed and on the wall of his home. They were Giants in those days of War, we only followed in their shadows.

CWO4Mann said:

I became curious after reading this thread and performed an interesting experiment last night. I ingested 20mg of Levitra, went out and sat in my Leaf during a 2-hour charging cycle and listening several times to a combination of The Doors' "LA Woman" and the Rolling Stones' "She's Like a Rainbow" (memories of my First Wife, the Italian Bitch from Vicenza). Then hurriedly came back into the house, presenting a rather grandiose protuberance to the ever-suffering Mama-San. I'm writing this note from the Emergency Room where they are preparing to commence treatment for that warned about "4-hours or more". In my case, we became somewhat alarmed after about 6-1/2 hours. Ahh, I see the nice doctor now, he is approaching with a rather large syringe and needle. He is smiling ...

I'll check back with you'all later ...

Dave

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So what you are saying is; thinking about Italian Ex's while listening to the Doors and Stones will give cause Priapism. I bet if you repeat the experiment with the charger and Leaf off, it will still happen. You might need to think about another crazy ex though because she might not work twice. (that would be bad science)

-Phil

Ingineer said:

CWO4Mann said:

I became curious after reading this thread and performed an interesting experiment last night. I ingested 20mg of Levitra, went out and sat in my Leaf during a 2-hour charging cycle and listening several times to a combination of The Doors' "LA Woman" and the Rolling Stones' "She's Like a Rainbow" (memories of my First Wife, the Italian Bitch from Vicenza). Then hurriedly came back into the house, presenting a rather grandiose protuberance to the ever-suffering Mama-San. I'm writing this note from the Emergency Room where they are preparing to commence treatment for that warned about "4-hours or more". In my case, we became somewhat alarmed after about 6-1/2 hours. Ahh, I see the nice doctor now, he is approaching with a rather large syringe and needle. He is smiling ...

I'll check back with you'all later ...

Dave

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So what you are saying is; thinking about Italian Ex's while listening to the Doors and Stones will give cause Priapism. I bet if you repeat the experiment with the charger and Leaf off, it will still happen. You might need to think about another crazy ex though because she might not work twice. (that would be bad science)

-Phil

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Ah, good points! Next time I will play other music(The Bolero Symphony gal) .. yeah, the one who tried to shoot me with my own .45 ..... I don't know .. have to work on the experimental parameters and so forth, then there's the equipment metering .. Naaaa .. I guess not....

Not sure if anyone is going to read this, understand why, or care, but the spark plugs in any ICE car will emit much more EMF than any electric car. This is because they are arcing all the time, with a very high voltage (they are supposed to) which is like a high power radio transmitter.
If you have any arcing in your electric car, you have bigger problems than EMF.

jclemens said:

Not sure if anyone is going to read this, understand why, or care, but the spark plugs in any ICE car will emit much more EMF than any electric car. This is because they are arcing all the time, with a very high voltage (they are supposed to) which is like a high power radio transmitter.
If you have any arcing in your electric car, you have bigger problems than EMF.

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That's it exactly. My ham radio gear has never been so quiet on the HF bands since I put the rig in the Leaf. Espectially when I get out on the road someplace in the country where arcing overhead power lines and TVA transformers aren't competing to push a S-30 noise level. I'd say that if you hear arcing noises or smell ozone around teh Leaf it is time to unass the place in a hurry.

Dave
N4CVX

EMF is generally considered to be magnetic or low frequency in nature. RFI is high frequency in nature. What you experience from spark plugs is RFI. It takes far more current than that which flows in a spark plug circuit to generate any appreciable EMF field and spark plugs are actually quite low power radio transmitters. They affect some radio receivers if not properly shielded simply because of the very close proximity to the radio antenna.

jclemens said:

Not sure if anyone is going to read this, understand why, or care, but the spark plugs in any ICE car will emit much more EMF than any electric car. This is because they are arcing all the time, with a very high voltage (they are supposed to) which is like a high power radio transmitter.
If you have any arcing in your electric car, you have bigger problems than EMF.

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aqn said:

JessEV said:

I had the same question about EMF in the Leaf.[...]
So I bought one of these Triflow measurement devices and did some testing.

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Great job! Thanks!

(And BTW, did you mean "Trifield", not "Triflow"?)

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Good thing it isn't Triffids or even worse, Tribbles.

CWO4Mann said:

I'd say that if you hear arcing noises or smell ozone around the Leaf it is time to unass the place in a hurry.Dave
N4CVX

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What will be the lowest dB level of the arcing noises that one should unass the place in a hurry? Leaf is quiet so not much background noise, measurement should be simple.

It's interesting... At low speeds, the Leaf is measurably quieter than many (but certainly not all) cars. On my sound meter it is 2 db quieter at 30 than my BMW. However, at higher speeds, this is not necessarily true. At 65 is is actually 2 db louder than my BMW... I think what makes some people think that it is so quiet is the different character of the noise(es)... Some people, for example, find the high frequency noise of the EV driveline very disturbing (I and my wive are not so affected and I actually like the noise).

Early on, when I first got the car, I did measure the EMF and found essentially no magnetic fields in the car under normal operation. I did, however, find a fairly strong magnetic field inside when charging at 240 (I no longer remember the actual numbers). Whether or not this would dissuade you from having someone in the car while it is charging is a personal decision... I would also like to measure it during a QC sometime and see what kind of field that creates...

EdmondLeaf said:

What will be the lowest dB level of the arcing noises that one should unass the place in a hurry? Leaf is quiet so not much background noise, measurement should be simple.

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TomT said:

It's interesting... At low speeds, the Leaf is measurably quieter than many (but certainly not all) cars. On my sound meter it is 2 db quieter at 30 than my BMW. However, at higher speeds, this is not necessarily true. At 65 is is actually 2 db louder than my BMW... I think what makes some people think that it is so quiet is the different character of the noise(es)... Some people, for example, find the high frequency noise of the EV driveline very disturbing.

EdmondLeaf said:

What will be the lowest dB level of the arcing noises that one should unass the place in a hurry? Leaf is quiet so not much background noise, measurement should be simple.

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Any crackling sounds with smell of ozone would do it for me. I'm fortunate to have very high bi-lateral high freq hearing losses in both ears so I can't hear the high pitched whines which other folks report. I used the dB meter on my Android phone one time when I first bought the Leaf and was surprised at how it compared to my living room. Very quiet, IMHO, of course, YMMV.

Dave

JessEV said:

- Leaf: measured at driver head and torso fluctuated between 1-5mG, no noticeable diff whilst accelerating
- Leaf: measured at driver feet hovered around 5-10mG, no noticeable diff whilst accelerating
- Leaf: measured in the back seat area was well sub 3mG, and seemed to jump up a little only when braking

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I have tested myself yesterday during a test-drive of a Leaf, and have found identical values using a trifield 100xe meter. When braking it get around 10mG in the back (battery recharing). I have tested also the Renault ZOE (for europeans), and values are similar. Butwise, the Mitsubishi IMiev (Peugot Ion/Citroen C-Zero) shows much higher values, around 10-15mG at the front seat level, and more than 100mG at the backseats, which is kind of normal as the motor and most of electronics are in the back, just behind the back seats.

I have also tested my Volvo S80 (2007) and it measures more! In the front seat it is around 15mG at seat level and much more at floor level, and when starting seat heating it get much higher, back seats are a bit similar to the Leaf, very low value. The Mini Convertible (1.6 122 HP) has a similar reading at front seats with the Volvo, back seats on the right side, the level is ok (on par with Leaf) on the left side it is very high (more than 100mG) at seat level, maybe the gas pump or other electric instruments are located underneath, and the Mini is very small which can explain this...

In the past I have also measured a Honda Insight, and the values are simply huge in the back (more than 100mG at back seat and also 50cm around from back seat) which is not good for kids... what a mess... (battery of the Honda Insight is in the back underneath the back seat and the trunk)

So to be honest, I think that the Leaf is very well behaving from the EMF standpoint.